New PC for gaming and photoshop

[MattS2K]

Hi all,

I am looking to upgrade my PC and have cobbled together the following spec. However, as I know very little about hardware, I would appreciate any comments and advice from the knowledgeable members on here.

I am mainly looking for a PC to allow me to play the latest games (BF3, COD etc) at high settings. I also spend a lot of time editing photos using Photoshop (CS6) and Lightroom etc. I store all my photos on an external drive so am not too concerned with a massive amount of internal storage space.

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)
16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)
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
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
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
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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
FAST TRACK 5 WORKING DAY DISPATCH (£39)
Quantity
1

Price: £1,259.00 including VAT and delivery.

This is around my target budget although I may be able to budge if it can be justified(!). I would also of course be delighted to save any money if I can do so and still achieve my aims. A couple of specific questions:

I think the usual advice is that an i5 is sufficient for gaming and that i7 is not required as current games do not utilise all the cores anyway. Is this true, and does the advice change given my need for photoshop?

There are a couple of cheaper motherboard options (P8Z77-M and P8Z77-LX) - am I correct in thinking that either of these options would prevent me from adding a second GTX 670 in the future if I wanted to upgrade?

Thanks in advance for any comments or suggestions

Matt

 

[Wolvo7]

Hello this looks like a pretty sweet setup. You are correct that an i7 would not be required for gaming but according to this thread you may find an advantage in having an i7 for photoshop so I'd keep it.

You're also correct that selecting either the -M or -LX mobos will prevent you from SLI'ing your 670 in the future. I'd say that everything looks pretty much spot on the 16GB RAM may be a bit overkill but then again it depends on what you will be doing in Photoshop. RAM is not very expensive anyways so you could keep it. If you want to save money you can lose the fast track though, unless you're very impatient ^^

 

[lady0sheep]

Also if you have a lot of external space you could always get a SSD as a speedy disc for the OS and games, then just get a smaller caviar black. I don't have a SSD because everyone who has them seems to love them so I could never go back and in this case I ran out of budget but it's definitely on the upgrade list

 

[MattS2K]

Thanks for your comments and suggestions; a couple of things to think about there. Much appreciated

 

[Teaz]

great spec, nothing to recommend apart from a mod psu to prevent clutter but that will add a bit more to the price so it is only an optional consideration. advice already covered by the guys so not much support to give. there is one though, do keep to mind that when you decide to add a second 670 in future, take note on your pci ports for any unforseen upgrades you may wish to add like wireless card, soundcard etc etc down the road. Reason is due to slot and space blocking by the mighty gpu cards.

 

[MattS2K]

Thanks for your comments Teaz.

Thinking about the possibility of adding a second graphics card in the future led me down a completely different route and I wondered what would happen if I decided instead to stay with only one card, leaving myself the option to simply replace that card later rather than having the option of going SLI. I came up with this alternative:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX downgraded: can't SLI in the future, but could upgrade the single card instead?
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW) Added to speed the system boot up. Would this speed up the system generally as well?
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
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69) Downgraded from 750W which I had chosen specifically to be enough for future 2nd card
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
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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: £1,265.00 including VAT and delivery.


Any thoughts on this new idea? Have I got anything wrong? Is it a good or bad idea generally!? I'm still working this through so would be grateful for any comments both positive and negative...

Thanks again in advance for any comments or suggestions

Matt

 

[Wolvo7]

If you don't want to SLI go for the LX it's actually £2 cheaper than the M and has more PCI ports.

The SSD is a very good idea typically you'll have your OS and all your apps installed on the SSD, so it won't only speed up boot up but also pretty much everything else: apps will load much faster, copying and pasting large files will also be improved and it will overall feel really fast.

The PSU is what I'd go for if you don't SLI.

 

[Teaz]

The changes are fine and as Wolvo said, I'd go for the LV instead, better future proofing flexibility. As for the SSD, I'll have to contradict slightly of what Wolvo said, nothing wrong with going for it but I don't recommend copying and pasting or transferring large files onto the SSD. Reason is, if you do or keep doing that, you will degrade the SSD's read/write life cycle which will slowly degrade its performances/speed. Do any large copying or transferring or the similar with your second drive which is the caviar black. The caviar black is fairly fast so you should be fine.

Apart from that, specs are still as good from the changes