New PC Build - 3XS

[CreamSauce]

Hello everybody,


Buying a new computer for my brother from Scan 3XS. The computer is going to be mainly used for gaming and general browsing.

Here is a spec I had in mind but I was wondering if you guys could give it the once over and see if you can offer any suggestions.


Case: Silverstone Fortress FT01B Black Mid Tower Full Aluminum
Motherboard - Intel Z68 Chipset: Asus P8Z68-V Intel Z68 Chipset
CPU - Intel 2nd Generation "Sandy Bridge": Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3Ghz Quad Core 6Mb Cache
CPU Coolers: Be Quiet! Dark Rock Pro BK016 Performance CPU Cooler
Overclocking - CPU: 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ Sandy Bridge CPU professionally overclocked by our 3XS engineers to 4.7Ghz!!
Memory - DDR3: 8Gb (2x4Gb) Corsair Vengeance LP DDR3 1600Mhz
NVIDIA Graphics: 1280Mb EVGA GTX 570 797MHz GPU 480 Cores 3900MHz GDDR5
Power Supply Unit: 650W Corsair HX Series Modular - (Dual 570's Graphics Cards)
Solid State Drives: 128Gb Crucial RealSSD M4 6Gbs Read 415MB s Write 175MB s
Optical Drive 1 - DVD Blu Ray: LG CH10LS20 - 8x Blu-Ray Reader & DVDRW
Sound Card: *Sound Card Not Required Use On Board Sound*
Case Cooling Fans: Few Blue LED Fans
Operating system: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit - OEM


Apart from the above whats the best gaming monitor one can buy regardless of price that is under preferably 22" maybe 24" no bigger.

If any amendments are suggested I shall change it and hopefully place an order tonight !


Thank you for anyone's input in advance !


Regards,
CreamSauce

[en3sge]

That looks like a very sensible spec.

Only thing I see missing is a secondary HDD. I assume you will be ordering something along the lines of a 1Tb spinner HDD?

The graphics card is good - second only to the 560Ti in terms of bang per buck. It will deliver good performance but you might have to turn a few bells and whistles down in the latest games if you are going to play smoothly at 1080p resolution. Case in point - I just ordered a GTX 580 lightning 3XS system and I still have to be careful with shadows and AA on titles like Just Cause 2 and Battlefield 3 if I want to run at 60 frames per second.

Just a pointer though - ask scan to put the windows page file on your HDD to save space on your SSD. I also recommend a mid-clock setting on your cpu overclock. I have stock, 4.2Ghz and 4.7Ghz. Very few games need 4.7Ghz and it will help a little with the life expectancy of your cpu to run at a slightly lower rate.

Otherwise all good!

[CreamSauce]

That looks like a very sensible spec.

Only thing I see missing is a secondary HDD. I assume you will be ordering something along the lines of a 1Tb spinner HDD?

The graphics card is good - second only to the 560Ti in terms of bang per buck. It will deliver good performance but you might have to turn a few bells and whistles down in the latest games if you are going to play smoothly at 1080p resolution. Case in point - I just ordered a GTX 580 lightning 3XS system and I still have to be careful with shadows and AA on titles like Just Cause 2 and Battlefield 3 if I want to run at 60 frames per second.

Just a pointer though - ask scan to put the windows page file on your HDD to save space on your SSD. I also recommend a mid-clock setting on your cpu overclock. I have stock, 4.2Ghz and 4.7Ghz. Very few games need 4.7Ghz and it will help a little with the life expectancy of your cpu to run at a slightly lower rate.

Otherwise all good!

Thanks for the reply en3sge,

I ordered the system 2 days ago and the only differences in spec is that I changed the GPU to the GTX580 SC, the CPU Cooler to the Corsair H80 and the psu a 850 watt modular one

[Skyline]

Let's hope you get better customer service than the disgraceful level meated out to me...

[en3sge]

Out of curiosity, what kind of problems did you have with the scan customer service?

My order went through without any problems and I was updated at every stage. I was very impressed with their service actually - especially considering I can be one of the more difficult customers out there (I had tonnes of questions and ad-hoc requests and Im a complete perfectionist).

The only negative I would point to is with my graphics card. I chose an MSI Lightning GTX 580 but when I got it I found it wasnt overclocking itself to 832Mhz (as it should have done) so I had to do it myself. Surprised that wasn't caught at QA stage.

@Creamsauce I think you ordered a very giood spec! The upgrade to the 580 wont deliver you a massive performance increase but if you are like me and every frame-per-second counts then you have made a wise choice indeed! I assume you upgraded the power supply for potential future SLI? I stayed with 650. Will never SLI. Love the simplicity of a single card and the 580 kills most games out there anyway.