Any gamers out there system advice required.

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A mate of mine has asked me to build a system for him for games. He wants to spend £1000, I priced up the following at overclockers just as an example. I have never built such a high spec machine before and would like some feedback before i spend his hard earned cash. Cheers

Your basket
Product Name Qty Price Line Total
Asus Crosshair IV Formula AMD 890FX (Socket AM3) DDR3 Motherboard £159.99
(£136.16) £159.99
XFX ATI Radeon HD 5830 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card + Alien vs Predator £154.99
(£131.91) £309.98
AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core 970 Black Edition "140W Edition" 3.50GHz (Socket AM3) - Retail £140.99
(£119.99) £140.99
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C10 (2000MHz) Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G2000LV4GK) £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £82.99
(£70.63) £82.99
OCZ ModXStream Pro 700w Silent SLI Certified Modular Power Supply £76.36
(£64.99) £76.36
Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £74.99
(£63.82) £74.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
Sub Total : £829.17
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £147.51
Total : £990.43

 

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http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2010/09/07/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-september-2010/4

If I had the cash the above is pretty close to the spec I'd go for.

 

You could have a look over this article

 

I would also go for the above system apart from the PSU and maybe the cpu. Antec have had trouble over the last few years due to using cheap component suppliers especialy for the capacitors that are in the power supplies this has caused a high RMA rate and a growing distrust of their PSUs.

You cant go wrong with corsair or seasonic though (same manufacturer).

Now if it is just a pure gaming system then you could say an i7 is overkill just like the core 2 quad was overkill for a gaming system and the core 2 duo was more than sufficient. You could swap the i7 for an i5. Just my opinion though.

 

PSU was on my list for a swap as well, as much as I'm a big fan of Antec's cases their PSUs aren't that inspiring. Swap this in instead and your on to a winner!

Although the i7 is overkill for a gaming rig at the moment with multi-core now the standard the games manufacturers are catching up fast and the i7 gives a bit of extra headroom before the next upgrade will be necessary.

 

Agreed. Those corsairs have plenty amps to cover a decent system.

I built a super beast for someone the other week with new corsair 1200AX it puts out 100.4a on the 12volt rail. This system was running tri sli GTX 480s which of course there is absolutley no need in but thats what the customer wanted and he gave 3k for it.

 

Cheers guys,
I have used corsair psu's before but is 650w enough for a due graphics card rig? I did not want to pay £100 for thr corsair 750w psu. I was aware that an i7 would be wasted on games as they would not make use of all the cores, I hand not considered the i5 will do some homework.

 

there is no need in going sli or crossfire. In essence with two GTX 480s you would get at best a 20% increase in performance whilst using upto 50% more power.

If you were to go for the card you mention and use it in crossfire mode with another card you would have to go for the corsair 750TX atleast and if you wanted so the machine was upgradable in the future you would be better of going for corsair 800w series or even an 850TX.

I would never go crossfire or sli due to cost of buying two high end card and the strain it can put on your system regardless of how good the psu is. Now if a customer wants his system like that then I can only advise or give my opinion and show the facts but if the customer wants it and has the cash to pay then so be it.

There aren't many games that use two cores let alone 4 6 or 12 (the gaming system I built fot the customer a hexacore 12 cores) plus there aren't many games that can fully utilize crossfire or sli that is also another reason why its pointless.

 

Twin cards would not be my choice either but my mate is very keen on it as his current dell xps has it.

 

you need to up the psu then.

 

THe card itself (ati 5830) requires a 500w psu alone that is before anything else so to run two of them your looking atleast 850w The GTX 460 on its own outperforms two of those cards and would need less power.

 

Ok an i5 spec with corsair psu and single graphics card is it really worth £300 for a single card?

XFX ATI Radeon HD 5870 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
(£246.80) £289.99
Intel Core i5 760 2.80GHz (Lynnfield) (Socket LGA1156) - Retail £158.99
(£135.31) £158.99
Asus P7P55D Evo Intel P55 (Socket 1156) DDR3 Motherboard £137.99
(£117.44) £137.99
OCZ Gold 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-16000C10 (2000MHz) Dual Channel Kit (OCZ3G2000LV4GK) £84.99
(£72.33) £84.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-00599) £82.99
(£70.63) £82.99
Antec 900 Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case - Black £74.99
(£63.82) £74.99
Corsair TX 650W ATX SLi Compliant Power Supply (CMPSU-650TXUK) £72.98
(£62.11) £72.98
Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 500GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM (ST3500418AS) £29.99
(£25.52) £29.99
Samsung SH-S223C/BEBE 22x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
(£11.91) £13.99
Sub Total : £805.87
Shipping cost assumes delivery to UK Mainland with:
DPD Next Day Parcel
(This can be changed during checkout) Shipping : £13.75
VAT is being charged at 17.50% VAT : £143.43
Total : £963.05

 

I would prefer that build over your original.

 

I have a couple of 5870's (I sold my old GTX 295's to go down the ATI route) and I love em.

Things I look for in a decent build are :-

(in order of preference as well actually).

PSU
Case
Motherboard
GPU
CPU
Cooling
Ram

I have a Corsair Case and PSU currently and love em both, I currently use a Gigabyte board, two Sapphire Vapor-X 5870's, an i7 950, Corsair H50 and Corsair 1600 DDr3 ram, with all of that I was lucky if I got much change out of 2k.

I have spares sitting around here to build an equally powerful box (Skulltrail motherboard and two E5450 cpu's, none of which have ever been used), I have too much kit and not enough time these days

 

Good spec PC mate. The only thing I would add is that I have my OS and Games on separate hard drives for performance. Also with the space games take these day maybe a 750GB-1TB drive might be better to store the games on.

 

With the cost of HDDs the way it is at the moment I'd throw a 1TB in without thinking about it, the Samsung Spinpoint F3 mentioned in the build above is a damn fine drive for only £60.

Of course, if you had the cash then a solid state as your Win and Games drive will give a massive performance boost. I swear by OCZ for solid state, the vertex 2E is awesome but at £100 for a 60GB not the cheapest option available!