Desktop build

[TheKingpin 19]

Wondering if anybody would give me a hand, have around an 900 pound budget as I've already purchased gaming mouse keyboard and a monitor.

Had a look on pc specialist but are there any other good sites, would anyone kindly run through a build with me?

[rossums 2190]

These are a few good sites:

http://www.scan.co.uk

http://www.ebuyer.co.uk

http://www.dabs.com

http://www.aria.co.uk

http://www.overclockers.co.uk

http://www.ebay.co.uk

You will definitely get more for your money if you build one yourself, much better than most premade ones.

I would make you a build but I'm quite busy atm, if nobody makes you one I'll do one for you later.

Even buying a cheaper prebuild/bare bones from eBay or Scan or something and adding to it is sometimes a good idea too.

Edited December 24, 2012 by Rossums

[rustledmyjimmies 361]

Well if you're looking to play dayz and arma 2 you'll need a strong CPU, so either top of AMD's piledriver range (http://www.overclock...id=1967&subcat=)

or a decent i7/i5 (http://www.overclock...rodid=CP-418-IN) then since you've got quite a decent budget i'd go for a gtx 660 or an amd 7850 (http://www.overclock...rodid=GX-109-GI) (http://www.overclock...rodid=GX-306-SP). Then you can get some pretty cheap ram (http://www.overclock...catid=8&subcat=) X2 since 8gb is all you really need. one or 2 of these drives (http://www.overclock...rodid=HD-364-WD) . decent psu (http://www.overclock...tid=123&subcat=) and a motherboard that will socket the processor you go for.

Am i missing something here..

Edited December 24, 2012 by rustledmyjimmies

[OrLoK 16185]

Hello there

Removing my moderator's hat for a moment, I do recommend PC specialist as a solid provider. Not the fastest, but reliable and helpful.

But, obviously, do shop around. You may want to wait for the january sales too.

Rgds

LoK

[TheKingpin 19]

I did do a build myself but unsure wether if I am getting value or wether really it will work fine, this build came in at around 900. (I'm an Xbox guy moving to pc)

Intel core i7-3770 3.4ghz 8mb cache

Says p8z77 3.0 Sara 6gbs ati crossfire x

16gb Kingston hyper x genesis dual ddr3

2gb and radon hd7850

Memory: 2tb sata III 6gb/s had 7200rpm 64mv cache

Power supply: 600w quiet 80 plus quad rail psu

Processor cooler: suet quiet 22dba triple cooler heat pipe intel CPU cooler

Sound card and everything else was basic

I didn't go into this blind as a spur of the moment thing a friend helped me but want to get some more advice on basically wether if its crap or not and any other decent sites.

Thanks

[rustledmyjimmies 361]

That build looks good, you might want to swap that 2tb for 2 1tb hard drives if you plan on recording in the future though.

[Bass50 43]

I'd really recommend getting an SSD if you're budget allows it, ArmA and therefore DayZ benefits greatly from a fast hard drive.

[Tedd (DayZ) 0]

+1 for a 120G ssd drive. I've updated munerous older pcs with them and simply move the existing hard drive to storage duty.

Massive hardware bang for the buck!

AMD is entering the ram market and offers a free, up to 4G ramdisk. Might be worth exploring since you are going with 16G.

http://www.zdnet.com/amd-pushes-radeon-branded-ramdisk-7000005604/ A liscenced version is $19 and offers up to 64G

of ramdisk. No hands on experience here (yet).

I'd also recommend Ccleaner and Secunia Personal Software Inspector (PSI) as a couple of worthwhile programs to keep your

pc up to date, and cut down on growing clutter. $0.

www.secunia.com

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

I like to run PSI once a week or so, then disable it from loading everytime, using the windows start button, then type in msconfig, then the startup tab, and uncheck

the Secunia box. Next time Secunia is run, it will be enabled in msconfig startup.

[colekern 1364]

Why not try getting advice from the Tom's hardware forums? Those guys are great!

I would help out, but I just finished helping a guy custom build his own machine, and I'm tired.

[Uchihasilver 1]

If your going for a gaming build you have more than enough budget, the best cpu on the market at the minute is the intel i5-2500k extremely overclockable not too expensive and is better value by far than any i7, motherboard id go with the sabertooth z77 high end motherboard need i say more lol, graphics card id go with the gtx 660ti and as a bonus at the moment most suppliers are offering assassins creed 3 and borderlands 2, power supply id go with corsair they're not too expensive and they're great quality no less than 600w though you should only need more for sli but i have a hatred towards sli people pour money and sense down the drain and the performance boost is only slight =/, arctic cooler freezer pro heatsink just because stock heatsinks are insanely loud >.<, 8gb corsair vengeance check motherboard spec for speed, i say only 8gb ram but its dependant on wether or not you will be doing design work if so increase as you see fit and lastly go with whatever hard drives you want i would recommend going for an ssd + hdd combo just make sure theyre sata 3 =) and in terms of cases go with whichever you like as long as it fits your motherboard, ill come back later though with a build if you like showing you the cost but hopefully you should have money left over =) but no matter what anyone says do not i repeat do not go with an i7 they are a rip off in terms of cost to performance and people only have them honestly to show off xD just like me but since im guessing youll be gaming you can build this sort of pc with money left over for more games and play almost anything max at 1080p =P good luck hope i helped

[Uchihasilver 1]

Intel i5-2500k

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Processors+-+CPUs/Processors+-+Intel/Core+i5+-+Socket+1155/Intel+Core+i5-2500K+3.30GHz+%28Sandy+Bridge%29+Socket+LGA1155+Processor+-+Retail+?productId=43216

