Gaming PC build help

[dairees]

Hi all

Looking to build a PC and all help/advice is appreciated. Here are the requirements

Purely a gaming PC - no other needs
Definitely need speakers, maybe a keyboard and mouse already have a monitor
Basic sound will be fine
I will only be running one monitor
Budget is £2k - 2.5k
Wireless card to download patches etc
Don't really want an enormous case that's going to dominate the room

My timescale is flexible - happy to wait a few weeks if some huge development is around the corner

Thanks

dave

 

[Teaz]

With your budget, this is the premium spec power house gaming pc to dive at:

Case
SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV03 - GAMING ENTHUSIAST TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600k Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 3 SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 500MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W PRO SERIES™ HX750-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£116)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® G510 GAMING KEYBOARD WITH GAMEPANEL™ LCD (£84)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G700 WIRELESS LASER GAMING MOUSE (£68)

Speakers
CORSAIR GAMING AUDIO SERIES™ SP2500 2.1 PC SPEAKERS (£182)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Total: 1964

Configure it here

with your budget, i've even had to throw in an i7 2600K with 1600mhz

popped in a very good cooling case, 1 of the best speakers created, mouse and keyboard, power house gtx580 and your wireless.

 

[dairees]

Thanks for the quick reply Teaz

There's still some money left in my budget - nothing else you would recommend or upgrade?

 

[Wozza63]

id swap that case, i personally think its horrible



Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM SNIPER - NEXT GEN GAMING CASE - better case in my opinion

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics - no need for k version if not OCing

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready - TWO OF THESE BEAUTIES

2nd Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 3 SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 500MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
500GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD5002AALX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 32MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£162) - needed to power the 580s

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39) - better cooling

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI CARD (£16)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Monitor
22" Widescreen TFT 1920 x1080 2MS D-Sub, DVI, 21.6" Panel (£99) - if you already have a 1080p monitor you could add these two and use a triple screen setup, although you can remove this if you wish, as it may be awkward with different screeen sizes

2nd Monitor
22" Widescreen TFT 1920 x1080 2MS D-Sub, DVI, 21.6" Panel (£99)

DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
2 x 2 METRE DVI-D CABLE (£9)

Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® G510 GAMING KEYBOARD WITH GAMEPANEL™ LCD (£84)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G500 LASER GAMING MOUSE (£48)

Speakers
LOGITECH Z623 2.1 SPEAKERS - 200W RMS & THX®-Certified (£149)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

 

[Teaz]

id swap that case, i personally think its horrible

LOL you must be jokin!? maybe on the look wise but that cases cooling is a sheer top notch cooling, especially if youre planning to recommend dairees into an sli setup. plus i chose the case for a good reason

Thanks for the quick reply Teaz

There's still some money left in my budget - nothing else you would recommend or upgrade?

only thing id really recommend is a second 580 or getting a nice monitor. although 1 580 is plenty but since you have the spare cash, you might aswell get a second.

 

[sharplucas]

Hi Dairees I've made you a Spec you said your max budget was £2,500 so the spec is around that price, you can change anything you want really Like the Case,20GB INTEL® SSD 311 SERIES - CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM or put the 2 Gtx 580's up to 3gb instead of the 1.5Gb it really doesn't do much but it is a bit more expensive I disagree with Wozza on the 500Gb caviar Black it's worth getting a 1TB caviar Green even though it' a bit slower also you can lower down the Keyboard and Mouse and the speakers or Change the Cpu to a 2600K if your doing overclocking, here is the Spec:
Case
SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV03 - GAMING ENTHUSIAST TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS IV EXTREME-Z: INTEL Z68 ROG MOTHERBOARD

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

2nd Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

SSD CACHE DRIVE
20GB INTEL® SSD 311 SERIES - CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£162)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® G510 GAMING KEYBOARD WITH GAMEPANEL™ LCD (£84)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G700 WIRELESS LASER GAMING MOUSE (£68)

Speakers
LOGITECH Z523 2.1 SPEAKERS - 40W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£72)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity 1

 

[dairees]

Thanks for the help all - I've taken bits from each of you and come up with the following:

Case
SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV03 - GAMING ENTHUSIAST TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

2nd Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 3 SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 500MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

SSD CACHE DRIVE
20GB INTEL® SSD 311 SERIES - CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£162)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® G510 GAMING KEYBOARD WITH GAMEPANEL™ LCD (£84)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G700 WIRELESS LASER GAMING MOUSE (£68)

Speakers
LOGITECH Z523 2.1 SPEAKERS - 40W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£72)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Quantity
1

Price: £2,419.00 including VAT and delivery.

