After spending quite a lot of time looking around and in particular at the bit-tech site, I've ended up settling on a system similar to their September premium player build. I would value any advice that people can give me on the questions below and if they think it could be improved though! Sorry for the wall of text, hopefully it's all easy enough to see. Budget: £2000 maximum (including monitor, would prefer to keep it by the 1600-1700 range for the base unit if possible) Main uses of intended build: Gaming Parts required: All except from mouse Previous build information (list details of parts): None, currently use a laptop! Monitor resolution: Unknown at present, need a monitor, see below. Storage requirements: Think I won't bother with an SSD at the moment, 1tb should do it with room for expansion. Will you be overclocking: No, not done this before and don't really have the time to learn/ desire to risk it! Any motherboard requirements (no. of USB, Xfire/SLI, fan headers): No major preferences here. Extra information about desired system: I think the easiest way to set this out is just to list my current choices, and questions relating to each part or in general so here goes.. CPU/ Motherboard/Ram: These are bundled together since i am thinking about buying one of scan's overclocked bundles found here (The slik core i7 bundle overclocked to 4ghz with the asus P6X58D-E motherboard, i7 930, 6gb of corsair 1600mhz). This differs from the premium player set up in that the cpu cooler is different, although it seems to have favourable reviews. This bundle saves me having to overclock, plus makes installation easier since i won't have to install the cpu and heatsink (first time building a computer since i did one with a mate about 7 years ago). £570 GPU: 2GB Sapphire HD5970 £480 Three questions about the gpu, firstly I chose the sapphire version since they seemed to have a good rep, would anyone suggest a different version as better? Second, as you will see below my current monitor choice is a 22"capable up to 1680x1050, would perhaps a nvidia card perform better at these resolutions or am i not going to notice any difference? Thirdly, would i be better waiting for the hd 6000's, even if it's just for the 5970 to price drop (don't know how much they would usually drop by). PSU: XFX Black Edition 750 W £100 Not much to say here, as long as it should have enough power! Case: Silverstone FT02R-2 £188 Ain't it sexy? Optical Drive: LG-CH10 10x Blu-ray reader £59 HDD: 1TB Samsung F3 £45 SSD: None, (i take it this means I don't require the highpoint rocket shown in the buyers guide?) Monitor: Samsung 2233rz 120hz9 £220 The monitor is one of the things I'm least sure about, i think the maximum size i would be prepared to go atm is a 24" since i plan on buying a second at some point and my desk ain't that large! From the reviews that i have read the samsung has some very good right ups, with the 120hz being beneficial for 2D viewing. I believe without an nvidia card i can't view it in 3d but I'm not interested in that anyway, specially not with the glasses costing so much. Keyboard: Having a bit of trouble with this one due to just not being able to find one that catches my interest, recently bought a razer mouse/headset and very happy with them. Was considering a razer keyboard too but they only come with us layout which would kind of annoy me even though i could set the system settings to uk layout. Would be looking at around the £70 mark for this I think. Thanks to anyone that took the time to read all that and post with some help!
Everything looks good, as it almost matches up with the premium player. I recommend getting an SSD though. THe Kingston SSDnow SNV425 128 GB. It costs around 220 US. Whatever that is in pounds.
Are you also getting a sound system? If so, what kind of setup are you thinking? 2.1, 4.1, 5.1, 7.1 ? I think the psu for your build is a bit overkill. You can probably pass by with a 650w or lower (500w might even do). Even with a 650w you would still have room to sli/crossfire upgrade when you feel like doing it. This is especially true since you're not overclocking. On the overclocking string, since your're not going to overclock your system you don't need 1600mhz RAM. I understand that the RAM was bundled with the mobo, but check if you can get a 6gb kit of lower grade RAM (1333) and the mobo seperately and if it'll cost less. Because you're not overclocking your system, you won't be able to make the most out of the 1600mhz RAM you have now. The memory will just underclock itself and you will have wasted a little money. If you plan to learn how to overclock in the future though, you should keep the 1600mhz. For monitor, I would suggest a 25" or larger screen for gaming. Simply because I know too many people who cheaped out and bought a 21" and regret it now. As for keyboard, check out the new razer blackwiddow keyboard. The thing's a mechanical keyboard that's supposedly made for gaming. If you're not into mechanical, then my friend has the razer lycosa and it's a pretty good keyboard.
