High-end Gaming Desktop

[Robbie]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to PCS but they seem like good PC's from what i have looked at today. I put together a spec of a gaming rig that i thought would be good (I seem to have a tendancy to go for the best things on offer). I would like to spend around the £2k mark.

Here is the spec I currently have:

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Processor Extreme Edition i7-980X (3.33GHz) 6.4GTs/12MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D PREMIUM: DDR3, USB 3.0 & SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI

Memory (RAM)
12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX570 - 2 DVI,mHDMI - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB Intel® X25-M 2.5" SSD (34nm / upto 250MB/sR | 100MB/sW)***SPECIAL***

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

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM (£36)

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£78)

Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) 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)


Price (excluding VAT)


£1,787.50

Price
£2,145.00

Any help/tips would be appriciated,
Thanks,
Robbie

 

[Killzoned]

Wow that build looks very powerful, the CPU is a bit extreme however, i would recommend a 950 or 960 CPU and then upgrade your card to a GTX 580 (Considered the fastest single GPU on the market) which would give you a better performance and you could save yourself over 100 pound, and with that save money you could go for a Rampage motherboard? or upgrade your PSU.

 

[Robbie]

Hi,

Thanks for the reply, yeah ok. Didn't know if there was much of a difference between the GTX 570 and GTX 580, i'll take your advice and upgrade ^^

Also, I don't wanna think like "Oh, I wish I got a better CPU" after a few months because I have no idea about changing my PC myself, too scared to break it

What about my RAM and Hard drive choices? Also, I read somewhere about faulty motherboards, if I pick the ASUS 'PREMIUM' will that make sure its not faulty?

Last thing, what's the difference between 4x Blue ray and x12?

Thanks,
Robbie

 

[BAD SANTA]

This is what I would go for.

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
OverClocked Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz @ max 3.8GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® RAMPAGE III EXTREME: 3-Way SLI & CrossFireX, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1536MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX580 - 2 DVI,mHDMI - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
NONE
3rd Graphics Card
NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID
NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£89)
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NONE
Memory Card Reader
NONE
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W PRO SERIES (HX1000) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£173)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

 

[Robbie]

And what's the price of that?

 

[Killzoned]

Bad Santa created a good build for you. Personally 12GB ram is Overkill! I think around 6-8GB would be perfect
Your CPU and motherboard won't suffer from any chipset issues, the issues that you are worried about are only on the P67 motherboards and the Sandy bridge CPU
Your HDD are good ^^
Maybe you could reduce your ram to 8-6 and then upgrade the CPU from 950 to 960 thats if you're those type that want the best of the best haha but its not really worth it as the 950 is already good enough

 

[Robbie]

Hmm, I'll run that on the website, find the exactly price of that spec. Although, I don't think i'll go with the OC, seen too many people have problems with it.

Yeah think I'll stick with the 960 That should be fine (I dont wanna downgrade too much )

I could get the...'6GB KINGSTON HYPER-X T1' If the 12GB is too much...?

After thinking about it too the smaller SSD hard drive would be better, as I only would only be playing a few games at once. So that should save some money too Oh, while on the SSD subject, which one is better.. the OCZ or Intel?

Thanks for the help by the way guys!!
Robbie

 

[Killzoned]

On my build am getting the OCZ 120GB SSD, By the looks of it the OCZ looks to be faster
Yeah 12GB of ram is WAY too much, Maximum for me would be 8GB and minimum would be 6GB.
With I7 960 and 6-8GB DDR3 ram and GTX 580 you're going to be able to run games in maximum setting as the GTX 580 is the most reliable and best graphics card on the market at the moment.

 

[Robbie]

Thanks for all the help,

I'll update when i have the final build set ^^

 

[BAD SANTA]

You can't have 8gb with a 950 in triple channel so I suggest getting 12 then it's future proof'd, the ocz is faster and cheaper so go with that, the 950 and 960 are pretty much identical and if you get oc'd by pcs it won't make any difference and you will still get your warranty, also you won't get any oc issues with the rampage 3 as it's built for oc. The 1000w psu is in case you want to get another gpu in the future.


