New Gaming PC

[martay]

Hi all, I'm looking to buy a new gaming PC (+ monitor) with a budget of around £1500 and have come up with the following spec. Does anyone recommend upgrading/downgrading certain parts? Would a dedicated sound card be worth the extra few quid? Good graphics card? Any other thoughts would be highly welcome.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2700k Quad Core (3.50GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 320 SERIES SSD, SATA 3 Gb/s (upto 270MB/sR | 130MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, 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 ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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
Firewire & Video Editing
3 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI Card (£9)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
ASUS VG236H 23" 120Hz 3D-READY LED (1920 x 1080) + GLASSES (£229)
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
Quantity
1

Price: £1,473.00 including VAT and delivery.


Thanks,
Martin.

[Music Guy123]

I would change quite a bit, firstly, make sure you get the silver warranty. Next do you really need win professional? Now, you said this was for gaming, with that spec it looks as though you are considering an overclock. This really isn't necessary for gaming and just causes other complications. So, to save money, drop that CPU to a 2600 then drop the cooler one notch. Now for upgrades, upgrade the mobo so that you can sli in the future then upgrade the psu to a 750w possibly an 850w then try to upgrade the gpu to a 570. I am not certain but it should just about fit into your budget. If you still have money to spare, other things to note would be that the 2tb caviar black is only £18 mote than the 1tb. Also, it may be worth getting a sata 6gb/s ssd, the Kingston hyperx is a good one and only a little more than yours but I would do the other upgrades before you upgrade the hdd/ssd.

[stegor]

Looks OK but why do you want Windows 7 pro? Graphics card will run just about anything at high settings, although I prefer AMD. On-board sound is OK nowadays so I wouldn't bother with dedicated. Your PSU will need beefing up if you want to ever add another GPU and I see you've picked an overclockable CPU so you might want to check if there's enough juice left in your PSU to cope with it. If you don't ever intend to overclock you could save a few quid and drop to a 2600, there's not a ton of difference.

[stegor]

Music guy beat me to most of it! lol

[martay]

Thanks, I've taken on board everything and adjusted. A tiny bit over budget, but not too worried about that.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7-2600 Quad Core (3.40GHz, 8MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX***SPECIAL***
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
1.25GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 570 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, 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 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
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
Firewire & Video Editing
3 Port IEEE 1394a Firewire PCI Card (£9)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
ASUS VG236H 23" 120Hz 3D-READY LED (1920 x 1080) + GLASSES (£229)
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: £1,584.00 including VAT and delivery.

[Music Guy123]

Looks solid! Enjoy it! You could save money on the RAM though, you won't notice any difference between the two speeds.

[stegor]

Great spec - that'll shift some!