Thoughts please

[The_Doctor]

Hey all, thinking of getting a new desktop its going to be for general all purpose home use and a little gaming and would like to know if this is a good spec for price and it anything needs changing adding in you opinions.

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

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

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX

Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 550 Ti - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

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 INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)

Sound Card
Sound Blaster® Audigy™ SE (£19)

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 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 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days


Total £784 inc VAT and Delivery.

 

[tom_gr7]

What kinda gaming are we looking at dude?

 

[Rakk]

Looks not too bad, though a few points:

Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)

16GB of RAM is complete overkill, dropping down to 8 or even 4 would suffice for your usage

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
250GB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 8MB CACHE (7,200rpm)

Is this actually enough space? I got one of these when I ordered my PC and ran out of space after 6 months.

Sound Card
Sound Blaster® Audigy™ SE (£19)

You would probably find the onboard sound will be good enough unless you have a fine ear for sound

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Go for the silver warranty, it's only a fiver and extends the return and collect to a year

 

[Slurms McKenzie]

Maybe something like this?

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X6 SIX CORE 1090T (3.20GHz/9MB CACHE/AM3)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A78L-M/USB3: M-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
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 (£72)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 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 - 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

Price: £791.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[The_Doctor]

Well I play most games on console like MW3 and Battlefield type games so there wouldn't be anything like that.. nothing too high grade, just general role play games like sims etc.
I will be using it more for video conversion than gaming tbh.

 

[Rakk]

I will be using it more for video conversion than gaming tbh.

Ahh, then you probably would need more than my vaguely suggested 4GB suggestion

 

[The_Doctor]

16GB of RAM is complete overkill, dropping down to 8 or even 4 would suffice for your usage

Lol, So in this case it isn't more the better?

Is this actually enough space? I got one of these when I ordered my PC and ran out of space after 6 months.

i have 3 1TB external hard drives i usually use for most of my data storage so i can always transfer alot of data if it gets near full.

You would probably find the onboard sound will be good enough unless you have a fine ear for sound

Really? i wasn't sure when selecting it, as my old desktop had pretty poor standard sound quality wasn't sure if the standard on here was good.

Go for the silver warranty, it's only a fiver and extends the return and collect to a year

Thanks ill defiantly do that, good tip.




Thanks for the help.

 

[Rakk]

16GB of RAM is complete overkill, dropping down to 8 or even 4 would suffice for your usage

Lol, So in this case it isn't more the better?

Well, not if it's not going to be used
Depends on how much video editing and what software you're going to be doing, since you've now said there will be video editing there, I'd probably suggest 8GB unless you're going to be using really intensive RAM usage software.

 

[dangro474]

Given your choice of games, a 550Ti will most likely be sufficient, and a decent 560Ti might set you back up to another £100 (going by retail prices).

Lol, So in this case it isn't more the better?

Only if you do not have enough RAM to support your needs and the system ends up using virtual memory on your hard drive to compensate, which is horrendously slow. but as Rakk said for your use 4GB is fine. It can actually be detrimental to performance, especially when the quantity of RAM available isn't even in use most of the time (the detrimental effect is however completely negligable.)

Really? i wasn't sure when selecting it, as my old desktop had pretty poor standard sound quality wasn't sure if the standard on here was good.

Although onboard aound will be perfectly good for you, many of my friends have commented that the Soundblaster Audigy card does provide you with a "better sound quality" than your average realtek integrated audio. That said the output is only as good as the output device, so unless you invest in a decent set of analogue headphones / speakers to make use of it (£40+ speakers) then it might not be worthwhile investing in the card itself.

 

[tom_gr7]

id go for something like this, £750 configure here, http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/amd-bulldozer-top-spec-pc/

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 QUAD CORE 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) Amd are genrally cheaper than intel and offer better bang for buck so to speak, this quad core will see you easily through playing the sims 3 and video conversion

Motherboard
ASUS® M5A87: AM3+ PLATFORM, DUAL DDR3, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0 This a up to date motherboard, offers sata 6 ehich is used to connecting fast hard drives, such as the seagate one below, also offers usb3.0.

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)8gig is plenty, no need for more.

Graphics Card
1GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 - DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready This will play the sims easily. i think even lower cards could play it, but i'd stick for this one just to be sure.

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
500GB SEAGATE Barracuda SATA-III 6Gb/s HDD, 32MB Cache (7200rpm) these are pretty good, not as fast as the cavair black drives, but still fast, hdd's cost a fortune at the moment due to the flooding in thailand, if you need more space, go for the 1tb version.

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 (£72)I'd always go for a corsair psu, they are reliable and energy efficient.

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE AMD CPU COOLER (£19) this will ensure your cpu runs nice and cool, for a good price.
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)no need for a soundcard, unless you have a beast of a sound system you want to connect to.

Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs do you need wireless?

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) Dont forget this lol, increases collect and return for a fiver.

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity 1

hope this helps. tom

 

[The_Doctor]

Thanks for the comments all, its all been helpful, @tom is it worth getting the 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X 1600 RAM for just £5 more??

I'm thinking of ordering the one you have just shown.

 

[tom_gr7]

Thanks for the comments all, its all been helpful, @tom is it worth getting the 8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X 1600 RAM for just £5 more??

I'm thinking of ordering the one you have just shown.

I have that ram, it was the same price as the samsung when I ordered. if you can afford it why not, however, I don't think you would notice a massive increase on performance but you may do slightly. In my system the kingston seems to be very reliable and have not had any problems with it at all.

If you do go for the kingston ram, go into the bios, click advanced, then make sure its set to XMP so it runs at 1600mhz. Detailed instructions are in the motherboard manual if ya need further direction in checking that.

Hope this helps

 

[The_Doctor]

I have that ram, it was the same price as the samsung when I ordered. if you can afford it why not, however, I don't think you would notice a massive increase on performance but you may do slightly. In my system the kingston seems to be very reliable and have not had any problems with it at all.

If you do go for the kingston ram, go into the bios, click advanced, then make sure its set to XMP so it runs at 1600mhz. Detailed instructions are in the motherboard manual if ya need further direction in checking that.

Hope this helps

Cheers ill be sure to do that.