Can you look at this Gaming rig for me please?

[HoldenBurn1000]

Hi Guys,

Hoping someone with more current knowledge than me can cast their eye over this.

I used to build a lot of rigs but not really kept up with the changes over the last 3 - 4 years.

This total build comes to Total £1,070.10 which is roughly what I wanted to spend but I can be a bit flexible.

Its pretty much only going to be used for gaming and in the future overclocking so if you have any comments on the GFX card / motherboard that would be great.

I want to stick with a full tower to accommodate the future watercooling setup and I have to have a window in the case as I love making them look amazing

Thanks a lot all! (all from scan of course)



LN40846 500GB Seagate ST500DM002 Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.5ms, NCQ

LN36728 Intel Core i5 2400, S1155, Sdy Bridge, Quad, 3.1GHz, HD2000 IGP 850Mhz, 6MB Cache, 95W, Retail

LN42307 8GB (4x2GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V, X79, Z68 & P67

LN41909 Asus P8Z68-V GEN3, Intel Z68, S 1155, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub/DVI-D/HDMI, ATX

LN43355 NZXT Switch 810 Black Full Tower Silent Performance Case with USB 3.0 and Side Window w/o PSU

LN39472 Corsair H100 Hydro Series Extreme Performance CPU cooler, S775/1155/1156/1366/2011/AM2/AM3

LN37876 1536MB Asus GTX 580 DirectCU II, 40nm, 4008MHz GDDR5, GPU 782MHz, Shader 1544MHz, 512 Cores, HDMI/DP

LN42197 750W OCZ ZT Series Fully Modular PSU 80+ Bronze Certified ~85% Efficiency 140mm Fan 5 Year Warranty



EDIT - One place I keep changing my mind is the case! Full tower, good cable management, watercooling ability and a window! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Chluz]

If you want to overclock, change the Intel Core i5 2400 to 2500k. It has unlocked multipliers, which is really what you want for overclocking. It is 17 pounds more though if you get retail versions.
Also, Would you not prefer to get an ssd (either istead, or in addition to the HDD, at least until prices come down)?
It really depends on how many games you keep at the same time on your computer, and it will increae price substancially, but the load times become oh so short

[Pete301]

Hi there,

Two things strike me about this. The first is that you state that you would like to overclock in the future. Unfortunately the Core i5 2400 is not really overclockable, and you would need to get a Core i5 2500k, these have unlocked multipliers, and therefore much more overclockable. Also the PSU may be a bit OTT, I think a 650W psu would suffice, as to which one I think I should leave it up to the other Hexites. Although I think the Antec TruePower New 650W is fairly decent.

Last note is that new graphics cards are coming out very soon, I think AMD are releasing their 7770 in like a week. And the 7950 and 7970 cards have already been released (7950 is better than the 580 overall AFAIK and cheaper). But the full line-up of AMD cards are rumoured to be released by april and the new nVidia cards (kepler) are rumoured for release april onwards.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

As the others mentioned get a Core i5 2500K. Also, an HD7950 3GB is a better card overall than a GTX580 at around £350. However,the HD7870 is being launched on March 6th and there are rumours that Kepler is being launched late next month or early April.

Edit!!

Ivy Bridge is also launching around April or May too.

[HoldenBurn1000]

Fantastic thanks for the input. So I will definitely change the CPU.

I was planning on buying this at the end of the month but could wait a few more weeks (I suppose!) if it will be worth it in the long run. GFX cards are a fairly weak area of knowledge for me.

The reason I was looking a more powerful PSU was to cover any future upgrades and additions. Is this not worth doing at this stage?

I might go SSD but wasn't sure if was worth 3 times the money (at least) I don't need a huge amount of space. around 2 - 300GB would be plenty but still. If someone can point me in the right direction of one I should look at I could stretch to it.

How is the mobo choice?

Thanks again.

[Chluz]

The two things that do not change much in time are the case and the psu. So I would say, If you are potentially thinking of sli/crossfire in the future, go for a more beefy psu. If its only single GPU, anything from 600 watts is fine. Personally, I love the X660 from seasonic, but its a bit pricey. The advantage of it is that it runs in passive mode until 25% usage. Basically that means in will run passive except when playing games, so pure silence

[shaithis]

Personally, I would wait....as long as 8 weeks.

Z75/Z77 boards, IvyBridge CPUs, Kepler GPUs, Southern Island price drops etc.

We are close to entering what I call an area of limited stability. Lots of things releasing Q1 this year followed by a bit of a lull. Now is not the time to be buying high-end kit IMO.