Critique of new £2000 gaming rig

marling

Honorable
Apr 4, 2012
1
0
10,510
Approximate Purchase Date: 6th or 7th April 2012

Budget Range: £2,000-£2,500

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming (mostly blizzard titles, bit of Skyrim, Assassins Creed), Photo Editing (Lightroom), Media viewing (music, blu rays, downloads)

Parts Not Required: n/a - currently on a laptop, so starting from scratch!

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Based in the UK, so I'll probably be using Scan.co.uk , maybe a bit of eBuyer.com and any other recommended sites if they have a part cheaper or in stock

Country: UK

Parts Preferences: No real preference really

Overclocking: Yes, once I get to grips with my new system. Probably just the CPU...but we'll see...

SLI or Crossfire: Probably not

Current "draft" build:

Corsair 600T Graphite Series Limited Edition White Mid Tower Gaming Case with Side Window w/o PSU £139
Intel Core i7 2600K Unlocked S1155, Sandy Bridge, Quad, 3.4GHz, HD3000 IGP 850Mhz, 8MB Cache 95W Retail £239
ASRock Z68 Extreme4 Gen3, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA 6Gb/s, RAID SATA, PCIe 3.0 (x16), Graphics On Board, ATX £137
2GB Asus GTX 680, 28nm, PCI-E 3.0, 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 1006MHz, 1536 Cores, DL DVI/DP/HDMI £455
2TB Seagate ST2000DM001 Barracuda 7200.14 SATA 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms OEM NCQ £93
Sharkoon 1337 Elite Gaming Mouse Mat - Black - 355mm x 254mm £6
24" Asus VS247H LED Black Full HD HDMI/DVI/VGA 1920x1080, 5ms, 300cd/m², 50000000:1 £298 (£149 each, going dual screen. I don't have room for triple)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit SP1, Operating System, Single, - OEM £72
Be Quiet! Dark Rock PRO BK016 CPU Cooler Socket LGA775/1155 /1156/1366/2011/AM2/AM2+/AM3/754/940 £54
8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black LP, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V £39
Creative GigaWorks T20 Series II Speakers Black £50
120GB Corsair Force Series 3, 2.5" SSD, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SandForce, Read 550Mb/s, Write 510Mb/s, 85,000 IOPS, PC/MAC £103
Logitech G510 Gaming Keyboard, Programmable, LCD Panel, Custom Colour Back Lit £89
ROCCAT Kone+ Max v2 with 22x EASYSHIFT Customization Macro Gaming Mouse, 6000dpi, LED inc 4x5g Weight options £60
680W PSU, Be Quiet Straight Power E9 CM BN199, 93% Eff', 80 PLUS Gold, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Quiet Fan, ATX v2.3 £98
Corsair Vengeance 1500 Dolby 7.1 USB Gaming Headset with MIC £78
Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card & Headphone Ampifier, OEM £22
Sony BD-5300S-0B Super Fast Blu-ray Writer x12 BD-R, x8 DVD±DL x16 DVD±R x8 DVD±RW Writer OEM £77
Edimax EW-7722In 300Mbps Wireless 11n 32Bit PCI Adapter with Twin Antenna High Gain £18

Additional Comments: A couple of final comments;

1) I know it's sitting on the fence, but I'd prefer the case to be as quiet as possible, whilst still giving me headroom for some overclocking. Probably won't be anything extreme, but would see a waste to by an unlocked CPU and not use it.

2) I'm in two minds about the GPU - I'd originally settled on the 7870, but then the GTX 680 came out and it looked like a pretty sweet deal. Then i thought, if the GTX isn't in stock, maybe the 7970? I guess my question is, how much of an overkill would the GTX680/7870 be at 1080p?

3) Again on the overkill - is the i7 a bit much? I've heard the 2500k is about as good as it gets for gaming, but thought the i7 would help with the photo editing?

4) 'll be using the SDD for a boot drive, and will probably keep all my games and photos on there as well. The HDD is for media.

5) I stuck a cheap internal sound card in because I figured why not - but is it worth it even at £20?

Any tips, incompatibilities, things I've missed, etc would be much appreciated!

Thanks.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator
1) I know it's sitting on the fence, but I'd prefer the case to be as quiet as possible, whilst still giving me headroom for some overclocking. Probably won't be anything extreme, but would see a waste to by an unlocked CPU and not use it.

I'll suggest a build below - I don't know anything about that PSU and CPU cooler you chose as those brands aren't available in the states.

2) I'm in two minds about the GPU - I'd originally settled on the 7870, but then the GTX 680 came out and it looked like a pretty sweet deal. Then i thought, if the GTX isn't in stock, maybe the 7970? I guess my question is, how much of an overkill would the GTX680/7870 be at 1080p?

Both are sweet GPUs and it doesn't get much better than the 680 currently - I'm getting a 7870 for my system when my tax refund shows up.

3) Again on the overkill - is the i7 a bit much? I've heard the 2500k is about as good as it gets for gaming, but thought the i7 would help with the photo editing?

The 2500K is tailor made for gaming - the 2600K is tailor made for apps that use hyper threading like CS5 and Premiere.

4) 'll be using the SDD for a boot drive, and will probably keep all my games and photos on there as well. The HDD is for media.

Just make sure you don't get a Sandforce-based drive like the Corsair Force 3 or OCZ Vertex 3 - likely to give you nothing but problems.

5) I stuck a cheap internal sound card in because I figured why not - but is it worth it even at £20?

No - and neither is the mouse mat, you don't need those things. Concentrate on the build first, get the accessories later. Onboard audio has drastically improved over the last several years.

Try this:

Case: Corsair Carbide 400R - £79.68
PSU: 850W XFX XXX P1-850B-UKB9, PSU, 88% Eff', 80 PLUS Silver, SLI/CrossFire, EPS 12V, Fan, ATX v2.2 - £107.82
Motherboard: Asus P9X79 - £188.15
CPU: 3.30GHz Intel Core i7-3820 - £217.40
Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 Socket LGA 2011 Edition - £66.29
RAM: 16GB (4 x 4GB) Corsair Vengeance Blue 1600MHz Quad Channel - £78.19
SSD: 128GB Crucial M4 - £117.74
HD: 1.5TB Western Digital Caviar Green - £95.98
Optical: LG BD-R Burner - £67.55
Video Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 680 - £443.62
Monitor: ASUS VE248H Full HD LED Monitor with HDMI - £152.69
OS - Windows 7 Pro - £105.68

Total: £1,737.57

I don't include peripherals (keyboard/mouse/speakers) on builds as that's entirely personal preference - good speakers are always good to have but I'm really in the minority on this board when I don't build builds around non existent hardware (read: the wait for Ivy crowd) and I also am not a fan of spending - say - £94.20 (USD $150) on a keyboard and/or a mouse. If you want to buy those - that's up to you and the difference will more than allow you to do so. But I'm generally not a fan. I also included Windows 7 Pro as it does away with Home Premium's RAM limitations and on X79 you don't want that.