£600 Gaming Machine

[bs06job]

Mods please delete this thread - posted elsewhere.

I am a medical student who does graphic and web design work on the side. I also play fairly demanding PC games (e.g. crysis) a few hours a week. I currently use a Dell XPS laptop for this purpose, but I would like to move to a desktop in the near future. I have never built a PC before, however i'm willing to give it a go as i'm not completely computer illiterate and enjoy practical things.

The system I have designed below seems, in my inexpert opinion, to offer reasonable performance and value for money. I have selected these components as I believe they allow me to expand in future by:

1) Overclocking the CPU to increase performance.
2) Adding another graphics card in SLI/crossfire.
3) Adding another hard drive in RAID.
4) Adding a second display.

Approximate Purchase Date: End of January

Budget Range: < £600 for the computer itself, ~£100 for the display

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, graphic and web design (Adobe CS5 suite), audio and video encoding

Parts Not Required: None

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Any

Country: UK

Parts Preferences: Intel CPU

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Yes

Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080

Additional Comments: Value for money is extremely important as I am a student


Motherboard - £84.11
Asus P8Z68-V LX Socket 1155 Onboard graphics output 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard

CPU - £168.40
Intel Sandybridge i5-2500K Unlocked Core i5 Quad-Core Processor (3.30GHz, 6MB Cache, Socket 1155)

Graphics Card - £125.10
Sapphire 11179-09-20G HD 6870 1GB GDDR5 Graphics Card

RAM - £40.50
Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Two Module Kit

PSU - £36.52
Corsair Builder Series CX430 V2 430 Watt Power Supply

HDD - £68.60
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAIII 6Gb/s 16MB Cache 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive OEM

DVDRW - £13.55
SATA 22x DVD Writer SAMSUNG SH-S222AB/BEBE

Case - £44.34
Antec Three Hundred Midi Case

CPU Cooler - £15.99
Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 CPU Cooler

Total: £597.11

Plus this display:
LG IPS225V IPS LED 21.5" HDMI Monitor

I would be grateful if someone experienced could cast their eye over my list and tell me whether or not everything is compatible and if I can achieve similar performance more cheaply by substituting components.


Cheers!

Jack

 

[bs06job]

Just a thought - that PSU is probably underpowered for the type of system i'm building, isn't it?

Jack

 

[ariscov]

Maybe a better PSU (especially if you plan no xfire)

Maybe get a different HDD. I suggest a Samsung Spinpoint, or a black drive. But HDD's are farrrrrr too expensive right now.

Other than that, that seems like a great build. The 6870 should scream at 1920x1080, considering a single 6850 can max out Skyrim.

 

[bs06job]

ariscov,

Thanks for your suggestions. What would be a more appropriate PSU? Would 600W allow me to utilise crossfire in future?

E.g. OCZ 600W ModXStream Pro Power Supply

Could I use a SSD for my OS and programs and a HDD for my music and video files? Would a 40gb SSD be large enough for this?

E.g. Corsair CSSD-F40GB2-A Force Series 40GB Solid State Drive

Jack

 

[JKatwyopc]

The OCZ 600W ModXStream Pro Power Supply will not allow you to crossfire unless you get power adapters for the second graphics card(not recommended). The specs for the PSU list only one 6-pin PCIe power and one 6+2 Pin PCIe power adapter and the HD 6870 will use both of those.

This one would work: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-AX650-Professional-Power-Supply/dp/B0056MJ71A/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1326222325&sr=1-1

Or This: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMPSU-650HX-Professional-Power-Supply/dp/B002W62QJI/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1326222391&sr=1-1