Buying an overclocked computer from pcspecialist

[undormant]

Hi there,

First time poster here - hello!

Please excuse my ignorance but I am guessing most of the threads in this section like warranty discussion etc relate to computers that the customer overclocks themselves.

So my questions is, when buying an already overclocked computer, will I have to treat it any differently from a non-overclocked computer? Also, how do I stand on warranty?

R

 

[Wozza63]

There shouldn't be any more care other than you may need to dust it slightly more often

and as long as you dont touch the settings yourself, warranty from PCSpecialist is exactly the same, you can overclock further if you wish and if your PC breaks, but it wasn't because of the overclock then I'm pretty sure you are still protected by warranty

 

[undormant]

There shouldn't be any more care other than you may need to dust it slightly more often

and as long as you dont touch the settings yourself, warranty from PCSpecialist is exactly the same, you can overclock further if you wish and if your PC breaks, but it wasn't because of the overclock then I'm pretty sure you are still protected by warranty

Thanks for that reply that helps.

When you say don't touch the settings? What do you mean? I wouldn't have the first idea about how to overclock a computer, how do people do it?

R

 

[Wozza63]

Overclocking is done in the BIOS (or can now be done within windows on various programs)

If you are on any programs that are something to do with overclocking (i imagine you may use AI Suite II for its various other features, such as fan control, power mode etc) avoid anything to do with CPU/GPU speeds, leave these alone

as long as you leave them alone you will be fine

Do you actually need your PC pre-overclocked? What are you using the PC for, majority of uses for a PC do not require an overclock, and also what CPU are you choosing?

 

[undormant]

In an ideal world I would be able to play World of Warcraft on top settings (which can themselves be pushed beyond what they advertise), have 20 tabs open on google chrome, be downloading/uploading an album, have various documents and spreadsheets open, be converting files from one type to another, all running at the same time - without even making my computer blink. Without hesitation from explorer.exe or any lag.

I'd like this computer to last 10 years (assuming world of warcraft lasts that long). So those are my requirements for a new computer.

In terms of the dinosaur I am using I have a Dell Dimension 5150 which has recently been upgraded to within an inch of its life, every internal component had been upgraded, but it is still too slow. I have a new video card, but the PCI slot is a very old one, so that isn't helping it reach its full potential.

R

 

[Wozza63]

For that, you don't really need overclock, you need more cores and a faster hard drive/SSD, the windows explorer will only lag because of HDD speed, nothing to do with the CPU (99% of the time)

You shouldn't really be doing all that alongside a game (especially the converting part) but you will easily be able to run WoW on top settings @1080p (Im guessing) with most of that open

What i recommend for you then is plenty of RAM and either an i7 2600 or AMD FX-8150

 

[Karnor00]

In an ideal world I would be able to play World of Warcraft on top settings (which can themselves be pushed beyond what they advertise), have 20 tabs open on google chrome, be downloading/uploading an album, have various documents and spreadsheets open, be converting files from one type to another, all running at the same time - without even making my computer blink. Without hesitation from explorer.exe or any lag.

I'd like this computer to last 10 years (assuming world of warcraft lasts that long). So those are my requirements for a new computer.

In terms of the dinosaur I am using I have a Dell Dimension 5150 which has recently been upgraded to within an inch of its life, every internal component had been upgraded, but it is still too slow. I have a new video card, but the PCI slot is a very old one, so that isn't helping it reach its full potential.

R

To be honest, no computer is likely to last 10 years. Technology advances so fast that typically 5-6 years is the limit of how long a computer can last before they become unusably slow. If I think about the computer I had 10 years ago, I don't think theres a single of today's games that it could run even on minimum settings. Even an existing game like WoW will likely be upgraded and need a better computer (assuming it lasts that long).

That said, there may well be parts of your existing system that you could transfer into a new system to save money. The monitor, keyboard and mouse will almost certainly be fine with a new system. You mention you have a fairly new video card, so you may not need a brand new one. And your existing HDD may well still be fine.

Which means that you may only really need a new box, motherboard, memory, CPU and power supply. The only thing to watch for is that Dell often use proprietary parts which can't be transferred to another system - I'm pretty sure their power supply is one of this which is why you probably can't reuse your existing one and make sure the HDD and new video card don't have the same problem.

As for overclocking, it doesn't sound to me that you need an overclocked system to start with. But that after a few years you may want to consider overclocking the system to help it keep up.

 

[undormant]

OK I did it, in the end I just went for what looked like top end spec:

Case COOLERMASTER COSMOS 1000 SILVER SILENT CASE
Overclocked CPU Overclocked Intel® Six Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz @ max 4.8GHz)
OC Settings Show/Hide
Motherboard ASUS® RAMPAGE IV EXTREME: INTEL X79, SOCKET 2011, R.O.G
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7970 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID NONE
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
2nd 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 1200W PRO SERIES™ GOLD AX1200-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR(£209)
Processor Cooling INTEL CERTIFIED LIQUID CPU COOLER FOR SOCKET LG2011 (£79)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Fan Controller NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller with upto 5 Fitted Case Fans
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£16)
USB Options 2 PORT USB 3.0 INTERNAL PCI EXPRESS CARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire & Video Editing NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£139)
Office Software FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor NONE
2nd Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse LOGITECH® MK250 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO (£21)
Mouse NONE
Speakers NONE
Webcam NONE
Headsets (VOIP) NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Cable Tidy NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Home Installation NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Charity Calendar NONE
Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT) £2,426.75
Price £2,912.10
Order Quantity 1
Bulk Discount £0.00
Total Order price (Ex VAT) £2,426.75
Total Order Price £2,912.10
Payment Method Credit Card
Wattage
Maximum Required Power 641W
Production Dates
Processed Date 22-04-2012

R

 

[keynes]

Why not the Gtx 680? Cheaper and better

 

[tom_gr7]

looks extreme, I would get homeplugs instead of wireless though. Wouldn't want unreliable wifi in a awesome high end rig like that.

