Strongly considering a PC upgrade. Is this spec ok?

[CoolFunkMan]

I think it's time to upgrade my computer, being as it's 5/6 years old! I've been shopping around, trying to find the best specs that'll last me as ong as possible, here's what I've decided on:

 

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor; £227.99

Asus P8Z77-V Socket 1155 VGA DVI DisplayPort HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard; £132.77

 

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz CL9 1.5V Non-ECC Unbuffered; £77

 

Corsair Memory TX750 V2 750W ATX Enthusiast Series; £79.99

 

Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti 830MHz 1GB PCI-Express HDMI; £166.99

 

Total: £683.75

 

I was hoping for a budget of about £550 maximum, but I don't really mind too much. I am a bit unsure about the motherboard though, and I still need to get a wireless network card. Any recommendations there? Also, is it worth getting a soundcard? Id so, then which is best? I'm ok for hard drives/optical drive, as I have 3 SATA hard drives and a DVD drive.

 

Finally, I'm hoping to get an external hard drive, to back up all my data before I go through with this. I'd need a 1TB drive. Any recommendations (preferably not the Western Digital brand)?

 

Thanks if anyone can help.

[Emasher]

That looks pretty good. You could probably go down to 8GB of RAM, but if you have the money, 16GB will mean one less upgrade down the road. Keep in mind if your copy of windows is an OEM copy you're either going to need to buy a new copy or lie to Microsoft's tech support. If you don't know much about audio cards, you probably don't need one. As for hard drive brands, if you don't want Western Digital, I hear Samsung drives aren't bad. Although, I haven't used them myself.

[Sheikah]

I'll save you some cash. :p

I think it's time to upgrade my computer, being as it's 5/6 years old! I've been shopping around, trying to find the best specs that'll last me as ong as possible, here's what I've decided on:

 

Intel Core i7-2600K 3.40GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor; £227.99

 

If it's gaming you're doing there's no real point to the i7. Get the i5-3570K instead and save yourself £60. Runs everything at max in my experience.

 

 

Asus P8Z77-V Socket 1155 VGA DVI DisplayPort HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard

; £132.77

 

Easy saving, I got the Asrock Extreme4 which has pretty much the same features (Asrock are basically a spin off company that came from Asus) but costs £109 at dabs.com here.

 

Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz CL9 1.5V Non-ECC Unbuffered; £77

 

No point to 16GB, stick with 8GB which you can get for £40 ish. I got Vengeance RAM too, check out the low profile version which takes up less space in your case which can be handy for fitting in components like the PSU cooler.

 

Corsair Memory TX750 V2 750W ATX Enthusiast Series; £79.99

 

Yep, good. I got the HX version instead which was slightly more expensive but modular so you only use the cables you need.

 

Asus GeForce GTX 560Ti 830MHz 1GB PCI-Express HDMI; £166.99

 

My very best suggestion here is to spend £25 more and get the Radeon HD 7850 (preferrably Twin Frozr edition). It's a much more powerful card because you can so easily overclock it without messing about with voltage and whatnot (it's just a slider) and it's already much more powerful. I got it from Novatech but they sell really quickly so they're out of stock at the moment, but a lot of places are selling regular Sapphire versions of the card (without the Twin Frozr cooler).

 

 

I was hoping for a budget of about £550 maximum, but I don't really mind too much. I am a bit unsure about the motherboard though, and I still need to get a wireless network card. Any recommendations there? Also, is it worth getting a soundcard? Id so, then which is best? I'm ok for hard drives/optical drive, as I have 3 SATA hard drives and a DVD drive.

 

Finally, I'm hoping to get an external hard drive, to back up all my data before I go through with this. I'd need a 1TB drive. Any recommendations (preferably not the Western Digital brand)?

 

 

Not sure about a 1TB drive (they all seem really expensive at the moment due to the past floods), but I recommend spending £50 on a solid state drive (such as this OCZ brand one). Install Windows and some games/programs on this and you are laughing. Loads up your system in seconds and makes everything run much snappier. Honestly one of the biggest noticeable system improvements you can get, an SSD.

 

Personally I wouldn't bother with a sound card, as for wireless cards any reasonably cheap well-reviewed TP-link or Edimax card would probably do off Amazon.

 

I don't see a processor cooler in your list, you will definitely want to replace the stock cooler that comes with your processor. For a decent cooler I recommend the Hyper 212 Evo (£32.50, Amazon).

