First real PC purchase....My spec and some questions

[marcle]

Hi,

This is my first real gaming PC. I have read a lot of the posts on the forum and think I've got a sensible spec, but I have some questions and would really welcome your thoughts and advice as I'm new to this.

Budget of approx £1800

I currently play TESV, Fallout, SpaceMarine type games. I do some game modding but am limited by my current machine. I want to play games on top spec, with as little load time pauses as possible and be able to do some graphics work. Also to be used as a general home PC
I do not intend to overclock or water cool, although cooling is a concern as the PC will need to be housed in a confined space (desk cupboard, door open when in use)...I may have got a bit paranoid about this.
I have always run out of RAM on previous purchases, so for peace of mind want to go for 16Gb rather than 8Gb. I know it's really too much but for £40...hey!

Some questions:
1. Is it worth upgrading the mother board?
2. Should I go for a fan controlled and additional fans? I considered the PCS Maelstrom T900 Case with additional fans, I prefer the Nine Hundred Two case but couldn't afford the extra fans.
3. Is the CPU cooler overkill? would the Intel super quiet be adequate?
4. I plan to run the OS and one or two games from the SSD with everything else on the HDD, hence the 240Gb drive. Is the wise? Would I be better off running games from the HDD and getting a smaller 120Gb SSD and use the extra on additional cooling?
5. I've opted for the Intel SSD, are other components optimised for Intel compatibility? or are the Kingston drives better?

Case
ANTEC NINE HUNDRED TWO V3 - UK, The Ultimate Gaming Case, Evolved
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3820 (3.6GHz) 10MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P9X79: INTEL® SOCKET LG2011
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
3GB AMD RADEON™ HD7970 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
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)
1st 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 850W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX850 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£99)
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39)
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
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

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

Price: £1,797.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[mantadog]

Do you plan to run 2 x 7970's at any point in the future? Even if you do, i would advise you to get a GTX 680, it's a faster card and cheaper then the 7970 the last time i looked!

1.You don't need to upgrade the motherboard, as that one is pretty high spec anyway. Unless you want a specific feature of the higher priced boards i would skip it.

2. The cooling is probably overkill, get the triple copper heatpipe and you will be 100% fine.

3. You will get the OS and more than a couple of games onto a 240GB SSD, you would get the OS + a couple of games onto a 120GB drive. You wont go wrong with a 120GB SSD + a 1 or 2TB caviar black as they are more than up to the job of loading games in a resonable time.

4. Intel is the best at the moment, the 520 series is the fastest and most reliable drive, and it will work fine with all your other components.

5. I wouldn't worry too much about a fan controller, that motherboard has (from memory) has connectors for 4 chassis fans so you can plug in up to 4 fans and the motherboard will keep them at the right speed. From the description the standard fans for that case will all be able to plug into that motherboard and it should run as cool as it's going to, so you can skip the fan controller.

So other than an upgrade of the GPU to a 680 and a slightly cheaper system i can't see anything to change. You could, as you have already pointed out, drop the RAM to 8GB to lower the price. If your tight for money you can do this as adding more later is really easy. But thats your call.

 

[Atuleon]

The GTX680 is cheaper and better than the 7970, go with the GTX680.

The only time I can think of when this may not be the case is if you are going be using multi-monitor-setups, or use a huge TV, then the 3GB MAY be useful..)?

 

[mantadog]

The only time I can think of when this may not be the case is if you are going be using multi-monitor-setups, or use a huge TV, then the 3GB MAY be useful..)?

Even using a 60 inch monster it will probably still run at 1080p, that being the case you wont need any more than about 1GB of VRAM. A multi monitor setup (or possibly a very high end monitor with a high resolution) is about the only way your going to use more 1GB of RAM.

It's the resolution that matters when you talk about RAM on a GPU not really the size of the display.