It's another gaming rig!

[Target Practice]

Howdy folks. Posted here before a few months back asking about a spec, and you were all most helpful, but about two days after I posted, my car died, which put my plans on the back burner for a few months. That's now changed, and I'm able to look at it again. On the bright side as well, I've got a little more to spend this time round.

I'm looking to spend about £1200 in total, and as I haven't had a desktop for a few years, it's a complete unit (peripherals, monitor, etc) - I may have been able to find a nice monitor and mouse from a friend, so I should be okay for those, but I am looking for the other bits and bobs.

I'm looking to use this as a gaming machine, with a bit of photo and video editing on the side, and I'm planning on adding a second GTX 670 in SLI before the end of the year in order to future-proof it (hence the i7 over the i5, and the extra power supply capacity). I trust that this setup should be able to run all current games at high/ultra settings at a sensible frame rate in 1920x1080?

Anyway, thank you for reading - specs below, and I'd appreciate feedback/thoughts, as I'm hoping to order before the end of the week!

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st 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 ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
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 w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Keyboard & Mouse
Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard (£39)
Speakers
LOGITECH S220 2.1 SILVER/BLACK SPEAKER SYSTEM (£20)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Price: £1,148.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/GMRKJmDoAQ/

 

[Grimezy]

That looks absolutely fine, the i7 will be more useful than the i5 for editing and the GTX670 is a brilliant card. Plus your power supply will be sufficient for SLI.

All I can suggest is upping the ram to 16gb if you plan to do quite a bit of video editing as from what I've heard 8gb will get eaten up pretty quickly. That should still keep you within budget.

I can't comment on the case as I have not researched that model but I can definitely say that the CM690 II Advanced is worth looking into if you like the design. It's huge, it's spacious and it keeps your components nice and cool. That's just my personal preference though, I'm sure yours is fine! It's worth investing in your case though, especially if you plan to SLI in the future as you don't want things to be getting cramped in there!

Also, maybe one that might take you over budget but increasing your hard drive size could be wise. I've had my rig about 2 months and I've already used 300-400gb out of my 1tb. I don't save many videos or photos, etc so if you are planning to record a lot and stuff, just be wary that 1tb could get eaten quickly! This can always be solved after you've bought your rig though by buying an external hard drive or adding an extra in your case.

 

[Target Practice]

Thanks for the feedback, that's appreciated!

I can't see me doing masses of video editing - it'll likely be occasional use for that, and if I do end up using it more, upgrading RAM shouldn't be too much of a hassle.

I probably will look at a larger case, mainly because I'm slightly concerned about temps - we're not blessed with a lot of space, so there's not going to be a large amount of airspace (a couple of inches either side, I'd guess) around the tower. Is it worth a couple of extra chassis fans to avoid cooking it? This is going to be my first genuine 'gaming' PC, so temps are a somewhat closed book to me!

As for the Hard Drive, I do currently have a 320GB external HDD, which I can use as emergency storage, but my better half is notorious for hoarding thousands of photos, so I'll look at options regarding increasing storage.

 

[Grimezy]

Yea I know how you feel, we don't have masses of space and my case is pretty huge! I don't have much room to the side of my case but temps have been fine so far. I think as long as the front, back and top are clear you should be fine. As long as the side vents aren't right up against a wall! (My side vents are probably about 3 inches away from a fridge and they've been fine so far). Plus if you do invest in a bigger case it shouldn't get too hot anyway! The £79 cases are all good choices.

You could add extra chassis fans but to be fair I don't think it will cook at all. It may be worth looking into when you decide to SLI as things may start getting hot then but till then you'll be fine. The £79 cases are made to have like 5 hard drives in them and 2 graphics card, etc so with your build it should stay very cool by itself!