Help building new PC, budget of €1100

Johnny Lightning

This is the first time ever building a PC so naturally I'll need a bit of help. I'll mainly be using it for everyday use but also moderate gaming and have a budget of around €1100 so I'd like a fairly good PC.

I already have the components picked out but since I'm not very familiar with computer hardware, I don't know if it's all compatible or even any good. So here is the hardware.

Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus - €70
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 Evo (Rev. B3) - Socket 1155 - Chipset P67 - ATX - €170
Processor: Intel Core i7-2600k - 3.4GHz 8mb L3 cache - LGA 1155 Socket - €270
Graphics Card: Sapphire Technology Radeon HD 6870 - 1GB GDDR5 - €170
RAM: Corsair 8GB (2x4gb) DDR3 1333 - €84
Power Supply: Cooler Master Silent Pro M600 600W PSU - €89
Optical Drive: ASUS DrW 22B3L Internal 22x DVD±RW Rewriter - €25
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 Hard Drive - 1 TB - 7200 rpm - 32 MB - €47
Also a Cooler Master Excalibur 120 mm Fan - €14
Postage is €25
I'll be buying an OS elsewhere for around €90
Total so far: €1054

These are all from Pixmania. Postage of all this is €25. I know most of you buy from hardwareversand. I haven't settled on a shop yet, but Pixmania seems grand. I use my large HD TV as my computer monitor, and I'm buying an OS elsewhere.

I'm open to any suggestions for changing any of that if there's anything there that's not very good, but I also want to know if all that is compatible with each other and if it will run ok. Any help would be greatly appreciated

deconduo

I wouldn't bother with the 2600k. Unless you are doing stuff that actually needs hyperthreading the 2500k is a better chip.

I'd get a different PSU, Hard Drive as well. And add in a CPU cooler for overclocking.

Any reason you don't want to go with HWVS?

dkmedia

For a gaming pc I wouldn't bother getting the 2600k, I'd go for the i5 2500k & put the savings (100 euro) into a better gpu.

The hd 6870 is also a bit expensive considering you can get the hd 5850 for 120 euro. You didn't state the resolution you will be gaming at, but I assume 1080p. You could go for the GTX 560 (cheaper ones also available on pixmania, I like the twin frozr), hd 6950 (same price as the gtx 560), or even go for a GTX 570.

For the hdd I'd go for the Samsung Spinpoint.

I noticed too that the motherboard has 2 pci-e slots one @ 16x and one @ 4x, so might want to change it if you were thinking of running crossfire/sli. I haven't kept up to date with Sandy Bridge tbh, so I'm not sure what the most popular/best mobo is for it so hopefully someone else can help there.

deconduo

Better graphics card, motherboard supports x8/x8 Crossfire, much better PSU, better hard drive, 128GB SSD, better RAM, better case, great cooler. And comes to €1050 after delivery.

Johnny Lightning

Thanks for the quick responses. I have chosen the i5-2500k processor, the Radeon HD 6950 Graphics Card and the Samsung HDD. Do Samsung make good reliable drives? I haven't heard much about them.

As for the PSU, what exactly should I be looking for, besides wattage?

As for the motherboard, I upgraded the ASUS P8P67 Evo to the ASUS P8P67 PRO which has two x16 PCIe slots. Would that motherboard suit my needs or is there something else I should be looking for? Is the RAM good?


I don't have anything against HWVS. I haven't picked a shop to buy from just yet, but I'd like to get an idea on the components first. Also I will be running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit if it matters.

deconduo

Johnny Lightning wrote: »

Thanks for the quick responses. I have chosen the i5-2500k processor, the Radeon HD 6950 Graphics Card and the Samsung HDD. Do Samsung make good reliable drives? I haven't heard much about them.

As for the PSU, what exactly should I be looking for, besides wattage?

As for the motherboard, I upgraded the ASUS P8P67 Evo to the ASUS P8P67 PRO which has two x16 PCIe slots. Would that motherboard suit my needs or is there something else I should be looking for? Is the RAM good?


I don't have anything against HWVS. I haven't picked a shop to buy from just yet, but I'd like to get an idea on the components first. Also I will be running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit if it matters.

