Going back to PC gaming, and what to have a bash at building.

RogerWilco1982

I’m building a new PC (my first attempt) for Skyrim, FSX, Battlefield; Bad Company 2, Left 4 Dead 2 and the usual browsing/watching videos etc. Not looking for the most expensive premium parts but I would rather buy quality parts for peace of mind. Reliability is very important to me. I really don’t want to have my first attempt at a build ruined by DOA parts, although this may not be avoidable, I would like to minimise the chance of it happening. Obviously, I would like the machine to be future proofed for a time. I hope to keep it for approximately five years. I think a budget of approx €1200 is appropriate. I have a keyboard and mouse, and a 32” Sony TV to use as a monitor, for now. For the purposes of build and budget I have a monitor.

I will be using the website http://www.komplett.ie/Komplett/site/KomplettHome.aspx, as I’ve found they charge lower prices on like-for-like parts and delivery is free where I live. I am, of course, open to suggestions regarding other sites to buy from.

I have done some research of my own and found some of the parts I will be using, but I could really do with advice and input on others.

So far:

Motherboard; I have decided I would like to use an Asus board with a Z68 chipset and an Intel 1155 socket. I like the Asus boards because in my research on the matter I have discovered they are intuitive to set up, and I like the mouse-bios setup and the automatic over clocking features. There are many to choose from, ranging in price from €100-€230, with varying features and the option of GEN3. Maybe my choice of other parts will influence what motherboard I should get?

Processor; It’s going to be the i5 2500K or the i7 2600k. I know the i5 is highly recommended, but the applications I’ll be using are heavily CPU bound so I was thinking maybe I’d be better off to get the better CPU and simply do without the graphics card for a time (I’d be happy to do this)?

RAM; I know I want to get 8 GB, in a 2 X 4 sticks configuration. As the Asus Z68 1155 boards seem to have 4 X RAM slots, it means I could upgrade to 16 GB in a few years if it becomes necessary. Is the any particular part, kit or brand that works well with the Asus Z68 boards?

SSD; I was looking at the Intel 520 series; I just want the SSD for the operating system and a cache. I was thinking about 120 GB/€200 would be ok, but I would really welcome input and suggestions on this.

Storage Drive; I think a 1TB drive such as a caviar black or performance drive would be good, it seems the above website does not have any such drives for sale. :P

Case; This is one of the few things I’m fully decided on. The Cooler Master HAF 912 Plus.

Power Supply; I think a modular one would be good as I’m a n00b and I believe fewer cables are good for air flow and cooler parts. I’d like to get a Corsair or a Cooler Master, as I believe they are good brands. As for the power, I don’t think I’ll be going with dual graphics cards, but I would like to have room for a mild over clock.

Windows Version; I’ll be going for the Home Premium 64-bit version.

Graphics Card; NVidia for sure, either the 560ti or 570, manufactured by Asus.

I know this list is semi decided, but I’d love to hear from those who have used similar parts/spec. So I know what to use or avoid.

Thanks.

Nertballs

In my opinion, €200 is waaay too much on an ssd, i think youd be better with a smaler one like an m4 or sometin from ocz/kensington and the like. Im about to start my own build and lioking at the 560 ti as well, seems to come out as best bang for buck!!

Eboggles

Total build cost: €1,135.86 + €30 shipping
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 €187.76
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version) €78.09
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9 €32.63
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX €86.69
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W €54.38
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5") €83.88
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB, SATA II (HD103SJ) €99.00
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA €18.26
Cooler Master HAF 912 schwarz, ohne Netzteil €71.39
Sapphire HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 PCI-Express €390.08
Thermalright HR-02 Macho €33.70

A few things:
7950 > gtx 580. Which of course is much better than 570. The card can be overclocked ridiculously well, and power consumption is extremely low for a card of its power. The total system will draw around 350 watts, so even with heavy overclocking on both the CPU and GPU you are still perfectly fine.
That PSU by the way, even though you mightn't have heard of the manufacturer, is very reliable, I have the exact same model in my rig and its great, basically silent too!
AsRock are a sister of ASUS, and are a very reliable company with their SB Motherboards. That one has Gen3 so you're sorted for the future.
That i5 = i7 - 0.1ghz - hyperthreading.
I don't think I missed anything, except what is your monitor resolution? That 7950 is great for 2560x1440 and 1920x1200, but you could scale back if your TV (like many) are around the 1366x768 range, that could enable you to drop down to a 7850 (which is still probably overkill) but you will save yourself about €150.
I think thats everything, if you have any questions let me know .

