Spec check please.

[Mark O]

Hello again guys.
I was here before Christmas with a spec but due to financial issues I could not order the PC I wanted. So I thought, rather than get a cheaper one, I'd wait a while. I've since noticed the GTX 470 is on special offer at the momet and I wanted to try and fit it into my budget of £900-950. Also can you tell me how much longer it will be on offer?

Thanks again, love the site!

Here's the spec:-

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 - 2 DVI,mHDMI - DX® 11, 3D (Special Offer!)
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, 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 TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£78)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)
USB Options
USB BLUETOOTH ADAPTER (£9)
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
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Internet 350 USB Keyboard (£9)
Mouse
Black Logitech® Optical Wheel Mouse USB (£5)
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 (£29)
Quantity
1

 

[StrangeBacon]

How much is that costing atm? The only thing id say would be looking at the GPU you'll want to be playing games on it perhaps upgrade power supply to accomodate future upgrades such as SLI'ed graphics cards if you're into that sort of thing and maybe the mouse and keyboard to something more gamer friendly

Other than that, looks like a good spec to me!

 

[PCS]

Great spec, well balanced! The GTX 470 is on offer while stocks last and we have enough stock until the end of February, at current run rates.

Nvidia will be slowing down production of this card, and it will eventually go EOL (end-of-life) and therefore if you'd like to take advantage of this card and the price, it's worth ordering it sooner rather than later.

 

[Mark O]

Thanks, sorry I forgot the price, its at £907. Good guess StrangeBacon (great name lol ) I'll pretty much only be playing WoW (sometimes EVE online) and I was wanting to run it on ultra graphics or close to it. Thanks PCS, that's great! I'll be ordering it late next week or early the week after.
SLI'ing isn't at the top of my list atm, so I'll take a look further into a gaming mouse and keyboard.
Thanks again.

 

[StrangeBacon]

That rig should be fine running WoW ect on ultra, my current gtx 460 runs it ok WoW is a more CPU/Hard drive heavy game loading all the people in main citys ect you'll be good to go with that set up

Good Luck!

 

[AndyMc]

Nice to see a good amount of WoW players on these boards

 

[Meds]

I think there are WoW players where ever you go

 

[MickyG]

I think there are WoW players where ever you go

Can't get rid of us There's a thread or two on here devoted to it, people arranging to meet on servers and such, looks like a good idea

G

 

[Mark O]

Hey, thanks for the advice. I was looking at the logictech wave wireless keyboard and mouse set and it says you get 15 months keyboard battery life and 6 months mouse battery life. In my experience with wireless things, I had to keep changing the batteries every couple of weeks lol. That said, it was some time ago, have they improved or should I still steer clear of wireless?

Oh and P.S (For The Horde!!) lol

 

[StrangeBacon]

My wireless mouse is like 2 years old and ive had to change the battery maybe 3-4 times? Im kind of OCD about my space being clean so the lack of wires pleases me haha, on a serious note, ive not had any problems with wireless stuff in general.

 

[MickyG]

Hmmmm, well, somebody has to play one right? (haha, I'm Allicance through and through )
Though I've heard Horde are better PvP wise (I'm not a PvPer though, so yeah )

G

 

[Meds]

Yeah, things must have improved. My keyboard & mouse @ work are wireless and I can only remember changing the batteries a couple of times in the past two years.

 

[Mark O]

Thanks guys. Hopefully by the end of the week I would have ordered it. I'll post the final spec and once it arrives I plan on posting some pics too.

Hmmmm, well, somebody has to play one right? (haha, I'm Allicance through and through )
Though I've heard Horde are better PvP wise (I'm not a PvPer though, so yeah )

G

Lol I'm new to WoW (i've only played for about 2 months) (yes, I freely admit, I'm a noob XD) and I've never tried PVP. I'm just trying to get used to it by questing etc and a few instances. The problem I had was the PC I started playing WoW on was so rubbish that it couldn't handle the graphics very well. My max fps was 30 and that was with the graphics at the lowest possible lol.
To top it off, in the middle of an instance, the PC starts making a whistling noise, almost a grinding noise and I start smelling smoke.... I couldn't believe it, the hard drive had packed in 2 DAYS before Cataclysm came out!
I've been trying to feed my addiction by watching videos on Youtube but its not working lol

 

[Mark O]

I've been reading a lot of posts on here about the new Sandy Bridge processors by intel and I was wondering if this spec would out perform my original spec that I posted?


