PC for Casual Gaming / HD Movie Playback

[AndyMc]

Hello all, I'm a new customer to PCS. I found my way here from a Google Advertisement and liked the idea of customising a machine, I have had the same machine for about 6-7 years and it is struggling in the past few months so I've decided to upgrade.

I admit I'm not great with all the terminology of PC components but have gone with a spec based on basic research reviews on the internet. My budget is £800-900 max for the tasks I wish to do, it is for casual gaming on WoW Cataclysm and watching HD movies primarily as well as general multitasking, fraps, sony vegas etc.

I would like to hear thoughts on the spec, another factor is how much noise reduction am I likely to expect if its at all predictable as my current machine literally has one main fan under the power supply and when I enter full screen apps its like a jet engine.

Case: COOLERMASTER HAF 912 PLUS MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU): AMD PHENOM II X4 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard: ASUS® M4A78LT-M: mATX MAINBOARD, DDR3, USB 2.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM): 4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card: 1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX560Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DirectX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk: 640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
Power Supply: CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU
Processor Cooling: COOLIT ECO A.L.C (ADVANCED LIQUID COOLER)
Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)


Regards,
Andy

 

[Phoenix]

The spec. looks fine, it won't be very noisy since you've got the triple heatpipe cooler but if you want a really quiet computer consider getting either the Coolermaster Sileo case or the Fractal Design Define R3 case.

 

[PCS]

Welcome to our forums

As Phoenix has suggested above, the spec you have put together is powerful and well balanced. It will run quietly by default, but if silence is of importance to you consider the Coolermaster Sileo case or the Fractal Design Define R3 case.

Also consider our "Sandy Bridge" Intel based PC's, as they are more powerful and of a similar pricepoint. You can configure a Sandy Bridge system here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/intel-sandy-bridge-pc/

 

[Meds]

I have to agree, the specification looks good.

If you are working towards a budget though, you might want to remove the Sound Card. Integrated Audio which is built into the Motherboard has reached a good standard and in my eyes (not owned a sound card for a long time now) you only need a sound card if your a real enthusiast or wish to record. Obviously there is no harm in having one, it's just a way to save a little money that's all

 

[AndyMc]

I have to agree, the specification looks good.

If you are working towards a budget though, you might want to remove the Sound Card. Integrated Audio which is built into the Motherboard has reached a good standard and in my eyes (not owned a sound card for a long time now) you only need a sound card if your a real enthusiast or wish to record. Obviously there is no harm in having one, it's just a way to save a little money that's all

I removed the sound card and would like to make additional improvements to the CPU and HDD. I changed the HDD to the 640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX for a bit more extra storage but in doing so I noticed it has SATA 6 Gb/s but the only motherboard option is one with 3 Gb/s, it seems its compatible otherwise it would of said but what issue might this cause if any?

 

[Phoenix]

There's no issue, the Caviar Black isn't able to make full use of SATA 3.0 so 6.0 won't make a difference for it.

 

[AndyMc]

Hello,

I'm now a bit worried about the overall reliability of the WD 640GB Caviar Black for the system I've ordered as I've seen youtube videos of the "beep beep of death" where a replacement sent for the faulty HDD has befell the same fate which means a flaw in the product?

The Caviar Black on my order is an amendment from the default 500GB HDD, is there any way for me to swap that amendment for the 1TB Serial ATA 3-Gb/s Hard Drive with 16MB Cache (7,200rpm)? (will probably contact support on Monday morning as well) On the configurator based on my current amended order this works out as £7 cheaper than having the WD 640GB Cavier Black. I was going to change to the 1TB Cavier Green WD10EARS instead of the Black but I've read reviews that's primarily a storage disk and it runs slower than others at around (5,400rpm) and isn't the best choice to run an OS from.

Any help or assistance is much appreciated, I may be looking into things a little too much while I wait for the building to begin, but I'm new to the whole custom build process and would like it to be perfect, as we all do.

Sub-order #: s-376905

Regards,
Andy

 

[Phoenix]

You can change what HDD you want from your customer control panel but there aren't any issues with the Caviar Black. There's always going to be someone who has experiences a problem with whatever they buy, it doesn't mean that everyone else will. The Caviar Green may be slightly slower at getting to the desktop screen when you turn the computer on (takes about 42~ seconds for me) but it is silent and doesn't let me down while gaming. It starts at 5400RPM but will increase the RPM where necessary.

 

[Meds]

Any help or assistance is much appreciated, I may be looking into things a little too much while I wait for the building to begin, but I'm new to the whole custom build process and would like it to be perfect, as we all do.

Think this might be the case. If you look into anything enough you will find some nightmare stories. The failure rate on all Western Digital HDDs is very low but that doesn't mean that they don't fail and when one does, somebody will want to tell the world. The remaining 99% of people with working Caviar Black HDDs (inc myself) just get on with life