Boozad
Prolific Poster
I’ll just start before anybody proceeds to read all of this by warning that it’s a very long winded piece. I didn’t feel that a review of the machine was adequate given the circumstances in which it came about so I’m splitting the review up into more manageable parts. Mods, Admin, if you don’t feel this fits here feel free to move/remove as you see fit, but it will lead into a full review of the rig, I promise.
I’m posting this first part before I even have the rig, so it’ll be focusing on the spec and, more importantly, the outstanding experience I had with PCS’ customer service, in particular a bloke going by the name of moosEh…
Act I - Decisions, Decisions (The Spec):
While I’ve always been into PCs I’ve never owned a top end rig, whether that be through lack of funds or not being able to justify spending so much on a PC at the time, but after buying my second rig from PCS and deciding I wanted a full blown gaming rig I thought the time was right to put my hand in my pocket and pull out the stops.
I decided to go for an Intel build this time around, my last four PCs have all been AMD powered but having spent a fair amount of time reading the PCS forums (as well as other tech forums and reviews) it became quite apparent that Ivy Bridge was the way to go for top end gaming. So the i5-3570k was the processor of choice, perfect for gaming and able to handle all other applications I'd be throwing at it with ease. I’d also decided on the Sabertooth Z77 motherboard, while lesser (priced) boards would no doubt do the job just as well, the aesthetics of this mobo were just too pleasing on the eye to leave out of a rig I was going to town on, I could have saved money here but I just wouldn’t have been happy if I’d left the Sabertooth out.
Luckily, when it came to GPU choice, nVidia had released the GTX 780 just days before which really helped me out. I’d had my heart set on an ASUS GTX 680-DC2T for quite a while, since I’d decided to buy a top end rig, and any other cards hadn’t even crossed my mind. But as I read more about the Titan I started to consider one of those instead, somewhat stupidly. This is where the release of the 780 came and the saved the day, my source for the 680-DC2T had stopped stocking them just a couple of days before I was going to place my rig order which threw a spanner in the works so the 780 was just the perfect choice at the perfect time.
Having looked at some benchmark scores and performance related reviews since the release it really does seem like the smart choice, there is a marked improvement on the 680 and, surprisingly, it’s only a handful of FPS behind the Titan for the most part at stock clocks, and when overclocked it can actually outperform nVidia’s flagship enthusiast card at stock speeds. I can’t wait to see how games look when the 780 is churning through them.
8GB of Kingston HyperX Genesis seemed the logical choice for RAM, there was no need for the 2400MHz Beast RAM as I don’t plan on overclocking any time in the near future. It was also time for me to make the jump to an SSD, I’d been thinking for a long time that I wasn’t really bothered about one as I didn’t mind waiting an extra twenty seconds or so for my machine to boot up or an extra few seconds for programs to start, but I just had to see what all the fuss was about so a 240GB Intel 520 series was going to be my main drive with a 2TB WD Caviar Black as my secondary drive and a 2TB Caviar Green as my third drive. This would give me ample partitions for programs, storage, large files and backups.
I opted for a Corsair HX850-80 Gold Modular PSU for a couple of reasons; I like how they aid cable management and add to the overall look of the final build, and after doing a fair bit of homework it seems they tend to run quieter than other PSUs, especially when not under load. Perfect.
Finally all of this kit was going to be housed in an Antec P280, I’d spent a long time looking at cases and at first I was going to opt for the CoolerMaster Silencio 650 as my current CoolerMaster 500 had impressed me, but I had a dilemma. Both units offered ‘quiet’ operation, two USB 3.0 front ports and bottom mounting positions for the PSU, something I’m quite partial to. But having looked at a multitude of builds inside both cases I finally decided on the P280, its spacious interior lent itself to some beautifully tidy looking builds with oodles of room left for upgrades, and ultimately it would house the 680-DC2T I was initially going to fit (the 650 would have to have the middle HDD cage removed to achieve this).
So there I had it, my new top end build. Time to hammer the credit card again…
Act II - A Spanner in the Works (& The Art of Customer Service):
PCS knocked this rig together in super quick time, I ordered on the Saturday and by the following Friday it was built. Great stuff. Over the weekend I decided to measure up where the new rig would be going for one last time, preparation preparation. And to my disgust I realised that I’d misread one of the dimensions on the case, it was 60mm deeper than I first read and that was going to cause me problems in the form of me not having anywhere sensible to place it.
