Is this worth £3,500..?

[Devenney]

Sale of my mothers house will go through soon and i'm treating myself to a gaming rig. This is top of my budget and want to ask you guys if it's a good deal and what changes I should make...

Many thanks...




PC Specification

ATI CrossFireX - Intel i7

Computer Case Antec Twelve Hundred Black
CPU Intel Core i7 960 D0 (4 x 3.20GHz) 8 MB 4.8GT/s
Motherboard Asus P6T6 WS Revolution (Intel X58)
Memory Corsair 6GB Dominator GT CAS6 (3x2GB) 1600MHz - Lifetime Warranty (DDR3)
Graphics Card 2 x ATI Radeon HD 5870 - 1 GB - 2xDVI/HDMI (XFX) CrossFireX Setup
Power Supply Corsair 850W Advanced (CMPSU-850HXUK) - Modular
Sound Card Creative X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional 7.1 (PCI-E)
Firewire Card 1 Port Firewire IEEE 1394 (Built In)
Networking Motherboard Integrated Ethernet Lan (Broadband Ready)
USB Ports 8 x USB 2.0 Ports
CPU Heatsink Corsair Hydro Series H50 V2 (Advanced Liquid Cooling) - BEST SELLER
Hard Drive 1 G.Skill SATA-II 128 GB Solid State HDD
Hard Drive 2 WD SATA-II VelociRaptor 300GB UDMA 300 10000RPM 16MB
Optical Drive 1 LG (CH08LS10) 10x Blu-Ray Reader & 16x Dual Layer DVD +/- RW Writer - Black (SATA)
Optical Drive 2 Samsung (SH-S223L) DVD +/- RW 22x - Black - Lightscribe (SATA)
Hard Drive #3 1 TB (1000 GB) SATA-II HDD UDMA 300 7200 32MB
Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 BIT (Genuine DVD & COA Included)
Backup Solution Windows Backup
Surge Protection Belkin 4 UK Outlet Surge Protector 1.7M Cable (£25,000 Warranty) FREE UPGRADE TO 8 PORT SURGE PROTECTION ORDER BEFORE 11:59 PM ON 30-06-10
Monitor #1 Asus 24" (VW246H) Widescreen TFT - Black - HDMI/DVI-D/VGA - 2ms - (HD 1080p)
Keyboard Logitech G15 Gaming Keyboard (USB)
Mouse Logitech G9X Gaming Laser Mouse (USB)
Speakers Creative Inspire 5.1 A500 Black Speaker System - NEW
Headphones Razer Carcharias Professional Gaming Headset
Mouse Mat Razer Goliathus Omega Gaming Mouse Mat Fragged (Speed)


Services Summary


36 Months Return To Base
- 12 Months Cover
- Return To Base
- Free 28 Day DOA



E-Mail/MSN/Phone Support
- 12 Months Cover
- E-Mail Support
- MSN Support
- Phone Support



Standard (5-9 Working Days)



UK Mainland
Standard - 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM




Price Summary

System Total Ex Vat:
Delivery Ex Vat:
Services:
Vat (17.5%):
Grand Total Inc Vat:
£2,895.51
£ 0.00
£ 85.00
£ 521.59
£3,502.10

 

[semu]

Lian Li PC-A71F
Blu-Ray-R/DVD±RW Combo
Asus Crosshair IV Formula, AM3, 890FX, SATA 6Gbps, USB 3.0, ATX
OCZ 50GB SSD Vertex 2
Samsung 1TB SpinPoint F3
Kingston HyperX 2x2GB, DDR3 1600 MHz, CL9
Cheapest Ati Radeon 5970 with at least 2 year warranty
Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition
Noctua NH-D14
Seasonic X-650
Auzentech X-Fi Forte 7.1
NEC EA231wmi
Logitech Illuminated
2x Genelec 6010A

I'd recommend you to try different headphones in hifi-stores and choose ones which sound's you like. Also mouse is very subjective choose.

 

[MAZWANTGUN]

Hmmm, no USB3? You should really consider that before spending that much money.
I really think you should end up spending less, and no this not worth 3500 pounds, may between 2800 pounds and 2900 pounds.

EDIT: Otherwise the system looks beast!

 

[Devenney]

Thanks guys, Ill look into that. It's a bih budget and I want to get it right. The quote came from computer planet, seem to get good reviews, but is there a company that are amazing..?

 

[asteldian]

The real question is, regardless of whether it is technically worth that much money - is there a point to spending that much money?

You are wanting a gaming rig, you could build one for near half that price which would last you 3 years at least, with the money saved you could keep that aside and buy a whole new rig with that money in 3-5 years time.

You don't need an i7 as this will offer you no real gaming benefits over the i5 750. The only reason you MAY want to do this if you really want to XFire and don't want x8/x8 PCI E lanes instead of x16/x16 (though the difference in performance is very small and frankly paying all the extra to become an i7 just for slightly better XFire performance is not worth it.

