Well I'd argue it's the same as with other brands. Some people swear by WD
HDDs and some stay far away from Seagate HDDs. There's nothing wrong with AMD
per-se. You still get a lot of juice and usually more overclocking. They're cheaper too,
hence they often fit into budget builds as well. Nonetheless:
PCPartPicker part list /
Price breakdown by merchant /
Benchmarks
CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£169.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G43 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£71.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£54.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£64.88 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (£174.95 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: BitFenix Shinobi ATX Mid Tower Case (£49.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: OCZ ZS 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£51.59 @ Dabs)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£12.86 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.96 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £721.10
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-27 22:54 BST+0100)
To not blow the budget completely, I couldn't put in an SLI ready motherboard.
Instead it's only CF ready and consequently I put in a Radeon card... Which is also
made by AMD, so you might not be happy about that. It's said they don't run as well
as Nvidia cards, when it comes to their multi-GPU configurations (CF), but recent driver
releases suggest they've gotten better. The good thing about this GPU, is that you get
some free games too. The PSU also had to be lowered due to the budget. Have to say I prefer
the other build. Eitherway it's some pretty good performance you're in for. I'll be the first to
say that the CPU isn't the newest in Intels lineup. It's one generation behind. But it's the
one which is best for overclocking, compared to the most recent generation. It's still a solid
CPU and the performance difference is nigh 10% or so. The 4th generation CPU (as opposed
to this 3rd gen one) was also more expensive and wasn't easy to accommodate in the build.
I also got the impression you wouldn't be OC'ing right away. Hence I didn't add an aftermarket
CPU cooler of any kind; thus you'll go with stock. I figured you could just buy it later, when
you actually intended to OC, seeing as OC'ing doesn't necessarily give a performance
boost; neither in speed nor in games. OC'ing generally makes things more expensive:
motherboard chipsets, adequate PSUs, K-edition SKUs and extra cooling equipment.
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