Budget: £1000 Main uses of intended build: Gaming & Video/Photo editing Parts required: All, completely new build, as i am moving back to the UK. Monitor resolution: 1920 x 1080 (Dell U2311H) Storage requirements:1TB for now going RAID later on Will you be overclocking: yes Any motherboard requirements: SLI Already have: HAF 932, Dell U2311H, Corsair 1000HX(getting it in jan/feb though) Specs as it stands: i5 2500k Corsair H60 MSI P67A-GD53 B3 MSI 1280MB GeForce GTX 570 Twin Frozr III 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3 650W Corsair HX Modular PSU (edit) Just looking for general feedback. Thank you, Stonerd
£1,000 is a nice budget I am assuming for this that you already own the Dell monitor (it isn't 100% clear from your opening post whether this is the case). All prices are estimates - please allow +/- £5 either way. Case - Fractal Design Define R3 - £80 PSU - Corsair TX750w V2 - £95 MB - MSI P67A-GD53/55 - £110 CPU - i5 2500k - £160 Cooler - Gelid Tranquillo - £25 Memory - 8 (4x2) GB DDR3 PC12800 - £60 GPU - HIS HD6950 2GB - £200 SSD (boot) - Crucial M4 64GB - £90 HD 1 - Spinpoint F3 1TB - £45 Optical Drive - Blu Ray/DVD-RW - £45 Total spend - £910 If you need an OS add Win 7 HP x64 for £70. If you have no specific need for a Nvidia card the HIS HD6950 included above will offer very similar performance (averaged over a number of games) once clocked to HD6970 levels yet will save you ~ £40. A GTX570 will still bring you under budget at around £950 (not including OS). I have included a 64GB SSD as a boot drive as TBH at this budget you want to take advantage of what an SSD offers. The TX750w is potentially a better choice if you are planning on dual cards in the future. You will need most of the cables anyway so the modular PSU won't help a great deal in that regard. Everything else is pretty much par for the course at this budget. The i5 2500k is untouchable in this price range and unless you need extra connectivity then the GD53 motherboard is an excellent choice despite its budget price tag.
Thanks for your helpful reply. Yes I already have the dell monitor. it's waiting for me. As to the gfx card while I agree the 6950 is a brilliant card some of the editing software I use has trouble with AMD cards, and as i've only used nvidia cards before i'll stick to what i know. As to the PSU, I am not planning on going SLI straight away and I have a mate who's leaving early 2012 and has already agreed to pass on his hx1000 at a very discount rate. I think I'll take you up on the SSD, i was contemplating it anyway, might even be able to get one for free at work, hoping so.
Agree with above apart from you could get a cheaper case (£50) and PSU (£70) but you need a unit around the 700W mark if your considering SLI in the future. At the expense of the PC being slightly noisier. Don't bother with RAID unless your using it as a backup system. SSD's are the far superior option for speedy data access. The 560ti would be the cheaper GPU option and the 570 the more expensive but the 6950 is a good choice. They run in order of price/performance. Do you need blue-ray? replace it with a DVD RW (£12) if not.
Case, I've already got too, got a HAF 932 for 65 quid, PSU getting 1000hx early next year, I will get an SSD, but the reason I need RAID is for video editing and safely backing up footage etc. And i do need blu-ray as I am editing film in HD and european film festivals are starting to accept BR as an acceptable hand-in format.
Fair enough on the requirement for a Nvidia card. Makes sense to stick with a card you know works than risk one that may not. The GTX570 is more expensive but is faster "out of the box" and will do what you want it to. Definatly go for a SSD. I have a Vertex 2E in my main PC and I certainly won't be going back. Even though I am encoding Open all hours right now using Handbrake (my i5 2500k is @ 100% load on all four cores according to task manager), my system feels as if is just idling thanks to the SSD.
