I'm upgrading one of my main rigs from its tired old Q6600 and HD5850 to something a bit more current and able on a budget of £1,500 so a decent bit of room to play around. I currently game on a single U2410 and use a second one when I code, but am thinking of up-scaling to a 27" around Summer for the gaming monitor. Anyone care to look over the parts and see if there's anything that stand out which need to be changed. Part list: Case: NZXT Switch 810 Gunmetal MB: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H CPU: Intel i5 3570k Cooler: CM Hyper 212 EVO RAM: 8GB Dominator Platinum OS/Primary: 256GB Samsung 840 Pro SSD Storage: WD Green 2TB GPU: EVGA 670 2GB Cheesecake Sig2 PSU: AX760 Keyboard: CM Storm Trigger Mouse: RAT 5 White http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/f28dad6584644532a4379467df7324b6 My budget is somewhat lenient depending on how well I can convince my other half, I'd say £1,700 is probably the upper boundary though. There's no sound card on the list as I have a Xonar STX already. The only parts that I definitely don't want to change are the case, mouse and keyboard as I have a small modding project in mind for them. The 212 EVO is also likely to be a temporary fix to play with some minor overclocks until it gets swapped out for a H220 when they become more available. Aiming to buy the parts in the middle of the month. Anything major stand out that might be worth switching for another part?
That RAM is major over the top, although it does look very good. You can get 16GB for £5 more, and 8GB for half that for a normal set. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/16gb...n-blue-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-10-10-10- For 8GB: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-...k-pc3-12800-(1600mhz)-non-ecc-unbuffered-cas- Something else that stands out is the psu, as a seasonic psu with the same wattage is £30 less, and a silverstone one £40 less. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750w-seasonic-x-series-modular-80-plus-gold-90-eff-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-fan-cooling http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750w-silverstonestrider-gold-sst-st75f-g-evolution-91-eff-80-plus-gold-eps-12v-quiet-fan-atx-v23-psu With those savings you could get a 680 http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-palit-gtx-680-28nm-pcie-30-(x16)-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-1006mhz-boost-1058mhz-cores-1536-2-x-dl-dvi-d
Isn't Intel new CPU coming this summer? And GeForce 700 series at the end of the year? (I don't mean to hold your build until then, but perhaps use the current graphic card.. if it's not too outdated).
This. You can also bump down the motherboard to a GA-Z77X-D3H or even a GA-Z77-D3H without any practical effect. If you're not planning to get a second graphics card, a 500W power supply would be more than plenty.
Cheers for the feedback so far. I've managed to find a spare PSU kicking about, a 700W CM Silent Pro M so I could potentially take off the Corsair PSU from that list and save £140. I might have a think about the 680, though would probably go for a EVGA/Gigabyte/Asus branded one as I've had more experience with them and their support teams. Is Palit's warranty any good when taking the heatsink off for a water block? I'll have a think about downgrading the motherboard and swapping the memory. I will upgrade to SLI at some point, need to have a think about how I want to arrange some liquid loops with the modding first though so it'll be a while before I do that. I think the Haswell is coming in June, I could probably wait until then but run the possible risk of falling into the endless cycle of waiting for another part's release date. I don't think I could hold out until the end of the year for the 700 series. My current 5850 can handle most games on medium and some on high but I'd like to drop the Twin Frozr out of the rig for aesthetics more than anything.
I would recommend a better 680 if you are going to get one than the one I posted. Ive had a palit card before and I didn't really like it. I currently have a ASUS DCU2 version of the 7850 and its very good. I would maybe think about waiting for Haswell, but I the new gpus aren't going to be out for ages yet, and june is still a fairly long time to wait for a cpu.