I've come into some money and have finally got the chance to get something I've wanted for years which is a great gaming pc. I'm aiming to spend about £1500 on it but would like to get a monitor included in that price (I can get a decent one for £150) however if a worthwhile upgrade would push me back upto £1500 i'd be willing to spend the money. I was just wondering what components would i be wanting to make the most of my money? I know next to nothing about choosing what components to purchase and i know you all know your stuff. Thanks for any advice given
Really don't need to splash the cash for a great gaming PC these days in comparison to previous years. Also monitor wise the LG IPS231P is well considered and available from ebuyer for £145.48 which is a bargain! For the components all priced from scan.co.uk... CPU: Intel CPU Core i5 Unlocked 2500K Sandy Bridge Quad Core Processor - £163.40 MEMORY: Corsair Memory Vengeance Jet Black LP 8GB DDR3 1600 MHz CAS 9 XMP Dual Channel - £63.36 MOTHERBOARD: Asus P8P67 Deluxe Rev3 Intel P67 Express Socket 1155 Motherboard - £168.80 CPU COOLER: Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advanced - £40.78 HDD: Samsung 1Tb Spinpoint F3 Hard Drive - £38.98 SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 120GB Solid State Drive - £197.99 CASE: FRACTAL DESIGN ARC MIDI TOWER - £80 (NOT FROM SCAN) GRAPHICS: PNY GeForce GTX 570 1280MB NVIDIA Graphics Card - £227.48 PSU: Corsair CMPSU-850AXUK Professional Series Gold AX 850W Modular Power Supply - £142.62 I've selected a few more 'luxury' components since it's well within budget and provides a good stable system with future upgrades in mind. If you wanted to save some money then I can easily strip away and tone down components I listed above.
what blogins said...that would be a smokin pc... personally not a fan of pny, so might check on an evga or msi or something... to shave a bit you could get a lower cost mobo and the ax750 psu...other than that, i wouldn't change a thing...
I don't believe there's anything to fear in the PNY brand to be honest. It is just a reference GTX 570 but it is oh so good with the 'Vapor Chamber' design and also the cheapest version available. Very good value for money that PNY if scan get it in stock again! Anything over a GTX 570 and you are paying through the nose for very little extra performance when considering the added expense. Like trig suggested you can drop to the AX750 to save money. Ditching the SSD, going for an MSI P67A-GD53 (B3) motherboard instead of the ASUS Deluxe, drop to a 4GB kit of the same memory. These are all easy savings whilst maintaining the same core performance of the PC, but it is nice to have those extra trimmings! Also forgot to list a DVD drive, I usually opt for a Samsung as they've never failed on me, only a £15 cost anyway! Also you'll need stuff like cable ties, TIM (Thermal Interface material) remover and the TIM itself! You might like to invest in some shorter sata cables to keep the PC nice and tidy inside as well but that's all down to taste. Also extra fans, Scythe Gentle Typhoon 1850RPM as an exhaust works well, Silverstone Penetrators up front and a Be Quiet! USC Silentwings in the bottom of the case.
the only thing i have noticed, same thing with power color, is they don't oc well, and they don't handle over-voltage well...nor are they ever as cool running as another "stock" gpu...granted, they don't use as many power phases etc, which is why they are cheaper, but that's where i was coming from. i'd rather spend a little more and get a cooler, "better equipped" card...but i suppose if he had no intention of oc'in, why not...they have a good warranty i believe..
I thought all reference design GTX 570 followed the same schematic to the letter? Although I can understand preferential distribution of cooler running chips to particular Nvidia partners. Be interesting to learn more if the reference design does vary between the producers to any great extent.
yeah...always curious why, and it's not like ive done hundreds...all told i have bought maybe 6-7 powercolor/pny cards...and like i said none have oc'ed well at all...temps could have been due to the temp of my build area...but again, pny has a lifetime warranty here...so thats a good deal.
Reference is only locked to the pcb layout. Each is still able to choose what components to use. Some brands just use lower quality components. Up until recently when the full cover coolers became the norm, you would see for example some budget cards still using traditional capacitors instead of the solid state ones found on better brands and other things like this to cut cost. Reference pcb just says put this rating capacitor here, no specification that a specific make and model capacitor has to be used.
How long will the previous build last me when attempting to play recent and future games on maximum detail?
true, wasn't even thinking about that...i mean, i knew powercolor used bargain bin ram, but oh well... op, should last a good while...that is a solid rig...
It'll all hold up well. The GTX 570 is not the best of the best but it's very good value for the money, otherwise you can spend an extra £130 but the return is not that great. As I see it a GTX 570 will be an excellent choice now then maybe 8 months down the road you could look towards the new raft of GPU releases to maintain the graphical edge. There is no absolute future proofing you can only prepare as best you can by selecting good components now and I hope that's what the above build will offer you. Also the MSI GTX 570 is currently only £221.99 on the 'Today Only' page!
