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.
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.