Attempt at a £1600 gaming machine

[Chutney]

Hi guys!

I've been mooching here fiddling with what I think might be a strong build and will keep up with the latest games for a good few years. I'm planning on spending £1600, and this is what I came up with:


Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3820 (3.6GHz) 10MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P9X79: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7970 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
Processor Cooling
INTEL CERTIFIED LIQUID CPU COOLER FOR SOCKET LG2011 (£79)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) 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
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Printer
HP PHOTOSMART WIRELESS ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER - B110a (£72) <----- this is just a necessity that I've added and isn't really up for discussion
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: £1,598.00 including VAT and delivery.

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/comput...-2011-extreme/

I really liked the previous model Vortex that PC specialist had to offer, mostly because of this amazingly exhaustive review:
http://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/ga...system-review/
and have borrowed some of the ideas to make this current selection.

My question is:
Do you, with your more expert eyes forsee any problems with what I've put together here?

Should I opt for the additional 16GB RAM now or just wait until later and put it in then?

Thanks for your time!

[keynes]

I'd go with an ivybridge processor and air cooling since you are not planning to overclock. Have you considered the GTX 670? and I would go for a caviar black as the second drive since it is faster than the standard one. By additional 16gb ram you mean 32gb?

[Raptor]

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/comput...ivy-bridge-pc/

Quote Value: £1,585.00

Big enough PSU to SLI 670 in the future

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770K (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K 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 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)

Processor Cooling
SPIRE THERMAX ECLIPSE II UNIVERSAL DT EXTREME 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

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

Printer
HP PHOTOSMART WIRELESS ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER - B110a (£72)

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

[Chutney]

@rubensolo -

No I hadn't considered the GTX 670 before now, and I agree with the caviar black change, good call.

About the RAM, I meant that I was wondering whether to go with a total of 16GB, or 32GB. Overkill?


@Raptor -

Having compared your build with mine, I can see so many daft decisions I made, thank you very much!



I think I might well just go straight ahead with the build Raptor suggests this weekend, I've heard good things about the out of the box Bios set ups. Do you think it it likely I'll have to do much tweaking?

[Rakk]

About the RAM, I meant that I was wondering whether to go with a total of 16GB, or 32GB. Overkill?

Well when gaming you're unlikely to use more than 8GB for at least a good few years, 16GB is overkill for gaming, 32GB is monster overkill, and Win7 Home Premium cant use more than 16GB anyway, so you'd need Win7 Professional at least to use it

[Chutney]

Thank you Rakk, that confirms what I was thinking.

The GTX 670 seems like a gorgeous card and perfectly placed for my budget, and adding in an SLI twin later on sounds like something I should be able to do having done a little reading around although I've never tried before.

[keynes]

Good choice!

[Chutney]

I have another question:
I have been comparing the i7-3770k with the i5-3570k and have been having trouble justifying to myself why I would want to spend the additional £90. Is there something I'm missing?

[ThomasM]

The i5 is more than capable of playing games, the i7 has hyperthreading which is not useful for gaming yet so i would drop down to the i5 if i were you