[Xenoronin]

1. What is your budget? €800~€850

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming, hopefully streaming League of Legends, Starcraft 2, Tribes Ascend. Also AutoCAD inventor ( 3D CAD) and probably stress analysis (entering 4th Biomedical Engineering )

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Probably 2tb Green Caviar WD to use as bulk storage

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need. Was looking around 22"

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Keyboard and Mouse (though not essential)

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes, probably

8. How can you pay? Bank Transfer

9. When are you purchasing? Sometime in June

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? No help needed. Built a PC before a few years back.

Item	Price
Cooler Master Elite 430, ohne Netzteil	€39.26
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155	€190.81
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9	€43.98
Samsung SyncMaster S22A350H	€129.42
ASUS DRW-24B3ST Bulk SATA schwarz	€18.78
Sapphire HD6870 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-I+SL-DVI-D / HDMI / DP	€147.59
Samsung SSD 830 64GB SATA 6GB's Paper Box	€72.44
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W	€52.40
MSI Z77A-G45, Intel Z77, ATX, DDR3	€122.39
Shipping	€18.99
Total	€836.06

Hi guys, this is what I have so far. I was going to go with a cheaper motherboard but then realised I should probably future proof if Crossfire/SLI ever takes my fancy (other MOBO only had 1 3.0 PCI Express Slot).

In college so it needs to hold up to 3D drawing and rendering. Probably going to try to livestream a few games for my friends (25mb UPC internet in Galway) and play a few of the latest games. I'm not a huge graphics fag though so I can play games on lowered settings.

After this i'm probably going to save up for a razer lycosa/arctosa and a deathadder to finish it off.
I'm not adverse to overclocking but i'm pretty new to it. Tried a few things a few years ago but didn't want to destroy the family PC so stopped. (e7200, 8800gs nvidia[now a 6770ati when it fried after 3-4 years recently], 2gb ram, 330 elite case, 450W Corsair PSU, if anyone was interested). Also not running anything but stock cooler to save some money as OC is not essential atm.

Any thoughts on the build? Anywhere I could skim off a few euro or make worthwhile investments?
Serious thanks for finding hardwareversand btw. This site is amazing!

[deconduo]

I'd probably get a cheaper mobo and a better GPU now and not worry about crossfire.

Item	Price
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155	€190.81
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX	€82.61
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9	€35.55
Samsung SSD 830 64GB SATA 6GB's Paper Box	€72.44
Club 3D Radeon HD 7850 Coolstream Edition, 2GB GDDR5	€221.18
BitFenix Merc Beta	€31.99
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W	€52.40
LG GH24NS bare schwarz	€16.54
BenQ GL2250	€111.00
Shipping	€18.99
Total	€833.53

[Procrastastudy]

Sandybridge (i5-2500K) won't enable PCIe 3.0 until you drop an Ivy bridge processor in there such as the i5-3570K.

X-fire - by the time you get round to doing it it's time for a new Gfx Card anyway. Twice I've done that now Two weeks ago I got another 4870 and now I'm off to buy a 7950 because the older gen cards dont have the features I need.

[luyolo]

Originally Posted by GCDLawstudent

Sandybridge (i5-2500K) won't enable PCIe 3.0 until you drop an Ivy bridge processor in there such as the i5-3570K.

X-fire - by the time you get round to doing it it's time for a new Gfx Card anyway. Twice I've done that now Two weeks ago I got another 4870 and now I'm off to buy a 7950 because the older gen cards dont have the features I need.

PCIe 3.0 has no real performance gains over 2.0 . The 3570k is not worth the extra €20/€30 (mobo costs €10 more) over the 2500k, unless you aren't getting a GPU which the OP is.

[Procrastastudy]

Granted no performance gains at the moment but OP mentioned PCIe 3.0.

3570K also runs at higher temps OC'd so another reason not to go for it over the i5-2500K. Me I just can;t avoid buying bleeding edge

[Monotype]

You still get the PCI-E 3 if with an Ivy Bridge CPU as it's a Gen 3 board. If you wanted to really wanted the 3570K, it'd bring the budget only slightly over the €850.

PCI-E 3 might not be of any use today, but most people upgrade a graphics card later on, maybe several times, so the extra bandwidth is going to be useful at some stage. Of course, there's nothing stopping you from upgrading the CPU at that time either. You might get better value (not really likely as Intel has no real competition in this area and they'll probably get a new socket after this lot next year).

[Xenoronin]

Cheers for the replies!

I think i'll stick with the Samsung monitor. Reason? It looks nicer.
Same with the case (though the blue led fan is also practical since there are 2 case fans, and I trust the brand). If I'm going to be looking at this hardware daily I want it to look nice

Am I wrong in thinking there isn't anything amazing about that benq screen? I thought the 2ms (grey to grey) response time of the Samsung would be more ideal for gaming.

I really don't know if €80 more on that gfx is worth it. I can play games on high instead of ultra (was looking at a review which was pretty impressive though, 60fps solid in skyrim with literally everything on at 1920*1080) but again, i'd need the higher priced CPU (without much benefits in terms of power) and suddenly i'm €120 higher for not a whole lot extra grunt and to get down the price, the quality of the everything would have to come down to suit.

I've swapped out the motherboard for the single gpu slot version. When I think about it, I really doubt I'll be upgrading to crossfire anytime soon

With this setup, there is nothing stopping me from upgrading the graphics card. I read up on pci-e 3.0 and considering that current high end gfx can't fill the bandwidth of 2.0 x16, I don't think it is going to be much of a problem for a long time.

Item	Price
Cooler Master Elite 430, ohne Netzteil	€39.26
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155	€190.81
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9	€46.91
Samsung SyncMaster S22A350H	€129.42
ASUS DRW-24B3ST Bulk SATA schwarz	€18.78
Samsung SSD 830 64GB SATA 6GB's Paper Box	€71.19
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W	€54.24
MSI Z77A-G43, Intel Z77, ATX, DDR3	€91.31
Sapphire HD6870 1G GDDR5 PCI-E DL-DVI-I+SL-DVI-D / HDMI / DP	€147.49
Shipping	€18.99
Total	€808.40

[Skylinehead]

I have a SyncMaster, good screen (mine is an older 23 inch, should be similar though)

[Xenoronin]

Just to be sure, the ram is compatible with the mobo right? I was going off the 1600mhz

[Skylinehead]

It is. Not because of the memory speed (meaningless in every sense), but because it's DDR3. Be careful with that RAM, the heat spreaders at the top may block the installation of an aftermarket air cooler.

[Xenoronin]

Replaced with this:
http://www2.hardwareversand.de/artic...8886&agid=1193