i5 build

[lost eden]

I'm starting a PhD soon & get some money to buy a machine for my office. My main machine at home is a C2D on a P35 so I'm a little out-of-the-loop so would appreciate it if people could look over the following choices & tell me if any of it can be improved upon.

I have to run Second Life/OpenSim for my research, hence the semi-decent graphics card, but other than that it's going to be a fairly generic 'productivity' machine with office work, programming & compiling, running a few servers, etc.

I hadn't come across the High Current Gamer line before, but from my googling it appears to be a Seasonic so it should be sound. I was considering the Antec Three Hundred but then found this Coolermaster which is quite a bit cheaper, has more space inside & similarly bland styling (a pro).

Future upgrades will almost certainly include more RAM & additional hard disks, maybe another/more powerful graphics card so I can mine bitcoins at night on the uni's power bill

[Pob255]

it's good except the 370 is not as big inside, it's longer however it's also shorter and narrower giving it overall less total volume.
Also thinner steel, the 300 uses 0.7mm steel, the 370 uses a mix of 0.5mm and 0.6mm steel
Motherboard lacks holes for cables, but there's not really enough space behind it to run cables anyway.

I'd suggest looking at
NZXT BETA EVO http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nzxt-...r-case-w-o-psu
Coolermaster centurion 5 II http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...r-case-w-o-psu
Silverstone Tech. PS02B http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...r-case-w-o-psu while it has good size and steel thickness it does lack any cable motherboard holes.
Going up the cost scale a bit have a look at the BitFenix Shinobi http://www.ebuyer.com/product/266538 http://www.******.net/articles_pages..._review,1.html very slick for an office case, with a good layout and space for cable routeing.

edit: ok that website is not liked by hexus, but that's ok good old Clunk to the rescue, he's done an even better review http://www.clunk.org.uk/reviews/bitf...ow-review.html

[DennisMenace]

The Dell U2311H is available for £199.99, and in stock. Not sure if I can say where... but they claim "Outstanding price for this high quality IPS monitor from Dell. Best Price in the UK!".

I'd spend the extra for the 2500K, very easy to overclock.

Maybe consider a Z68 mobo, but not many mATX options yet.

Aim for 1600MHz (PC3-12800) RAM, Vengeance Blue is ~50p more.

Great PSU, nothing to touch it at that price.

[kalniel]

The Dell U2311H is available for £199.99, and in stock. Not sure if I can say where... but they claim "Outstanding price for this high quality IPS monitor from Dell. Best Price in the UK!".

You mean Aria?

OP, looks good. If you want to bitmine then go for an AMD card over nVidia. Also what's the 140mm fan for?

[lost eden]

I'd suggest looking at
NZXT BETA EVO http://www.scan.co.uk/products/nzxt-...r-case-w-o-psu

I'm liking the look of that one actually, black interior is nice & the fascia looks like it's matte rather than glossy.

The Dell U2311H is available for £199.99, and in stock. Not sure if I can say where... but they claim "Outstanding price for this high quality IPS monitor from Dell. Best Price in the UK!".

I checked a few places but forgot to look at Aria, cheers!

I'd spend the extra for the 2500K, very easy to overclock.

It's an office machine, it's never going to be overclocked, stability is the key. If I need more performance I'll request more money & buy an i7

Aim for 1600MHz (PC3-12800) RAM, Vengeance Blue is ~50p more.

I assumed 1600MHz would be more expensive, but as you said the Vengeance Blue is barely 50p more & the 1600MHz XMS3 is actually cheaper(!), though out of stock - Vengeance Blue it is

If you want to bitmine then go for an AMD card over nVidia. Also what's the 140mm fan for?

Has to be nvidia for their linux drivers; amd's linux drivers are dreadful. The 140mm fan was for intake on the 370, but now I'm opting for the NZXT I'm getting an extra 120mm instead.

[zymoloid1081]

Pretty sweet build, could save some case on the monitor, the new(ish) benq series seem very impressive + received good reviews.

Jack