Just about £500 for the physical internals, have I done it right?

[Hwat]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3470 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£145.38 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£77.60 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£33.95 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£77.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card (£166.39 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £501.31
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-10 20:18 GMT+0000)

Ok, I have a 22" 1650x1080 monitor, 650w antec truepower PSU, 1TB samsung HDD and an LG blu ray drive, couple this with a copy of windows 8, how does this look? I think I've done as well as I can, but I throw it to you guys to judge me harshly, tell me, for no more then £600 counting windows 8, how am I looking?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Looks fine to me. Remember,the CPU cannot be overclocked,so I assume you are getting a Z77 based motherboard for its additional features over the B75??

[dwskillz]

looking good

the only thing i would change is the motherboard to a asus one.

[Hwat]

If I'm honest, I think you just changed something. I thought the 3470 could be overclocked, it was multiplier locked which I know hurts but it has a small bit of room? I'm about to be taught a lesson aren't I?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I think you can increase the Turbo state a bit but TBH a Core i5 at stock clockspeeds is still quite a decent CPU.

[Willzzz]

Yeah the 3470 is really a top-notch gaming processor, a 3570k is technically better, but it is very rare that you would see a noticeable difference.

Plus the CPU is cheaper, you can get a cheaper motherboard and you don't need a fancy cooler, so you are actually saving a decent chunk of cash.

[Hwat]

Which board would you suggest then? stick with my Z77 pick or is there a cheaper one you'd say is a good idea? I'd ideally like an ATX sized board, with a PCI slot, as I still have a stupid PCI wireless card for my internet.

[Willzzz]

It depends, you could go as cheap as this, although it is quite limiting:
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-b...ata6g-vga-hdmi

There's only 1 SATA 6gb, but that should be ok
There's only 2 RAM slots and limited to 1600, but that fits what you have.
It's mATX, but there's no real downside to that.

[Hwat]

The only problem I could honestly see with that board is how close would a double high card be to the PCI slot at the bottom? because currently they are almost touching and that cannot be doing airflow any good heh.

[Hwat]

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-b...d-sub-hdmi-atx I mean, that looks like the closest I'd go. I really want ATX because I've cheaped out on it in the past and paid the price when I've needed to change something, so I want all the room I can get now! That might just be me being paranoid but there I go.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-b...d-sub-hdmi-atx I mean, that looks like the closest I'd go. I really want ATX because I've cheaped out on it in the past and paid the price when I've needed to change something, so I want all the room I can get now! That might just be me being paranoid but there I go.

That looks OK,or this Gigabyte:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...vi-d-micro-atx

Remember,Scan have a special offer page every weekday:

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

Also,once you get 20 relevant posts you can free postage too:

http://forums.hexus.net/scan-care-he...tup-guide.html

[Hwat]

Whats a relevant post? I didn't know about the special offers page, to there! Yeah that gigabyte looks good, looking at all the info they lose no performance and as I can't really overclock the CPU what do I have to lose? Saves £17 which is always nice. Looking at that offers page my thoughts might change just thanks to that! incredible the things your eyes just skip past. Edit: I'm so close, I just hope the deals tomorrow are as amazing as some of the ones today! free delivery is never to be sniffed at, that can make a cooler seem that much more sensible!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Whats a relevant post? I didn't know about the special offers page, to there! Yeah that gigabyte looks good, looking at all the info they lose no performance and as I can't really overclock the CPU what do I have to lose? Saves £17 which is always nice. Looking at that offers page my thoughts might change just thanks to that! incredible the things your eyes just skip past. Edit: I'm so close, I just hope the deals tomorrow are as amazing as some of the ones today! free delivery is never to be sniffed at, that can make a cooler seem that much more sensible!

A relevant post means non-spam,ie,people sometimes make one word posts to get to the minimum post count. You don't seem to be doing that(however,I just put it in there in case a mod comes in and points it out).

[Hwat]

Just have to decide whether to bet on the daily deals or go with a set list. I think right now I'm decided on that gigabyte board you posted and a 3470 but I'm going to check the deals tomorrow to know for sure. Thanks for the help one last thing, I posted in the memory forums but you might be able to answer because you seem to know a hell of a lot! is it possible to mix 2 different sets of memory with different voltages? so 1 set of 2 memory stick which are 1.5V and 1 set of 2 at 1.65? I have 4GB of memory already and it seems a hell of a waste to not use it.

[Hwat]

Well thanks to the intervention of the daily deals I ended up with this:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£168.94 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£57.12 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£74.90 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£33.95 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£77.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card (£166.39 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £579.29
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-11 02:29 GMT+0000)

Thank you so much cat-the-fifth for pointing out the daily deals, saved me some money there so I could get the 3570 and push myself to get a decent cooler

[afrangers]

i love my corsair h100, very good water cooling!