Decent gaming PC for £700-£1,000

[MarcInfestedCustard]

Hi there!

I'm looking to build a desktop pc primarily for gaming but for general entertainment purposes as well, y'know, music, films, graphic design and whatever else, with the price-range being anywhere between £700 and £1,000. The problem is I'm an idiot, and know less about computers than a house cat (even a particularly stupid house cat) so I'm not entirely sure what would best serve my needs. I've looked around and gathered a bit of information from my good buddy Google, but figured I'd get a better understanding of what it is I should get by asking here, after seeing others with similar queries receiving excellent help. I'm not really worried about how it looks or anything, just so long as it has no problem running most games or multiple programs at once.

Apologies for being so vague on details, but really I'm just looking for a decent PC that can run games without any difficulty.

Thanks a bunch for reading, chaps. Any advice is welcome.

 

[keynes]

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®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
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
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
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
Operating System
Genuine Windows 8 Standard Edition 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2010 Professional Edition
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £944.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/9_YRXnrI7e/

 

[Blackdog]

The spec Keynes post will run any game you want with ease for a good while to come. At that amount of money you've pretty much entered the realm of enthusiast high end parts, so its worth doing some research into at least your gpu and cpu (youtube/tomshardware.com) to figure out if that's right for you. The only other upgrades you could consider are adding an ssd which that rig could easily accomodate, or another gpu some years down the line - in which case you would have to change your motherboard and psu.

I have a rig almost identical the spec posted and it is by far the most incredible piece of kit i have ever seen.

BD

 

[Narcotics]

If you're using editing software an i7 and 16gb of ram could be beneficial & it's just a bit over budget

Case
AeroCool X-Predator X1 Black Gaming Case
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V LX: USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
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
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)
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
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 60 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 2010 Professional Edition
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 11 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,052.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-ivy-bridge-pc/EMVSqyCZJx/

 

[MarcInfestedCustard]

Thanks for the swift replies, fellas.

They're both similar builds, but I'm edging more towards Keynes as I think 16GB of Ram might be a little excessive. I've been discussing with some friends who are more intelligent than myself, reviewing the build with them and I just wanna throw out another question or two.

Though it bumps the price up a little over, would getting the i7 processor be worth it, is it significantly better than the i5? Would the 3.0 USB ports be worth investing in (instead of the six 2.0 ports)? And finally, one thing a buddy of mine couldn't enforce enough was graphics card. He went as far as "GET THE BEST ONE THERE IS" but that's a little out of my price range. Really, how good a graphics card would I need to run most modern games at a high standard? Thanks!

 

[keynes]

Hi,
If it is mainly for gaming get the i5-3570, the gtx 670 will max most games at high/ultra settings in 1 screen. The motherboard has USB 3.0 ports.

 

[MarcInfestedCustard]

Sounds good. I figure if I ever do require the PC for more than already stated I can, as Blackdog said, just upgrade on a later date! I think I'm good to buy! It's expensive, but it seems to be high quality gear! I've checked around on other sites at similar models and from what I can tell, I'm getting the best deal here (outside of building it myself, but good lord, I can only imagine how poorly that'd turn out.)

[video=youtube;4bHXMogzEm0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bHXMogzEm0[/video]

Yeah.

Thanks again, guys! You've all been a terrific help.