Gaming PC - Budget of £1,500

[MechJosh0]

As with a few others who have recently been posting their specs, I'm also looking to move away from gaming consoles and move to the desktop. I'm planning to play high-spec games with maxed graphical settings, games such as Pay Day 2, Skyrim, Bioshock, Saints Row, etc.

Would this desktop be enough? Any downgrades, upgrades, comments would be appreciated Thanks.


Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM TROOPER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770k (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB2.0, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2400MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Extra Case Fans
1 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ASUS Xonar DS - Bring Hi-Fi spirit to your Music, Movie & Games
Network Facilities
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 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve

Price
£1,543.00

 

[mantadog]

i would advise the following.

1. drop the 4770k down to a 4770 if you don't plan to overclock, if you do plan to overclock you will need better CPU cooling. For gaming overclocking the CPU is not needed anyway.

2. The 1600MHz RAM is more than good enough, that stuff is going to give you no real appreciable benefit when gaming, and if you run it at that speed has a higher probability that it could end up being unstable.

3. The 4Gb card is only needed for gaming over multiple monitors, if your gaming at 1080p you only need the 2GB card.

4. The SSD is good, but consider a caviar black for the 2nd drive, they are a bit quicker than the standard ones and will help when you run out of space on the SSD for launching games etc.

5. Do you need the professional version of windows 7? Home premium is fine for most, if you need it then by all means get it, just making sure you need a specific feature on it.

That's about it, unless your looking to actively save money then I would say after those changes you are good to order.

 

[keynes]

If it is mainly for gaming the i5 (non-k) will be fine. If you are planning to sli you need to upgrade your PSU to 750w and you could consider a caviar black as the secondary drive. 8gn RAM is plenty for gaming and you won't get any benefits with the 4gb VRAM version of the gtx 770 in one or 2 screens.

 

[SlimCini]

Without trying to hack off mantadog by repeating myself ad infinitum... Have you checked out the 'reviews' section? Quite a few desktops there in your budget with some hefty discounts.

That said, you don't really need to spend £1500 on a machine that's just for gaming on one screen really. See the suggestions above for money saving. You don't even need an i7 for gaming (although eventually, this will be 'game optimal' no doubt)

 

[MechJosh0]

Thanks all for your feedback

1. drop the 4770k down to a 4770 if you don't plan to overclock, if you do plan to overclock you will need better CPU cooling. For gaming overclocking the CPU is not needed anyway.

Done.

2. The 1600MHz RAM is more than good enough, that stuff is going to give you no real appreciable benefit when gaming, and if you run it at that speed has a higher probability that it could end up being unstable.

Ah OK, thanks for letting me know. Which 1600MHz RAM do you recommend?

3. The 4Gb card is only needed for gaming over multiple monitors, if your gaming at 1080p you only need the 2GB card.

I should of mentioned this - I plan to have 2 monitors for active use, I may connect my TV to play movies on it via the PC (but it's not necessary). Does 4GB still sound too high still?

4. The SSD is good, but consider a caviar black for the 2nd drive, they are a bit quicker than the standard ones and will help when you run out of space on the SSD for launching games etc.

2TB caviar black, done!

5. Do you need the professional version of windows 7? Home premium is fine for most, if you need it then by all means get it, just making sure you need a specific feature on it.

I require Pro for work related tasks, thanks for thought though.

If it is mainly for gaming the i5 (non-k) will be fine.

I've gone for i7 just to know I wont need to upgrade it any time soon.

If you are planning to sli you need to upgrade your PSU to 750w and you could consider a caviar black as the secondary drive.

Done and done

8gn RAM is plenty for gaming and you won't get any benefits with the 4gb VRAM version of the gtx 770 in one or 2 screens.

Sorry, I'm confused. I shouldn't have the 8GB graphics card? You suggest I downgrade, what do you suggest?

you don't really need to spend £1500 on a machine that's just for gaming on one screen really

I'll be using at least 2, maybe 3 monitors. Thanks for the suggestion about the reviews area, I'll check it out as well.

 

[mantadog]

You say 2 monitors for "active use", if the active use refers to anything other than gaming then you do not need the 4GB version. The 4GB version is only good if you are planning to game over multiple monitors or have a crazy high resolution display. The 2Gb card will handle 4 monitors all day long for video playback, internet, office programmes etc because they are all really easy for a modern GPU. Also your TV will only be 1080p, the same as most monitors so it will have exactly the same number of pixels as you monitor, meaning the GPU doesn't have to work any harder at all, even though the display is physically larger it looks the same to the GPU. In short, if your gaming over multiple monitors get the 4Gb card, if your not then get the 2GB card

Sorry, I'm confused. I shouldn't have the 8GB graphics card? You suggest I downgrade, what do you suggest?

When Keynes talks about 8GB of RAM he is referring to the memory in the first screenshot you posted, ie the Kingston hyperx RAM, 8GB of that is plenty for gaming vs the 16GB you have in your original spec. While we are on that subject it really doesn't matter which of the 2 you go for, I would go with hyperx because last time I configured a spec it was cheaper, it looks better and possibly the benefits of running in dual channel, but that's not important and I wouldn't worry about it too much. In short it wont hurt to get the Kingston hyperx anyway. The VRAM is the RAM built into the graphics card which it uses to store the frames as they are displayed on the screen, as I explained above.

 

[MechJosh0]

Thanks for explaining mantadog, very helpful advice! You are right, I will only be using one monitor for gaming and the others for general use. I've made the changes to my spec. Does this seem better?

Case
COOLERMASTER CM STORM TROOPER - GAMING ENTHUSIAST CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB2.0, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/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
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Extra Case Fans
1 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ASUS Xonar DS - Bring Hi-Fi spirit to your Music, Movie & Games
Network Facilities
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 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 7 Professional (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve

 

[mantadog]

Yep, much better now. Much more balanced, you will like it.

One point, any specific reason for the extra case fan? That case come as standard with 2 x 140mm and 2 x 120mm. The extra fan is not needed, I know it's not much money but I would be worried about how many fans the case fan controller can manage. I don't know for sure but if it was my build I would be worried that the fan controller only did 4 fans (thought I suspect it would do more) and I would not be able to control it with the built in fan controller. Not a big deal I admit, but the 4 fans that come as standard will do a fine job!

Anyway, as I said not a big deal and i'm sure whatever you decide will be just fine, enjoy it!