Need help with spec of a new gaming PC

[Sporky0]

Really want to get a decent gaming pc, but I'm really not sure on some of the specs I have created myself. Don't know whether one spec I make is better than the other and I'm ideally wanting to spend less than £700.
I really want the PCS Maesltron T900 Black Gaming Case just FYI.
the current spec that I am thinking of right now is this:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£59)
Processor (CPU)
AMD ATHLON II X4 635 (2.9GHz/2MB CACHE/AM3)
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A79XTD EVO: DUAL DDR3, S-ATA II, 2 x PCIe x16, 2 x PCIe x1, 2 x PCI
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5570 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5570 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£25)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£108)

That little lot comes to a total of £670
(Anything not mentioned is set to the standard lowest option)

I'm not sure if any of that spec could be improved at all. Am I better off with just one high range graphics card, or is the 2 low range ones fine? Is there sufficient cooling? If certain stuff is unnecessary, such as the second graphics card, then it means something else could be upgraded slightly to pack it out to around the £700 mark.
Basically I just have doubts about everything I have done and was just wondering if anyone could give me any advice.
You also may have noticed that I have Windows 7 Professional and that is because I was told Home Premium does not work properly with Visual Studio 2008. If I don't have to fork out the extra money just so I can use the one programme that would be much appreciated. Can anyone shine some light on this issue?

P.s. I'm posting this the night before I go on holiday for a week and I will not have access to the internet. So if there are any responses I will unfortunately not be able to respond until a weeks time. I look forward to any responses.

Cheers,
Sporky0.

 

[LDUK]

Really want to get a decent gaming pc, but I'm really not sure on some of the specs I have created myself. Don't know whether one spec I make is better than the other and I'm ideally wanting to spend less than £700.
I really want the PCS Maesltron T900 Black Gaming Case just FYI.
the current spec that I am thinking of right now is this:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£59)
Processor (CPU)
AMD ATHLON II X4 635 (2.9GHz/2MB CACHE/AM3)
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A79XTD EVO: DUAL DDR3, S-ATA II, 2 x PCIe x16, 2 x PCIe x1, 2 x PCI
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5570 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
2nd Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5570 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB SERIAL ATA 3-Gb/s HARD DRIVE WITH 16MB CACHE (7,200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply & Case Cooling
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£25)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£108)

That little lot comes to a total of £670
(Anything not mentioned is set to the standard lowest option)

I'm not sure if any of that spec could be improved at all. Am I better off with just one high range graphics card, or is the 2 low range ones fine? Is there sufficient cooling? If certain stuff is unnecessary, such as the second graphics card, then it means something else could be upgraded slightly to pack it out to around the £700 mark.
Basically I just have doubts about everything I have done and was just wondering if anyone could give me any advice.
You also may have noticed that I have Windows 7 Professional and that is because I was told Home Premium does not work properly with Visual Studio 2008. If I don't have to fork out the extra money just so I can use the one programme that would be much appreciated. Can anyone shine some light on this issue?

P.s. I'm posting this the night before I go on holiday for a week and I will not have access to the internet. So if there are any responses I will unfortunately not be able to respond until a weeks time. I look forward to any responses.

Cheers,
Sporky0.

Wow, a late poster. Or early? Anyway, that build looks ok but for £44 over the £700 price mark, this one will definitely be better for you (Remember, you probably wont be buying a new PC for a while, so you want to get a good one now):

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£59)

Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 925 (2.80GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3)

Motherboard
ASUS® M4N98TD EVO: DDR3, 2-Way SLI, SATA 3.0GB/s

Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD6400AARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (READS XD, MS, CF, SD, etc)

Power Supply & Case Cooling
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£25)

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

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

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days

£744 inc VAT and Delivery.

Note that this build also gives your the option to add another 2GB GTX 460 in the future if you want more power.

 

[Sporky0]

Wow wasn't expecting a reply so quickly given the time of my posting.
Is it definitely worth getting the higher range processor?
Because the processor on my original spec had pretty much the same power.

