Build Advice £1,700 budget - How should I make myself poor once more?

Budget: £1,700
Main uses of intended build: Sheer gaming madness, College work, probably a little rendering on the side
Parts required: Full system, sans Sound Card - Would like a screen, or three.
Previous build information (list details of parts): It's in the Sig. - AMD Phenom II 555 X3, Gigabyte Ga880ga-ud3h - 4GB DDR3 Corsair (2x2gb) - Thermaltake Frio - Corsair CX 600 - Nvidia 550Ti Ltd OC White edition (1000/2000/2300 out the box.) Cheap Asus DVD-RW, Lite-on Blu-ray Rom.
Monitor resolution: 1920x1080, Minimum.
Storage requirements: At least 1TB, preferably with SSD.
Will you be overclocking: Hell yes.
Any motherboard requirements: As it stands. I'm using Six USB ports off the back panel.
Extra information about desired system: I'd love it if I could get it in a Raven RV02, or Fortress FT02

As it stands; I'd love to get my hands on three LG IPS2311p screens, and a 2.5GB570, or two.

However; I respect that I might be a bit bias. I'd like to stick with nvidia, simply because I know my way around the drivers.

Also; First person to reccomend me an AMD based system will get rep for at least trying. I know Sandy Bridge is annoyingly fast at the moment.

 

You should definitly get an AMD for that price (j/k)

Do you have any size limit about the case ?

Else I think a 2500K is worth the money ... but if you can stretch, the 2600K or the just released 2700K are very nice (if you care about hyper threading).

About the screen ... do you really need 3 screen ? For that price you can get a 27inches IPS 2560 x 1440 panel.

the PSU ... the seasonic Xseries is awesome and have gold certification. GPU, I wouldn't go the SLI route since not all games support it and it can be a real pain to setup. If you have the budget for 2x 570 ... then buy a 590.

Mobo .... Asus GENE-Z ... SSD, I'd go the Intel route ... HDD, I love western digital for their great support (never had any problem with their RMA, very fast) ... memory, I love Kingston (very stable and no compatibility problem).

 

Well, at first, keep the CD and Blu-ray drives.

Isn't this the 1.7k which you just found in your bank account? If so, I wouldn't spend it all.

A 2500K is fast enough for most people. If you want 3 screens, then I think you need two nVidia gpus, as they don't support eyefinity (correct me if I'm wrong)

If I were you, I'd buy a half decent rig, then spend some more on modding it, BT style.

 

I don't see the sense in going for a 590. It's basically just SLI on a board, in a scenario where a game that doesn't support SLI is going to run like ass on it. At least with a 2.5GB 570; I'm not going to be short on GPU power if I can only use one card.

I'd love to get my hands on a Raven RV02W, but sadly; they've ceased to exist.

As far as memory goes: Scan have some very nice Corsair Modules 2x4GB going for £40.99 a set.

Edit; and grand total; I've got about £3700, I'm trying to save myself a good 2K for driving lessons, a car, and other useful stuffs.

 

Monitor wise, I would personally get the largest possible resolution monitor rather than have those annoying bezels on a 3 monitor config.

8GB (4 x 2) DDR3 memory is pretty cheap, so you might as well double up your memory. I personally think that 8GB is the minimum you should have in a high end build. It gives a sense of assurance .

If you want to go dual 570's, I've know someone who is running such a configuration with an overclocked 2500k (@ 4.6Ghz) on a 750W power supply. It might be pushing the PSU's limit, but he has been running that config for a couple of months now with no problem. I personally would use a 850W+ PSU for such a configuration .

If you see yourself doing quite a lot of photo/video rendering in the future than the Hyperthreaded cores of the 2600k will help a lot in the processing times, but if your primary use will be gaming, a 2500k would be the logical choice. I really don't see the point in the 2700k, as they demand a higher premium for a measly boost in stock performance. The 2700k's are supposedly "cherry picked" allowing for higher overclocks, but I think it is just Intel trying to pry a little extra cash from misinformed customers.