Personally I would be looking at:

Asus P7P55D-E PRO motherboard (USB 3.0, SATA 6gb/s) about £170

i5 750 CPU (about £165)

5870 GPU (can get a second if you want, though I would start with one, by the time you need another they willl likely be cheaper) about £320

Corsair or Seasonic 850W PSU (about £135)

4gb G.Skill Ripjaw RAM (7-8-7-24 latency, 1600mhz) about £103. You could get more but it is no real use for gaming, in a few years maybe that will change, but again can just get some more then when cheaper

HAF 922 case, a great case at a great price. (approx. £80)

A decent Solid State drive (someone else may be able to recommend a specific one), lets say £200

A 500gb or 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 HDD (amazing performance, great price) about £39 for the 500gb, £52 for the 1TB

24 inch LCD monitor (£165-£200)

Windows Home Premium OEM - £78

2 x Optical Drives about £15 each, all pretty similar. You can of course pay extra if you want a Blu Ray one.

£60 for the cooler you mentioned, though I believe you can get better for less.

Really no need for a sound card, on board sound is more than enough for gaming. As for speakers, mouse and keyboard, those are personal choice and you can get them at your leisure, whichever you want. But going with the 2 listed in your post, that is £120 for mouse and keyboard

Total is £1693 for all you need in a gaming PC and your sexy mouse/keyboard.

If you wanted a second 5870 now then the total would be £2013. That still leaves £1500 for your speakers, headphones and to upgrade one optical drive with a Blu Ray player.

Even if you upgraded to the i7 960 (£300 more) and an X58 mobo (about £80 more) and 6gb triple RAM (about £80 more) that would bring your total to about £2473.

So, even with the expensive option you are £1027 better off. Even after buying speakers and headset you should still be about £900 les than that build, so you can use it to buy little extras such as sound cards and other things that won't actually enhance your gaming but you may consider 'nice to have' or you can save that money for the future.

Whether you want the £1693 i5 750 build (with 2nd 5870 as optional extra for £320 more) or the £2153 i7 960 build (again with a second 5870 as an optional extra for £320 more) is entirely up to you. I personally would grab the i5 750 with one card and have £2000 sitting in my savings for the next few years, but I am sure others will argue the benefits of the i7 build.

Whether or not you need a second card right now depends on the games you are playing.

All these items are easily found on ebuyer and scan.co.uk
I am sure for a fee you can even have your specifications built for you from a store

 

[semu]

Without monitor, mouse, sound card, headphones and speakers, the price is 1760,88 at http://www.overclockers.co.uk/
You can get the Genelecs for 2x 156,92 = £313,85, the sound card for £100 and the monitor for £292,11. Overall this all will make under £2500 without mouse and headphones. And as I told in my earlier post, you should try them both in your local stores and try to find yourself something you like.

 

[Devenney]

Wow, could save a fair bit then. With the sort of components suggested, could I run latest FPS and big real-time strategy games on high settings?

And is it pretty straightforward to put everything together, I've removed a few components in my time but that's about it...

Thanks for all your help!

 

[semu]

If you overclock the cpu a bit you can run everything you want max settings 60+fps. (Well Crysis with more than 2x AA 30+fps in action parts but with 1920x1080 resolution no more AA is needed)

 

[Devenney]

is overclocking easy..? is it something that if i did it wrong would destroy everything?

I'm not all that technically savvy...

 

[coldsleep]

If you've added & removed graphics cards, RAM, hard drives in the past, you can put together a computer from scratch.

You definitely don't need the i7-960. It will offer very little benefit in gaming for the extra money over the i7-930.

In general, I agree with all of asteldian's advice.

What you might consider, if you go with 2x 5870...buy 3 monitors and use them in an Eyefinity setup. 3x 24" 1080p IPS monitors will run about US$ 1200-1500, so somewhere around 1000 pounds?

 

[asteldian]

Putting together a computer is very easy, the most complicated part is connecting the PSU wires, and even that is fairly straight forward.
If you are really uncomfortable building a computer for the first time, www.scan.co.uk sells what they call 'scansure' it is basically insurance cover for a one off fee (I think £30) which covers any parts you may break during installation process. It lasts 28 days from delivery date so that is plenty of time to build it and see if you break anything in the process.
Personally I have never used it and have never broken a part during installation (it is quite hard to) but, if it makes you more confident to try building yourself I say it is well worth it.

As for the build, whether you go with i5 750 or an i7, I would probably only go with one 5870 for now, it is powerful and other than Crysis nothing should really tax it for awhile. A GPU is an easy item to buy and install at a later date, so no harm in just getting the one and seeing if you really need a second. You probably wont, and as I mentioned earlier, by the time you do prices will likely have dropped.

Also, if you doubt you will venture into the complex worlld of manually OCing your CPU, and you were going with an i5 750/P55 mobo, I would recommend going with MSI P55-GD85 as your motherboard. It has USB3.0, Sata 6gb/s, XFire capability and best of all it has the OC Genie.

For hardcore OCers, they will never recommend such a board because when it comes to manually OCing it has limitations that would frustrate the extreme OCer (they tend to get as fast as humanly possible to just before the brink of CPU explosion ). But, for someone who has never OC'd and likely would not try to, or at least would not push to the extreme, the OC Genie on the MSI motherboard is a godsend - you literally press the OC Genie button on the motherboard, turn on the computer and voila! The computer is Overclocked - and by a considerable amount (usually between 800mhz to 1ghz) that is pretty amazing for a no effort, no risk Overclock. If you want to turn the Overclock off, you simply press the button on the motehrboard again. No stability issues, no trial and error, it really is the perfect device for those who tend not to OC.