Help, £1,500 Budget!

[monkeycid]

Hi everyone!

I really need a new gaming PC. I swapped my old PC for a retina MacBook Pro over a year ago and, well, never again... So, I've given myself a budget of £1,500 and that is including a monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers but I need help piecing it all together. I will be using the PC mostly for games and Second Life. I want it to last at least 3 years though I don't expect it to be playing brand new games on highest settings by then. I appreciate all your suggestions!

Thanks!

Oh, and I have limited space. I have a PC desk with a cabinet for the PC to sit in but it isn't massive. It has a width of 320mm, length of 450mm and a height of 480mm.

 

[keynes]

I would have gone with the Coolermaster 690 case but not sure it would fit the dimensions you requested. Putting a gaming rig in a cabinet (covered) is not a good idea, you are going to experience cooling issues

The specification below has been formatted so you can easily copy and paste this to our forums when discussing your specification. Once you've copied the specification, please click here to continue.


Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790 (3.6GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
Gigabyte Z97-HD3: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE BORDERLANDS: THE PRE-SEQUEL with GTX 770/780/780/TITAN GPUs!
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£69)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
IIYAMA E2481HS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, D-Sub, DVI-D, HDMI 1920x1080 (£139)
Keyboard & Mouse
CM Storm Devastator Keyboard and Mouse (£29)
Speakers
LOGITECH Z320 2.0 SPEAKERS - 10W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£42)
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 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,440.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/EWmb8JmsVL/

 

[evvo123]

Hi everyone!

I really need a new gaming PC. I swapped my old PC for a retina MacBook Pro over a year ago and, well, never again... So, I've given myself a budget of £1,500 and that is including a monitor, keyboard, mouse and speakers but I need help piecing it all together. I will be using the PC mostly for games and Second Life. I want it to last at least 3 years though I don't expect it to be playing brand new games on highest settings by then. I appreciate all your suggestions!

Thanks!

Oh, and I have limited space. I have a PC desk with a cabinet for the PC to sit in but it isn't massive. It has a width of 320mm, length of 450mm and a height of 480mm.

You might want to hold off a couple of weeks until the Nvidia 900 series comes out. If not, (edit: Keynes' build is good)

 

[monkeycid]

Thanks for the replies.



Here's a picture of my desk, excuse the foot in the middle. As you can see, not a greet deal of space on top. At the moment my laptop takes up one half and the mousepad and mouse the other. I could fit a PC in the cabinet.

Would leaving the cabinet door open when the PC is turned on help in any way? The cabinet has no air ventilation apart from a small hole at the bottom of the back for wires to go through.

Keynes, the case you posted has a depth of 480mm and my cabinet only has 450mm to play with. Could you recommend another case, please?

 

[A314159]

I guess you could go with the carbide 200r... Does that fit? And yeah, no airflow = bad idea with expensive very much heat producing computer pieces.

 

[evvo123]

Thanks for the replies.

View attachment 5504

Here's a picture of my desk, excuse the foot in the middle. As you can see, not a greet deal of space on top. At the moment my laptop takes up one half and the mousepad and mouse the other. I could fit a PC in the cabinet.

Would leaving the cabinet door open when the PC is turned on help in any way? The cabinet has no air ventilation apart from a small hole at the bottom of the back for wires to go through.

Keynes, the case you posted has a depth of 480mm and my cabinet only has 450mm to play with. Could you recommend another case, please?

While leaving the door open would help, I'd leave the PC out of the cabinet altogether to be honest - it's bound to overheat without an open back. I can't even run my PS4 in the closed back drawer under my TV without it overheating - I wouldn't want to try it with a high end PC.

 

[vanthus]

I can't see a case on the configurator that would fit in the cabinet,couldn't you just sit the case in the space underneath where the laptop is presently situated? there may also be room for a CPU stand to keep the case off the carpet,or am I looking at it all wrong.

 

[evvo123]

I can't see a case on the configurator that would fit in the cabinet,couldn't you just sit the case in the space underneath where the laptop is presently situated?

Presumably that's for the OP's legs(?) Personally, I'd put it just outside the cabinet - better ventilation

 

[monkeycid]

I suppose I could put it on the floor though it wouldn't give me any extra depth to play with without it getting in the way of my feet, haha. Though I'd have plenty of extra height and width. Maybe make use of the CORSAIR AIR SERIES™ 540 case? That looks a like a box and could snuggle in the space under my desk nicely?

 

[vanthus]

I suppose I could put it on the floor though it wouldn't give me any extra depth to play with without it getting in the way of my feet, haha. Though I'd have plenty of extra height and width. Maybe make use of the CORSAIR AIR SERIES™ 540 case? That looks a like a box and could snuggle in the space under my desk nicely?

Dimensions of that case are 458mm x 415mm x 332mm (Approx H x W x D)
I wasn't really thinking about feet/leg room as I don't have any space under the desk for that myself,guess I'm just used to it,don't like being too close to the monitors anyway