(I've changed the graphics card to a 560ti on this spec and on my original spec too)

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF 922 MID TOWER GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H67-M LX SI: MICRO ATX MAINBOARD, LG 1155, SATA 6.0Gb/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)
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
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)
USB Options
USB BLUETOOTH ADAPTER (£9)
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
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Internet 350 USB Keyboard (£9)
Mouse
Logitech® MX™518 Optical Gaming Mouse (£28)
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 (£29)
Quantity
1

Price: £940.00 including VAT and delivery.

Original budget of £950, maybe able to go a little higher, if anyone can suggest a different spec?

Thanks

 

[StrangeBacon]

Personally i'd go with a slightly larger power supply and a 1TB HD but if it falls within your budget then the spec will perform just fine as it is

Im Alliance atm, was horde for 4 years and just fancied a change, got fed up of my old server and certain people on it, was a very old full server so its a tight knit community and tempers flair occasionally haha.

Went alliance on a new server in Cataclysm with a few mates, having fun now and experiencing life from the other side of the pond Good times.

 

[Mark O]

Personally i'd go with a slightly larger power supply and a 1TB HD but if it falls within your budget then the spec will perform just fine as it is

Im Alliance atm, was horde for 4 years and just fancied a change, got fed up of my old server and certain people on it, was a very old full server so its a tight knit community and tempers flair occasionally haha.

Went alliance on a new server in Cataclysm with a few mates, having fun now and experiencing life from the other side of the pond Good times.

Thanks! I didn't realise the 1TB was only £18 more lol. Any thoughts on the Sandy Bridge spec?

I think once I get my Tauren Shaman up to 85 I will make an Alliance character, to see the difference. Probably stay on the same server though so I can send gold too it lol It's so hard to make gold starting off.

 

[russellg]

Looks a well balanced spec....some things for consideration...

1. Save a few quid and get a cheaper case than the HAF922 ?
2. Upgrade to 8gb mem (Mem is cheap at the moment and the graphics card will allocate 1-2gb if available)
3. Change the 1333mz mem to 1600mhz, 1600 is considered the sweet spot for the new SB systems. (although I'm not sure the extra you'll get from it is worth the difference)
4. Use the stock cooler and save £19, you're not overclocking so it'll be fine.

lastly, and the most important.....

5. Play RIFT instead of WoW

 

[Mark O]

Thanks russellg. Here is the updated spec, I've gone for the T900 case to bring costs down. 8gb 1600mhz mem (even 8gb at 1333mhz) would take me too far over budget at the moment so I've gone in the middle and gone for 4gb at 1600mhz.
Anyone else have any suggestions as this is still slightly over my original budget (of £900-950) at £1,003. Also can anyone confirm whether or not I'll see a considerable difference in changing the RAM from 1333 to 1600?

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8P67: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, CrossFireX™ SUPPORT
Memory (RAM)
4GB KINGSTON HYPER-X SPECIAL EDITION GREY - DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 2GB KIT)
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)
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 TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£78)
Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155/1156 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£19)
USB Options
USB BLUETOOTH ADAPTER (£9)
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
Keyboard & Mouse
Logitech® Internet 350 USB Keyboard (£9)
Mouse
Logitech® MX™518 Optical Gaming Mouse (£28)
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 (£29)
Quantity
1

Price: £1,003.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[Phoenix]

You'll see absolutely no difference by taking the 1600mhz RAM over the 1333mhz RAM and if you wanted to save some money you could take the i5 2400 and the Radeon HD6850/HD6870.

 

[Mark O]

Thanks for clearing that up Phoenix. Will I be better off with the i5 2400 and the 6870 (or even the gtx470, similar price) than with the Phenom 970 and the 560ti?