The Samsung Spinpoint F3 is pretty much the best value for money drive out there, even the WD Black doesn't beat it.

PSUs are tricky, you really need to know what you are looking at. In general, look for Antec, Seasonic, Corsair, XFX as quality brands. HWVS stock SuperFlower Amazon PSUs as well, which are amazingly good at a much lower price than anything else. Make sure its the Amazon brand however, as most of the other SuperFlowers are pretty terrible (Apart from the Golden Greens)

I would generally go with the ASRock Pro3 (No plans for crossfire/SLI) or ASRock Extreme4 (x8/x8 Crossfire/SLI) as they are the best value at the moment. That ASUS board isn't bad either, its just overpriced in comparison.

RAM: Look for a 1600MHz CL9 kit at 1.5V Good brands are Corsair/GSkill/Mushkin/AData/Kingston - whatever is cheapest.

If you are spending €1000 on a system, HWVS will be the cheapest by far. However they only take payment via bank transfer, so keep that in mind.

Serephucus

deconduo summed things up pretty nicely.

Samsung drives are excellent. I've used at least ten of their drives, all of which are still running perfectly to this day, and that's over five years with some of the oldest. They're fast, quiet, and cheap. All round brilliant drives.

As regards PSUs, ignore anything that seems to be too good to be true. ("great" value for a "great" spec. PSU) The short version: it is too good to be true. PSU brands I'd recommend: Silverstone, Antec, Corsair, and Seasonic. Pretty much any PSU from any of those brands will be great.

RAM... meh. Get a good brand - again, deconduo listed them - but other than that, it doesn't really matter. As long as it isn't a limiting factor in your OCing, "extreme" RAM won't make a difference.

HWVS will probably work out to be the cheapest, given their flat €30 shipping fee, but I usually tend to avoid them as I'm an impulsive f*cker when it comes to buying computer parts, and can't stand to wait the few days for payment to go through. :P

Overclockers.co.uk and Scan.co.uk have pretty competitive prices too. Scan more-so, usually.

Johnny Lightning

Thanks for the quick replies, excellent suggestions. HWVS certainly does have some nice prices. The ASRock P67 Extreme4 motherboard and SuperFlower Amazon PSU in particular look tempting. Are ASRock motherboards reliable? I never heard of them before. And does HWVS offer warranty for their products if they break down like Pixmania does?

Looking at RAM, I'm looking for 2 x 4gb DDR3 1600MHz, but how important is the voltage? I see it varies a bit.

Also, I see DVD Rewriters vary quite a lot in price, any particular brand or model recommended? I don't need blu-ray.

Thanks again

Serephucus

ASRock are grand, yeah. They're fabbed by the same company that does the ASUS boards.

DVD Rewriters? Haven't had much experience, TBH. I'd maybe steer clear of LG ones, as the last one I had was an LG, and sounded akin to (no joke) a chainsaw, when running full tilt.

Dunno what HWVS stocks, but Pioneer, NEC, Samsung, and Lite-On, are names I hear recommended often.

dolihalix

I'm no expert here, I'm reading a lot more than posting, but I have to tell you one thing, your budget should be 600 if you're really looking for everyday use and moderate gaming. There is absolutely no reason for you to fork out 200 quid for SSD if you're going to play fifa and watch youtube.
also, you should ask any of your student friends to get you a copy of windows as they can get it for cca 45. What's that site again, www.software4students.ie?
Also, I don't see why you shouldn't get 2gb 6950 instead of 1gb if it's only 8 euro more.

You could get a cheaper case and get 2tb ecogreen Samsung HDD for storage(around 77euro) - something to consider, if you need the space.
Forget about crossfire if you're not much of a gamer and also make sure your tv is full hd, not hd ready. with your budget you can easily squeeze in a 24 inch full hd monitor and still have plenty of room to play around with.

Johnny Lightning

Well I'd like a somewhat powerful PC that I won't have to upgrade in the near future, even if it means forking out a little extra for power I may not use just yet. And who knows, i might find some use for that extra power. I'm trying to get the price down to under €1000 though, but good quality reliable products are a higher priority for me than price.

