New PC need some expert advice please:)

[whiskey29]

Looking at getting a new PC for mainly gaming, music and videos (watching). My budget is around £13-1500 pre VAT (I will be able to reclaim my VAT), I already have one monitor, so thinking to duel monitor would be cool, and have a Cyborg Keyboard and mouse. My speakers are the only other thing im considering including as i have 2Logitech ones which are ok, but not amazing. I wont need an OS as i have Win 7 64bit ready to install fresh (I also have a WD 120gb SSD which i will put in as the primary drive). Pretty much made my mind up but would really appreciate some advice on the following:

1) CPU - thinking 3770, but heard that these arent that good for gaming? with the 3550 being better, can anyone elaborate on this for me?
2) Unsure if i wish to Overclock, as im not that clued up!! So would want the fastest system possible, but may decide to tinker later, hence the K version of the CPU, would the cooling i have selected cope, as i hear IVYBRIDGE get hot when OCing? Should i pick a better cooler?!
3) Already have 8gb of 1666mhz DDR3 Ram (Corsair I think) woould this plop in along with the KINGSTON RAM without any dramas?
4) Will probably upgrade in the future with an additional GPU in SLI (whats the difference between SLI and XFIRE)?
5) Chose the motherboard because i thought the "GameFirst / Intel Gb LAN - Frag Without Lag, mPCIe Combo - Give Your PC A Power Up and LucidLogix Virtu MVP - Up to 60 per cent Hybrid Graphics Boost"would help with gaming (speciallya s i do a lot of MMOs) is this a safe assumption?
6) Given i do a lot of MMOing, should i choose a different card for connections like the monster?
7) Anyone have any experience of the monitor, is it good for gaming?
8) Would you make any changes to the below spec?

Thanks very much for all your help, really appreciate it

Case
InWIN WHITE DRAGON RIDER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS V GENE: M-ATX, INTEL Z77 ROG MOTHERBOARD
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 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
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£46)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling
SPIRE THERMAX ECLIPSE II UNIVERSAL DT EXTREME CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D PCI-E Soundcard (£79)
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
Monitor
IIYAMA E2473HDS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, 2 HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£159)


Price: £1,621.00 including VAT and delivery. £1350.83 without.

 

[mantadog]

1. i presume you read something about the 3550 being enough for gaming, and the 3770 being effectivley no better. The reason for that is that the 3770 has hyperthreading (making 4 extra virtual cores) that gaming doesn't use. So what you have is effectivley a very slightly higher clocked 3550 when it comes to gaming. If you plan to do anything else with the system, for example video editing then the 3770 would be better, if not then a 3550 will be more than enough for gaming.

2. From what i hear, ivy bridget gest hot when you overclock, and thats about it. Even with a better cooler it gets to a point where it just starts to get hot. It appears to be roughly the same point regardless of your cooling solution so i wouldn't worry about that too much, if you do decide to overclock just take it slow and you will get to a point where it just starts to heat up real fast and nothing short of sub zero cooling will help much.

3.No, mixing and matching probably wouldn't work. You would (probably) run into stability issues if it worked. A soluton might be to send in your corsair along with another couple of sticks you buy yourself to make it up to 16GB and PCS would fit em for you.

4. SLI is for Nvidia and Xfire is for AMD card, they both do the same job just whatever card your running thats all.

5.To be honest i don't know the answer, my best geuss is no. I think it's talking about using your onboard GPU to speed up your gaming, in that case the GTX 680 blows onboard graphics so far out of the water you wont even notice. I presume the 60% comes from using like a 550ti or something but i have no idea. Possibly best to get a 2nd opinion on that one.

6. Not really, as you will be playing over the internet any advantage you get will be totaly swallowed up by the internet, you MIGHTsee an advantage if you were in the same room as everyone esle but really i doubt it. Those cards can't really do what they try to claim.

7. Never see one myself, but it gets high aproval rates on the forums so i guess so.

8. I would drop the soundcard, unless you need it for music production or something i would stick with onboard. If you like a good quality sound and have a speaker setup to appreciate it then fair enough but thats the only change i would advise. Looks like a quality build.

Just one more thing, the delay for a GTX 680 is going to be a while. A GTX 670 is only very slightly slower, much cheaper and i personaly would go for a 670 for those reasons.

 

[marvir]

1) CPU's aren't my most knowledgeable subject, I'll let someone else answer that one..
2) I personally won't ever OC.. I want my PC to run things well, and with the spec you're after, it will, and not OCing could help increase it's longevity. The cooler you selected is good for OCing I believe, other than that you may want to opt for a liquid cooler, but I'm not familiar with the Coolit range.. If I were ever to go with liquid cooling I'd probably source a Corsair H80 from somewhere, or get what the equivalent of that is in Coolit's terms.
3)Don't know about the ram unfortunately.. It sounds like it should, but I don't know I would perhaps get a matching pair.
4)Only difference between SLI and Xfire is the brands.. Nvidia calls their multi-gpu set up "SLI", and AMD calls it "crossfire".
5)To my knowledge, motherboards don't increase game performance.. They just have more expansion slots and features, so unless there are specific features you want in that card you don't need an expensive one, but I could be wrong. The P8Z77-V should be more than good.
6)What card do you mean exactly?
7)I've heard good things about that brand, everyone that's posted on the forums have nothing bad to say about it. The only thing people seemed to have complained about (on Amazon at least) is that the stand doesn't feel as quality, but good monitor.
8)Besides what I've said, probably get the 670 instead of the 680, you save money, and performance is very similar. Also, do you need the sound card? Like people have said, unless you have a really really good hi-fi system, or you do sound engineering and stuff then the on board audio should be fine. If you want a bit more then Asus' or Creative's cheapest offerings should be enough. Maybe the Asus.

I wish I could reclaim my VAT. Good luck!


Edit: I left my keyboard for 5 mins and someone beat me to it! Haha. In that case (as you can see) I support manta's suggestions.

 

[whiskey29]

Many thanks to the feedback so far Below is the spec im leaning towards, I have dropped the soundcard on recomendation (i actually think i have a SB Audigy card laying around somewhere) , but left the GPU as a 680, im happy to wait and think the extra future proofing will make it worth it! I left the memory on as the price difference wasnt that much, I can always sell the old stuff on EBay, or give it my old rig to my missus as a present

Swapped the MOBO to an Asus Pro, is this a smart move, or should i stick to the Maximus V? Any last comments before I order, sorry if im being a pest, but as its quite a lot of money, id love your feedback


Case
InWIN WHITE DRAGON RIDER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V PRO: PCI-E 3.0 READY,WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
2GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (1 x 2GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 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
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£46)
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling
SPIRE THERMAX ECLIPSE II UNIVERSAL DT EXTREME CPU COOLER (£39)
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
Monitor
IIYAMA E2473HDS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, 2 HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£159)
Speakers
LOGITECH Z323 2.1 SPEAKERS - 30W RMS with 360 Degree Sound (£44)

 

[mantadog]

Yeah your call on the GTX 680, i couldn't wait and would be forced into a GTX 670 but i understand you wanting the best possible performance. Here is a review with benchmarks for the 670 if your interested. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-670-review,3200.html

The motherboard is fine, even the P8Z77-V would be fine, but it's shaving a few quid off at best and really not worth worrying about.

That spec has 2GB of RAM, are you intending fitting your own? If so, for the price of a small packet at the post office you could send any RAM you wnat fitted to PCS and save the price of the 2Gb of RAM