Suggestions on a new build

[XA04]

Hello I'm building a PC for my brother. I've spec'ed the following system up for him. His budget is £700 and this adds up to £720 at the moment.. but a cheaper case could be an option.

Are there any suggestions for different hardware here? Or does it look like a good gaming pc and good bang for buck!?

Thanks :-)

Motherboard: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...3gb-s-raid-atx

CPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...-cache-95w-oem

Memory: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(...-9-27-xmp-150v

HDD: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb...cache-11ms-ncq

GPU: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280m...-dvi-mini-hdmi

Case: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coole...usb-30-w-o-psu

PSU: Unsure of this? http://www.scan.co.uk/products/700w-...-12v-135mm-fan

[Jasp]

Drop the ram to 1600mhz ram should save you a couple of quid, I know the asus pro board defaults 1866mhz ram to 1600mhz anyway due to the CPU not sure on gigabytes, lose the momentus hybrid and just got a decent 7200rpm drive like a samsung F3 or a WD black and add a SDD down the road. Also pay the extra for the retail CPU, the OEM one come with a much shorter warranty. If you look on the today only the CPU and Board you listed as retail are their for about £1 more then the single prices, not worth messing around for that, also the OEM ones don't come with heatsinks and fans.

[XA04]

Cheers. Will do if need to drop some cash on the final result.. that board seems to support up to 2133mhz though.. will look it up about the CPU though.

Hybrid I wanted to get him for speed and cost effectiveness really, as SSD's are rather expensive.

Will deffo get the retail one then if the OEM one doesn't come with a fan!! haha.

[Jasp]

Not worth the loss of HD space for the momentus, you can get two 1tb F3s on scans today only for less, in raid their gonna be substantially faster.

[XA04]

500gb will be more than enough though. A RAID setup is a good thought though. I'm not buying tonight though, it will be in a few days time.

I've not looked at benchmarks too much, but I was under the impression that the hybrid drive was only slightly slower than a normal SSD but much better than a hard disk.

[Jasp]

Its a mix of both in good and bad ways, you have to remember it only has 4gb of SSD memory so the amount of data it can catch is highly limited, normally windows and boot and a couple of used programs. They are a extremely good HDs for laptops due to the fact HD space is really at a premium their, personally I wouldn't recommend one for a desktop as their not worth the money.

[XA04]

I thought the 4gb would be shared somehow between the rest of the disk? Or is it simply 4gb for the OS or whatever and thats it?... think I will look up some more now.

Rest of the system look ok then?

[ed^chigliak]

I'd go for an XFX PSU over Coolermaster reason being they are made by Seasonic. XFX have good reviews and Coolermaster pretty average. No real world difference in 1600Mhz RAM but a decent saving will bring it under budget.