BY the way the price was about 1900 ish

 

[Robbie]

Yeah I saw that I couldn't have 8GB and then 12 GB was apparently too much, so I settle on the 'faster?' 6GB which it will allow me to take.

The Rampage motherboard was abit strange when i went to save the build, saying i needed to change my USB option to take USB headers for it or somthing, I didn't understand so I changed it back to the Premium

Anyways, I think my final build will be:

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-960 (3.20GHz) 4.8GTs/8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P6X58D PREMIUM: DDR3, USB 3.0 & SATA 6.0GB/s, 3-Way SLI
Memory (RAM)
6GB KINGSTON HYPER-X T1 TRI-DDR3 2000MHz, X.M.P (3 x 2GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1536MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX580 - 2 DVI,mHDMI - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£49)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W PRO SERIES (HX750) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£118)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) 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
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)


Price: £2,014.00 including VAT and delivery.

I'll most likely order this week, unless people can give me some better ideas. As you say I may want to upgrade in the future so I might change to the 1000w, but the 750w will cover me for the moment...

May check out the OC specs but I really don't wanna burn the CPU lol

Thanks,
Robbie

[EDIT: Yes, I took a bigger case too because I wanna make sure all the cables fit and look tidy ^^]

 

[BAD SANTA]

COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE

OverClocked Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-950 (3.06GHz @ max 3.8GHz)

ASUS® RAMPAGE III EXTREME: 3-Way SLI & CrossFireX, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0

12GB KINGSTON HYPER-X TRI-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (3 x 4GB KIT)

1536MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX580 - 2 DVI,mHDMI - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready

120GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)

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

12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£89)

CORSAIR 1000W PRO SERIES (HX1000) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£173)

COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER) (£59)

ARCTIC COOLING MX-3 HIGH THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

NZXT INTERNAL USB HEADER (4 Additional Powered Internal USB Ports) (£18)

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

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

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

£1949 inc VAT and Delivery


If you get it overclocked by PCS you will get warranty so dont worry about frying the cpu, also they only overclock it to a resonable 3.8 and people can overclock them a lot higher the reason they only overclock to 3.8 is so it will last forever.

There is no point in getting a I7 960 as you wont see any benifit over getting the I7 950 especially if you get PCS to overclock it for you.

You might as well get the 12GB 1600Mhz Hyper-X Ram becuase unless you are going to overclock it yourself it will only be running at 1600Mhz anyway, the 2000Mhz is only what speed it can achive but you would have to overclock it to that and then void your warranty.

Get the Rampage 3 extreme as its the best and made for overclocking to the extreme which means the components on it will last forever as well, and as for the usb problem that you said you didnt understand well if you look at the spec I have put together I have selected the NZXT usb header, it just means you get more usb ports.

You may as well get the 1000w PSU now as it still brings the price in at under £2000
and say 2 years down the line you could just stick in another GTX 580 and still have a monster rig.

 

[Robbie]

Thanks for the info Bad Santa!

Ok, I have created a quote exactly the same as you have posted above (apart from I dont need blue ray re-writer, and took the wireless N card), and I must say it look's tempting. I can see your spec in your signature and you have the same spec as you have posted but you took the 6GB T1's? have you overclocked yourself or left it as PCS standard?

Thanks,
Robbie

PS. I gave you + Rep

 

[BAD SANTA]

Cheers for the rep.
No I took the 2000mhz thinking that it was set at that speed but it's not you have to overclock it to 2000mhz and I don't want to void my warranty, I have also heard that it's quite hard to get to that speed anyway and can cause instability so if I had to buy again would go with 12gb 1600mhz.

 

[Robbie]

Awesome, thanks for the quick reply and the spec that you have given me. Can't wait till I can get that bad boy started up!!

By the way, where can we get the "Optional fans" for cooling in the case? Do PCS sell these fans as extras anywhere? ^^

Thanks,
Robbie

 

[BAD SANTA]

You won't have to worry about cooling mate as you see in my spec I have a 600t with standard fans and you have a better case than me for cooling and with a coolit Eco you won't have any problems.