Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro v2 £15.58 500GB Samsung HD502HJ Spinpoint F3 £29 2GB XFX HD 6950 £189.23 64GB Crucial RealSSD C300 £89.12 600W Corsair CMPSU-600CX £52.32 Fractal Design Define R3 £82.66 Intel Core i5 2500K £159.78 Asus P8P67-M Rev3, Intel P67 Express £98.00 4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dual Channel Vengeance £52.30 Thats £784 But theres no OS, no monitor and i chose a cheaper gfx card/ You could save £40 by getting an antec 300. The only way i could see you pushing the price right down on this is to buy some stuff second hand or buy 2 4850's dirt cheap and take advantage of the crossfire. Or like you said, don't compromise hold out for a couple of months and go for the pro p8p67 and get the gfx you want.
They do offer good deals, bought most of my Sandy Bridge build checking day by day the 'Today Only' section. Saved me around £50 so far off the regular retail price even in comparison to other stores. Looking at what is on offer now I would definitely pull the trigger on buying the MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti TWIN FROZR II 1GB. All the other components quite regularly turn up in combinations that would appeal to the Sandy Bridge build including Motherboard, CPU and Memory combinations. As long as you can schedule delivery for a weekday or at your place of work (not sure scan allow this?) you can get free delivery on every item and have it all arrive in one lot. It appears DPD are the firm of choice through scan and they really are good. Sent me an e-mail on the day for a time of arrival during a 1 hour period in the afternoon and sure enough a DPD van was outside at the time stated!
They always offer SandyBridge CPU/RAM/Mobo combinations on Today Only because they know that's what enthusiasts are after.
One thing about DPD is that if you are going to be away when they deliver. Check the closest DPD depot. My closest one was 30miles away. They delivered to the billing address not the shipping address. I was however able to arrange with them a weekend delivery without charge, so it all worked out! I would have been really pee'd off if i had to go all that way to pick up my stuff.
Change the mobo to P8P67-M Pro Rev3 - thats £104 and he can SLI in the future should he want to (this is £35 cheaper than a full ATX board but he only loses some expansion features and nothing major, ie he can auto overclock etc) He could save money by getting something like an Antec 300 case....but with him wanting an NZXT Phantom I guess he likes the look of it and doesn't mind paying more
Still not convinced by the case for the -M PRO over full ATX. Wouldn't good advice be to have a solid motherboard that would last for future expansion be it the odd PCI-Express or PCI slot? Seems to me that the motherboard is the bedrock of a PC and is the one piece of kit you would not change in the coming years so it would be beneficial to spend a little more on a higher end model now. Quick update incorporating some of the above suggestions... CPU: Intel CPU Core i5 2500K OEM - £155.99 (Today Only) CPU COOLER: Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler - £26.36 MOTHERBOARD: Asus P8P67 Pro Rev3 - £148.40 MEMORY: Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz - £39.74 GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti TWIN FROZR II 1GB - £179.99 (Today Only) CASE: Fractal Design Define R3, Black Pearl, Mid Tower Case - £77.99 (Today Only) PSU: Antec TP-750 Blue TruePower New 750W Modular Power Supply - £88.79 (Today Only) Total comes to £717.26 not to shabby!
I was trying to be cost conscious seeing as he wants a monitor, and the fact he wont lose that much by going mATX
I've just built a new system around the Asus P8P67-M Pro mATX board and would say that it is probably the best value board i've purchased in a while. Well worth the money if you're not overly concerned about crossfire/sli in the future (it does support both, but as said previously, any dual slot cards would be close together). Other than that, it has comprehensive bios tweaking options and good quality components.
Don't be too worried about fitting the monitor in yet. I'll be starting a new job in June so I will be able to afford extra at this point. I have a 17" monitor I can use in the meantime, it's nothing special but it will do for now. Thanks again for all the help. I'm finding it tough to decide between the -M PRO and the regular PRO though. The extra £40 seems worth it for the extra longevity. And if there is a Today Only bundle I can find that will include the Mobo, Ram and CPU, I'll hopefully be able to save a pretty penny.
What would be the best way for me work out what wattage I might require? I'm a bit confused now, I thought around 600W would have been enough, but if I decide to SLI it later on down the line, you guys suggest 750W?
MSI GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr for £180 is a total bargain. OP you should really consider that now, that is alot of card for your money
Yeah I'm going to make that the first purchase tonight hopefully. Wish I'd reached the twenty posts by now to get free postage, but even then it's probably still worth it. Cheers for all the responses guys. Truly overwhelmed. This moderation period for your first 10 posts is highly annoying when you have a thread like this for your 1st post. I've made a number of replies and none have been 'approved' obviously. But whatever, I try again. I prefer the idea of the PRO as opposed to the -M PRO. I don't want to be limited in terms of expansion should I feel the need later on down the line. Also becoming swayed towards the Fractal Design R3. Saves a few pounds and it sounds like a much better case. I pulled the trigger on the graphics card yesterday, felt I should definitely get it now for that price, even including the postage. My main sticking point at this moment is the PSU. What is the best way of working out how much Wattage I may require, if I SLI'D the GTX 560 TI? Blogins suggested a 750W PSU, that just seems a bit overkill, or is that a necessity? Cheers again guys!
It's alright mate. I understand the reasonings, I understand you lot probably have a lot of moderating to be getting on with as well. Rereading my post makes me feel a little bad, I didn't mean it to sound rude. I do apologise.
It is tricky. Will you be SLI'ing your 560 in the future maybe? if that is the likely scenario, I now think the P8P67 Pro seems better suited for you because the -M version (while technically being SLI enabled) will only just fit two gpu's in but it will be very tight (according to what other people have said). You basically lose an expansion slot, some advanced overclocking elements of the BIOS (DIGI+ VRM), and SLI is harder seeing as everythings closer together. -M Pro
That's sealed the deal then. Cheers guys. CPU: Intel I5 2500k - £160 CPU Cooler: Gelid Tranquillo - £26 Motherboard: Asus P8P67 pro - £140 RAM: Corsair Memory XMS3 Classic 4GB DDR3 1600 MHz - £40 GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti TWIN FROZR II 1GB NVIDIA - £180 [bought] PSU: Antec TruePower New TP-650 - £70 SSD: Crucial 64GB C300 - £89 HDD: Samsung 1Tb Spinpoint F - £40 Case: Fractal Design R3 - £83 Total: £828 Slightly over budget, but hopefully I can save a few pound by religiously checking 'Today Only' deals. Thanks again guys. Appreciated!
