£800-1000 system for (non-hardcore) gaming

[Hints]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Within Next 2 Weeks

BUDGET RANGE: £800-£1000

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming but not a lot. Should be able to run SC2, Diablo 3, Mass Effect 2 etc

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Monitor, OS (has Win XP/Vista/7 already)

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: http://www.ebuyer.com/, http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/, any other good websites?

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: UK

PARTS PREFERENCES: Intel/Nvidia

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1200 (Already has a monitor)

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Mass storage space; please include wireless network

 

[Silvune]

CPU: Intel Core i5 750 £160

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 £160

RAM: G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Ripjaw Memory Kit CL7(7-8-7-24) 1.65V £90

GPU: XFX HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 £250
I know you said that you wanted a Nvidia card, but as far as I'm concerned there are very few good reasons to get a Nvidia card atm. Firstly you can buy ATI cards that outperform them for less cost. ATI cards are less power hungry as well. Most of the benchmarks I've seen show that the 5850 outperforms the GTX 285 and the cheapest 285 on ebuyer is £260, so go for that if you really want Nvidia.

PSU: If you want to be able to crossfire 5850s: Antec Truepower New TP-650 80 Plus Bronze Modular £77
If you want to be able to SLI 285s: Antec EarthWatts 750W 80 Plus Modular £77

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB £60. Don't know exactly what you mean by mass storage, but 1TB is a good starting point at least. And one of the best around, if need more then I suggest getting green drives and use the F3 as the boot drive.

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two £79
Has plenty of 3.5" bays so that you can install loads of HDDs if you need to. Might have to remove the internal fan if you go for the GTX 285 or go for the HAF 922 which is around the same price.

Cheapest SATA DVD Drive £20

Wireless networking isn't my strong point, so if this is not what you want or need, then ignorance is a defence. D-Link AirPlus Xtreme-G DWL-G520 108Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter £32

Total: £928
And that's either £70 to get other periperals or another HDD. If you are sure that you will overclock then the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus @ Overclockers.co.uk or Aria.co.uk is one of the cheapest and best at £20. These are the only two sites where I have found that heatsink with the LGA 1156 mounting clip.

 

[Hints]

Thanks mate.

Have 3 questions:
1. Why didn't you recommend i7 at first place?
2. Possible to go up to 6/8GB RAM?
3. Need any additional internal fans?

CPU: Intel Core i5 750 £160

Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4 £160

RAM: G-Skill 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Ripjaw Memory Kit CL7(7-8-7-24) 1.65V £90

GPU: XFX HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 £250
I know you said that you wanted a Nvidia card, but as far as I'm concerned there are very few good reasons to get a Nvidia card atm. Firstly you can buy ATI cards that outperform them for less cost. ATI cards are less power hungry as well. Most of the benchmarks I've seen show that the 5850 outperforms the GTX 285 and the cheapest 285 on ebuyer is £260, so go for that if you really want Nvidia.

PSU: If you want to be able to crossfire 5850s: Antec Truepower New TP-650 80 Plus Bronze Modular £77
If you want to be able to SLI 285s: Antec EarthWatts 750W 80 Plus Modular £77

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB £60. Don't know exactly what you mean by mass storage, but 1TB is a good starting point at least. And one of the best around, if need more then I suggest getting green drives and use the F3 as the boot drive.

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two £79
Has plenty of 3.5" bays so that you can install loads of HDDs if you need to. Might have to remove the internal fan if you go for the GTX 285 or go for the HAF 922 which is around the same price.

Cheapest SATA DVD Drive £20

Wireless networking isn't my strong point, so if this is not what you want or need, then ignorance is a defence. D-Link AirPlus Xtreme-G DWL-G520 108Mbps Wireless PCI Adapter £32

Total: £928
And that's either £70 to get other periperals or another HDD. If you are sure that you will overclock then the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus @ Overclockers.co.uk or Aria.co.uk is one of the cheapest and best at £20. These are the only two sites where I have found that heatsink with the LGA 1156 mounting clip.

 

[Silvune]

Thanks mate.

Have 3 questions:
1. Why didn't you recommend i7 at first place?
2. Possible to go up to 6/8GB RAM?
3. Need any additional internal fans?

1. The platform is more expensive and I didn't think it would go in a £1000 build, altho looking at it now it could go if you don't want to make room in the budget for peripherals. Also your only stated usage is gaming (if you are going to be using it for something else it would have been helpful to know what), and the i5 is almost more than you will need for gaming for quite a while. In gaming the performance difference between i5 750 and i7 920 is very close, sometimes the i5 will win, but where it really wins is less cost. One of the major reasons to go bloomfield is if you want to be able to run more than two graphics cards. Another reason is if you do processor intensive tasks, such as video/photo editing, databases, etc, where more RAM is needed, in which case it is usually cheaper to go for a Bloomfield system with 6 rather than a Lynnfield system with 8GB of RAM.

2. In a gaming build 4GB is plenty, if not more than enough. Again if you have other processor/RAM intensive uses in mind for this rig then there are two options, change the i5 750 to an i7 860, then to get 8GB of RAM I would think that you would have to compromise somewhere else, most likely the graphics card. Or you can get an i7 920, mobo to support it and 6GB of RAM.

3. I don't think that you would need any additional fans, as the 902 is a very good cooling case. I would suggest building the rig, then checking the temps and if you aren't happy with them, that is when to buy a case fan.

 

[Hints]

Thanks once again.

If I would like to go i7 9xx, what mobo/ram/GPU(potentially) you would recommend?

 

[Silvune]

Crucial 6GB (3x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz/PC3-12800 Ballistix Memory CL8(8-8-8-24) 1.65V £117
ASROCK X58 Deluxe £160
The OEM i7 920 on ebuyer is £206. So the total with the heatsink is £1020. So, I think they have a GTX 275 on novatech for £200. The 5830 is about the same, but isn't quite as good consistently as the 275.