Why the overclock though? unless you do some seriously heavy cpu work or flight simulators you wont really benefit much, I wouldnt think anyway.

 

[Raptor]

OK I did it, in the end I just went for what looked like top end spec:

Case COOLERMASTER COSMOS 1000 SILVER SILENT CASE
Overclocked CPU Overclocked Intel® Six Core i7-3960X (3.3GHz @ max 4.8GHz)
OC Settings Show/Hide
Motherboard ASUS® RAMPAGE IV EXTREME: INTEL X79, SOCKET 2011, R.O.G
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card 3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7970 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
2nd Graphics Card NONE
3rd Graphics Card NONE
Memory - 1st Hard Disk 120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk 2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
RAID NONE
SSD CACHE DRIVE NONE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive 12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
2nd 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 1200W PRO SERIES™ GOLD AX1200-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR(£209)
Processor Cooling INTEL CERTIFIED LIQUID CPU COOLER FOR SOCKET LG2011 (£79)
Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Fan Controller NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller with upto 5 Fitted Case Fans
Sound Card ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£16)
USB Options 2 PORT USB 3.0 INTERNAL PCI EXPRESS CARD
Modem NONE, I WILL BE USING BROADBAND
Floppy Disk Drive NONE
Firewire & Video Editing NONE
TV Card NONE
Operating System Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£139)
Office Software FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor NONE
2nd Monitor NONE
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables NONE
Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision NONE
Keyboard & Mouse LOGITECH® MK250 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO (£21)
Mouse NONE
Speakers NONE
Webcam NONE
Headsets (VOIP) NONE
Surge Protection NONE
Cable Tidy NONE
Printer NONE
External Hard Drive NONE
Warranty 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Home Installation NONE
Data Recovery NONE
Delivery SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)
Build Time Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Charity Calendar NONE
Pricing Information
Price (excluding VAT) £2,426.75
Price £2,912.10
Order Quantity 1
Bulk Discount £0.00
Total Order price (Ex VAT) £2,426.75
Total Order Price £2,912.10
Payment Method Credit Card
Wattage
Maximum Required Power 641W
Production Dates
Processed Date 22-04-2012

R

Either wait till AMD drops the price (which is quite soon) or go for the cheaper but better 680...... the build hurts my eyes.. sorry..no offence

 

[Raptor]

£2,411.00 inc VAT (save around £500) which is enough for a 2nd 680... and you'll still be saving up £120....


Case
COOLERMASTER COSMOS 1000 SILVER SILENT CASE (if you're choosing this case cause of the silence or the fact it's compatible with internal card reader then ok it's understandable otherwise you could choose Corsair Obsidian Series 650D which has a built in 3 way fan control if i remember correctly (low mid fast) so you wouldn't need to buy the fan control which will save even more)

Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Six Core i7-3930K (3.2GHz @ max 4.6GHz) (3930k is already a beast of a processor and last you a long long time)

Motherboard
ASUS® RAMPAGE IV EXTREME: INTEL X79, SOCKET 2011, R.O.G

Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT) (I think this is an overkill but you could still reduce it to 1600... which will again save you even more)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready (with this build you have enough to already add a 2nd 680.... and still save money from your original build, 680 outperforms 7970)

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW) (with saved up money you can buy a better SSD )

2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)

2nd 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 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£159)

Processor Cooling
INTEL CERTIFIED LIQUID CPU COOLER FOR SOCKET LG2011 (£79)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

Fan Controller
NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller with upto 5 Fitted Case Fans

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
GIGABIT LAN & WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£16) (i'd recommend homeplugs if you plan gaming but sure this is ok to)

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109) (.... you wont even use half of the things that windows ultimate has to offer so the furthest i'd advise is professional or just the normal home premium cause i'm sure you wont use the xps mode but i may be wrong that's why i added it)

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® MK250 WIRELESS KEYBOARD & MOUSE COMBO (£21)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
SATURDAY DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (BEFORE 12 NOON) (£19)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days

 

[undormant]

looks extreme, I would get homeplugs instead of wireless though. Wouldn't want unreliable wifi in a awesome high end rig like that.

Why the overclock though? unless you do some seriously heavy cpu work or flight simulators you wont really benefit much, I wouldnt think anyway.

I don't trust wifi either, but thought it should be there for future proof reasons, it has LAN though so I'll be using that.

I think the point of the overclock was making it last a couple more years than needed. Well that was my thinking.

R

 

[Grinder]

Overkill for WOW and apps .This rig is for 3 monitors playing 3d games and football player's.
Hardware has overtaken software completely and most new games will be developed for consoles rather
Than pc's because thats where the money is.