Hi guys, I’ll be finishing my Masters degree in a couple of weeks, and I’m planning on building a high-end gaming PC as a present for myself . The max budget is £2500 (been saving for this for a looooong time). Here is what I’ve come up with:
- Intel i7 930 - £230
- Corsair Obsidian Series 800D - £210
- 1000W Corsair Modular PSU - £190
- 6GB (3x2GB) Corsair Dominator GT 1600, CAS 7-7-7-20 - £230
- 2 x 64GB Samsung SSD in RAID 0 (already have one) - £150
- Samsung Blu-Ray Combo Player - £67
- NZXT Sentry LX Fan Controller - £44
I'm planning on water-cooling the CPU:
- Noctua fans - £30
- XSPC Acrylic Dual 5.25” Reservoir for One Laing DDC - 35
- XSPC Laing DDC-Pump 12V Ultra(18w) - £60
- Swiftech Apogee XT CPU Block - £57
- XSPC RX360 Black High Performance Radiator - £66
I've been looking at getting an ASUS Rampage III Extreme, however they seem ridiculously expensive compared to other boards. Instead, I'm thinking about getting the slightly cheaper Asus P6X58D Premium or a Rampage II instead (can always add a USB3 card later) - what do you think? I'm obviously planning on overclocking the i7 930, but not excessively so. I know Gigabyte has several boards, but I'm not a Gigabye fan
The graphics card - I'm stuck between an ATI 5870 (2Gb version costs £400) or a 5970 (around £520) - I'll be playing at 1900x1200, mainly Crysis, Call of Duty, etc. Do you think it would wise for me to buy a 5870 now, and then use the saved money for an upgrade in a year or so? Or should I get the 5870 anyway. The thing is, getting two 5870 is considerably more expensive than getting a 5970. Also, I don't think I can watercool the GPU - can a 360 rad support bother CPU + GPU?
Any other improvements that other people can suggest? I'll be ordering the stuff on around 5th July after my exams, so it may be that the prices have changed by then.