Buying a new gaming PC, Questions...

[mimsy]

Hello all,

I'm about to buy a new gaming machine, considering a prebuilt system from overclockers, ukgamingcomputers, or cyber power, and as you might be able to tell, I am based in the UK.

What I am looking for is a system that will last me around 3 years, and something that I can fraps on while still getting 60 FPS. Currently I am just playing World Of Warcraft so need something that can fraps 25 man raids, but I will be investing in portal 2 and want to fraps co-op footage at 60 fps on that.

Since fraps involves writing masses of data to a hard drive while gaming, I was thinking about going for a SSD but the cost of the larger sizes is rather prohibitive. Is it going to be enough to get a smaller SSD and have all my programs on that, and have the raw fraps data going to a different drive, or is that going to kill my frame rate?

Also what kind of GPU am I going to need to handle these tasks?

In addition to gaming, I will also need to use if for my PhD stuff, which needs to crunch a lot of data so while I am aware that a high end quad core or hex core CPU is mostly wasted on the games of today, that will help me out in the other tasks the PC needs to perform.

Current budget is around £1000, obviously the less I spend the better since I am a student, but I need the machine to be up to standard more than I need the savings in my pocket.

Im currently considering machines like these (with a few tweaks)

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-101-OE

http://www.cyberpowersystem.co.uk/system/weekly_sales_I/

Any advice would be much appreciated, specifically with the SSD questions, or any general advice with anyone with experience in frapsing at high frame rates.

 

[g048989h]

I couldnt get the overclockers link to work. I looked at the cyber power build and think you would be happy with it based on your intended use. The only thing I question in that build is the power supply. 700 watts is more than enough, more than you need really. My concern is with the quality of the cyber power house brand. If there is any way for you to afford a major brand, not Thermaltake, but a Cooler Master or Corsair, Antec, Seasonic, OCZ branded supply you should get one of those instead. I have zero experience with cyber power PSU's but do know a PSU is not something you should skimp on. Also, I'm not sure you'll realize any performance gains form the hexicore. I would consider rolling that back to a 965 or 955 BE. If you need serouse multithreading power from your cpu for your Doctorate work, better off with Intel, just my opinion though.