Surely with the CPU overclocked to 4GHz the RAM will be running close to 1600MHz and as 1333 and 1600 cost very similar amounts then I don't think asking for a downgrade is worth it. Anyway, I think you should go for a bundle, it will save you time and effort and you know it will be stable. Also, I think you should go for an SSD, it will be worth it. As for the 5970 do you really need to spend £480 on a graphics card? for half that you can get a couple of GTX 460's and if you aren't planning on having a monitor larger than 24" then I don't think you really need the 5970.
Whether you go with the scan bundle or not I would sitck with 1600mhz ram the price difference is so little compared to your total spend/budget, maybe £10. It leaves you some headroom for over clocking in the future(even if your not confident its pretty easy just to push the bclk to 160 usually with stock voltages). You've listed a blu-ray reader, is that for films? There are lots of 1920x1080 monitors at 22" and above or 1920x1200 if you like to keep to a 16:10 ratio.
This is a good idea if meand is right about the pricing. You would need to keep the 750w psu to run it, but it would probably be worth it.
Thanks for all the replies! I think I'll stick with the bundle due to it being guaranteed stable, and the 1600 ram will be nice to have due to it being oc'd to 4ghz already, and in case I want to manually oc later. The black widow looks like a nice keyboard indeed, I'll probably end up with a lycosa though actually now I look at them again I currently have a set of logitech 5.1 speakers (I think they're the z-5500's if I remember right), just planning on using onboard sound though and if I don't like it I'll get an audio card at a later date. Seems to be a few suggesting I get an SSD, I'll look into these a bit more then, will I require that extra component to get the most out of it then? The monitor, would most suggest going for say a 24" with 1920x1080 rather than the 120hz types, and if so are there any suggestions for these? Feel like I should get one with a higher resolution to take advantage of the card. I am quite a fan of samsung and lg screens, though I'm open to suggestions on this. Also, the blu-ray player is going to be for films since I don't have anything capable of running blu-rays at the moment and it'd be quite nice to have I think
Palit 768MB GTX 460 just under £125 each at scan and microdirect last time I checked. 1GB versions from around £170 (oddly large price difference don't you think?)
Sorry for the delay in replying, I'm still under 10 posts so need to wait for a moderator to ok each post before it appears! On the monitor front I've had another look and decided to splash out on an Acer GD245HQ since it's a 23.6" that's both 120hz and 1920x1080 capable Pretty much decided on the logitech g110 keyboard as well (sorry for lack of link), don't know why I didn't like it before but after having a second look it seems to be a solid piece of kit. Since I had forgotten I need a copy of windows 7, along with a wireless card, I'm not going to get an ssd quite yet but will likely do so in the future. Now to look into getting dual 460's instead of a 5970, curious as to why the 5970 is in the buyers guide instead of the dual 460's?
Most people including bit-tech staff, PREFER single as opposed to doubling GPUs. Why no SSD? you're pretty under budget. You will see a CLEAR boost in performance if you had one. Honestly, with the monitor you have I would've gone with the just one gtx 460 which handles pretty much everything comfortably at 1920x1200, hell even my hd 4870 handles everything. If you were going with 2560x100 res, then i'd go for the beasts.
your build is fine and im one of the few people who will agree the ssd isnt worth the outlay 5970 for what its worth is a good gpu personally id get a 5870 and cf them on this sorta budget 6 series is 4-8 weeks away if you wish to wait might be worth it but its a long time to wait if you need the pc today
I can honestly give a big fat for the 5970 cards. I just built a new system and opted for the XFX Black Edition version. Frame rates are off the charts in all but the most demanding benchmark tests... and the drivers haven't reached maturity yet. They're only going to get better. The one thing to double check if you're going for the 5970 is that your PSU has the right connectors for the card. You'll need 1x 6+2pin and 1x 6pin PCIE. I had a 780w OCZ ModxStream in my case which wasn't exactly old (less than 18 months IIRC) but it didn't have the right connectors for the card and XFX don't supply adaptors!! Plus, with the other kit I'm running in there, it was pretty much on the limit when overclocked and under load. Ended up going with a 1kW Coolermaster Silent Pro Gold. Very pleased indeed. If you want to build in some future proofing, you're choosing the right components but double check your PSU connectors before purchase. Otherwise, looks like a great build you'll have years of fun with.