For the storage drive you can't go wrong with a Western Digital Caviar Black. I have a 2TB WD Caviar black and it is very quick indeed. I have most of my games stored on it and the loading times are exceptional for a mechanical hard-drive. For an SSD if you wan't a mid-range one, a Corsair Force 3, OCZ Agility 3, Crucial M4 seem to be the one's a lot of people are purchasing. The higher end ones include the Corsair Force GT, Kingston Hyper X and OCZ Vertex 3.

CPU cooler wise, the best coolers would include the Noctua NH-D14, Thermalright Silver Arrow and maybe the high end BeQuiet coolers. There is also the up and coming Phantek cooler which performs similarly to the NH-D14 and Silver Arrow, with the added benefit being that you are able to choose the colour of the Fans/Heatsink .

 

(Needs Case and power supply!)

http://www.scan.co.uk/savedbasket/13328e7ec6c74ec3809df2194f0817d7


Something along the lines of that maybe?

 

If you've got that budget and going the 1155 route, why not get a decent 580?

 

Only real issue I'm seeing is Triple Channel Memory on a board that only support dual channel.

I doubt I can really harness the full power of a 2600K, either. I see no point in spending more for that pointless extra performance.

 

Yeah, definitely a U2711 instead of 3 x 23". Eyefinity support is better but still not great. Also, if you do want Eyefinity you'll need a ATI card, and you prefer Nvidia.

 

Yup, single card performance most likely be will be trouble free. The MSI lightning or Gigabyte Super overclocked series 580's are probably the fastest 580's out there .

 

If you do go the U2711 route:

I may get bashed for this but one 580GTX may not be enough. I remember Ph4zed bought a 580GTX to run his U2410 (1920x1200) and he was still getting low fps on max settings in Shogun 2 (or something). May just have been the game, I thought that was a little disappointing though.

If you are going to spend that much money, you obviously want something awesome, and I would hate to think you'd drop £400 on a GFX card and be disappointed!

I may be wrong however.

 

From what i've heard; Shogun 2 is absolute bloody murder on GPU memory, much like Crysis, so it makes sense that at 1920 x 1200; It'd be a bit choppy.

 

I'd start off with a GTX 580 3gb and a U2711. If the game is choppy as hell you could always drop another 400£ on another GTX 580. I would not risk it with a GTX 590. I am running a couple of 4850 in CrossFire and the drivers are killing me. I cannot have my projector and monitor connected at the same time - it makes the screen flicker.

 

Erm, is it just me, or are you trying to put a S1155 CPU into a S1366 mobo?

 

Good catch! Good thing I didn't intend to go with that Sabertooth board anyway, that's far too expensive for my tastes. x3

 

You say you've got £1,700 to spend yet everything is 'a bit much'. Want do you want to spend most of the money on, a rig or monitors?

 

I'm looking at best value for my money. I don't believe I need a £270+ Motherboard, nor will I use the full power of anything like a 2600K.

I define everything as a "Bit Much" because I most definitely wouldn't mind having some spare change from that 1.7K. It's just the extreme top-end of what I'm looking at. Just for a core system; I'm looking at just shy of 1.2K at the moment, then screen(s)

 

2500k, sli 570 2.5gb u2711, 850w psu, 8gb ram, no need to spend more than 130 on a motherboard. umm case down to personal preference. for gaming the 2500k will be enough and the 570's also

 

Fair enough on the sabretooth mobo comment - that's understandable and im sure you can get a lower cost mobo yet still get good over clocking results.

If your not going to get a 2600k then get a 2500k and an MSI GD53/65 motherboard. Cheap and very overclockable and both featured in different specs of the bit tech hardware buyers guide september 2011.

RAM is stupidly cheap so get atleast 8GB...

2500k with 8gb RAM isnt overkill.

One thing I would say - get a Corsair 7yr warranty power supply with that budget. It will last you into your next build in 5 or so years time and give you the four 8pin PCI-E power cables for maximum options in the future for upgrading. - Otherwise you'll have to spend another £75 on a power supply on your next build.

 

I have a GTX580 and run a 30" Display. It chugs away fine, BF3, GTA 4, Crysis 2 (Even with the DX11 and mahoosive Texture Pack)

Sure, AA isn't enabled on BF3, and Crysis 2 does slow down in spots, but it's never ever gotten to a point where i feel the need to drop any settings down to improve this.

Sam