£650 - £700 Gaming Pc

[FiestyChips]

Hello, I am a total n00b at computers and I would like to play games like BF3, Minecraft and so on. BF3 should be the most demanding game (I think so )
and as long it can get around 45- 55 fps, I will be pleased.

This is what I have been looking at so far...

Intel FC-LGA12C Core i5-3450 Processor (6M Cache, 3.10 GHz) £142.68

Gigabyte SKT-1155 Z77X-D3H Motherboard £95.16

CiT Vantage Midi Mesh Gaming Case with HD Audio, 4 Fans, Card Reader and No PSU - Black £35.88

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium with Service Pack 1, 64-bit, English, 1 Pack £69.99

EVGA GF GTX 660Ti 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card - £217.49

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAIII 6Gb/s 16MB Cache 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive OEM £44.97

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Two Module Kit £31.39

(All prices are from Amazon.co.uk)


I also will be doing a lot of presentations, documents etc (Microsoft Office)

Thanks.

 

[sam_p_lay]

Looks like a really nice setup, but check scan.co.uk, dabs.com, novatech.co.uk, aria.co.uk and ebuyer.com. You can find some amazing deals there and trim that price down a bit (or get a bit more). GTX660 Ti is not a bad choice, but I'd either stick with GTX660 and save a few quid (Ti only adds just shy of 10% framerates on average) or go right up to a GTX670 for a more worthwhile benefit.

 

[FiestyChips]

Cool! But do you think it will achieve good fps? I've also looked at 660 and 660ti gameplay and yes you're right as there is not that much difference... which means I think I'll be able to save 40 pounds! Btw is 550w psu enough?

 

[sam_p_lay]

Yeah 550 watts will be ample. It's hard to get used to (and a lot of people like me on here still haven't got used to it) but the insane performance you can get from low-med wattage cards now is just incredible. The GTX660 has a 140 watt TDP, plus 77 watts on your processor is 217 watts from the two main power hogs. They will definitely be able to exceed that at full load and you need to add on motherboard and all the little bits (RAM, front drives, fans) but 550 will be fine.

If I was buying a new system now from having either no computer or a very old/slow system then your setup is exactly what I'd get - same CPU, same (or similar) motherboard, OS... maybe not a WD hard disk, but that's only due to bad experiences personally. Everybody's had a bad experience with some HDD manufacturer though, you're always gonna be rolling the dice on a hard disk. Which brings me to SSDs! It's the one thing you're missing that I wouldn't even consider assembling a system without. Just £80 for a top-end 120GB model, which is ample for Windows, some software and a few games. HDD then used for your music collection, photos, etc.