(Thought I'd lead with the price as if you are like me you'd love a two grand machine but not quite got the resources)
Intend to update this review in a few days with some photos and further info. Hopefully it'll help anyone browsing looking for a pc around this range.
The aim:
A decent gaming pc to run through a hd tv which wouldn't max out the whole world forever but would comfortably play all modern and future games for the next 3-4 years. Not being the most tech savvy had no plans on upgrading anything other than maybe the RAM in the future.
The Spec:
£750
Case ZALMAN Z11 PLUS BLACK MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8H61-MX USB3/SI: uATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader NONE
Power Supply 450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
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 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor NONE
2nd Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse NONE
Mouse NONE
Gaming Mouse Pad NONE
Speakers NONE
Webcam NONE
Headsets NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Cable Tidy NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)
(paid for Sat delivery but as was ready PCS allowed me to get it sent Tuesday and very kindly refunded the difference even though I didnt ask them to!)
Order Process:
- an absolute pleasure. I probably have 500 different specs I tried, saved, redid, checked, tested, compared over the last few months. Drop downs were great. Told me if it fitted and didn't. I really liked comparing the same spec in the lower bracket with a spec in the second price bracket to see what the differences were. Came to the conclusion not going for an upgradeable machine (second card, extra ram slots) saved a good 50-60 pound.
- forums are a dream for the under informed. I am a bit if a silent stalker quietly reading and comparing but was a real good source of info. Top points to the regulars who post time after time the same advice - silver warranty and a caviar black drive for the win
Build Time
- Felt like an age but 11th working day delivered is actually very good. I'd say the table of build times might get you overly hopeful thinking 'ill be in that 20% five day category' but reality needs to be that 10-14 days is probably more reasonable.
- PCS were great at changing my saturday delivery back to normal and refunding the difference without being asked to refund.
- I did wonder as i was in quality control on friday but by 10am on Monday I went from quality control to awaiting dispatch and maybe someone could have thought to do it on friday but then again I was just being impatient.
Delivery
- totally painless. Well informed by email and text and email with the hour time slot.
- unpacking was simple. I'd suggest read the manual to remember to get access to your windows key before you tuck it away and also load drivers/updates
- few random connectors in the welcome pack which wasn't sure if I needed to do anything with (hdmi to dp, DVD to VGA) but soon realised not needed
Looks
- case is a beauty. Sizeable - I've got it on the floor running through a tv and its the size of the stand! Looks the business though you can tell it wasn't a shop bought job.
- blue LEDs - they aren't as uniform as the pictures would suggest but if you turn the lights off it does have a futuristic night rider/battlestar feeling to it!
Performance
- load times are 15 seconds max from pressing on. By the time you turned it on and sat down its ready to go
- graphics - never had a card where I can comfortably stick all settings on 'high' and not worry about frame rates. Played a few games mostly RTS or 4x builders and no frame rate problems. Makes such a huge difference, games you know and love the way they were meant to be. I'm not an FPSer so couldn't tell you but from what I've seen it puts all consoles to shame
- program's loading and multi tasking smooth and quick. If you haven't had a new pc in 4-5 years you'll be blown away.
- went for windows 7. Tried but can't get on with 8. 7 is the traditional computer experience
- linking up to a tv required a few tweaks to the display settings to get the best resolution and fill the screen. Use the control centre with the graphics card and it'll look exactly how you want.
Issues - see update
- so I had a graphics card problem which was sorted the next day. All normal program's work but currently games won't display properly. Thread here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...-PC-Graphics-Card-Problem&p=201556#post201556 my view is that this could have happened to any computer shop bought or not. PCS were very good and talked me through the checks to do and then when didnt work have sent me a replacement next day delivery and will talk me through fitting. Which as a custom built pc is a doddle as its been built to be 'plug in plug out'
- I wouldn't be put off by this. I'd rather be dealing with PcS than major retailers, you are talking to uk based staff who know the kit and know so built it and can give you an answer then and there.
I will update this section once new card is in tomorrow.
Watch this space for some photos and an update.
*****update*****
New card arrived today. Same spec as the other but definitely seemed a bit meatier/solid. Very next day it turned up 11am from when I reported the issues. Seems fair to me.
Fitted in nice and simply. PCS offered to talk me through but I was happy to do it myself. Fitted within 5 minutes (extra 1 to remember to plug the power in) and then booted up. Drivers loaded within 2 mins and then I was good to go.
Works a treat. All sorted. So from expecting it on Saturday I've got it sorted and all working on Friday.
