Powerful Gaming PC w/SSD & Option to Upgrade

[ianmer]

Hi everyone!

Hoping for a bit of constructive criticism here. Last time I did anything more complicated than install a new HD was building a Pentium so I could play Doom... so I'm currently in the process of learning how to do all this again!

I've chosen a spec I think will be able to play Skyrim / Battlefield 3 on max settings (also with a few mods for Skyrim like Sharpshooters ENB, in case there are any modders reading!). My current machine ain't too bad (AMD Athlon Dual Core 6400) and wondering whether it would be of any benefit to pop the old ATI Radeon HD 2900 over into the new one? Also planning on putting the old 1TB HD in, but that I think I will be OK with!

Lazy copy and paste:
Case
ANTEC QUIET COMPUTING™ PERFORMANCE P280 CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3820 (3.6GHz) 10MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® RAMPAGE IV EXTREME: INTEL X79, SOCKET 2011, R.O.G
Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P(8 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB 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)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling
INTEL CERTIFIED LIQUID CPU COOLER FOR SOCKET LG2011 (£79)
Fan Controller
AeroCool Touch 2000 LCD Touch Screen 4 Fan Controller + 2 x Front USB
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional (£78)*SPECIAL*
Network Facilities
KILLER 2100 GAMING NETWORK PCI-E CARD - FOR ONLINE GAMING (£55)
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
Price: £1,961.00 including VAT and delivery.

A couple of my choices may seem strange or of a conflicting nature so I should mention that I'm trying to get a slightly cooler running and therefore quieter system than my old one. And the fan controller simply because it looks so damn cool and I'm easily impressed by flashing lights etc.

Rambling now but if anyone knows the answer to this it would be great - is there any point in waiting and asking the lovely people here at PCS to upgrade my old system when that service is available? Or what about lowering the RAM on my new build and whacking some in from here? Wouldn't mind salvaging what I can from the old one, just found it on here and it's actually 5 (!) years old already:

Processor (CPU) AMD ATHLON™ 64 X2 6400+ (3.2GHz) 2 x 1MB L2 Cache (Socket AM2)
Motherboard ASUS® M2N: DUAL DDR II, S-ATA, x16 VGA, 3 PCI
Memory (RAM) 4096 MB CORSAIR XMS2 800MHz - LIFETIME WARRANTY! (4x1GB)
Graphics Card 1024MB RADEON HD 2900XT PCI Express + DVI + TV-OUT
Power Supply 700W Quiet Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£79) (Has burnt out and been replaced)
Processor Cooling ASUS SILENT KNIGHT II PURE COPPER ULTRA COOLER (£36)
Price £1,153.62 (bargain!)

If anyone actually bothers to read all this waffle, thanks!!!
Ian

 

[keynes]

Unless you are an extreme overclocker the asus rampage extreme would be a bit of an overkill, you could easily run the games you mentioned with an i5 , the i7 3770 should also be a cheaper alternative, the difference in performance between the gtx 670 and 680 is very small and around £100 cheaper I'd go with the gtx 670.

 

[Rakk]

Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS QUAD-DDR3 1600MHz X.M.P(8 x 4GB KIT)

32GB is a massively excessive if just gaming, in fact in general 16GB is overkill for gaming, if you're going to be doing high-RAM usage stuff like rendering or high-end video editing then 16GB+ can be a good choice, but if not then it really would be a waste.

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

I presume you're going to be using your hard drive from your old machine since 120GB isn't really very much space

Network Facilities
KILLER 2100 GAMING NETWORK PCI-E CARD - FOR ONLINE GAMING (£55)

Not sure I'd bother with this, not sure it's really worth it - have a read of this thread: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/09/02/killer-2100-gaming-network-card/5 before deciding whether to get it or not.

Rambling now but if anyone knows the answer to this it would be great - is there any point in waiting and asking the lovely people here at PCS to upgrade my old system when that service is available? Or what about lowering the RAM on my new build and whacking some in from here? Wouldn't mind salvaging what I can from the old one, just found it on here and it's actually 5 (!) years old already:

Looking at your old system, it'd be a lot of work upgrading to something even vaguely like the spec you selected above and would probably mean upgrading virtually every part, so you might as well go with a new machine
Your old RAM is DDR2, the new is DDR3 and you can't mix them.
There would be no point putting in the HD2900XT if you're getting a 670/680, it would add nothing except power usage to your gaming

 

[ianmer]

Unless you are an extreme overclocker the asus rampage extreme would be a bit of an overkill, you could easily run the games you mentioned with an i5 , the i7 3770 should also be a cheaper alternative, the difference in performance between the gtx 670 and 680 is very small and around £100 cheaper I'd go with the gtx 670.