Hopefully all looks ok with this? I will take a look at the various cases suggested to see which I prefer

 

[MadMan]

Thats an awesome looking gaming rig

 

[Teaz]

Thanks for the help all - I've taken bits from each of you and come up with the following:

Case
SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV03 - GAMING ENTHUSIAST TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

2nd Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 3 SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 500MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

SSD CACHE DRIVE
20GB INTEL® SSD 311 SERIES - CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£162)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® G510 GAMING KEYBOARD WITH GAMEPANEL™ LCD (£84)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G700 WIRELESS LASER GAMING MOUSE (£68)

Speakers
LOGITECH Z523 2.1 SPEAKERS - 40W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£72)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Quantity
1

Price: £2,419.00 including VAT and delivery.

Hopefully all looks ok with this? I will take a look at the various cases suggested to see which I prefer

Go for the 1333mhz ram as they are fast and capable to manage gaming or pretty much anything. 1600mhz is just for some good overclocking.

take out the ssd caching drive as you already have a dedicated ssd.

go for the corsair speakers, they are speakers you wont regret having!

the 3GB 580s aren't really needed. go for the 1.5gb models unless you want to play on multiple screens then the 3GB would be fine. 1.5GB is plenty.

i've re-adjusted it so you should go for this:

Case
SILVERSTONE RAVEN RV03 - GAMING ENTHUSIAST TOWER CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6GB/s, NVIDIA®SLI™, ATI®CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

2nd Graphics Card
1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 3 SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 500MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£162)

Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® G510 GAMING KEYBOARD WITH GAMEPANEL™ LCD (£84)

Mouse
LOGITECH® G700 WIRELESS LASER GAMING MOUSE (£68)

Speakers
CORSAIR GAMING AUDIO SERIES™ SP2500 2.1 PC SPEAKERS (£182)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Total: 2335

Configure it here

 

[dairees]

Thanks again Teaz

Sadly the speakers are a no-go judging my the missus' eyebrows when I metioned a sub woofer! Everything else looks good though

 

[Teaz]

ohh, whats exactly wrong with a subwoofer? its not going to kill the house if you tone down the bass and such

 

[dairees]

Next question - sorry!

If I get a cheaper speaker set I may buy a new monitor.

Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D HD 1920x1080 (£139)

DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE (£8)

Is this all I need - just the monitor and a cable or do I need two cables - one from each card to a single monitor?. Should I get the DVI cable instead with these 1.5GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 580 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready?

Once again thanks for the help - i'm a noob as you can see

 

[Teaz]

1 gpu hooks up 2 monitors. how many monitors are you planning to hook up? since you will be having dedicated speakers. i would just go the for dvi cable as its quality is just about the same as hdmi. hdmi just has the extra audio pass through. you just need to make sure the other mother you have has a connection that can connect to the gpu.

 

[MeveM]

Is it just me who thinks that if you've got a budget like that, you should get a much higher warrenty? I'd get Platinum or at least Gold.

 

[onlynik]

I look at getting a 240GB SSD as well, if you use Steam, the space fills up quite quickly.

 

[dairees]

1 gpu hooks up 2 monitors. how many monitors are you planning to hook up? since you will be having dedicated speakers. i would just go the for dvi cable as its quality is just about the same as hdmi. hdmi just has the extra audio pass through. you just need to make sure the other mother you have has a connection that can connect to the gpu.

Just the one monitor and two graphics cards. Do i need to connect both cards to the one monitor (This is assuming I need two cards if i'm only using 1 monitor of course)

 

[dairees]

I look at getting a 240GB SSD as well, if you use Steam, the space fills up quite quickly.

I don't use steam but thanks for the advice

 

[Teaz]

Just the one monitor and two graphics cards. Do i need to connect both cards to the one monitor (This is assuming I need two cards if i'm only using 1 monitor of course)

no, you only need 1 cable to connect to the monitor. when you get the pc, the monitor will come provided with a dvi cable, use that dvi cable an connect it to the 1st 580 gpu, then connect the other end to the monitor and you should be all good running up (with monitor power cable plugged in)

you do not need to hook or connect anything else or anything to the second graphics card.

you can see here: