Gaming/recording build ~€1000

Somnus

I had a previous thread, a few months ago, but things have changed a bit since then, so I thought it would be better to start a new thread.

1. What is your budget? Roughly €1000, I wouldn't mind going over if there's good reason to.

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming (Skyrim, Planetside 2, probably get into some MMOs like Elder Scrolls Online etc) and recording/producing music. I'd also like to be able to record gameplay footage (All though I understand this might be taxing depending on game right? So not the highest priority)


3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? Will most likely get this monitor Edit: I'm not including this in the cost of the build


6. Do you need any of these peripherals? All I have is speakers, so will need mouse, keyboard, wireless card and any other essentials

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? Yes, previous thread has taught me it's not too hard to do some basic OCing safely

8. How can you pay? Visa Debit

9. When are you purchasing? In the next month or two


I've never built my own pc before, but I know a couple of people who have, so I'll get a hand from them.
I was previously interested in getting a Blu-Ray drive, but I've heard they can be a bit of a pain. So am I best off just leaving it?

U_Fig

something like this would be a good build

Item|Price
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€82.35
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€204.96
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL9|€43.98
2 x BitFenix Shinobi Midi-Tower USB 3.0 black, ohne Netzteil|€106.06
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€83.99
be quiet! Pure Power L7 530 Watt|€57.58
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€29.36
ASUS PCE-N15|€14.90
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€65.09
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 royalKing, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€285.73
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€992.99

i haven't included an SSD to accommodate the 7950 you could drop to a 7870 and add an SSD would give the overall experience a bit more speed at the expense of a few fps in games but for 1080p a 7870 would be grand for ultra...

i prob would keep the 7950 and add an SSD later

also i didn't include a mouse or keyboard.. buy them local not off HWVS or you'll get German layout...also for windows it's the German one in the build just download an ISO and use the key... windows 8 is the same price

Somnus

U_Fig wrote: »

something like this would be a good build

Item|Price
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit (SB-Version)|€82.35
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€204.96
8GB-Kit Corsair Vengeance Low Profile schwarz PC3-12800U CL9|€43.98
2 x BitFenix Shinobi Midi-Tower USB 3.0 black, ohne Netzteil|€106.06
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€83.99
be quiet! Pure Power L7 530 Watt|€57.58
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€29.36
ASUS PCE-N15|€14.90
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€65.09
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 royalKing, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€285.73
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€992.99

i haven't included an SSD to accommodate the 7950 you could drop to a 7870 and add an SSD would give the overall experience a bit more speed at the expense of a few fps in games but for 1080p a 7870 would be grand for ultra...

i prob would keep the 7950 and add an SSD later

also i didn't include a mouse or keyboard.. buy them local not off HWVS or you'll get German layout...also for windows it's the German one in the build just download an ISO and use the key... windows 8 is the same price

Thanks for the reply. I notice you have the case in there twice! And what about a disc drive? I'll probably just leave out the Blu-Ray and get a standard DVD drive

U_Fig

Just noticed at dunno how I missed it.. I've gotten our of the habit of including disk drives I havn't used mine in a about 2 years.. Just add on..Your probably ok to stick yoyo DVD blu ray drives are still quite expensive and require specialised software that is also expensive to work
You may have enough to add an SSD or if not more for peripherals..

Somnus

Since the monitor is only 1920x1080 would a nVidia card not be better? I was under the impression that they are more reliable for drivers and such?
That said, I'm fairly clueless; just want something that will run games smoothly at a nice fps at that resolution.

BloodBath

The 7950 is the best value high end card at the moment. It's at least as good as the 670gtx for €50+ less.

I have no issues with ati drivers but I know there has been some. That doesn't mean there's never any issues with Nvidia drivers.

As far as the 7000 series goes. Any driver issues that existed have been sorted and ati have been knocking out regular updates.

Somnus

BloodBath wrote: »

The 7950 is the best value high end card at the moment. It's at least as good as the 670gtx for €50+ less.

I have no issues with ati drivers but I know there has been some. That doesn't mean there's never any issues with Nvidia drivers.

As far as the 7000 series goes. Any driver issues that existed have been sorted and ati have been knocking out regular updates.

That's good to hear. Sounds like the one to go for so!

Do you have any opinions on the one U_Fig suggested?

I notice that there seems to be multiple manufacturers for any given model, what's the story with that? I'm new to building so it's all a little overwhelming in terms of which specific one is best and why etc

BloodBath

They are pretty much the same.

Just custom coolers for the most part, some use custom pcb's with improved power management and/or better memory.

The one he suggested is one of the better ones from what I've seen. There has been some good overclocks with those cards.

Somnus

Ok, so after some looking around I'm looking at this as my build so far.

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-3570K Box, LGA1155|€199.81
ASRock Z77 Pro3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€82.94
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD|€29.51
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 royalKing, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€279.22
ASUS PCE-N15|€14.90
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 550W|€56.55
Samsung SSD 840 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€82.31
MS Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit SB-Version Englisch|€81.61
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced, USB 3.0 - schwarz|€76.21
16GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws PC3-8500U CL7|€94.20
Samsung SH-224BB Retail|€20.47
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€59.47
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1096.19

I thought I might as well get plenty of RAM, as it's not that expensive, and I decided to go a little over budget.
My main concern is with the HDD, I was reading up on the one I've inluded in the build and the Deskstar one suggested to me before, and they seem like they have massive reliability issues. Can anyone suggest a good model?
Any comments on what I've got picked out here/if I'm missing anything would also be greatly appreciated!

