I went back and forth between AMD & Intel but ultimately went for an Intel build. I had a grand to spend and thought I wouldn't get as much for my money with Intel but I'm delighted with this build. Actually I paid another £9 for the Arctic thermal paste because I want to leave myself the option of overclocking at some point in the future. Anyway, this is what I ordered on the 27th January. I'm confident this will cover my editing requirements easily and although I'm not a die hard gamer I like a bit of Total War and want it to run like a knife through butter at a nice high res on a 22 inch monitor. Thoughts anybody?
Case
InWIN BLACK DRAGON RIDER GAMING CASE - looks good, nice case and importantly has a firewire port at the front
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics Yes I could have gone for a bigger CPU but budget has pointed me to this one. I went for a 2500K to keep my options open when it comes to overclocking
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX Great reviews for this motherboard plus it has PCI-e3 support to keep it reasonably futureproof
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT) Enough RAM for now, will probably buy more in the near future if I feel I need it
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready Pretty good reviews, I went for the two GB version as I'll use dual monitors for video editing on Adobe Premiere which seems to prefer Nvidia, as do I. I may get another of these cards down the line when the price inevitably falls
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) Tempted to go for an SSD but I don't want to pay over the offs for one now when there's a high capacity fast drive like this one available
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive Don't need a blu ray drive just yet
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) Plenty of poke for the additional drives and bits and bobs I'll inevitably be adding at some point.
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39) Good cooler for a fair price
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
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED Using my own copy of Windows 7
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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: £1,020.00 including VAT and delivery.
The above build was actually £1,035 but my brother found an online voucher for £15 off at PCS in January which was a bit of a Brucie bonus. I feel confident that it's a good spec for a good price as I price checked the components online elsewhere and I could have built this rig myself but would have saved myself very little money and it's money well spent to have it turn up already set up. This is a 40th birthday present and I was given the choice between a grand to spend on a computer or a holiday to Graceland (yes, I'm an Elvis fan, we walk among you and we're not all easy to spot...) It was an easy choice though - Graceland will still be there for my fiftieth! Choosing the spec was hard but waiting for it to arrive is unbearable.
Case
InWIN BLACK DRAGON RIDER GAMING CASE - looks good, nice case and importantly has a firewire port at the front
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics Yes I could have gone for a bigger CPU but budget has pointed me to this one. I went for a 2500K to keep my options open when it comes to overclocking
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3: PCI-E 3.0 READY, SLI, CROSSFIREX Great reviews for this motherboard plus it has PCI-e3 support to keep it reasonably futureproof
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT) Enough RAM for now, will probably buy more in the near future if I feel I need it
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 560 Ti - 2 DVI,HDMI,VGA - 3D Vision Ready Pretty good reviews, I went for the two GB version as I'll use dual monitors for video editing on Adobe Premiere which seems to prefer Nvidia, as do I. I may get another of these cards down the line when the price inevitably falls
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) Tempted to go for an SSD but I don't want to pay over the offs for one now when there's a high capacity fast drive like this one available
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive Don't need a blu ray drive just yet
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) Plenty of poke for the additional drives and bits and bobs I'll inevitably be adding at some point.
Processor Cooling
TITAN FENRIR EVO EXTREME HEATPIPE CPU COOLER (£39) Good cooler for a fair price
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
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED Using my own copy of Windows 7
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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: £1,020.00 including VAT and delivery.
The above build was actually £1,035 but my brother found an online voucher for £15 off at PCS in January which was a bit of a Brucie bonus. I feel confident that it's a good spec for a good price as I price checked the components online elsewhere and I could have built this rig myself but would have saved myself very little money and it's money well spent to have it turn up already set up. This is a 40th birthday present and I was given the choice between a grand to spend on a computer or a holiday to Graceland (yes, I'm an Elvis fan, we walk among you and we're not all easy to spot...) It was an easy choice though - Graceland will still be there for my fiftieth! Choosing the spec was hard but waiting for it to arrive is unbearable.
