Gaming PC/Hungry programs

[Vaio]

Hey guys, I've searched around quite a bit, and basically for my needs I think this should be fine.

Case
InWin CENTINAL BUC BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 16MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Asus Xonar DG 5.1 SoundCard & Headphone AMP (Award Winner) (£20)
Network Facilities
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

Also I wanted to ask a few questions, even though the site suggests 450W psu will be fine, it's saying at around 446w should I get the 600W instead?
Also I'm debating whether getting the mother board I have chosen, or the PZ77-V PRO, how does this motherboard differ from the one I have chosen? does the WiFi mean I don't have to buy a WiFI card?
The i5 and i7, despite the i7 being faster, will I notice much difference? I doubt I'll have mutliple hungry programs running at the same time.
And finally if you think I should change anything please say. Thanks.
Sorry I forgot to add my budget is around...7/800 w/o monitor. as for the other options such as operating system, I already have a 64x bit as a university student.
I'm not quite sure which graphics card to get, I've chosen the 2GB nvidia GTX 560, however is the 2GB mainly for running multilple monitors? I'll only be running a single monitor around (19-22") so would and AMD 1GB GPU be a better option? or something similar. Thanks once again.

 

[mantadog]

The figure of 446W alrwady includes a 20% buffer so if the configurator says 450w is good then 450w is fine.

You wont need a wifi card if you get that motherboard, and should only really consider a different one if you think you will ever SLI your GTX 560 or reall want onboard wifi for any reason

The only time you will ever notice you have an i5 vs an i7 in your system would be with something like video editing/photoshop, for gaming you would never be able to tell because games don't use hyperthreading, which is the biggets selling point of an i7 over an i5

A 1GB 560 is ample for 1 monitor even when gaming at the full 1080p you will have plenty of memory for that. Even day to day working on 2 screens a 1Gb card will be fine.

 

[Vaio]

Hi thanks for your reply. I've taken on board what you've said, as for the RAM i've chosen 1333 will it make much difference going 1600 or even 1866?
If I overclock my 2500k in the future to say around..4ghz will the LX motherboard be okay for that?

 

[Rakk]

Hi thanks for your reply. I've taken on board what you've said, as for the RAM i've chosen 1333 will it make much difference going 1600 or even 1866?

Unless you're overclocking you wont really see any difference at all between the 1333Mhz and higher

 

[Vaio]

What about overclocking on that motherboard, will it be okay?
And I'm kind of confused with the GPU, I want a GPU that will last for 3/4 years atleast. This is my first PC (I've had many laptops)
As for games, I play games such as Skyrim, BF3 ect ect. I will only be running 1 monitor.

 

[Vaio]

I'm probably the most impatient guy you'll ever meet don't know if that's good or bad.. but I was thinking, is the fast track worth it?

 

[mantadog]

To be honest if your expecitng a GTX 560 to last 3 or 4 years with the lates games i think you might be a little disappointed from the start. A modern game like BF3 will run on that card no problems at all, however it wont be very happy running a game like BF3 on ultra. If your happy to run games on medium/high settings for now (it's often hard to tell between high and ultra anyway) then you will be fine with a 560, however you should probably keep in mind you might need to upgrade to a slightly faster GPU after a year or two as the 560 will fall back a bit with the new releases.

You could trade up a little to a 7850 or a 7870 and get a 600w PSU so you can run 2 of them in the future, but it depends on what you can afford and how much graphics detail you would like on games.

 

[Vaio]

I changed the GPU to 1.5GB GTX 580, will that be okay for a good 2+ years? I'm so tempted to go for the 680 but for me personally I think it might be an overkill. I've also changed the PSU to 650w as the 7870 and 580 are quite similar in performance and price, which is best to go with? all these options, it's like a kid in a candy shop.

 

[mantadog]

If your looking to upgrade to that level, i would seriously advise a 7870. Not only is it a cheaper card, with less power consumption (alwyas good for the bill at the end of the month) it performs atleast as well at the GTX 580 in most games, if not better. Here is some benchmarks...http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7870-review-benchmark,3148-6.html

Also if you go with the 600w power supply you could run 2 cards in the future if you wanted to. However you will be fine with a 450w PSU in your machine should you wish.

 

[Vaio]

So say for example in a couple of years time, I can no longer run new games in ultra/high I can stick in another 7870 and it'll double the power? or.... plus, I'll be most likely running in 1920x1080

 

[mantadog]

In a couple of years time you will be able to add a 2nd card for example a 7870. This will give you roughly 50% more perfromance depending on the game and card combo but roughly 50%. The idea behind running 2 cards, in a couple of years the 7870 will be ancient tech and you will be ablt to pick one up for next to no money, probably way less than £100. So should work out a very cheap performance boost to enable you to play the latest games.

You could also just buy a new mid range GPU, as in a couple of years time a mid range GPU will dominate a 7870 but it would end up costing slightly more.

 

[Vaio]

Okay thanks, and as the 7870 is a lot newer will it get better in time with drivers?
Also with lower power consumption how much difference will it make on the bill?

 

[mantadog]

Well....

1. It will probably gain a little something with drivers but it wont double in speed or anything crazy, but it's possible it may get a bit better yes.

2. The 580 uses something like 250W according to PCS but it would be slightly less than that in the real world thats the maximum. The 7870 uses 120w, again it would be slightly less. Thats about 130w less for the 7870 vs the 580. It depends on how much you play however one way to look at it, it costs half as much as the GTX 580 to play on the 7870. Also the card costs less to buy in the first place for the same performance! The savings would be roughly 10% of what you pay per unit of electric per hour you play, so an 8 hour day would be like 12 pence cheaper, or about £45 a year if you play 8 hours per day/365. Hardly amazing savings but their is no real reason to go with a 580 over a 7870 in my opinion

 

[Vaio]

And for the GPU I see a lot of GPU from Sapphire, ASUS and EVGA, do PCS just supply manufacturer cards, not really sure how this works to be honest.

 

[mantadog]

Not really that important who makes the card to be honest, if you don't want to get a specific type or brand then best thing to do is call pcs and ask what type they have at the moment as it will change from time to time i think.

 

[Vaio]

Thank you very much for clearing this up