800 pound gaming PC

eskimoseb9 · May 15, 2013

I'm looking for advice on a potential build I have researched, in preparation for next-gen consoles.
Price range is up to 800 pounds
Usage: Gaming at high-settings (Witcher 2, Sleeping Dogs, Far Cry 3, hopefully next-gen games too), browsing, office
Location: London, UK
Preferred sites: Amazon, will accept others
O/C: Almost certainly
SLI/X-Fire: No
I'm not looking for a monitor, mouse or other accessories

This is my current plan:
CPU - Intel I5-3570k -
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Fan - Cooler Master Hyper Evo 212 -
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GPU - Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 -
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RAM - Corsair Vengeance 1600 MHz 8gb -
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Mobo - Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H -
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OR
Asus P8-Z77-V -
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PSU - Corsair builder series 600W -
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HDD - WD Caviar Green 1tb SATA 6GB/s -
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Case - Coolermaster Storm Enforcer -
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OS - Win 7 Home Premium -
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Do I need a 600W PSU, or could I get away with my current 450W PSU?
Will this rig be very future-proof given current information? (2 years hopefully).
Would a solid-state drive be of great benefit if I'm primarily concerned with games? I've never had any trouble with loading times before.

Any suggestions/improvements greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Onus · May 15, 2013

You don't want a "Green" drive as your only drive; they can be slower than laptop drives. I prefer WD Black drives myself, but even a WD Blue would be better.
In the US, the Xigmatek Gaia is back down to $20; if you can find it for a similar price there, it cools within 1C of the more expensive Hyper212 EVO but is quieter (per Frostytech reviews).
Look for a XFX or other Seasonic-built PSU; 500W is enough. The Corsair CX units are built by CWT, using some inferior Samxon capacitors known for early failure, especially when stressed. I wouldn't say they suck, but I would not put one in a gamer.

toddybody · May 15, 2013

After reading the title...I was thinking about recommending a Corsair 900D with a 1200 Watt PWS. Then realized it was £

J_E_D_70 · May 15, 2013

Yeah - I sure thought that would be heavy. Definitely don't want to take it to LAN parties. Or, you could affix it to a lorry (look at that - I spoke English! Well, the other English).

Onus · May 15, 2013

If the LAN party is in a building full of flats, he'd need to hope it has a lift too.
More seriously, other than the Green drive and possibly the PSU, the build otherwise looks decent.
Make sure the RAM and cooler will fit. You may wish to find some low-profile RAM.

eskimoseb9 · May 16, 2013

Would you say I need a more powerful PSU then? Any recommendations?
No plans for a LAN party, so no problems with the weight

Onus · May 16, 2013

Five hundred watts is sufficient, I'd just get something other than the "CX" for it. A 500W Antec Earthwatts would be good, or anything made by Seasonic (the EA-500D is made by Delta, also good).

eskimoseb9 · May 16, 2013

Thanks for the help guys. Do you think an SSD would be a significant boost, or a waste of money?

Onus · May 16, 2013

You won't be able to get it into an 800 GBP budget (without sacrificing something more important for games, like settling for a weaker graphics card), but a 120GB-128GB SSD is definitely not a waste. It does not increase FPS in games, but it decreases boot/shutdown times, application load times, level load and/or transition times, and generally makes a PC much snappier. I try to include one in almost all the builds I do.

eskimoseb9 · May 16, 2013

Alright, something to think about in the future. Do you think this is going to be running games at max settings? I'm hoping for some future-proofing in this pc.

Onus · May 16, 2013

An i5-3570K and a HD7870 should be able to max most games at 1920x1080 (FPS >= 40), or get close enough that it will be hard to see significant differences.

eskimoseb9 · May 16, 2013

Thanks for the help

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