Gaming Machine

[Mercer81]

Approximate Purchase Date: The next couple of months


Budget Range: Up to £1000, but can be a bit flexible if need be.


System Usage from Most to Least Important: Latest FPS games, multiple clients of EVE online. 2 games at once - i.e. Eve online and FM or Empire TW (if possible)


Parts Not Required: Everything needed


Preferred Website(s) for Parts: UK/EU based businesses.


Country of Origin: UK


Parts Preferences: No preference although seem to like intel / ATI idea


Overclocking: Yes (at least want the option too)


SLI or Crossfire: Yes (at least want the option too)


Monitor Resolution: I want at least 2 monitors linked to the machine. Running different games or applications.


Additional Comments: I'm not sure if i'm expecting too much for this sort of budget... but like I say I can be flexible if it is worth the extra cash. It must be easily upgradable and last a long time so maybe I should get high end processor/MB and sacrifice some graphics?

Any advice you could give would be great as this will be my first build and don't want to make any poor decisions.

Many thanks.

 

[ukee1593]

First off ... For the CPU at the moment I would not go any further than the Sandy Bridge 2500K. This processor is barely slower than the 2600 and trades blows with the i7 980X.

AMD graphics is a good choice for graphics. As you are running 2 monitors I'm thinking 2GB 6950 would be the go.

So ... Take a look at the GIGABYTE P67A-UD5 Motheboard with extra overclocking features

The ASUS AMD RADEON 6950 DirectCUII 2GB

8GB of Gskill Ripjaws X RAM

And either a Corsair or Seasonic PSU (corsair from the TX, AX or HX series, NOT the GS)

Website for parts http://www.overclockers.co.uk/

And did you want the 2 monitors, keyboard and mouse in your 1000 budget?

 

[Mercer81]

Thanks for your reply.

I didn't mention it but I want to play the games at the highest or near highest graphics settings... will the card mentiond be sufficent for this?

As for the monitors, etc I can be a bit flexible but obviously as cheap as possible is best. But if it meant better graphics/cpu I would consider going over budget.

Thanks again for the help.

 

[ukee1593]

The AMD radeon 6950 gets pretty close to maxing out a lot of the games out there. You could get a few more beans by getting the 6970 or if you are brave ... flashing the BIOS on the 6950 to "unlock" to the 6970. For benchmarks look at the Tom's Hardware article Is Cayman a gator or a crock http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-6970-radeon-hd-6950-cayman,2818.html

Unless you want a GTX 580 - which comes with a COMPLETELY ridiculous price tag ... the 6950 offers the best bang for an acceptable price. You may wish to keep a future crossfire setup as an option though ...

For a multi-GPU system though a 850W PSU would be a must!

Here is a sample build keeping all those options available ... Some cash could be saved in some places buying lower quality parts but the price I'd expect is not going to get much lower than 1150 - 1200 pounds

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2786870/Toms/Overclockers%20UK%20-%20Your%20Basket.htm

And I'll have to see whether that link works ... It works fine ...