TheGreatRadish
Member
Hi all,
I'm looking to replace my 4-year-old Core2duo machine in the next month or so and have spent a bit of time researching (always fun) and attempting to set a custom spec here. I bought my last machine from pcspecialist and it's been great so am more than happy to order from the company again
I use my desktop machine mostly for games and web-browsing but also a little video (re)encoding. I mostly play older and less spec-intensive games but occassionally I want to play high-end ones if they catch my interest and I wanted to make sure the spec below will do a reasonable job when asked to sretch its legs a bit.
Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H67-M LX SI: MICRO ATX MAINBOARD, LG 1155, SATA 6.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6870 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DirectX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155/1156 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£31)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 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
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
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 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1
Price: £766.00 including VAT and delivery.
I picked the i5-2500k as I've read that it is a top-performer and more than a match for the previous-generation i7s. The other option was the AMD Phenom ii x4 970 but looking around at comparisons and benchmarks it appeared a little disappointing.
The video card was a hard choice and probably the most difficult choice I had to make. The reason I have gone for the 6870 is that it stacks up well in performance tests and has low power requirements (allowing me to save money on the PSU and my bills!). However, some doubt remains as to whether I might save more cash without losing any significant performance by sticking the 6850 in instead? I ruled out the 69xx cards on cost grounds and the NVIDIA cards on power consumption (460/470) and cost (5xx). Would you consider that a reasonable judgement? (I'm also fully aware that by choice of motherboard I haven't left room to upgrade to crossfire - i'm fine with that).
This spec pretty much hits the ceiling of my budget so any chages which increase cost would be hard to justify but I would appreciate any feedback and advice, especially if I have made any wasteful choices.
Thanks for your time!
I'm looking to replace my 4-year-old Core2duo machine in the next month or so and have spent a bit of time researching (always fun) and attempting to set a custom spec here. I bought my last machine from pcspecialist and it's been great so am more than happy to order from the company again
I use my desktop machine mostly for games and web-browsing but also a little video (re)encoding. I mostly play older and less spec-intensive games but occassionally I want to play high-end ones if they catch my interest and I wanted to make sure the spec below will do a reasonable job when asked to sretch its legs a bit.
Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache) + HD Graphics
Motherboard
ASUS® P8H67-M LX SI: MICRO ATX MAINBOARD, LG 1155, SATA 6.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB AMD RADEON™ HD6870 - 2 DVI,HDMI,2 mDP - DirectX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155/1156 STANDARD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Xtreme Audio (£31)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 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
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
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 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1
Price: £766.00 including VAT and delivery.
I picked the i5-2500k as I've read that it is a top-performer and more than a match for the previous-generation i7s. The other option was the AMD Phenom ii x4 970 but looking around at comparisons and benchmarks it appeared a little disappointing.
The video card was a hard choice and probably the most difficult choice I had to make. The reason I have gone for the 6870 is that it stacks up well in performance tests and has low power requirements (allowing me to save money on the PSU and my bills!). However, some doubt remains as to whether I might save more cash without losing any significant performance by sticking the 6850 in instead? I ruled out the 69xx cards on cost grounds and the NVIDIA cards on power consumption (460/470) and cost (5xx). Would you consider that a reasonable judgement? (I'm also fully aware that by choice of motherboard I haven't left room to upgrade to crossfire - i'm fine with that).
This spec pretty much hits the ceiling of my budget so any chages which increase cost would be hard to justify but I would appreciate any feedback and advice, especially if I have made any wasteful choices.
Thanks for your time!