I have a 40" Samsung Full HD LED TV which I currently use for this pc and will switch over so I'm grand for a monitor.

I did notice the 2GB 6950 just recently, which seems unusually cheap on HWVS at about €210 on average compared to other places, which makes me a bit weary about buying. Does brand matter in graphics cards? I see Sapphire, ASUS and XFX being quite common, any of those better than the other?

I'm usually a bit skeptical about places that offer cheaper stuff like HWVS, is there anything about HWVS that makes their cheap prices justifiable? Are all their products new & sealed with warranty like other places? What's their return police like?

So anyway, how does this look? Only thing not included is the OS.

Sapphire HD 6950 2GB GDDR5 PCI-Express - €208
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1,5TB, SATA II (HD155UI) - €49
ASRock P67 Extreme4 (B3), Sockel 1155, ATX - €129
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 650W - €66
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 - €171
Cooler Master HAF 912 schwarz, ohne Netzteil - €71
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600 MHz CL9 - €74
Sony DRU-880S WW LS Retail Black - €22
Postage - €30

Total: €825, not including OS

Thanks for the help so far

Monotype

Yeah there's good reason for the low prices - the VAT is low, they're a big company, competition seems pretty high in Germany and finally they only accept bank transfers.

Their products have the same warranties as anywhere, which depends on the individual item. You can return items to HWV if it is faulty at the beginning.

Brand matters a little bit - different clock speeds, cooling, layout, warranties, software, but at the end of the day you are getting pretty much the same thing.

The Sapphire one is good because...

Tea_Bag wrote: »

if your in the market for a 6950, get a reference design one, preferably with a dual bios switch. i wouldnt unlock it with a 6970 BIOS, but i would use one of the modified 6950 BIOS's that unlock the extra shaders. free performance boost!

its well worth your while spending the bit extra for this one:

Sapphire HD 6950 2GB @€;207

deconduo

Don't get that hard drive, its an eco/green hard drive so its more for storage than anything else. You want the 7200rpm 1TB spinpoint.

The corsair vengence RAM has very high heatspreaders which can be a problem. I'd stick with the ripjaws-x, which are just as good anyway.

The rest looks perfect.

Johnny Lightning

Thanks again for the help, it's greatly appreciated. I'll get started on ordering soon.

Also, could someone recommend a 120mm case fan on the site? Preferably a quiet one if you know of any. Whether I need it or not, I'd like to have an extra one. That should be the last piece of the puzzle.

Serephucus

I don't know how quiet you like your fans, but something like this should serve you well. I'm quite the silence freak, to the point where if I hear too much air moving through the fan (never mind the fan itself), that's too loud.

Johnny Lightning

Excellent, thanks. One more question though, I noticed the motherboard I picked has PCI Express 2.0 where as the Graphics Card has PCI Express 2.1, will they be compatible?

Serephucus

Yup.

dkmedia

Johnny Lightning wrote: »

Excellent, thanks. One more question though, I noticed the motherboard I picked has PCI Express 2.0 where as the Graphics Card has PCI Express 2.1, will they be compatible?

Here's some info on pci express if your interested explains the differences well.

Johnny Lightning

Ok now this is my last question! Just waiting on my PSU to come into stock before ordering so had a chance to look over everything. I see two 1TB versions of the Samsung SpinPoint F3 HDD, here and here. The only difference I can see is one is Enterprise Class and the other is Desktop Class, with a €5 difference between them, but what is actually the difference since all the details are exactly the same and what should I go for?


Also are there any extra cables I need to buy or are all necessary cables included with everything?

Serephucus

If it's only five Euro, go for the Enterprise class. Probably doesn't mean much, but they're usually designed to last longer.

You shouldn't need anything. You'll have the SATA power from your PSU, and you'll get SATA data cables with your motherboard. Usually only four though, so if you're planning on using more than 3 HDDs (and an optical drive) might grab a couple more.

daba

did anyone tried to pay the german site using the online banking !!! how long will it take for the money to reach them if i pay online !!! thanx