Advice for new build [UK] - £2000 budget

[IggSter]

Hi all,


I find myself in the lucky position to be able to spend approx. £2000-£2200 on a new gaming PC and would like some advice with regard to the hardware.

My decisions so far are:

CPU must be Intel
GFX must be Nvidia
Boot drive must be SSD
Storage drives must be sata 6Gb
Must be Air cooled
Must be as quiet as possible

This is my plan so far, please feel free to comment on or question my choices.....


CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz @ 4.20GHz

Motherboard: Asus X58 Sabertooth (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard

RAM: Corsair Dominator (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel

Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems CPU Cooler w/ x2 Akasa Apache Black 120mm Fans

Artic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound
This is a pre-overclocked bundle - Linky

OCZ IBIS 240GB 3.5" HDSL Super-Fast Solid State Hard Drive [OCZ3HSD1IBS1-240G]
Linky

Corsair HX 1000W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-1000HXUK)
Linky

Coolermaster HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC-942)
Linky

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) (Mirrored)
Linky

Sony Optiarc DRU-870S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black)

Here are my questions:

I'm totally undecided about which model of GFX card to get.....1 x 580? 2 x 460?
I will be using a Dell 30" @ 2650 x 1600 initially, planning to add 2 x (1600 x 900) monitors (portrait) to give me triple screen gaming (is this possible with Nvidia?)
Any advice for cards would be greatly appreciated.....

I'm also undecided about the case.....I've looked at the HAF X and Corsair Obsidian/Graphite cases. While I really like the Corsair ones, I've read they are better suited to water than air.....again any help would be most welcome.

If you have any other comments about my shopping list (OMG 1000W PSU -WTF, Ewww crappy MOBO choice etc) please let me know

I intend to order within the next 5-7days so Santa has plenty of time to collect all the parts.


Thanks in advance everyone!



.

 

[scaminatrix]

Are you planning to buy all of these parts from overclockers?
I would suggest not to, as they have a looong track record of ripping people off. Including me.
Scan, ebuyer and Dabs are good choices. Scan and ebuyer have some amazing deals sometimes.

Anyway; that looks like a beasty SSD!
If you're going to be RAID-ing the HDD's, might I suggest to steer clear of the Western Digital Caviar Blacks, it's apparently not a wise choice to RAID them. I would suggest these. Note that the price is for 2 hard drives. The price isn't for 2 HDD's; they've just got a sale on. You get 2 of them for £75.19 as seen in this page. They perform the same as the WDCB's but are half the price.

Other than that, I think it's a solid build.

 

[francis511]

Cheaper psu

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...sfire+Compliant+Power+Supply+?productId=38095

But if you have the money the one you picked looks good.

Alternative ssds

OCZ 60GB Vertex 2E SSD 2.5" SATA-II Read.. | Ebuye...

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/64gb...-sata3-6gbps-25-ssd-read-355mb-s-write-70mb-s

 

[Fourstaff]

2xGTX580
Get the GTX580, and make sure you can SLI it later. 1.5Gb of vram helps a lot in 2560X1600, but you will still need 2 graphics card to run 3 screens.

I think you should target a £1500 build, and keep the further £500 for future upgrades because in my eyes, a PC rapidly loses its value for money after the ~£1000 mark. No chance of getting Thermalright Silver Arrow or NH-D14?

 

[IggSter]

Scaminatrix: - I've bought tons of stuff from OCuk over the years and never had a problem (so far ). I know they are not the cheapest, but I do like to get all from one place to save any hassle.
Good info about the WD blacks - Will the Samsungs really keep up with them - I noticed thay are Sata 3Gbps and the WD are 6Gbps. Yes I was intending to mirror the drives.
I'm really looking forward to trying the OCZ Ibis

Francis: - The reasons I picked the HX1000 were: 1) Modular cabling 2) I will upgrade the GFX in 6-12mths (Dual 580s maybe...who knows)
The reason for the OCZ Ibis SSD is:
- Max Read: up to 740MB/s
- Max Write: up to 720MB/s
- Sustained Write: up to 600MB/s

Hard to resist those stats


Fourstaff: Thanks for the clarification about 3 screens - I suspected that would be the case. Your idea to add a 2nd 580 later sounds like a cunning plan!. It was a £1500 build until I added the SSD and I just have to have that (dont tell the wife please)
I will add Thermalright Silver Arrow to my list for review for sure and see if OCuk can swap the cooler for a NH-D14 (really impressed by the reviews and just hope I can get as part of the bundle) Edit: seems the NH-D14 is a possibility, unfortunately the silver arrow is not listed.

