Gaming Rig - £700-1000

[Luca91]

Approximate Purchase Date: 28/02 (Pay day )

Budget Range: £700-1000 after delivery/VAT - happy to go over this slightly if there's more value for money.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Serious gaming, browsing and watching videos, possibility of being used for video editing in future - all with music playing in background.

Are you buying a monitor: No

Do you need to buy OS: Yes, ideally want to stick with Wins 7

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: None.

Location: City, State/Region, Country - UK, Bedford

Parts Preferences: None

Overclocking: Possibly

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 2560 x 1440 (27'')

Additional Comments: A PC that isn't too loud would be ideal, also would like to add the capability to video capture if possible.
HD storage isn't a worry as I will be buying an external storage device, about 300GB will do fine for the PC itself.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Current PC is now about 7 years old, time to replace it

No parts chosen so far, but would like to fit this all into the case: Cooler Master HAF 932 - if possible.

 

[mikerockett]

An alternative if you want a rig that can be overclocked and a CPU not designed for workstation/server builds.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£155.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.52 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£101.98 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£46.81 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£80.54 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£88.20 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (£296.15 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£78.95 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£73.14 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Samsung SN-208DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£17.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£65.99 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1030.26
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-15 13:13 GMT+0000)

PS Noob12 - Your cooler and optical drive have no price, may wish to revise that.

 

[Luca91]

Thanks for the builds so far guys, think Mike's is abit more ideal for what I'll be using it for, but both have given me a good idea so far of what I need to be looking for

 

[mikerockett]

No problem, any more help you need, just shout.

 

[Luca91]

Anyone else with any alternative builds or does it seem these two are pretty solid?

 

[Luca91]

Between the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 670 2GB and the Radeon HD 7970 3GB - which is the better card...if any?

Having compared to the two cards, I don't know which to get

 

[mikerockett]

They are fairly similar. The 7970 performs better in some games and the gtx performs better in others. Buy the card based on which one handles the games you play most often the best. In all honesty though whichever card you go with you wont be disappointed.

 

[marqol]

the 7970 is the winner, it's counter would be the 680.
the statement above about ati and nvidia performance in games is correct though, some games will prefer one or the other.
My way of thinking with these cards is bigger memory for future games with higher VRAM needs. Games such as skyrim with mods and all the extras can get upto 4GB from what's been said recently. i personally haven't come across a game upwards of 3GB but that's just me. I'm an cs / gw 2 player.

Guess i'll give it a shot then.. :

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Fo43
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Fo43/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Fo43/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£168.61 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4-M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£100.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£44.51 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£65.00 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (£239.75 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced ATX Full Tower Case (£105.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£79.41 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHOS104-06 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Drive (£26.99 @ Novatech)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.94 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £926.17

The OCing ability of the GPU and CPU will perform at a very nice high end budget level.
Threw in an bluray player 'cos I was feeling special.

Give me a shout if you need any further build help,
Marqol.