Thanks for the reply Rubensolo!
The sole reason I went for the ASUS® RAMPAGE IV EXTREME was the extra PCI-e slot - as I thought that the KILLER 2100 GAMING NETWORK PCI-E CARD may be worthwhile.. however, Rakk's comment needs to be taken into account there.
I will switch out the i7-3820 for the 3770 and the GTX 680 for the 670!

Thanks for the help!

 

[ianmer]

32GB is a massively excessive if just gaming, in fact in general 16GB is overkill for gaming, if you're going to be doing high-RAM usage stuff like rendering or high-end video editing then 16GB+ can be a good choice, but if not then it really would be a waste.

16GB RAM it is then! And I should have realised the DDR2 / DDR3 issue, thanks!

I presume you're going to be using your hard drive from your old machine since 120GB isn't really very much space

Yeah, got my 1TB WD HD to drop in. although upon checking it I may have to get another bigger one as only got 17.5GB left free!

Not sure I'd bother with this, not sure it's really worth it - have a read of this thread: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2010/09/02/killer-2100-gaming-network-card/5 before deciding whether to get it or not.

That made for fantastic reading, thanks! What do you think if I was to swap it out for the WIRELESS 802.11N 300bps PCI CARD? From the thread there it sounds like until I'm on fibre optic it's not worth going for anything fancier?

Looking at your old system, it'd be a lot of work upgrading to something even vaguely like the spec you selected above and would probably mean upgrading virtually every part, so you might as well go with a new machine
Your old RAM is DDR2, the new is DDR3 and you can't mix them.
There would be no point putting in the HD2900XT if you're getting a 670/680, it would add nothing except power usage to your gaming

Depressing but if I'm honest I knew this was the truth!

All this information is invaluable and I can't thank you enough for the assist!

 

[Rakk]

Yeah, got my 1TB WD HD to drop in. although upon checking it I may have to get another bigger one as only got 17.5GB left free!

Haha!
Yes, you may want to consider getting more HD space, games are just getting bigger, and with a spangly new system like that, there'll be plenty new ones you want to try.

That made for fantastic reading, thanks! What do you think if I was to swap it out for the WIRELESS 802.11N 300bps PCI CARD? From the thread there it sounds like until I'm on fibre optic it's not worth going for anything fancier?

Well that depends on if you need wireless or not, the killer network card didn't do wireless anyway.
If you do need wireless you may want to consider homeplugs instead (they just work by using the wiring in your house rather than having network cables trailing everywhere), yes it is slightly more expensive to set it up (cos you need 2 to start a network) but it tends to be a lot more reliable than wireless in general - what with it being wired in essence.

 

[ianmer]

Anyway here is the spec to give you some ideas.

I may just buy this exact spec haha!

 

[ianmer]

Well that depends on if you need wireless or not, the killer network card didn't do wireless anyway.
If you do need wireless you may want to consider homeplugs instead (they just work by using the wiring in your house rather than having network cables trailing everywhere), yes it is slightly more expensive to set it up (cos you need 2 to start a network) but it tends to be a lot more reliable than wireless in general - what with it being wired in essence.

I had a pair of these years ago, free from BT from what I remember, not sure if you can still do that, but they were awful and broke after not too long and I haven't looked into other options since. But I think I will as I have always had trouble getting a strong signal, with two different cards . Which has actually always bothered me as my PS3 is next to my PC and has no issues...

 

[ianmer]

Okay, hope Tiberias isn't troubled by plagiarism... what do you guys think of the following:

Case
ANTEC QUIET COMPUTING™ PERFORMANCE P280 CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3550 (3.3GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
3TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD30EZRX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II C240 DUAL RAD LIQUID CPU COOLER (Special Offer) (£89)
Fan Controller
AeroCool Touch 2000 LCD Touch Screen 4 Fan Controller + 2 x Front USB
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional (£78)*SPECIAL*
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
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 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,660.00 including VAT and delivery.

Oh and I will be getting one of those flipping hilarious naked calendars as well. Nearly cried laughing when I saw some of the pics. My missus didn't get it though lol!

 

[Rakk]

Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II C240 DUAL RAD LIQUID CPU COOLER (Special Offer) (£89)

If you're not planning on overclocking the triple copper heatpipe option for cooling would be perfectly fine

Oh and I will be getting one of those flipping hilarious naked calendars as well. Nearly cried laughing when I saw some of the pics. My missus didn't get it though lol!