Edited June 9, 2012 by Sheikah

[EEVILMURRAY]

Just out of curiousity, how did you manage to come up with such a combination? Because based on Sheikah's pressuring (:P) I'm tempted to make my own (maybe recycling my current CD/DVD drive, also maybe the Hard drive but I already have one external one with room to spare.) But wouldn't have a clue as to what went with what.

 

I had a dynamite theory of looking on Overclockers, seeing a decent priced PC, then going around trying to buy them separately. Then have some fun trying to put it together.

[Sheikah]

If you like, give me a general list of what you want it to do, what you want to spend and I can put together a compatible load of parts.

 

A few questions regarding a build that you might want to answer too:

 

High end gaming PC? If so you'll want 8GB RAM, an i5 processor, decent overclocking motherboard, ~£180 graphics card

 

Modular power supply? Generally more expensive but cut down cable clutter inside your case. Not essential but something that can be cut out if money is tight.

 

Would you want to pay more for a more snappy PC? If so, sink £60 into an SSD so stuff loads quickly (like booting up).

 

Is having an extravagant case important or just a good all round performer good enough?

 

 

A lot of the stuff I will probably recommend to you is stuff that I have so I can pretty much guarantee it'll work.

 

 

With regards to the DVD drive and HDD, double check that they're not too old. You basically want them to have SATA ports, not IDE (see image). IDE is old technology and won't be compatible with most new motherboards. I had to buy a new DVD drive and HDD as both of mine were IDE. With regards to the DVD drive that's no problem, as they go for like £14 on Amazon (and write at the max speed a DVD drive can, worth the upgrade). The hard drive though...I'm just sticking with an external hard drive for now in combination with my SSD.

[EEVILMURRAY]

A few questions regarding a build that you might want to answer too:

 

High end gaming PC? If so you'll want 8GB RAM, an i5 processor, decent overclocking motherboard, ~£180 graphics card

 

Modular power supply? Generally more expensive but cut down cable clutter inside your case. Not essential but something that can be cut out if money is tight.

 

Would you want to pay more for a more snappy PC? If so, sink £60 into an SSD so stuff loads quickly (like booting up).

 

Is having an extravagant case important or just a good all round performer good enough?

 

 

A lot of the stuff I will probably recommend to you is stuff that I have so I can pretty much guarantee it'll work.

 

 

With regards to the DVD drive and HDD, double check that they're not too old. You basically want them to have SATA ports, not IDE (see image). IDE is old technology and won't be compatible with most new motherboards. I had to buy a new DVD drive and HDD as both of mine were IDE. With regards to the DVD drive that's no problem, as they go for like £14 on Amazon (and write at the max speed a DVD drive can, worth the upgrade). The hard drive though...I'm just sticking with an external hard drive for now in combination with my SSD.

I'm not sure what "high end" really means, but probably yes. I want to play the current games properly, hopefully on max, with power to keep my future PC gaming going on for a good few years to come.

 

When you say modular I think of Bananaphone ( ) but whatever is best. Less cable shizzle is preferable if I'm going to attempt to put it together myself. Would you recommend a SSD? What exactly does one do, I thought stuff loading quickly was what RAM did (or is that just multitasking shit)

 

I daresay I probably will have to fork out for a new DVD drive, to be on the safe side. I'm not fussed about the case looking mega flashy, so long as it holds everything nicely and has nice ventilation.

[Sheikah]

Wow I am...beyond words. I was humming the banana phone tune as I clicked this topic again, I'm not even kidding. Shit is scary.

 

I'm not sure what "high end" really means, but probably yes. I want to play the current games properly, hopefully on max, with power to keep my future PC gaming going on for a good few years to come.

 

Yeah by high end I just meant if you wanted to play games like the Witcher 2, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 etc on high settings (ie. not just for web browsing). The modular PSU thing basically means you have a power supply, but instead of having wires that are fused to it that you then attach to the relevant parts of your motherboard and drives, the wires can detach so you can remove the many that aren't in use.

 

When you say modular I think of Bananaphone ( ) but whatever is best. Less cable shizzle is preferable if I'm going to attempt to put it together myself. Would you recommend a SSD? What exactly does one do, I thought stuff loading quickly was what RAM did (or is that just multitasking shit)

 

An SSD is like a giant flashcard. As such it makes next to no noise, and these ones have extremely fast read and write rates (in the region of 500MB/s - if you were to transfer a 1GB file from 1 SSD to another it would take around 2 seconds). I definitely recommend it as it reduces load times of opening programs and most importantly makes your computer load up from start to finish in less than 10 seconds. If you plan to use it just to install your OS and have a few programs (ie. not store downloads) then you only need a 60GB one, which can be got for around £60 from places like ebuyer/amazon (crucial and OCZ are decent brands).