PS: That cooler should get you to 4.5ghz and above no problem.

Lu Tze

Eboggles wrote: »

Total build cost: €1,135.86 + €30 shipping
Intel Core i5-2500K Box, LGA1155 €187.76
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version) €78.09
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9 €32.63
ASRock Z68 Pro3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX €86.69
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W €54.38
Crucial M4 64GB SSD 6,4cm (2,5") €83.88
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1000GB, SATA II (HD103SJ) €99.00
LiteOn iHAS124-19 schwarz SATA €18.26
Cooler Master HAF 912 schwarz, ohne Netzteil €71.39
Sapphire HD 7950 3GB GDDR5 PCI-Express €390.08
Thermalright HR-02 Macho €33.70

A few things:
7950 > gtx 580. Which of course is much better than 570. The card can be overclocked ridiculously well, and power consumption is extremely low for a card of its power. The total system will draw around 350 watts, so even with heavy overclocking on both the CPU and GPU you are still perfectly fine.
That PSU by the way, even though you mightn't have heard of the manufacturer, is very reliable, I have the exact same model in my rig and its great, basically silent too!
AsRock are a sister of ASUS, and are a very reliable company with their SB Motherboards. That one has Gen3 so you're sorted for the future.
That i5 = i7 - 0.1ghz - hyperthreading.
I don't think I missed anything, except what is your monitor resolution? That 7950 is great for 2560x1440 and 1920x1200, but you could scale back if your TV (like many) are around the 1366x768 range, that could enable you to drop down to a 7850 (which is still probably overkill) but you will save yourself about €150.
I think thats everything, if you have any questions let me know .

PS: That cooler should get you to 4.5ghz and above no problem.

I think it has cropped up here before that FSX only plays nice with Nvidia cards, so this may be a factor

uncle_sam_ie

Just to let you know. Yes ASUS do make good motherboards, I have an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, but their RMA service is suppose to be horrendous. The place I bought my motherboard will cover me for 2 years so hopefully after that I won't have to deal them. From what I've read Gigabyte are based in the UK and are suppose to give the best RMA support.

RogerWilco1982

Lu Tze wrote: »

I think it has cropped up here before that FSX only plays nice with Nvidia cards, so this may be a factor

With thanks to Eboggles, who has clearly put considerable effort into researching this, I have also heard that FSX only likes NVidia cards.

uncle_sam_ie wrote: »

Just to let you know. Yes ASUS do make good motherboards, I have an ASUS P8Z68-V PRO, but their RMA service is suppose to be horrendous. The place I bought my motherboard will cover me for 2 years so hopefully after that I won't have to deal them. From what I've read Gigabyte are based in the UK and are suppose to give the best RMA support.

I sincerely hope it won't get to an RMAing things stage!

I've decided to put this on hold for a few weeks, because I see the new NVidia GPUs and Intel CPUs are close by, and I'm hoping their release will result in a price drop of the technology I'm interested in!

ShadowHearth

RogerWilco1982 wrote: »

With thanks to Eboggles, who has clearly put considerable effort into researching this, I have also heard that FSX only likes NVidia cards.



I sincerely hope it won't get to an RMAing things stage!

I've decided to put this on hold for a few weeks, because I see the new NVidia GPUs and Intel CPUs are close by, and I'm hoping their release will result in a price drop of the technology I'm interested in!

680 is out tomorrow and by the looks of it we will get quite a beast for 500eu. Ivy on the other hand does not look too impresive compared to sandy bridge.

RogerWilco1982

ShadowHearth wrote: »

680 is out tomorrow and by the looks of it we will get quite a beast for 500eu. Ivy on the other hand does not look too impresive compared to sandy bridge.

