A gaming system for ~1000 inc Monitor...

vyper91

Honorable
May 18, 2012
14
0
10,510
Current Hardware:

- Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 3.0GHz Processor
- nVidia GeForce 8800 GT 512MB Graphics Card
- 320GB Hard Drive (Unfortunately one of the Hitachi Deathstars, caused me issues in the past)
- 2GB of RAM DDR2 (Well, I got it 4/5 years ago so assuming so)
- MSI P35 NEO2-FR Socket 775 Motherboard

Background and Flexibility:

- Developer at university (Software Engineering)
- Haven't been gaming in years and want to get back into it
- Potentially upgrade current machine, contemplating whole new system
- Currently have an i7 Macbook Pro so don't exactly want a sluggish system.


Requirements:
- Mainly, to get back into PC gaming! I have a PS3 so want to definitely exceed that level of capability.
- Like playing single-player adventures, for example I'm excited for Skyrim/Mass Effect 3/Diablo 3 but also
like playing the occasional FPS and racing game or such. Probably will get back into competitive MMO games
so preferably no frame-rate lag in those kind of games. Ideally not want to update components for the next 2 years.
- I may decide to turn it into my home workstation so will need to run an IDE such as Visual Studio,
several Chrome tabs and occasionaly photoshop/music editing software for leisure.
- Don't mind about having to run a handful of apps at a time, will probably aid easy-distractions lol.
- Will want to dual-boot it with Linux (one or two distros)

So basically, I saw this on novatech :

http://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/range/destroyerv2.html?th=g

Looks good for the price and spec IMO, liking the SSD for speedy start ups and such, and was thinking about getting a 560Ti anyway.
Tried to look for all the individual components but unless I'm going to the wrong shops this seems as cheap as I can get it really :S
Need a monitor, generally looking for one that's about 2ms but not sure if I'd notice the difference between 5 and 2. Not too fussed about 120Hz for 3d or any of that...just a nice 22/24 inch 1080p display!

Haven't been following gaming for a while so any help would be loved!
Oh and if there's enough money left over to buy some extra RAM for my laptop that'd be wonderful :p
Cheers!
 
That prebuilt looks OK but you can certainly do better at that price. Firstly I'd grab an i5 to save cash, you would (maybe) see a minor performance drop in Visual Studio and Photoshop but it would be pretty much the same in games. It should still be far better than any mobile chip like the one in your Mac.

Something like this should be far better in games, also has a top notch monitor:

i5-3450
8GB Corsair Vengeance LP 1600Mhz
ASRock H77 Pro4/MVP
Sapphire HD 7870 2GB (Should perform somewhere between the GTX 570 and 580)
Mushkin Chronos 120GB
Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM
550W OCZ ZS Series
Antec 302
LG DVD Burner
24" Dell UltraSharp U2412M

Total - £993.25 including VAT and shipping www.aria.co.uk


Don't be put off by the fact that the monitor is 8ms, I urge you to check some reviews on it. Also, I play on a 6ms monitor and have never seen ghosting on anything. I think you have to be some kind of professional gamer playing something like Counterstrike to actually notice the difference between 8ms and 5ms
 

vyper91

Honorable
May 18, 2012
14
0
10,510
Ooh thatks for that, there are a few questions about that build I have if that's ok.
1) I'm not too knowledgeable about PSU's but is 550 enough? Like I won't suffer any issues with it right? lol
2) Are you saying any i5 for around that price point? I'm thinking of going Ivy Bridge for futureproofing reasons
3) All these parts are gonna tide me through? Again, not too sure about manufacturers and stuff but ideally don't want parts or Hard Drives failing on me and such, given me grief in the past.

4) Lastly, I can scrap the DVD burner since I never use discs and am sure that I have a spare one somewhere, but in terms of network cards to give it wireless capabilities what would you recommend?

Cheers for the help!
 
1) 550W is plenty for that build, your peak power draw should be somewhere in the region of 350-400W max.

2) A Sandy or Ivy Bridge i5 is fine, there's not much of a performance difference. The one I suggested is Ivy Bridge.

3) All those parts should be reliable enough, I would keep your packaging for the SSD though in case you need to return that because SSD's in general can be hit and miss sometimes. It's worth it for the insane performance boost though.

4) I would go for an internal wireless card (preferably PCI-e x1). Ideally I would go for Cisco but they can be expensive. D-Link, TP-Link and Netgear are usually good too.