 

 

I daresay I probably will have to fork out for a new DVD drive, to be on the safe side. I'm not fussed about the case looking mega flashy, so long as it holds everything nicely and has nice ventilation.

 

You could always check your current drive and see if they're SATA to save yourself some cash.

 

What kind of price range are you looking at? If you wanted the parts I bought which makes for a pretty damn good PC, you're looking at around £750 ish.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Well I was hoping around the £500-600 mark personally.

 

Cellular-Modular-Interactive odular.

[Sheikah]

Cool, I can spec something close to that. I'll exclude the cost of buying OS/monitor/HDD/CD drive for now since you may have them (and it makes this easier :p)

 

 

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard @ ebuyer.com for £80

 

Processor: Intel i5 3570K processor (Ivy Bridge) @ Amazon for £174

 

Processor Heatsink and Fan: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO @ Novatech (or Overclockers UK) for £30.

 

RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile RAM @ Amazon UK for £43

 

Graphics card: Radeon 7850 HD (Sapphire Brand) ebuyer.com @ £179

 

Case: Antec Three Hundred Two WAE UK @ £46

 

Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-600CXV2UK Builder Series 600W Power Supply @ ebuyer.com for £52 (not modular but a lot cheaper and still great)

 

Case Fans: 2 x Antec Tricool 120mm fans (what I have for the case, nice and quiet and keep things cool) for a total of £15 @ ebuyer.com

 

Solid State Drive (SSD): 60GB OCZ brand Agility 3 SSD (Read rate 525 MB/s, write 475 MB/s) for £54 @ ebuyer.com

 

 

So far £673. £73 above budget but you can cut out the SSD and buy that later, but the rest you will want to keep else you're sacrificing good, necessary components. And that PC will be awesomely powerful compared to anything for the same price from a PC manufacturer.

Edited June 18, 2012 by Sheikah

[EEVILMURRAY]

Cool, I can spec something close to that. I'll exclude the cost of buying OS/monitor/HDD/CD drive for now since you may have them (and it makes this easier :p)

 

So far £673. £73 above budget but you can cut out the SSD and buy that later, but the rest you will want to keep else you're sacrificing good, necessary components. And that PC will be awesomely powerful compared to anything for the same price from a PC manufacturer.

I'll be keeping my monitor and speakers sure, but I think I may give Windows 7 a try as an OS (about £70ish). Currently on XP and I know Vista is one massive piece of shit. On reflection I probably will recycle my current hard drive, since

I can import everything onto Kristy (my external HD) and transfer it back.

 

Some banging questions:

You mentioned adding an SSD later, is a computer smart enough to know when something has been attached some time (lets say a month) after it's been created? We know PC's can be pretty dumb.

If my CD/DVD drive is SATA, does it matter how old it is?

[Sheikah]

As long as you have SATA ports on your older drives it's fine. You can also get an IDE to SATA converter if you have an old IDE drive but I found these adapters can protrude out of the case and be unsuitable.

 

Yeah you can put a SSD in later, hook it up to your motherboard, then install Windows to the SSD and then when booting up your PC tell it to boot from your SSD from now on. Then sit back to blisteringly sweet speeds.

 

Windows 7 Pro is what you want, Ultimate/Enterprise isn't a great idea as they take up more space with fairly non useful features. You can get the OS for quite...*ahem*...cheap. :p

[EEVILMURRAY]

As long as you have SATA ports on your older drives it's fine. You can also get an IDE to SATA converter if you have an old IDE drive but I found these adapters can protrude out of the case and be unsuitable.

 

Yeah you can put a SSD in later, hook it up to your motherboard, then install Windows to the SSD and then when booting up your PC tell it to boot from your SSD from now on. Then sit back to blisteringly sweet speeds.

 

Windows 7 Pro is what you want, Ultimate/Enterprise isn't a great idea as they take up more space with fairly non useful features. You can get the OS for quite...*ahem*...cheap. :p

 

I'll probably have to invest in all those lovely things next month. I'll have to open up this PC to see if my CD drive has SATA shizzle. But like graphics cards, do CD drives get "updated" over time?

[Sheikah]

Nah you just attach them to your motherboard using the SATA cable and then to the power supply using the power cable. PSUs always come with a stash of cables so don't worry. And the great thing about the disc drives is that they just slot into that case I suggested, no tools needed.

