Pc for Gaming

[Jose]

Hi. I will be purchasing a new pc for the first time in about 6 years next Monday, and sadly I have to admit I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes down to what's good and what is not hardware wise. Really, I'm just fed up of my pentium 4 with 1gb ram.

The main game I play at the moment is World of Wacraft, so I want a machine that can run that on ultra settings without any trouble, but also something that will let me play any game on high settings without sounding like its about to explode, namely other MMo's such as TOR when they come out

I came up with this spec, as it gives me room to upgrade if I want to at a later date,


Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION

Motherboard
ASUS® CROSSHAIR IV FORMULA: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, R.O GAMERS

Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (4 x 2GB KIT)

Graphics Card
2GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5870 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11, Eyefinity 6 Capable

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W TX SERIES (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£76)

Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

any opinions/feedback on it would be really useful! thank you

 

[Phoenix]

I'd change the RAM to 1333mhz, upgrade the power supply to a TX750 (or HX1000 if you want to have crossfire as an option) and upgrade the graphics card to a Radeon HD6970.

 

[Jose]

thank you for your response and advise.
I've taken your sugestion and changed it to the following:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE

Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION

Motherboard
ASUS® CROSSHAIR IV FORMULA: DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, R.O GAMERS

Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (4 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD 6970 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
640GB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD6402AAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W TX SERIES (TX750) 80+ ULTRA QUIET PSU (£88)

Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)


is 16 gb of ram a complete overkill, or is it worth it? Does it helps in games like WoW in capital cities where there are hundreds of people in the same place at the same time?
Also, if I decide to have the more powerful psu, would there be any point in later having 2 x RADEON™ HD 6970 on crossfire, or would that again be a complete overkill? (i would probably be able to aford a second one in a couple of months time)

Again thank you for your help!!

 

[Phoenix]

Yes 16GB of RAM is overkill, having more than 4GB won't affect games in anyway because they just can't use that much. 32-bit operating systems are still widely used so companies have to make sure games won't need more than 3GB~ of RAM when they produce a game, unless you don't want to add more RAM at a later point there's not really any benefit of having that much right now. It would be a better idea to upgrade the CPU to the Phenom II x6 1100T and drop down on the RAM. The HD6970 scales amazingly well in crossfire (can beat the GTX580 SLI'd in some cases) but if world of warcraft is the only game you'll be playing there isn't much point because you'll be able to get 60FPS with everything maxed out on one card.

 

[Len]

yes,
Drop the ram to 4GB

increase the PSU to 1200W juicy card's(6970)

Check if you actually need windows Professional over Windows Home as you prob don't(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/compare/default.aspx)

the RoG board is good for Overclocking lots of features and a better onboard sound.. but it's a bit gimmicky and unless you're overclocking consider the one below it in drop down list,

Then you have lots of £change£ to spend

 

[Tysuro]

Get an SSD if you are playing MMO's will load faster like a thread gorman made showing chaarcters in dalaran the SSD loaded everything up straight away and took the normal hardrive like 1-2 minutes to load them up.

 

[Jose]

thank you a lot for your input guys, it is really apresciated!

Is it really worth going for a 6 core instead of a quad core? I mean, is there a significant diference in real performance?
And yes, WoW is the main game I do play, but I want this pc so i can explore more games, its very depressing playing L4D2 on all lowest settings and still take ages to load and have some major hickups along the play through
TBH, I will probably shift back from console back to pc gaming as soon as i get this litle wonder through my door =D

Also, about the SSD, would there be any issues if i were to have the OS and my MMo's on one, and than have a normal 500gb hdd to use for pictures/films etc?

 

[Len]

Yeah Stick to the Quad as no or not many games can use more then 4 cores

yes use ur SSD for your games like WoW but bare in mind WoW is 30GB alone and windows will be about 20GB and most modern games are atleast 10GB so go for atleast 80GB

then use a HDD for storing music/pictures/films, if you know how to put a hard drive in your self check up the spinpoint F3's can get them for around £35 and there super fast, it's about the same price as a caviar green but the speed of a caviar black which is roughly £77 from PCS

something like this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A89TD PRO/USB3 : DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CrossFireX
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
2GB AMD RADEON™ HD 6970 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11, Eyefinity 4 Capable
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB OCZ VERTEX 2 SATA II 2.5" SSD (upto 285MB/sR | 275MB/sW)
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
CORSAIR 1200W PRO SERIES GOLD (AX1200) 80+ MODULAR PSU (£204)
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 - 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
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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 9 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,234.00 including VAT and delivery. + £35 for spinpoint Looks like around £80 more then your first spec

Configure Here: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/computers/amd-extreme-pc/

 

[Phoenix]

It's up to you really, an 1100T will last longer than any of the phenom quad cores but as of right now games aren't using more than 3-4 cores.

 

[Len]

yeh but at the moment hell get most performance from that high speed quad and by the time games use 6 core processors there will be hundreds of better ones to pick for the same price as the T1100 now

 

[Jose]

thanks a lot for your help guys!! its been very much so apresciated!
I only have one last question now. I will probably be going for eyefinity 3 within a couple of months and i was wondering if for that performance wise I would need anything extra, or if this setup is fine for that.
Thanks!

(hopefully ordering tonight, just waiting for the funds to clear through my bank =D)

 

[Phoenix]

Since the 1100T can overclock itself up to 3.7ghz he won't get more performance from the 965/970 but you're right about upgrading to another CPU in the future but then again the same could be said for buying any of the i7 chips. The HD6970 will be great for eyefinity (if that's the GPU you were asking about).

 

[Jose]

yeah, i ment about the hd 6970, awesome, thanks , giving myself this pc for xmas, and giving myself 3 monitors for my bday me thinks .

Thanks for all the help guys!
Have a wonderful Xmas and a Happy new year!

 

[Jose]

Hello again, I thought I'd use this thread instead of making a new one.
I ordered my pc last week (been gigling like a child ever since at the thought of it ) but I got an email today saying the 120gb OCZ SSD is out of stock
I was wondering how long does it normaly take to get stock back (mainly keeping it in mind the time of the year we are at!), and if it would be worth it exchanging the said SSD for a 120 gb X25-M Intel SSD (if these are in stock) or if it is worth waiting for the OCZ VERTEX to be back in stock!

Again, thank you for your time, and I hope you all had a wonderful Xmas!
Sincerly, a very eager and excited soon to be owner of a PCS built!

 

[PCS]

We can't provide individual stock updates on our forums, we'll contact you as soon as we have further information, it won't be long.

 

[Jose]

thank you for the quick response, but it seems that my pc is now built
I'm getting more and more giggly every second , my boss is probably going to start getting worried soon