Feed me with your thoughts!

[Elhan]

I am finally close to buying a desktop PC, and I've been toying around with some of the builds here. I have a £1,800 budget to work with, which could be pushed a couple of hundred quid higher, but ideally I'd like to be at or below that budget.

I am mainly looking for a rig that would be good at playing MMORPGs, RPGs and RTS/sim/TBS games, particularly since a lot of the newer RPGs, like Skyrim, are more graphics intensive than the genre used to be. What sort of build would I be looking at for this? Preferably one that wouldn't need replacement within a year or two.

 

[keynes]

For gaming you could consider the spec below which is significantly below than your proposed budget:
Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE DAYLIGHT GAME with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 530 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£79)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
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
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
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 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,273.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/ztHfNdag3Y/

 

[vanthus]

Does the budget include a monitor,keyboard and speakers as you indicated in a previous thread?

 

[Elhan]

Not a mouse, I have a Razer which I am still very happy with. Yes to the rest, and I'd add speakers to that. The main thing I am trying to decide on is whether a 780 ti is worth the extra expense, and for the sort of games I am into, I am not sure it really is. As I am given to understand, it's only really beneficial with multiple monitor setups, whereas I'd just be gaming on one monitor.

@Keynes, thanks for the build. I was debating whether it's worth going with a 240GB SSD and 1GB WD drive, as even with just the OS and a few programmes on it, 120 goes pretty fast, whereas I don't really store that much data on my PC. Even now, barely 500GB have been used.

This may be a stupid question, but I am assuming that for it to work with a wireless modem you'd need to add a wireless PCI card.

The monitor I am considering is ASUS MX239H LED DISPLAY, for its IPS capability.

 

[keynes]

I would go with the GTX 780 ti if you are able to get a 1440p monitor otherwise it would seem like a waste. But for the games you mentioned the GTX 780 seems perfectly adequate, it will run games at ultra settings without any problems. If you need wireless connection you can get a wireless card or a pair of homeplugs, the latter is going to give you a more reliable connection

 

[vanthus]

This may be a stupid question, but I am assuming that for it to work with a wireless modem you'd need to add a wireless PCI card.

Yes,unless you opt for homeplugs or a USB wireless adaptor.

 

[Elhan]

Great, thanks for the advice, should help me shave quite a bit off the price.

 

[Kuniva]

As Keynes said the gtx 780 ti, basically the best card there is? The 4670k would be a better option if you are competent or have the desire to learn overclocking as this will push out more FPS but the 4670 won't bottleneck it or anything so it's a good choice. Anything else a part from the z87 chip is really down to tickle and fancy.

 

[Karnor00]

Given that some of the sim/strategy games can be pretty intense on the CPU, you may want to consider upgrading the CPU to an i7 4770.