Hi guys, Im building a PC mainly for use with BF3 on ultra settings and MS Flight on ultra settings. With a £1400 Budget I am quite flexable but here is the spec I have come up with so far. Case: Coolmaster HAF X GPU: Asus 1500MB GTX 580 Motherboard: Asus Maximus IV GENE-Z, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, RAID SATA, PCIe 2.0 (x16), VGA On Board, Micro ATX CPU: Intel Core i5 2500K Unlocked, S1155, Sndy Bridge, Quad, 3.3GHz, HD3000 IGP 850Mhz, 6MB Cache 95W Retail RAM: 16GB (4x4GB) Corsair Vengeance Blue DDR3 PC3-12800 (1600), Unbuffered, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.50V SSD: 128GB SSD (internal) 1TB External Disk drive Im relatively new to this so any advice would be appreciated! Monitor: Asus 27" LED 2ms refresh Grey to Grey
Do you plan on using much Liquid Nitrgen in your cooling setup? If not then your wasting money on such an expensive motherboard. You could spend less than £100 and get a Z68 board that performs exactly the same with all the same features that you will actually need. Also, you wont need 16GB of RAM. 8GB (2x4GB) will be more than enough for any gaming rig in the next few years. RAM is cheap, but its still wasting money. That monitor, if im looking at the same one (a model number would be handy) then its a cheap TN panel screen. If you are that bothered by paying all that money for ultra-mega super settings in BF3 then get a better quality monitor. Something of the IPS variety. What SSD do you plan on? Prices and speed vary greatly from model to model. Crucial M4, Corsair force 3 and Force GT are excellent drives for their money. In summary: Get a cheaper board, less RAM. Spend that money on a better monitor and make sure you get a good SSD.
I agree with Bob buddy... I'd go for a P67 board, either MSi or Asus and spend the extra on the 2600k. 4 more threads, more cache and more overclocking headroom. 16Gb ram is overkill too so if your budget is strict and you're on the limit, drop to 8. I'd also get a 1TB internal drive rather than an external. 128GB SSD fills up pretty quick if you install all your software and games. Install the OS and essential software and games to the SSD and then install all remaining non essentials to the internal HDD. Faster access times than a USB external drive of the same capacity. Other than that, a very capable machine. Dont forget to factor in a decent aftermarket CPU cooler! Sentinel.
I have the Gene-Z and love it. Second fastest board at stock Edit: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2011/07/18/asus-maximus-iv-gene-z/1
Hi guys, Thanks for the replys. I agree that 16gb of RAM is overkill and in reality most of it will not be used. The monitor is this one: http://www.amazon.co.uk/VE278Q-Wide...XPQY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323813854&sr=8-1 I already have it so changing would not be an option! Great advice on the motherboard. I will get one of the ones you guys have recommended! When looking at SSD drives which would you recommend? I havent really looked the actual model yet as I thought they were all pretty similar. Im trying to keep price to a minimum for the whole set up and I am aware that on several components marketing plays a massive part and you can pay way over what is actually necessary. But being a massive noob with this I dont have much clue where to start! Thanks again
That's the perfect configuration for Gaming. If you enjoy playing games a lot, then you can choose for a Bigger size monitor.
You have a mATX motherboard and a full size ATX case. I would swap the HAF-X for a Silverstone TJ-08E.