First gaming desktop

[Ian Weatherill]

I'm thinking of buying this for serious gaming
are the specs ok? Anything I should change or add

Thanks


Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P8Z77-M: MICRO-ATX, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs, ATI®CrossFireX

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
2TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155 STANDARD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
2 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE (£15)

Speakers
LOGITECH S220 2.1 SILVER/BLACK SPEAKER SYSTEM (£19)

Headsets (VOIP)
LOGITECH® PC HEADSET 860 - STEREO WITH IN-LINE VOLUME CONTROL (£8)

Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£9)

 

[Chris Preston]

That's a pretty nice setup, one change maybe would be going for a motherboard that supports SLI with the GTX 670. From what I saw there is another model of that same motherboard you listed that does support SLI and it's an extra $50 or so.

Another thing is your headset, I don't know what kind of games you're interested in or if you have much use for a mic, but if you're a fan of Logitech the G35 or G930 are good options, and I'm pretty sure both (the G35 for sure) supports virtual 7.1 surround sound and has some good macro buttons on it for iTunes/windows media player. To my knowledge both are wireless too

 

[John Robertson]

You might want to go with a 1TB hdd and an SSD as well, since games load so much faster from SSD.

Also if you're going to go SLI or 2 drives I'd think about a better PSU, maybe 750-800 watts

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Thanks for that chris,will have a look for a different motherboard then,i just put down a wee cheap headset to see what its like,im hoping to join some racing leagues on here soon

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Thanks john for the advice not too many changes then,my computer is old so it will be nice to see the difference

 

[Jim Cole]

Be careful if you go with dual graphics cards. Both nVidia and ATI have problems with micro-stutter in a lot of games when running 2 cards or 4 cards, but 1 and 3 don't have the same issue.

Also, getting an SSD is great for the OS and it might help games start up faster, but it won't help games run faster unless the game constantly reads and writes to the drive, so keep that in mind as well. You might be better off making sure that the SATA drive you get is a 10,000 RPM drive instead.

Is there a reason you are going with dual DVD/Blueray drives? If you just need to make copies, you can get one as just a reader and the other as a writer and save a little cash.

One last thing. If you have older games that run on Windows XP, you might consider going with Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate. The reason for this is because with those versions you can get a free virtual environment for XP from Microsoft that will allow most of your older games to run without the issues that you would have when trying to run them in Windows 7 or 8.

If you are planning on getting a triple monitor setup in the future, you might also consider getting a GPU with 3Gb or 4Gb of RAM so you have the memory to support max graphics across 3 screens, especially if you have 3 HD monitors. If you plan on 3D as well, then things will get a little trickier.

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Thanks for that jim,I didn't know I picked
the same blue ray drive twice,this is my first
time trying to pick something for serious gaming
my girlfriends friend is going to build this but isn't
in to games so it's back to the drawing board

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Ok so how's this spec folks, also is there any
good sites for racing seats and steering wheels

Cheers

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z77: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 670 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB VELOCIRAPTOR WD1000DHTZ, SATA 6-Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (10,000rpm)

SSD CACHE DRIVE
20GB INTEL® SSD 313 SERIES - SLC CACHE DRIVE FOR SYSTEM / 1st HDD

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
12x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW

2nd DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX750 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£86)

Processor Cooling
SUPER QUIET 22dBA TRIPLE COPPER HEATPIPE INTEL CPU COOLER (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence

Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)

Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL

Eyefinity / GeForce 3D Vision
Active Display Port to DVI Adapter (3 MONITOR SETUPS) (£20)

Surge Protection
6 Socket Compact 2M UFO Surge Protector (£9)

Cable Tidy
JML 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management For Your PC (£4)

 

[Tom]

A 20GB SSD drive will get you nowhere, I'm afraid. I'm using a 60GB one for Windows 7 + Swap File and another 180GB one for my favourite games (I place them on the SSD and place a junction in the Steam / Origin directory if necessary).

That means I can place the Steam directory and 99% of my games on the normal HDD and fake a few games being there whilst they're on the SSD. In F1 2012 it takes about 5 seconds from the main menu to being in the car.

(Explanation of how to link directories using junctions: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html)

I'd buy an Intel SSD to place the OS on. 60GB should be ok for Windows 7 and some applications.

Whatever you do, DO NOT BUY AN OCZ SSD!​

I bought 2 of them (the ones mentioned above) and the 180GB (the 60GB is working fine tho) was dead on arrival. The first replacement as well. The second replacement as well. The third one is working but had shown 2 dead sectors when I first plugged it in. Intel is definitely best (not cheapest tho) when it comes to SSD.

The rest seems to be ok but Windows 7 Home should be sufficient, so that's definitely something you could save some money on. Also, most BD drives can write DVDs so you shouldn't need a dedicated DVD writer unless you're using it a lot (like 2-3 discs a day). You might want to grab 16GB of RAM as well since it's cheap anyway and more RAM is always better.

Just my 0.50€.

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Cheers tom,so is this ok


2nd Hard Disk
240GB INTEL® 330 SERIES SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 500MB/sR | 450MB/sW)

Then 16 gb for the ram

 

[Mike Sterckx]

Intel or samsung ssd's are indeed best. I red a review/comparison a couple of months ago and if i remember correctly the samsung ones came out most reliable, followed by the intel ones, but the intel ones were faster.

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Why 1333mhz? I'd go for at least 1600mhz.

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-3770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache

For a couple of pounds more you can get the 'K' version which has an unlocked multiplier.

 

[Jim Cole]

If all you are going to be using this rig for is gaming, then you don't need to worry about any more RAM on the motherboard than 8Gb as nothing you run will require that. If however you plan on doing stuff in Photoshop or 3ds Max then 16Gb would be an improvement.

In most people's opinion, and this is backed up with benchmarks, going anything over the i5 is overkill and you get less for the additional cost which you can save and put towards other aspects of the computer. The i5 2500K does just fine for any game that is out there right now, and the i7 doesn't show that much improvement for what you have to spend to get it. Again, if you do other things besides just gaming, by all means get the i7 if you can afford it.

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Thanks very much guys for the advice very much
Appreciate it

Yes jim just for gaming

I5 2500k it is then
8 gb of ram
So the mother board and the ssd is ok then

 

[Jim Cole]

Yes, those are fine.

 

[Ian Weatherill]

cheers jim much appreciated

 

[Tom]

How much are you going to pay for all that combined? Out of curiosity.

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Sorry for the long delay tom,I really don't know
yet,it was actually my gf said to me she knows
a guy who will build one at a good price if I got
him the specs,my computer is 10 years old so it's
time to splash out,I'm open to suggestings if it's
not good enough mate

 

[Ian Weatherill]

£1200 pounds is this good before I go ahead

 

[Tom]

£1200 pounds is this good before I go ahead

That's ok, I paid a bit more 3 months ago. 1500€ is ok'ish.

 

[Ian Weatherill]

Cheers Tom but your system is prob better
can't wait until I see the difference in graphics