ASUS P8Z77-V LX

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Motherboards+-+Intel/Socket+1155+-+Intel+Z77/ASUS+P8Z77-V+LX+Intel+Z77+Socket+1155+DDR3+PCI-Express+Motherboard+?productId=49259

GTX 660ti

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/evga-gtx-660-ti-28nm-6008mhz-gddr5-gpu-915mhz-boost-980mhz-cores-1344-2x-dl-dvi-dp-hdmi

Corsair CX600

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Power+Supplies+-+PSUs/Non-Modular+650W+or+less/600W+Corsair+Builder+Series+600CX+80PLUS+Bronze+Power+Supply+?productId=52662

Corsair Vengeance 8gb

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Memory+-+RAM/DDR3/Dual+Channel+-+%281600MHz%29/8GB+%282x4GB%29+Corsair+Vengeance+Blue+1600MHz+CL9+DDR3+Dual%2FQuad+Channel+Kit+%5BCMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B%5D+?productId=43953

CoolerMaster HAF

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Cases/Midi+Tower/Cooler+Master+HAF+912+Plus+Black+Midi+Tower+Gaming+Case+?productId=42044

Samsung 224BB 24x DVD Re-Writer

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Optical+Drives/DVDRW+Dual+Layer+-+SATA/Samsung+224BB+24x+DVD+Re-Writer+-+SATA+-+Black+-+OEM+?productId=52657

Crucial M4 64gb SSD

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard+Drives+-+SSD/30GB+-+90GB+SSD/Crucial+m4+64GB+2.5%22+SATA-III+Solid+State+Hard+Drive+?productId=44257

1tb Seagate Barracuda

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Storage/Hard+Drives+-+Internal/3.5+Inch+SATA+Drives/640GB+-+1TB/1TB+Seagate+Barracuda+ST1000DM003+3.5%22+SATA+III+Hard+Drive+?productId=48501

Total = £782.83

Or you could also save another £57 if you skip the SSD but thats your choice =)

Also here is a decent heatsink if you wanted one other than stock https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Components/Coolers+-+Air/CPU+Coolers/Arctic+Cooling+Freezer+13+Pro+Quiet+CPU+Cooler+?productId=44145

Good luck =)

[TheKingpin 19]

Thanks for all the contributions so far guys!

[Uchihasilver 1]

Also as you have said you could go with the radeon hd 7850 if you like but 660ti is much better but it will save you somewhere along the lines of £100 to get the 7850

[JzBz 2]

Intel i5-2500k

http://www.aria.co.u...productId=43216

ASUS P8Z77-V LX

https://www.aria.co....productId=49259

GTX 660ti

http://www.scan.co.u...-dl-dvi-dp-hdmi

Corsair CX600

https://www.aria.co....productId=52662

Corsair Vengeance 8gb

https://www.aria.co....productId=43953

CoolerMaster HAF

https://www.aria.co....productId=42044

Samsung 224BB 24x DVD Re-Writer

https://www.aria.co....productId=52657

Crucial M4 64gb SSD

https://www.aria.co....productId=44257

1tb Seagate Barracuda

https://www.aria.co....productId=48501

Total = £782.83

Or you could also save another £57 if you skip the SSD but thats your choice =)

Also here is a decent heatsink if you wanted one other than stock https://www.aria.co....productId=44145

Good luck =)

Listen to this guy. ^

And also, if you can want, you can hold off until around Q2 of next year when AMD release their new 8000 series. Which are better and will most probably be cheaper. Main reason I'm holding off my build.

Also Amazon are usually cheap for components. I saw the i5 for £145 the other week. And do you want to overclock?

Edit: You could also go for a 7950. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sapphire-11196-09-40G-HD7950-Vapox-X-Graphics/dp/B0091MFBZC/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1355834453&sr=1-1

The 660ti is slightly better, but there is more overclocking power in the 7950. All depends on whether or not you want to OC. You would also need a higher wattage PSU for OC'ing.

And again for OC'ing, a i5 3750k would be better as it has a better stock GHz...

Edited December 25, 2012 by JzBz

[TheKingpin 19]

@uchihasilvet

Thanks you've been a great help, looked into the whole i5 vs i7, gonna go with the i5.

I've decided to go with:

I5 2500k

P8z77 v lx

Kingston 8gb hyperx beast dual 2400 (pc specialist for some reason don't offer corsair)

660 ti

1tb sata III

Corsair 650w power supply

Saved around 100 quid from my original build.

Edit:

I'm going to get and ssd added on myself as charging nearly 100 quid for 20gb is a bit ridiculous. Ordered the ssd 64gb you suggested.

Edited December 25, 2012 by C Roy

[HooWoo 107]

The i5 3570k is worth the extra money, benchmarks show that but the i5 2500k is nearly as good, in game it actually works better, you might think not, but it's the case especially in Arma 2 and DayZ.

[TheKingpin 19]

Regards to cooler, I have the following options...

Super quiet triple copper heat pipe intel cooler at £19

Or the corsair H series

H40 £39

H60 £59

H80 £69

Any advice? I was thinking the H60

[Uchihasilver 1]

No problem =) the only thing i can suggest in terms of the CPU water coolers you are looking at is to watch a few youtube videos on those specific coller and see which is best for you, but good luck and dont hesitate to message me with any problems

[Rabbit Basher 0]

Just to help all the people getting you the parts, use http://pcpartpicker.com/uk

It shows you the cheapest place it can find for each item, actually has a built in build a pc where you can put in all the parts to see compatibility errors and the power wattage:)