IF you have a budget of 2k then you can easily get a 1920 monitor in there easily, or even a 30 inch monster running at 2560. IF you are going with 1680 for some reason the 5970 is way, way, way overkill. At this res the 5870 will handle anything you throw at it easily. With that kind of money getting a low res monitor is an unusual choice. Spending 1800 on a rig and 200 on a monitor is a bit unbalanced.
The main reason for not wanting a larger monitor is due to the size of my desk and my closeness to it, if you check out my last post you'l see i've gone for a 24" 1920x1080 as a compromise Hopefully when i shift flat's again in a year or so i can upgrade to a larger monitor and use the one i'm getting now as my second monitor. For that reason, and also due to the fact i have a preference for single gpu's, i think i'm going to stick with the 5970, at least it should last me a long time! This does seem to be against the popular opinion in this thread but i hope you'l all excuse me for that Thanks for reminding me to check out the psu connectors, it does seem to have all the things i need, i hadn't checked before since it's the one from the similar build in bit-tech's hardware guide. On the subject of SSD's i've been hearing very nice things about having dual SSD's in raid 0 from some people that run them, along with most of the people in this thread, so i will do that at a later date too. Will look into the kingston one above, or perhaps 2x corsair 128gb's. Thanks again for all your help guys, i'l try and remember to put up a post about how the build goes!
oops, sorry missed the bit about the 24 inch monitor. And I think no one here is claiming that the 5970 is a bad GPU If you have the money for it, go for it. My point was any game below the res of 1920x1080 (original post) will work just as good on a card costing half the money. Also the 5870 has the advantage of creating less heat and noise (though this depends on which manufacturer you buy from). For me, if it does not lower the FPS drastically, going for a card which is not a heater and a vacuum cleaner which costs much more is a better option. Hmm, I guess I do make it sound like it's a bad GPU XD, oops. Ignore me, it really is a beast. Though you could look for a manufacturer who puts a less noisy cooler on it. I guess it depends on each person's tolerance of noise levels. The guide lists the 5970 because it is much more powerful than even 2 OC'd 460's. Which it should be when you consider the price difference. The guide also assumes you play at resolution of at least 1920 and higher. Except for Metro 2033, Crysis, BF BC2 and a couple other games, even at max details you will barely notice a difference between a 5970 and a 5870 on a single 24 inch monitor. To notice it, you would need 30 inches or an Eyefinity setup.
Just a message for those who helped me out to let them know the build went succesfully and am extremely happy with it! The monitor is awesome, really glad i went larger than 22", though i'm not sure what to do with all the screen real estate atm since before i was using a 19" widescreen laptop one before! Only problems i had during the build was the pci wifi card doesn't work with this case due to the antenna not fitting (the motherboard is rotated 90degrees so the back is at the top and the outputs are in a wee tray). Also, one of the case fans seems to be clicking so i've disconnected that for now, anyone with any ideas how to manually sort it please let me know, otherwise i'm going to see about getting it replaced. The cpu seems to run at about 31-35oC (though the fan which i disabled is below the cpu), and the gpu runs between 41 and 55oC. Had a bit of a scout around and these seem to be reasonable enough numbers? Now to go try out that free copy of dirt 2 i got..
£2000 is a big budget. If you have about £300 left you should look into watercooling your CPU and GPU if you're building a premium system like this. It'll be near silent as no noisey GPU cooler while gaming, will run with very low temperatures even with all your case and radiator fans running slow so you can't hear them under full load with everything overclocked and will look amazing and something you'll be really proud of. What are your load temps and fan volume like at the moment?