 

Cool that you're building it! It's one of those things that once you do it once, you'll never think of buying a PC again. I certainly feel like I accomplished something and it made me actually appreciate what all the parts really do. Also made me feel like I would know what parts to replace if my PC broke one day.

 

May I also recommend Guild Wars 2? I have been playing the beta weekends and it's out soon. It kicks ass and looks lovely.

[CoolFunkMan]

Cool, I can spec something close to that. I'll exclude the cost of buying OS/monitor/HDD/CD drive for now since you may have them (and it makes this easier :p)

 

 

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard @ ebuyer.com for £80

 

Processor: Intel i5 3570K processor (Ivy Bridge) @ Amazon for £174

 

Processor Heatsink and Fan: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO @ Novatech (or Overclockers UK) for £30.

 

RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile RAM @ Amazon UK for £43

 

Graphics card: Radeon 7850 HD (Sapphire Brand) ebuyer.com @ £179

 

Case: Antec Three Hundred Two WAE UK @ £46

 

Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-600CXV2UK Builder Series 600W Power Supply @ ebuyer.com for £52 (not modular but a lot cheaper and still great)

 

Case Fans: 2 x Antec Tricool 120mm fans (what I have for the case, nice and quiet and keep things cool) for a total of £15 @ ebuyer.com

 

Solid State Drive (SSD): 60GB OCZ brand Agility 3 SSD (Read rate 525 MB/s, write 475 MB/s) for £54 @ ebuyer.com

 

 

So far £673. £73 above budget but you can cut out the SSD and buy that later, but the rest you will want to keep else you're sacrificing good, necessary components. And that PC will be awesomely powerful compared to anything for the same price from a PC manufacturer.

 

Thanks for those specs, there's some awesome stuff there that I might check out! Deffinitely the i5 and the mobo too! I was going to get a 2500k version of the i5, due to it apparently being better at overclocking, but the 3750k is a bargain at that price!!

 

EDIT: I have everything finalised btw, and I should be buying all my parts next week. I actually decided to get a GTX 570 Golden Sample graphics card in the end, it's not a bad deal at £217 here: http://www.ebuyer.com/282089-gainward-gtx-570-golden-sample-1280mb-gddr5-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-graphics-4260183362012

 

Had to buy it straight away though, there's only 1 left now!

Edited June 21, 2012 by CoolFunkMan

[Sheikah]

Cool, no problem.

 

 

If your GFX card order is confirmed then sweet, that's a good graphics card. If not, I'd suggest switching to the card I recommended EEVIL just because its power/noise is so ridiculously low and it's really easy to overclock and make it much more powerful.

 

The i5 Ivy can go to higher temperatures safely while OCing and uses less power, it's better than the Sandy by a small amount and has the onboard graphics (good for VirtuMVP), so it's worth the £20.

 

Get Guild Wars 2!

[EEVILMURRAY]

Cool that you're building it! It's one of those things that once you do it once, you'll never think of buying a PC again. I certainly feel like I accomplished something and it made me actually appreciate what all the parts really do. Also made me feel like I would know what parts to replace if my PC broke one day.

Well I can play Tetris pretty well so I'm sure I can guess where things go.

 

I've just ordered these bad boys.

 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard @ ebuyer.com for £80

Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-600CXV2UK Builder Series 600W Power Supply @ ebuyer.com for £52 (not modular but a lot cheaper and still great)

Case Fans: 2 x Antec Tricool 120mm fans (what I have for the case, nice and quiet and keep things cool) for a total of £15 @ ebuyer.com

Solid State Drive (SSD): 60GB OCZ brand Agility 3 SSD (Read rate 525 MB/s, write 475 MB/s) for £54 @ ebuyer.com

 

I'll get the rest (and an OS) when I get paid in a few weeks. Then the fun really begins...

[Sheikah]

Awesome to hear, nice to know that my advice was taken on board and I'm sure you'll be really happy with your setup. Building a PC seems daunting before you do it, but afterwards you're laughing.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Awesome to hear, nice to know that my advice was taken on board and I'm sure you'll be really happy with your setup. Building a PC seems daunting before you do it, but afterwards you're laughing.

 

Assuming I get everything in the right place, then I'll feel better

 

Quick question regarding wireless cards. I think I have one in this PC (which I don't think I did right since I'm still on wired net*) is there room for one on your set up?

 

 

*Which hasn't been a problem since this PC doesn't go anywhere, my step dad was obsessed with being wireless and bought it.

[Sheikah]

Yeah, I assume it's a PCI card that slots onto the motherboard? Unless it's incredibly old it should slot onto your new motherboard. If not, they are like sub £10.