 

[scaminatrix]

Scaminatrix: - I've bought tons of stuff from OCuk over the years and never had a problem (so far ). I know they are not the cheapest, but I do like to get all from one place to save any hassle.
Good info about the WD blacks - Will the Samsungs really keep up with them - I noticed thay are Sata 3Gbps and the WD are 6Gbps. Yes I was intending to mirror the drives.
I'm really looking forward to trying the OCZ Ibis

Spoiler

Yea overcockers are great at getting your stuff to you etc., but when it comes to returning stuff, they will try every trick in the book to get out of replacing it. I had a bad experience in about April-June this year with them. Plus, you'll save a ton of money getting certain bits from other sites.

There is absolutely no benefit of getting SATA 3 over SATA 2 when talking HDD's (as far as I know). I think it's the SpinPoint F3's all the way. I made a stupid choice buying 5 WDCB's (all from overcockers, I spent £1000 there in one go), and I regret it now (I should have gone with the F3's).
With your SSD it's a different story; is SATA 3 going to be fast enough? Peak throughput of SATA 3 is reported to be about 600 MB/s.
EDIT: Just noticed the sustained lol

 

[IggSter]

Any views on a good brand of GTX580?

Any views about my case choice...HAF/Corsair etc?

 

[IggSter]

Scaminatrix: - good info about sata 3 vs sata2, I will go do some more research on that. The SSD comes with its own x8 PCIe interface card with 4 x SAS connections (all go to the same SSD) so I believe it provides 2.4GB/s max.

I think I will defo get the bundle from OCuk (as they do all the overclocking before shipping - I know lazy barsteward ) I will probable shop around at scan, ccl, ebuyer etc for the rest.

Thanks man, much appreciated!

 

[scaminatrix]

Scaminatrix: - good info about sata 3 vs sata2, I will go do some more research on that. The SSD comes with its own x8 PCIe interface card with 4 x SAS connections (all go to the same SSD) so I believe it provides 2.4GB/s max.

that's hardcore!

You know you'd save £75 buying the bundle from scan and oc'ing it yourself?
ebuyer might have some better deals on the stuff too.

 

[IggSter]

that's hardcore!

You know you'd save £75 buying the bundle from scan and oc'ing it yourself?
ebuyer might have some better deals on the stuff too.

I wouldn't know where to start to get the 950 to 4.2Gig (I dont think I've ever OC'ed an Intel CPU before)

The £75 saving does sound good though

 

[scaminatrix]

You could get a ton of help from the pro's here on TPU! with OC'ing; I'd even be tempted to save the £75 and leave the settings at stock, I'd probably just chuck the RAM at 1600MHz

Also, your SSD is £70 cheaper here

 

[IggSter]

You could get a ton of help from the pro's here on TPU! with OC'ing; I'd even be tempted to save the £75 and leave the settings at stock, I'd probably just chuck the RAM at 1600MHz

Also, your SSD is £70 cheaper here

With the cash you are saving me I might be able to get the bigger Ibis drive

Edit: Also updated OP with Samsungs rather than WDs (another £80 saved lol)

 

[kurosagi01]

If your going buy from one place then i suggest looking at scan or ebuyer.
As for brand to get i would reconmend checking out KFA2 which is Galaxy UK division which means you have a customer service specially for the UK and you have 2 year warranty with them too.
This is what i'd spend i'm not sure what SSD you want:

 

[scaminatrix]

With the cash you are saving me I might be able to get the bigger Ibis drive

Edit: Also updated OP with Samsungs rather than WDs (another £80 saved lol)

lol, na just get 2 of the IBIS's and RAID them
just kidding lol

 

[IggSter]

kurosagi01: wow , thanks for that.


Every day I come to this site, I am reminded why I come to this site every day!!! (Hmmm does this even make sense - well I know what I mean)

 

[kurosagi01]

of course cooler is your choice and brand of GPU but i picked KFA2 because my GTX460 is KFA2 brand and i love the design of the card and i love fact i got support by the company itself in the UK of course the other brand you can check out is Zotac which are good too,MSI always provide brilliant cards and then EVGA is Nvidia biggest GPU provider just how sapphire is too AMD.

 

[francis511]

Francis: - The reasons I picked the HX1000 were: 1) Modular cabling 2) I will upgrade the GFX in 6-12mths (Dual 580s maybe...who knows)
The reason for the OCZ Ibis SSD is:
- Max Read: up to 740MB/s
- Max Write: up to 720MB/s
- Sustained Write: up to 600MB/s

Hard to resist those stats

Then your choices are better.

 

[Tatty_Two]

I will not go into all the indivudual items you have listed and offer alternatives, simply because I am lazy (at least i admit it!), all I will say is, with that budget you are doing yourself real injustice, spending that kind of money I would EXPECT.....

triple channel ram of at least 1866mhz stock
a hex core intel CPU
a GTX 580
2 x SSD 120GB in Raid 0 (perhaps)

All are easily obtainable within budget, if you would like me to specifically link to components, just say and tomorrow when I am less tired I will gladly do it for you!

