gaming rig?

[andrew b]

hiya. i am wondering what folks think of the following spec for a gaming rig, and how it would stand up to ~progress~ in the next few years. advice is appreciated if there are any issues that might occur with the spec, though it is already as much as i can afford at £900 (i.e. changes to the spec or possible upgrades when cash flow allows?)

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 430 BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD7870 - DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V+200 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (535MB/R, 460MB/W)
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
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Extra Case Fans
1 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof) (£5)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
2 x HomePlug 200Mbps - Turn any Electrical Socket into a Network (£38)
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)

 

[keynes]

Hi,
You could change the motherboard to the P8Z77-V LX I think it is cheaper and has more expansion slots, an SSD is not essential and you could get a caviar black instead as the main drive or upgrade your case. There is also no noticeable difference with higher memory bandwidth so either 1333mhz or 1600mhz will be fine.

 

[Grimezy]

I would downgrade the ram to the standard 1333 or 1600mhz as it won't make a huge difference while gaming and may save a few quid. Personally I would scrap the SSD and purely get a Caviar black drive. SSD's mainly improve boot times and loading times for games but that's about it. A Caviar Black still performs very highly, plus you could use the money from not having a SSD to upgrade the GPU to a 660Ti or a 670. It may also be worth upgrading the motherboard to one that supports SLI if you choose to do this although you would have to upgrade the PSU to a 750w corsair if you want to add the 2nd graphics card in the future to improve performance. My build cost £1000 and is pretty much what I've just explained and performs brilliantly. As soon as it starts to slow down in 3 or 4 years I'll probably just add a second gtx 670 if it will help.

 

[andrew b]

following the advice regarding the motherboard, RAM and SSD bring it down to 877, which is nice, though i cannot upgrade the GPU or get the SLI supporting without going above budget. it does get me a little extra change to play with for peripherals though, so thanks for the advice

this revised outfit should still be quite versatile as far as upgrading parts goes, as i understand things?