Getting back into PC gaming, £2k budget, advice?

[M C STORM]

Hi all,
Not been on here for years so don't know if anyone will remember me but hi to everyone and thanks for any advice in advance.

Recently had the urge to get back into PC gaming after many many years away, used to be well into first person shooters but mostly CounterStrike for a long time.

I want to get a full system including everything and have a budget of no more than £2000.

I've been speccing up some Dell/Alienware systems and wanted to know your opinions on this setup all in for £1700 (with a healthy discount)




Does this look like a good spec?
Should I be looking elsewhere for a prebuilt system?
Or should I be doing what I used to do and building up a system myself?


Thanks!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would build your own system if possible! The only advantage of a pre-built system is that you might able to get a collect and return warranty within the budget.

However,for your budget,you can build an uber rig and you might have some change left too!!

[IronWarrior]

Build it yourself, you don't need to spend 2k on a overpriced system like that.

You can easy build yourself a really good computer for about £1000 or for £700 depending if you go AMD or Intel.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I came up with the following build from Scan. More than a definite build,it is more an indication of what you can get.



You can use your Scan free postage,so the total cost will be cheaper. Scan also does special offers too:

http://www.scan.co.uk/todayonly/

If you shop around you might be able to get some parts cheaper too.

There are other parts which might want to consider including are the IB Core i5 3570K and the many GTX670 cards also available. You might also prefer to go for a fancier motherboard too.

I would definitely look on Scan and have a gander at the cases and see what you like the most.

I have not included a dedicated sound card or a speaker setup either.

However,the build I suggested,should be able to run most games at very decent settings at 1920X1080. The GTX680,HD7970 and GTX670 are the faster single GPU cards ATM.

It will also leave you around £500 in the upgrade kitty too.

It will be also possible to push the build closer to £1000 if required too.

Edit!!

These XFX PSUs are cheaper and get good reviews:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-...ingle-rail-psu

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750w-...12v-fan-atx-v2

[Phage]

Also keep an eye on the Today Only page. I got the rig in my sig on offer , The Msi board is roughly equivalent to the UD3H.

EDIT: Have our rigs disappeared or is it just me ?

[M C STORM]

Cheers for the replies, to be honest as I suspected...

The appeal of the pre-built rigs is just that having been out of the hardware loop for so long I dont have a clue where to start these days with speccing one up.

I'll get some research done then.

[Phage]

I have a gaming spec. Start with this and see what you'd like to change...
CPU: 3570k @ 4.3Ghz
Motherboard: MSi Z77 GD65
Memory 8Gb HyperX RAM
Storage 128Gb M4, 120Gb Vertex 2e + 1Tb Hitachi @ 7200
Graphics Card(s) Gigabyte 7970 3Gb
PSU True Power 750w
Case Fractal R3
Operating System W7 64
Monitor(s) Dell U2412M

[IronWarrior]

That build that CAT has done is nice, my changes would be to add more RAM, I find 8GB is not enough these days and change to an 24" 1920x1200 Dell monitor, Scan has a nice one at around £220 I think.

[Phage]

Really ? 8Gb not enough ?

[Domestic_Ginger]

whats a gtx555? in SLI it sounds uber. I would try and limit myself to a bot over a grand now and then save the rest for 5 years time or so for an upgrade keeping PSU and case.

i5, Z68 not so sure on GPU 670(?).

How about one of those 27" IPS screens I see kicking around?

[Phage]

The GT555 is not great shakes. See Rookie1986's original posts. It what made him build his own.
Alienware had great CPU, weak GPU.

Found it : http://forums.hexus.net/pc-hardware/229525-worth.html

[scaryjim]

GTX555 is an OEM only card, a bit of a bastard love child of the GTX460 series - clock speeds and memory capacity (1GB) like a V2 460 1GB, a 192bit memory interface like a 460 768MB, and only 288 cores like a 460 SE. Even in SLI, a pair of those is going to be significantly slower than GTX670 or a Radeon 7900 series - possibly even a 7870 with a decent overclock. Certainly not a graphics setup I'd want to put in a high end gaming rig.

[IronWarrior]

Really ? 8Gb not enough ?

Yes, during a normal day useage, I find that am using about 6GB's and that's just Firefox (Wetfox) the Flash plugin container, Steam, Sidebar, Explorer, mIRC, few others, nothing demanding.

But, I can still play BFBC2 even at 80/90% usage of RAM without trouble.

RAM is cheap these days, so 16GB isn't going to break the bank for DDR3.

[kalniel]

Yes, during a normal day useage, I find that am using about 6GB's and that's just Firefox (Wetfox) the Flash plugin container, Steam, Sidebar, Explorer, mIRC, few others, nothing demanding.

No way are you using 6GB with that lot! Windows might be caching to ram to that level (a good thing), but it can free that in an instant if needed to make room for anything.

[jim]

If you're spending that much money on a PC, you want an IPS monitor not a TN (like the Alienware option).

As for building yourself, there'll be no shortage of build advice around these parts

[IronWarrior]

No way are you using 6GB with that lot! Windows might be caching to ram to that level (a good thing), but it can free that in an instant if needed to make room for anything.

Once, my main PC is back up and running and configged again (Currently installing because the OS the SSD drive wouldn't boot) will show a screenshot.

Oh, yes am sure it's caching it, but it's annoying that it uses so much.