Well I was hoping that the release of the 680 would result in a price drop of the 580. Same thing with the Ivy bridge, might knock a few € off the price of a 2500K.

ShadowHearth

RogerWilco1982 wrote: »

Well I was hoping that the release of the 680 would result in a price drop of the 580. Same thing with the Ivy bridge, might knock a few € off the price of a 2500K.

570/580 already droped in price a week ago. i am prety sure those will start fading out little by little with mid range introduced later on.

on the other hand ATI has nvidia by the balls with 7870, but unfortunately its useless for your needs.

deconduo

Lu Tze wrote: »

I think it has cropped up here before that FSX only plays nice with Nvidia cards, so this may be a factor

RogerWilco1982 wrote: »

With thanks to Eboggles, who has clearly put considerable effort into researching this, I have also heard that FSX only likes NVidia cards.

Only relevent to the 4xxx series of ATI cards, which are pretty old right now. Any of the current gen cards are perfectly fine.

RogerWilco1982

ShadowHearth wrote: »

570/580 already droped in price a week ago. i am prety sure those will start fading out little by little with mid range introduced later on.

on the other hand ATI has nvidia by the balls with 7870, but unfortunately its useless for your needs.

Is there any website you would reccommend for buying a 570/580 (preferably Asus)?

ShadowHearth

RogerWilco1982 wrote: »

Is there any website you would reccommend for buying a 570/580 (preferably Asus)?

Lol, not to brag, but if you willing to wait a few days my 570 will go for sale, if i Decide to go for 680. It's the direct cu2 Asus 3 slot one lol.

I think cheapest 570 we found was on pixmania. Scan.co.uk has an okay price with very fast Delevery.
On the other hand As mentioned before ati do not have problems anymore with your flight sims. 7870 is a cracker of a card m8.

BlaasForRafa

OP, I built a new pc in the last few weeks with a Asus P8Z68 gen3 pro deluxe mobo with an i5 2500k and it works great, the Asus uefi is very user-friendly.

I don't think anyone answer about what RAM to use, probably because RAM is so cheap, I stuck in 2 x 4gb sticks of Corsair vengeance RAM.

I used a Corsair modular psu also and it was pretty handy. For an ssd I went with a Crucial M4 which is cheaper than the Intel one you list.

For cooling I went with a Corsair H100 water cooling system which is probably a bit overkill for my needs but it keeps things pretty quiet. It did take a bit of fiddling though as Corsairs instruction sheets are crap.

When I was putting my pc together I price-matched a number of sites and komplett came second-cheapest (and I wasn't expecting it to at all) but hardwareversand.de came cheapest of all, even including the postage cost (€30 per order, no matter how much you buy)

..Brian..

BlaasForRafa wrote: »

When I was putting my pc together I price-matched a number of sites and komplett came second-cheapest (and I wasn't expecting it to at all) but hardwareversand.de came cheapest of all, even including the postage cost (€30 per order, no matter how much you buy)

Hardware Versand shipping is only €18 now!

xyl.az

Hi

Have you considered Amazon.co.uk - they have free shipping and I've managed to built some similar speced PC for about 800 pounds about 7 months ago.

Have you checked Pixmania.ie as well? Komplett is quite expensive site to buy from to be honest.

Eboggles

xyl.az wrote: »

Hi

Have you considered Amazon.co.uk - they have free shipping and I've managed to built some similar speced PC for about 800 pounds about 7 months ago.

Have you checked Pixmania.ie as well? Komplett is quite expensive site to buy from to be honest.

Hardwareversand is much cheaper than those sites you mentioned.

BlaasForRafa

..Brian.. wrote: »

Hardware Versand shipping is only €18 now!

really? thats even better. when I ordered it was meant to be delivered by dhl but the ordinary parcel post ended up delivering, I think the ould git was nearly going to have a hernia bringing the stuff off the van

RogerWilco1982

Eboggles wrote: »

Hardwareversand is much cheaper than those sites you mentioned.

I just had a look and it seems they are significantly cheaper than any other site I've seen. :eek:

Cheers Eboggles.