 

He sounds like my dad who hates wires with a passion.

[EEVILMURRAY]

Do you also recommend building it naked, as to prevent static build up?

 

[Sheikah]

lol, just make sure to touch the metal case periodically to discharge static and don't touch components anywhere but the edges.

[Cube]

Those suggestions of @Sheikah seem good.

 

I've made a list here of my current planned build, although I'll also need to buy the OS (I'll have to get Win7 if I get it before October, but I plan on Win 8). Not sure about HDD, so I've just stuck on the fist one on Google. Any recommendations (1TB preference) would be great.

 

I'll also need a new wireless keyboard, not bluetooth. I already have a good wireless mouse (RF) and it seems much more reliable than bluetooth (plus I'd need a bluetooth card).

 

With regards to the SSD, would it be wise to, if I have a game I plan on playing a lot of, installing it on the SDD then moving it over to the HDD once I've finished and won't play it as often (as long as it de-fragmented often)?

 

Edit: The case seems to only have two USB ports on the front - what would I need for some rear ones?

 

Also, do the case or fans have any lights? I'd like my computer to be as dark as possible when on.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Cube

[Sheikah]

Those suggestions of @Sheikah seem good.

 

I've made a list here of my current planned build, although I'll also need to buy the OS (I'll have to get Win7 if I get it before October, but I plan on Win 8). Not sure about HDD, so I've just stuck on the fist one on Google. Any recommendations (1TB preference) would be great.

 

Cool to see you're getting a PC too! I am getting the vibe from people that Win 8 is a bit iffy, almost like Vista was. Win 7 is awesome though, can't go wrong with it. Buy (/get) pro, anything more is a waste of money. Also look at this tip to shear the size off your install to make the most of the SSD space.

 

I'll also need a new wireless keyboard, not bluetooth. I already have a good wireless mouse (RF) and it seems much more reliable than bluetooth (plus I'd need a bluetooth card).

 

Logitech wireless mice don't use bluetooth, they come with their own miniature dongle and have served me really well. Pretty cheap too: £13 on Amazon. With regards to bluetooth, you can get a tiny dongle that slots into a USB port for a few pounds from places like Tesco, no PCI card needed. Bluetooth is good to have if you want to hook up, say, your PS3 controller to your PC.

 

With regards to the SSD, would it be wise to, if I have a game I plan on playing a lot of, installing it on the SDD then moving it over to the HDD once I've finished and won't play it as often (as long as it de-fragmented often)?

Absolutely, I do that all the time (been doing it for GW2 recently). I also transfer HD videos to my SSD (will never get skipping, unlike if playing off a USB stick or similar).

 

Lastly I advise to all of you to use TopCashBack before buying your parts, if you don't use it/a similar service already. You tend to get around 4-10% of your money back from most places (bar Amazon) so if you're sinking in £700, that's serious money. If any of you haven't signed up if you do so via this link I get some money too. (/shameless plug)

 

Edit for @Cube:

Edit: The case seems to only have two USB ports on the front - what would I need for some rear ones?

 

The 2 front USB ports on the case are there to be hooked up the motherboard via wires to make them work. That's one of the neat things about this case - 2 x USB 3.0 ports on the front of the case (quite rare for cheaper or older cases). Of course, the 2 front USB 3.0 ports would go wasted if the motherboard didn't have a connector for these (many cheaper or older motherboards don't have this, but I made sure to list a mobo that had it)

 

Every motherboard has USB ports actually attached to it as well - these are the ones that stick out of the back of the PC. From what I've read, there's at least 2 x USB 3.0 ports and 2 x USB 2.0 ports on the back as well (potentially more if you install a PCI USB card and hook them up to your back panel connectors.

 

Also, do the case or fans have any lights? I'd like my computer to be as dark as possible when on.

 

Nope, they do lit up versions of the Tricool fans I suggested but I didn't choose them. The case has just one small blue light that is lit up when the PC is on, located at the top left corner of the power button. System runs quiet too.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Sheikah

[Cube]

Thanks for all the tips - I'll be starting to make purchases soon.

 

And I already have a suitable wireless mouse (Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse), it was a keyboard I need.

[Sheikah]

Sorry for that, most of the standalone wireless keyboards aren't much cheaper than the wireless keyboard and mouse combo so you could get an extra mouse in case yours ever breaks. Any of the decently reviewed keyboards on Amazon should do.

 

Oh and let me recommend the awesome Guild Wars 2 again. :p