Spec for gaming/music/movies and workstation pc. Any thoughts?

[philwil]

Finally, somewhat later than I originally intended, I'm in a position to go ahead and buy my new desktop pc. Specs below. I may do a bit of tweaking before putting in the order, and I'd be grateful for any knowledgeable comments or observations etc.

I very much need a quiet pc, so have gone for components that offer that. Regarding the GPU, from what I know the GTX560Ti is both powerful and quiet, but if you have a different experience, or would recommend another GPU (I prefer Nvidia) please do say. I will be running two 28" monitors off it.

I do quite a lot of gaming but it's largely confined to the Battlefront: Combat Mission war games/sims, as I'm a betatester for the company. These games are pretty CPU and GPU hungry but the specs I've chosen will be more than enough to handle them. I watch quite a lot of movies, use Photoshop for general image optimising, converting etc, play and create music, as well as general office and work-related stuff...

I'm looking at future-proofing (as far as that's possible!)so have gone for more than I really need right now. So many exciting new goodies have appeared this year, with more on the horizon, but I can't sit around forever waiting for the next innovation or price drop). I can spend a little more if necessary, but budget is limited.

One question though is, would I get any real benefit if I upped the RAM to 8Gig?

And another: Is the SSD really worth it's price, or would I still get very fast loadups if I simply stuck to a single larger Caviar Black or something similar?

Yet another: how good is the onboard sound? And will this spec allow me to add an internal (or ext) higher quality soundcard later if I want?

And finally (I think!): am I best off using DVI or HDMI cables? I'm not likely to be connecting to a TV, at least not often, so all gaming and almost all movies will be on the main monitor.

Thanks in advance for any advice.


Case

COOLERMASTER SILEO 500 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)

Intel® Core™i5-2500 Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard

ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, NVIDIA® SLI™, ATI® CrossFireX™
Memory (RAM)

4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card

1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - DX® 11, 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk

80GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 90MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk

750GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD7502AAEX, 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 (£72)
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 CARD (£16)
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 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
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

 

[LinearHD]

Looks spot on, but just to let you know the 560Ti isn't that quiet; you may want to either take the jump to a 570 or go for the AMD 6950 instead.

4GB is more or less the standard, and unless you were extreme multi-tasking you won't get that much of a benefit.

The SSD is worth the price if you can afford it, but be warned, 80GB will fill up very quickly

You can add a soundcard in future if you so desire.

And finally, DVI and HDMI are the same quality, except HDMI carries sound also. If you're using speakers, I'd say use DVI

 

[MrShteeeve]

Looks spot on, but just to let you know the 560Ti isn't that quiet; you may want to either take the jump to a 570 or go for the AMD 6950 instead.

4GB is more or less the standard, and unless you were extreme multi-tasking you won't get that much of a benefit.

The SSD is worth the price if you can afford it, but be warned, 80GB will fill up very quickly

You can add a soundcard in future if you so desire.

And finally, DVI and HDMI are the same quality, except HDMI carries sound also. If you're using speakers, I'd say use DVI

Cant get more spot on than that advice there, I second the 560 ti on noise levels, it can be pretty noisy, go with what Linear advised. apart from that, spot on .

 

[philwil]

Thanks for the advice. I might hang on just a bit longer and go for the GTX570, then. I checked a few reviews and it looks a pretty potent beast.

Thinking about an additional soundcard. Is there any advantage to internal as opposed to external? Actually, there seem to be very few external cards around these days. Are the Soundblasters that PCS supply a very big improvement on the onboard sound for games and music?

 

[MrShteeeve]

A lot of people will tell you exactly what I'm about to say...

In this day and age the onboard sound cards are not far from what the premium sound cards offers. So when you do get a (lets say a sound blaster audigy) the sound performance would be barely noticeable unless connected to a set of reasonable capable speakers .