New gaming PC, any advice welcome.

[TurtleTerror]

Hi everyone,

I have a budget of roughly £2500 to build a gaming PC, the budget has to include a single monitor, keyboard and mouse. The set-up will have to include wi-fi and i'm having difficulty choosing a motherboard with wi-fi, a network card or homeplugs ( I have pretty old wiring in my house).

I'm a varied gamer so it needs to be for general gaming also.

But I am open to any advice on getting my value for money and improving the set-up, thanks in advance!


Case
AeroCool X-Predator Evil Black Full Tower Gaming Case
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i5-2500k Quad Core (3.30GHz @ max 4.60GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z77: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1050W PRO SERIES™ HX1050-80 PLUS® SILVER MODULAR (£155)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II C240 DUAL RAD LIQUID CPU COOLER (Special Offer) (£79)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Fan Controller
NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller with upto 5 Fitted Case Fans
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD (£35)
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
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
IIYAMA E2473HDS 24" LED WIDESCREEN, 2 HDMI/DVI-D 1920x1080 (£159)
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE (£8)
Keyboard & Mouse
LOGITECH® G110 GAMING KEYBOARD WITH BACKLIGHTING (£69)
Mouse
LOGITECH® G500 LASER GAMING MOUSE (£48)
Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£9)
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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £2,484.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[keynes]

Hi,
If you are gaming in 1 monitor I'd suggest the GTX 670 or GTX 680 2gb. The higher Vram of GPU you selected will only benefit gaming performance if you are playing at higher resolutions (e.g 3 monitors). I think PCS uses the Palit Jetstream for the GTX 680 4gb and it does not come pre-overclocked as the 2gb version, the GTX 680 2gb should outperform the 4gb version in 1 monitor.
You may also want to consider an ivy bridge processor such as the i5-3570k, it should perform slightly better than the i5-2500k. If it is only gaming 8gb will suffice.

 

[TurtleTerror]

Thank you for your advice, I did think the dual GTX 680 4gb could be slightly overkill! and I will take your advice for the CPU and the RAM. Thanks again!

 

[TurtleTerror]

After changing my mind about this build about 247 times I think i've finally decided on the final specs and will be looking to hopefully order in the next 2-3 days. I will be probably doing some video and photo editing as well as gaming hence why i've kept the 16GB of RAM.

Once again any opinions would be grateful (mainly to stop me changing my mind again lol)


Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-3770k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ max 4.60GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z77: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P(4 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
2nd Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 680 - 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 1200W PRO SERIES™ GOLD AX1200-80 PLUS® GOLD MODULAR (£206)
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II C240 DUAL RAD LIQUID CPU COOLER (Special Offer) (£79)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Fan Controller
NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller with upto 5 Fitted Case Fans
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D PCI-E Soundcard (£45) *SPECIAL*
Network Facilities
DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD (£35)
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
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£9)
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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £2,378.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[keynes]

Hi,
That is a very nice spec
If you want to save some money you could go with a GTX 670 in SLI rather than the GTX 680, it is more than £200 cheaper with a slight decrease in fps.

What is the power requirement for your spec? 1200w PSU seems quite high and considering how much you are spending I'd suggest upgrading the warranty to gold or platinum since parts are only covered for 1 year with silver.

 

[vanthus]

Very nice build,as it's quite expensive I would consider upgrading the warranty.

 

[TurtleTerror]

Hi,
That is a very nice spec
If you want to save some money you could go with a GTX 670 in SLI rather than the GTX 680, it is more than £200 cheaper with a slight decrease in fps.
View attachment 1995
What is the power requirement for your spec? 1200w PSU seems quite high and considering how much you are spending I'd suggest upgrading the warranty to gold or platinum since parts are only covered for 1 year with silver.

At the moment the power requirement is around the 755w mark without the keyboard/mouse etc, so the 1050w would do the job. I was just willing to bite the bullet now for the dearer PSU for possible future improvements. And you're right, with my luck the gold/platinum would be the sensible option and with the money i will save from downgrading to the 670's, it wouldn't be an issue.

 

[keynes]

At the moment the power requirement is around the 755w mark without the keyboard/mouse etc, so the 1050w would do the job. I was just willing to bite the bullet now for the dearer PSU for possible future improvements. And you're right, with my luck the gold/platinum would be the sensible option and with the money i will save from downgrading to the 670's, it wouldn't be an issue.

1050w PSU will be plenty for your spec even if you are planning to add more components. Love the case

 

[TurtleTerror]

1050w PSU will be plenty for your spec even if you are planning to add more components. Love the case

I thought you would like the case! And with the money i've saved with the PSU and the 670's I can get a slightly larger SSD, Many thanks!

 

[keynes]

I thought you would like the case! And with the money i've saved with the PSU and the 670's I can get a slightly larger SSD, Many thanks!

Thanks for the rep The sabertooth z77 is also a very nice looking board.