I looked at amending my order but it was too late, the case couldn’t be changed as it had gone through build. I kicked myself a few times and set about trying to find a way to fit it in and for some reason thought I’d check on the configurator to triple check the case sizes, that’s when I saw Haswell had landed. I kicked myself a few times again because I’d ordered the rig ahead of time, I didn’t have the full amount together but ordered anyway as the rest of the cash would be freed up in a couple of weeks’ time (today as it happens). So if I’d stuck to the original plan I’d have had a Haswell rig. Again, another bad on my part, and more self kicking.
After some back and forth with a very helpful forum member I decided to call PCS on the following Monday morning to find out the chances of me upgrading my motherboard from the Z77 to the Z87 and the i5-3570k to the i5-4670k, I called at 9am on the dot to avoid any queuing and was greeted by a happy sounding bloke on the other end which is always a good start.
After a bit of digging he discovered that he couldn’t upgrade the mobo and CPU to Haswell from an Ivy Bridge spec, and then made me make a spot decision; he said I could cancel my order and start again. I’d sworn I wouldn’t do this as I didn’t want to mess PCS about, but the guy on the phone assured me it was no problem so I had to make a decision there and then… So I cancelled. I felt awful about it but here I had the opportunity to 1) replace the problematic case (back to the CM 650) and 2) get those Haswell components after all. Little did I know I’d been talking to moosEh.
I ordered the new spec at 10am and resigned myself to a two week wait or so. No problem, I deserved it seeing as I’d cancelled and re-ordered, so it was a good job I was sitting down at 1pm when I checked my emails and found out the rig had been built. I couldn’t quite believe it, three hours after the order had been placed PCS had assembled my new PC. Phenomenal work to say the least.
The rig went into testing later that day, and just two days after being ordered it was sitting in QC. MoosEh had really done a job for me for which I will be eternally grateful, and that kind of service makes the rig that bit more special. It’s still in QC at the moment, so I know it will have had a very good burning in period and it should be with me at some point next week. The final full spec is below, and a full review of the rig will follow after it’s up and running and has been put through its paces for a day or two, but I wanted to start this now as I really did have to give the thumbs up to PCS for two extremely fast builds, and for knowing their customers. We’re not just faceless people giving them our money, as a company they care about seeing us right, making us happy and providing a first class service and that, in my eyes, deserves to be in the review as much as the rig itself.
Act III – The Final Spec (No More Messing Around):
Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 650 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670K (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z87: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EZRX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W PRO SERIES™ HX850-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR (£139)
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
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
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
MoosEh Build
Miscellaneous
FREE GRID 2 GAME with 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-4670K & i7-4770K!
COMING IN SUMMER 2013... The Haswell Rig Part II - The Review!
I’m posting this first part before I even have the rig, so it’ll be focusing on the spec and, more importantly, the outstanding experience I had with PCS’ customer service, in particular a bloke going by the name of moosEh…
Act I - Decisions, Decisions (The Spec):
While I’ve always been into PCs I’ve never owned a top end rig, whether that be through lack of funds or not being able to justify spending so much on a PC at the time, but after buying my second rig from PCS and deciding I wanted a full blown gaming rig I thought the time was right to put my hand in my pocket and pull out the stops.
I decided to go for an Intel build this time around, my last four PCs have all been AMD powered but having spent a fair amount of time reading the PCS forums (as well as other tech forums and reviews) it became quite apparent that Ivy Bridge was the way to go for top end gaming. So the i5-3570k was the processor of choice, perfect for gaming and able to handle all other applications I'd be throwing at it with ease. I’d also decided on the Sabertooth Z77 motherboard, while lesser (priced) boards would no doubt do the job just as well, the aesthetics of this mobo were just too pleasing on the eye to leave out of a rig I was going to town on, I could have saved money here but I just wouldn’t have been happy if I’d left the Sabertooth out.
Luckily, when it came to GPU choice, nVidia had released the GTX 780 just days before which really helped me out. I’d had my heart set on an ASUS GTX 680-DC2T for quite a while, since I’d decided to buy a top end rig, and any other cards hadn’t even crossed my mind. But as I read more about the Titan I started to consider one of those instead, somewhat stupidly. This is where the release of the 780 came and the saved the day, my source for the 680-DC2T had stopped stocking them just a couple of days before I was going to place my rig order which threw a spanner in the works so the 780 was just the perfect choice at the perfect time.
Having looked at some benchmark scores and performance related reviews since the release it really does seem like the smart choice, there is a marked improvement on the 680 and, surprisingly, it’s only a handful of FPS behind the Titan for the most part at stock clocks, and when overclocked it can actually outperform nVidia’s flagship enthusiast card at stock speeds. I can’t wait to see how games look when the 780 is churning through them.