Also I just made that exact spec with a 1TB hard drive and it came to £741

I checked out your youtube as well and your pcspecialist videos were quite useful

 

[PCS]

Welcome to our forums sporky0. You're probably on a plane now so have fun.

LDUK has hit the nail on the head, and has put together a great specification for you, which I would recommend. It's well balanced and will suit your requirements fine. If however, you wanted to make a slight change, you could upgrade the processor to an X4 965 and change the GPU to the 1GB version of the GTX460 rather than 2GB, for a similar total cost.

 

[Sleinous]

Id recommend changing the HDD to teh 1TB WD1002FAEX 6GB/s as it's only a tiny bit more.

Also the PSU could do with an upgrade, then you could add a 2nd GTX 460 in at a later date.

If I were you i'd go for LD's, with the improvement PSU and HDD, and just make up that extra money first

 

[LDUK]

Id recommend changing the HDD to teh 1TB WD1002FAEX 6GB/s as it's only a tiny bit more.

Also the PSU could do with an upgrade, then you could add a 2nd GTX 460 in at a later date.

If I were you i'd go for LD's, with the improvement PSU and HDD, and just make up that extra money first

Yes of course damn it! If you are thinking that you might indeed want to add another GTX 460, it would be ideal to get the 650w Corsair PSU.

Obviously the more future proof and better the PC, the higher the cost.
Also, I would never get a high capacity HDD with the OS installed on it. Obviously, with a high capacity HDD, you want to store photo's, music etc etc. But if you get a fatal virus, you will be very upset. It's best to store things like that on a External drive or a drive with no OS installed. Hell my SDD that my OS is installed on is only 60GB. That's all you really need.

But it's up to you anyway.

 

[Sporky0]

I found some internet! Hooray! I just couldn't handle it had to take some time out to find somewhere I can get connected even if it's only for 15 minutes.

So basically I have had a read through everyone's recommendations and this is the spec I have come up with:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£59)
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 945 (3.00GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3)
Upgraded from the 925
Motherboard
ASUS® M4N98TD EVO: DDR3, 2-Way SLI, SATA 3.0GB/s
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
I was wondering whether an upgrade to 8GB would be needed at all. Am I absolutely fine with just the 4? If I was going to be using Vista then I probably would have to go to 8 because it's such a RAM whore lol
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX460 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
I trust this one is better than the cheaper 1TB HDD, what with it being "green" because it apparently requires less power.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Could I get away with anything less than this? Is this only necessary if I intend to add a second graphics card in the future?
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Is this all that is needed?
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Coming to a final price of £798. About £100 than I had liked to have spent, but for all the gaming and stuff I want to do I was kind of kidding myself to get one for less than £700 that was sufficiently future proof.
I think I have sufficiently upgraded some stuff. shelled out for the 650W PSU which is one of the main reasons for the higher price.
Upgraded the CPU from the 925 to the 945 for a small price and also upgraded the HDD to a different 1TB.
The Processor cooling is still the standard one, I notice that no one actually said anything about it so I assume that I do not require anything more? If needed can this be upgraded at some point in the future easily or not? (gah I know absolutely nothing)

Cheers for all the feedback so far guys! Not more internet for me until Saturday =[.
I hope to be purchasing a computer from PCSpecialist within the next month or so, so I really want to perfect my specification.

Sporky0

 

[Meds]

Hey Sporky,

This final specification looks spot on, it is probably worth paying that £100 extra now rather than regret it in a year or two. The good thing about it is there is plenty of upgrade potential aswell - you can add more RAM or an extra graphics card should you need at any point.

The cooler will be fine, it's the one provided by AMD for your CPU. As long as you don't plan to overclock then you won't have any issues.

 

[Sporky0]

Thanks to all who replied to my thread to help me with my soon to be new computer.
I am thoroughly looking forward to ordering my awesome new computer and then awaiting it's arrival. Then using it!

Sporky0