Intend to update this review in a few days with some photos and further info. Hopefully it'll help anyone browsing looking for a pc around this range.
The aim:
A decent gaming pc to run through a hd tv which wouldn't max out the whole world forever but would comfortably play all modern and future games for the next 3-4 years. Not being the most tech savvy had no plans on upgrading anything other than maybe the RAM in the future.
The Spec:
£750
Case ZALMAN Z11 PLUS BLACK MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® P8H61-MX USB3/SI: uATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM) 8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 4GB)
Graphics Card 2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
2nd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
2nd Hard Disk NONE
RAID NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NONE
Memory Card Reader NONE
Power Supply 450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
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 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor NONE
2nd Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse NONE
Mouse NONE
Gaming Mouse Pad NONE
Speakers NONE
Webcam NONE
Headsets NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Cable Tidy NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Home Installation NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)
(paid for Sat delivery but as was ready PCS allowed me to get it sent Tuesday and very kindly refunded the difference even though I didnt ask them to!)
Order Process:
- an absolute pleasure. I probably have 500 different specs I tried, saved, redid, checked, tested, compared over the last few months. Drop downs were great. Told me if it fitted and didn't. I really liked comparing the same spec in the lower bracket with a spec in the second price bracket to see what the differences were. Came to the conclusion not going for an upgradeable machine (second card, extra ram slots) saved a good 50-60 pound.
- forums are a dream for the under informed. I am a bit if a silent stalker quietly reading and comparing but was a real good source of info. Top points to the regulars who post time after time the same advice - silver warranty and a caviar black drive for the win
Build Time
- Felt like an age but 11th working day delivered is actually very good. I'd say the table of build times might get you overly hopeful thinking 'ill be in that 20% five day category' but reality needs to be that 10-14 days is probably more reasonable.
- PCS were great at changing my saturday delivery back to normal and refunding the difference without being asked to refund.
- I did wonder as i was in quality control on friday but by 10am on Monday I went from quality control to awaiting dispatch and maybe someone could have thought to do it on friday but then again I was just being impatient.
Delivery
- totally painless. Well informed by email and text and email with the hour time slot.
- unpacking was simple. I'd suggest read the manual to remember to get access to your windows key before you tuck it away and also load drivers/updates
- few random connectors in the welcome pack which wasn't sure if I needed to do anything with (hdmi to dp, DVD to VGA) but soon realised not needed
Looks
- case is a beauty. Sizeable - I've got it on the floor running through a tv and its the size of the stand! Looks the business though you can tell it wasn't a shop bought job.
- blue LEDs - they aren't as uniform as the pictures would suggest but if you turn the lights off it does have a futuristic night rider/battlestar feeling to it!
Performance
- load times are 15 seconds max from pressing on. By the time you turned it on and sat down its ready to go
- graphics - never had a card where I can comfortably stick all settings on 'high' and not worry about frame rates. Played a few games mostly RTS or 4x builders and no frame rate problems. Makes such a huge difference, games you know and love the way they were meant to be. I'm not an FPSer so couldn't tell you but from what I've seen it puts all consoles to shame
- program's loading and multi tasking smooth and quick. If you haven't had a new pc in 4-5 years you'll be blown away.
- went for windows 7. Tried but can't get on with 8. 7 is the traditional computer experience
- linking up to a tv required a few tweaks to the display settings to get the best resolution and fill the screen. Use the control centre with the graphics card and it'll look exactly how you want.
Issues - see update
- so I had a graphics card problem which was sorted the next day. All normal program's work but currently games won't display properly. Thread here: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...-PC-Graphics-Card-Problem&p=201556#post201556 my view is that this could have happened to any computer shop bought or not. PCS were very good and talked me through the checks to do and then when didnt work have sent me a replacement next day delivery and will talk me through fitting. Which as a custom built pc is a doddle as its been built to be 'plug in plug out'
- I wouldn't be put off by this. I'd rather be dealing with PcS than major retailers, you are talking to uk based staff who know the kit and know so built it and can give you an answer then and there.
I will update this section once new card is in tomorrow.
Watch this space for some photos and an update.
*****update*****
New card arrived today. Same spec as the other but definitely seemed a bit meatier/solid. Very next day it turned up 11am from when I reported the issues. Seems fair to me.
Fitted in nice and simply. PCS offered to talk me through but I was happy to do it myself. Fitted within 5 minutes (extra 1 to remember to plug the power in) and then booted up. Drivers loaded within 2 mins and then I was good to go.
Works a treat. All sorted. So from expecting it on Saturday I've got it sorted and all working on Friday.
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