8GB of Kingston HyperX Genesis seemed the logical choice for RAM, there was no need for the 2400MHz Beast RAM as I don’t plan on overclocking any time in the near future. It was also time for me to make the jump to an SSD, I’d been thinking for a long time that I wasn’t really bothered about one as I didn’t mind waiting an extra twenty seconds or so for my machine to boot up or an extra few seconds for programs to start, but I just had to see what all the fuss was about so a 240GB Intel 520 series was going to be my main drive with a 2TB WD Caviar Black as my secondary drive and a 2TB Caviar Green as my third drive. This would give me ample partitions for programs, storage, large files and backups.
I opted for a Corsair HX850-80 Gold Modular PSU for a couple of reasons; I like how they aid cable management and add to the overall look of the final build, and after doing a fair bit of homework it seems they tend to run quieter than other PSUs, especially when not under load. Perfect.
Finally all of this kit was going to be housed in an Antec P280, I’d spent a long time looking at cases and at first I was going to opt for the CoolerMaster Silencio 650 as my current CoolerMaster 500 had impressed me, but I had a dilemma. Both units offered ‘quiet’ operation, two USB 3.0 front ports and bottom mounting positions for the PSU, something I’m quite partial to. But having looked at a multitude of builds inside both cases I finally decided on the P280, its spacious interior lent itself to some beautifully tidy looking builds with oodles of room left for upgrades, and ultimately it would house the 680-DC2T I was initially going to fit (the 650 would have to have the middle HDD cage removed to achieve this).
So there I had it, my new top end build. Time to hammer the credit card again…
Act II - A Spanner in the Works (& The Art of Customer Service):
PCS knocked this rig together in super quick time, I ordered on the Saturday and by the following Friday it was built. Great stuff. Over the weekend I decided to measure up where the new rig would be going for one last time, preparation preparation. And to my disgust I realised that I’d misread one of the dimensions on the case, it was 60mm deeper than I first read and that was going to cause me problems in the form of me not having anywhere sensible to place it.
I looked at amending my order but it was too late, the case couldn’t be changed as it had gone through build. I kicked myself a few times and set about trying to find a way to fit it in and for some reason thought I’d check on the configurator to triple check the case sizes, that’s when I saw Haswell had landed. I kicked myself a few times again because I’d ordered the rig ahead of time, I didn’t have the full amount together but ordered anyway as the rest of the cash would be freed up in a couple of weeks’ time (today as it happens). So if I’d stuck to the original plan I’d have had a Haswell rig. Again, another bad on my part, and more self kicking.
After some back and forth with a very helpful forum member I decided to call PCS on the following Monday morning to find out the chances of me upgrading my motherboard from the Z77 to the Z87 and the i5-3570k to the i5-4670k, I called at 9am on the dot to avoid any queuing and was greeted by a happy sounding bloke on the other end which is always a good start.
After a bit of digging he discovered that he couldn’t upgrade the mobo and CPU to Haswell from an Ivy Bridge spec, and then made me make a spot decision; he said I could cancel my order and start again. I’d sworn I wouldn’t do this as I didn’t want to mess PCS about, but the guy on the phone assured me it was no problem so I had to make a decision there and then… So I cancelled. I felt awful about it but here I had the opportunity to 1) replace the problematic case (back to the CM 650) and 2) get those Haswell components after all. Little did I know I’d been talking to moosEh.
I ordered the new spec at 10am and resigned myself to a two week wait or so. No problem, I deserved it seeing as I’d cancelled and re-ordered, so it was a good job I was sitting down at 1pm when I checked my emails and found out the rig had been built. I couldn’t quite believe it, three hours after the order had been placed PCS had assembled my new PC. Phenomenal work to say the least.
The rig went into testing later that day, and just two days after being ordered it was sitting in QC. MoosEh had really done a job for me for which I will be eternally grateful, and that kind of service makes the rig that bit more special. It’s still in QC at the moment, so I know it will have had a very good burning in period and it should be with me at some point next week. The final full spec is below, and a full review of the rig will follow after it’s up and running and has been put through its paces for a day or two, but I wanted to start this now as I really did have to give the thumbs up to PCS for two extremely fast builds, and for knowing their customers. We’re not just faceless people giving them our money, as a company they care about seeing us right, making us happy and providing a first class service and that, in my eyes, deserves to be in the review as much as the rig itself.
Act III – The Final Spec (No More Messing Around):
Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 650 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670K (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z87: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
3rd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD20EZRX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W PRO SERIES™ HX850-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR (£139)
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
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
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
MoosEh Build
Miscellaneous
FREE GRID 2 GAME with 4th Gen Intel® Core™ i5-4670K & i7-4770K!
COMING IN SUMMER 2013... The Haswell Rig Part II - The Review!
Last edited:
+Rep for an in depth part 1 review.