Sarz91

I'd probably add a few fans with it. I have the HAF 912 case. It comes with a 200mm fan in the front and a 120mm exhaust fan. If you're planing on overclocking it might be no harm to add a few. Also, if your a clean freak like I am maybe drop the 16 gb of RAM to 8 gb and opt for a few dust filters instead. The HAF 912 comes with one on the front panel and as with most things that are supplied with a case it's quite poor.

I've a brand new PCI wireless card here. I've absolutely no use for it. I found most of them to be rubbish but if you want it you're more than welcome to it. To be honest though I'd opt for a set of powerline adapters like these. Apart from that the build looks great. I'd be a bit biased anyway as it's pretty much exactly what I have here.

BloodBath

For a bit more I'd go with this case.

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/Tower/49129/Thermaltake+Chaser+MK-I%2C+ohne+Netzteil.article

Feature and cooling wise it's better than even the full tower HAF-X which costs €35 more. It has removable dust filters for all intakes, including psu, and really only needs an additional side 200mm intake fan. It comes with a 200mm front intake and a 200mm and 140mm exhaust. The tool-less drive bays are great as well.

The ram you chose is only 1077mhz. It will most likely overclock to much higher levels if you loosen the timings but I would take ram that is at least 1333mhz stock. There's lot's around 1600mhz at good price points. Something like these. Good ram that will go up to 2133 in most cases but the trade off between speed and timings usually isn't worth it. You could probably leave them at 1600mhz and get the timings down to 8-8-8-21

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/70327/16GB-Kit+Patriot+Viper3+BLACK+MAMBA%2C+1600MHZ%2C+CL+9-9-9-24.article

Seagate drives are fine. One of the most reliable.

Somnus

Sarz91 wrote: »

I'd probably add a few fans with it. I have the HAF 912 case. It comes with a 200mm fan in the front and a 120mm exhaust fan. If you're planing on overclocking it might be no harm to add a few. Also, if your a clean freak like I am maybe drop the 16 gb of RAM to 8 gb and opt for a few dust filters instead. The HAF 912 comes with one on the front panel and as with most things that are supplied with a case it's quite poor.

I've a brand new PCI wireless card here. I've absolutely no use for it. I found most of them to be rubbish but if you want it you're more than welcome to it. To be honest though I'd opt for a set of powerline adapters like these. Apart from that the build looks great. I'd be a bit biased anyway as it's pretty much exactly what I have here.

I probably won't be doing any serious overclocking for a while. I can always get some extra fans at a later date when needed.
Are filters expensive? Do you neeed to get certain sizes etc? I am a bit of a clean freak so it might be a good investment, as the house I'm in at the minute is old and a bit dusty.

I'd never heard of powerline adapters, certainly interesting. I might just go with the wireless card for now. Again, the adapters are something I will look into in the future though, or if I have any wireless issues. I don't really know enough about them at the minute.

BloodBath wrote: »

The ram you chose is only 1077mhz. It will most likely overclock to much higher levels if you loosen the timings but I would take ram that is at least 1333mhz stock. There's lot's around 1600mhz at good price points. Something like these. Good ram that will go up to 2133 in most cases but the trade off between speed and timings usually isn't worth it. You could probably leave them at 1600mhz and get the timings down to 8-8-8-21

http://lb.hardwareversand.de/1600+Low+Voltage/70327/16GB-Kit+Patriot+Viper3+BLACK+MAMBA%2C+1600MHZ%2C+CL+9-9-9-24.article

Seagate drives are fine. One of the most reliable.

Thanks for the reply Bloodbath. I have no idea what any of that means though! I'm a complete noob to building and don't know that much about the hardware yet. Will the performance difference between the 1077mhz and 1600mz be that noticeable?
I know I set myself a decent budget, but I'm still kinda looking at it as a beginners build seen as it's my first. I won't be overclocking RAM. I'll most likely only be doing some light cpu OC'ing, or maybe graphics at a later date.

All though the one you suggested is a bit cheaper as well...

BloodBath

It won't give noticeable gains but there will definitely be gains there. You don't have to overclock the ram really. Just select the stock speed of the ram in the BIOS.

It might even do 1866 at those timings with a small bump to the voltage.

Somnus

BloodBath wrote: »

It won't give noticeable gains but there will definitely be gains there. You don't have to overclock the ram really. Just select the stock speed of the ram in the BIOS.

It might even do 1866 at those timings with a small bump to the voltage.

Cool. I might get the one you're suggesting but in the 4x4 as opposed to 2x8.

I'm just thinking now, seen as I'm ordering the PSU from Germany, will I need an adapter for it? Will any old eu to uk one do or will I need something particular. I had a friend who's psu melted due to him not having the right transformer?
Also, how long do hardwareversand normally take to deliver?

I wanna thank you guys for all help btw. You've all been really helpful and I appreciate it a lot!

BloodBath

Yeah any eu to uk adapter will do.

Usually 3-5 working days for delivery.

alex1997123

If there is a dealz close to you you can get a good adapter in there for €1.49, also don't use Paypal to pay as you get charged 3% on hardwareversand for using it