Gaming Rig Advice Please.. < £1000

[Vinyl Richie]

Hi folks, I was on here a few months back looking at PC's but had to use the cash I had set aside for something else. I'm ready to buy now though and I also see that the 3rd gen processors are now available! Could you experts please run your eye over the below spec and let me know if it looks OK? £1000 is pretty much the highest I can go. I'd be using it mostly for gaming and would want to run any new games on high/highest settings.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3550 (3.3GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st 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 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
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
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND (£12)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Price: £984.00 including VAT and delivery.

Things I am unsure of:

1. The motherboard - is it a good one and futureproof for upgrades down the line? Would it be able to accomodate an extra gfx card if needed in future? Or would I need to pick an 'SLI' motherboard for that?
2. Picked the 670 over the 570, although it drove the cost up by £90. Hoping it'll last for a good couple of years!
3. PSU - is the 750 be sufficient? The site tells me only 600W is required but I'm trying to think ahead with future upgrades in mind.

Any comments appreciated... thanks!

[Vinyl Richie]

Whoops.. I can't edit the thread title. Should be < £1000

[Rakk]

Whoops.. I can't edit the thread title. Should be < £1000

Changed it for you

1. The motherboard - is it a good one and futureproof for upgrades down the line? Would it be able to accomodate an extra gfx card if needed in future? Or would I need to pick an 'SLI' motherboard for that?

You would need the next motherboard up if you want to SLI later

3. PSU - is the 750 be sufficient? The site tells me only 600W is required but I'm trying to think ahead with future upgrades in mind.

750W should be fine for SLI'ing 670's if you want to later, 600W would not be

Looks like a nicely balanced spec though

[vanthus]

I would upgrade the motherboard to ASUS P8Z77-V,
this would allow you to add another 670 in SLI in future.Other than that it looks pretty good.
Edit: Rakk beat me to it.

[Vinyl Richie]

Ok, so I changed the motherboard to the ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX

Regarding the Power supply - I added another 670 to check, and it said it would use "724W of power including a 20% allowance." Do you think I'd be better going for an 850 then?

Would prob upgrade to 16GB RAM in the future too, not sure how that affects the power needed!

Thanks

[keynes]

750w would be sufficient unless you are planning in adding more hard drives and other components

[Vinyl Richie]

Thanks, went with the 750W. Just about to hit the order button for this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st 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
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
Cable Tidy
JML 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management For Your PC (£4)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
SCOTTISH HIGHLANDS & UK OFFSHORE ISLANDS / N IRELAND (£12)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

Price: £1,073.00 including VAT and delivery.

One question regarding the case. COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED was recommended to me at one time by someone on here. But looking at the different cases around the same price range I prefer the look of some of the others. InWIN Dragon Rider Black Gaming Case - £79 looks pretty cool for example. COOLERMASTER CM STORM ENFORCER & The Coolermaster HAF 922 are decent too. Seem to have more fans than the CM690 too, which is surely better? Just wondering if all of these are suitable for my spec and I can pick the one I like best? Thanks!

[keynes]

which is surely better? Just wondering if all of these are suitable for my spec and I can pick the one I like best? Thanks!

Any of the cases you mentioned will be fine for your spec

[Vinyl Richie]

Thanks man. Ordered

One thing I was thinking about was upgrading to 16GB RAM, do you think 8GB is enough? Using it for gaming mostly.

Now the wait begins!

[keynes]

Thanks man. Ordered

One thing I was thinking about was upgrading to 16GB RAM, do you think 8GB is enough? Using it for gaming mostly.

Now the wait begins!

For gaming 8gb is plenty.