Tell her it's for charity

 

[keynes]

Okay, hope Tiberias isn't troubled by plagiarism... what do you guys think of the following:

Case
ANTEC QUIET COMPUTING™ PERFORMANCE P280 CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3550 (3.3GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
3TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD30EZRX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan
Processor Cooling
COOLIT ECO II C240 DUAL RAD LIQUID CPU COOLER (Special Offer) (£89)
Fan Controller
AeroCool Touch 2000 LCD Touch Screen 4 Fan Controller + 2 x Front USB
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional (£78)*SPECIAL*
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
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 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,660.00 including VAT and delivery.

Oh and I will be getting one of those flipping hilarious naked calendars as well. Nearly cried laughing when I saw some of the pics. My missus didn't get it though lol!

As Rakk suggested a triple copper heatpipe would do the job, I probably go with a caviar black as a secondary drive since the caviar green are more energy efficient and slightly slower. Your motherboard supports SLI (adding a 2nd graphics card to improve performance), if you wish to do that in the future you need at least a corsair 750w PSU. If you are not planning to add a 2nd gpu you may wish to downgrade the motherboard to save some money (P8Z77-V LX)

 

[ianmer]

I see special offer and I can't help but selecting COOLIT ECO II C240 DUAL RAD LIQUID CPU COOLER (Special Offer) (£89) haha but yeah, good point. would adding a second 670 at a later date push the cpu any harder and require any extra cooling?

I spotted the mistake I made with the 'green' low performance HD and swapped that out, thanks all the same though.

Had a play around with the AMDs as well, do you think I would notice any difference with the below? Thinking to myself, my old AMD system performed above expectations so is it worth paying the extra for intel?

Case
ANTEC QUIET COMPUTING™ PERFORMANCE P280 CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD BULLDOZER QUAD CORE FX-4170 (4.20GHz/4MB CACHE/AM3+)
Motherboard
ASUS® M5A97: AM3+ PLATFORM, DUAL DDR3, SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st*Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd*Hard Disk
3TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
1st*DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE AMD CPU COOLER (£19)
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional (£78)*SPECIAL*
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
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 10 to 12 working days
Charity Calendar
PC Specialist naked Charity Calendar in aid of ForgetMeNotChild.co.uk (£4)
Quantity
1

Price: £1,425.00 including VAT and delivery.

 

[keynes]

An i5 is a better cpu than the fx 4170 for gaming, I am not sure how well the fx 4170 + gtx 670 would perform, the cpu may bottleneck the gpu. I would recommend sticking with the i5 if you are chosing the gtx 670.

 

[ianmer]

An i5 is a better cpu than the fx 4170 for gaming, I am not sure how well the fx 4170 + gtx 670 would perform, the cpu may bottleneck the gpu. I would recommend sticking with the i5 if you are chosing the gtx 670.

Very lazy of me there, just asking you guys instead of doing any of my own research! I just read into AMD / Intel comparisons for 2 minutes and will no longer be pursuing AMD options. The entire Bulldozer range sounds like a massive let down. Think I have finally decided on a spec, final thoughts please dudes?

Case
ANTEC QUIET COMPUTING™ PERFORMANCE P280 CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache - considered the K for overclocking but decided against it, I dont think I'm going to OC this in future
Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-V: PCI-E 3.0 READY, WIFI, SLI, CROSSFIREX - considered the Maximus V Gene RoG for extra PCIe functionality and overclocking but again, decided prob not worth it
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPERX GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1866MHz X.M.P(2 x 4GB KIT)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready - will add a second at a later date
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 520 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 550MB/sR | 520MB/sW) - I dont need an SSD cache if I'm running off an SSD main drive do I? Also, would you recommend partitioning the OS?
2nd Hard Disk
3TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY RE-WRITER DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW (£79)
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)
Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)
Fan Controller
NZXT Sentry 2 Fan Controller with upto 5 Fitted Case Fans - flashy lights ooh
Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D Fatal1ty Professional (£78)*SPECIAL* - decent price for this and I have a Bose soundsystem to hook up so decided this is the best option available
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
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 10 to 12 working days
Charity Calendar
PC Specialist naked Charity Calendar in aid of ForgetMeNotChild.co.uk (£4) - think I'm looking forward to this more than the new machine
Quantity
1

Price: £1,604.00 including VAT and delivery.

thanks again for the advice and assistance x