 

[Tatty_Two]

Sod it, I slept less for you! here is some suggestions, now this is really top end and comes to about £2,250 from Novatech, you could do it for cheaper but still have a much better (IMO) system than you suggested..............................

 

[kurosagi01]

Sod it, I slept less for you! here is some suggestions, now this is really top end and comes to about £2,250 from Novatech, you could do it for cheaper but still have a much better (IMO) system than you suggested..............................

I see where your going at tatty,well switching the blu-ray drive with a standard one if he isn't going burn or read any blu-ray files then there isn't need for one right?
Also if he only needs SSD for OS and use 1TB to install games and another 1TB for media it seems like good idea to me.
Another build which fully use his £2000 budget,of course he can switch the 700D to a cheaper case and switch the i7 to the extreme edition and switch the blu-ray drive to normal dvd drive to save money.

 

[Fourstaff]

Kuro, I don't think 850w is going to cut it if he is going to get GTX580 SLi in the future as the GTX580 consumes 300w max, leaving little room for cpu oc. And Mailman is not happy about his SSD.

I will get Kuro's first suggestion (with the 950) because that seems to be the sweet spot for high end computers, and you can immediately get the second GTX580 and be happy. No one uses 6 core/12thread anyways, its just to make your peen longer

 

[Techtu]

When spending this amount of money and also wanting to save where and when you can on part's your best bet is to order the part's from different places, I believe Novatech has a great price on the i7 980 but is more expensive on a few other things and so on... if you can bare to wait for your items not being delivered on the same day (or it's possible that they may) then I'd really suggest shopping at different store's, the only down side is it will take a lot longer to shop.

 

[pantherx12]

Spending over £50 nets you free delivery (up to 5 day) from ebuyer ( or used too)

I think a few other sites have spend over x amount and get free delivery too, so defitnitely mix and match.

Best not to put all eggs in one basket anyways.

 

[Fourstaff]

Spending over £50 nets you free delivery (up to 5 day) from ebuyer ( or used too)

I think a few other sites have spend over x amount and get free delivery too, so defitnitely mix and match.

Best not to put all eggs in one basket anyways.

Ebuyer offers free delivery on items less than 25kg and more than £50. There are a few sites (OCuk, aria, ebuyer, Scan etc) which offer good deals, so definitely shop around.

 

[Radi_SVK]

Hi all,


I find myself in the lucky position to be able to spend approx. £2000-£2200 on a new gaming PC and would like some advice with regard to the hardware.

My decisions so far are:

CPU must be Intel
GFX must be Nvidia
Boot drive must be SSD
Storage drives must be sata 6Gb
Must be Air cooled
Must be as quiet as possible

This is my plan so far, please feel free to comment on or question my choices.....


CPU: Intel Core i7 950 3.06GHz @ 4.20GHz

Motherboard: Asus X58 Sabertooth (Socket 1366) DDR3 Motherboard

RAM: Corsair Dominator (3x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Triple Channel

Cooler: Prolimatech Megahalems CPU Cooler w/ x2 Akasa Apache Black 120mm Fans

Artic Cooling MX-3 Thermal Compound
This is a pre-overclocked bundle - Linky

OCZ IBIS 240GB 3.5" HDSL Super-Fast Solid State Hard Drive [OCZ3HSD1IBS1-240G]
Linky

Corsair HX 1000W ATX Modular SLI Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-1000HXUK)
Linky

Coolermaster HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC-942)
Linky

Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache - OEM (HD103SJ) (Mirrored)
Linky

Sony Optiarc DRU-870S 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black)

Here are my questions:

I'm totally undecided about which model of GFX card to get.....1 x 580? 2 x 460?
I will be using a Dell 30" @ 2650 x 1600 initially, planning to add 2 x (1600 x 900) monitors (portrait) to give me triple screen gaming (is this possible with Nvidia?)
Any advice for cards would be greatly appreciated.....

I'm also undecided about the case.....I've looked at the HAF X and Corsair Obsidian/Graphite cases. While I really like the Corsair ones, I've read they are better suited to water than air.....again any help would be most welcome.

If you have any other comments about my shopping list (OMG 1000W PSU -WTF, Ewww crappy MOBO choice etc) please let me know

I intend to order within the next 5-7days so Santa has plenty of time to collect all the parts.


Thanks in advance everyone!



.

Hey man,with such a sweet budget,go for the Asus ROG Rampage III Extreme MOBO,you wont regret that!!The Sabertooth is by no mean a bad MOBO,but is more value aimed,while the Rampage Extreme III is a real bad boy!If I would be you,I would swap the IBIS for other 2 SSDs from OCZ,probably VERTEX 2 SE,one smaller one up to 100GB),just for windows and other for game instalations to make them run superfast(about 150GB is more then enought)..and yhen I would buy a 500GB - 1TB HDD for storage.