Gaming PC Under £1500

MacHooper · Jun 2, 2012

Approximate Purchase Date: The next few weeks

Budget Range: £1500-£1700 (Lower is preferred

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Movies, Music, College Work

Parts Not Required: Mouse Keyboard and Headset *Monitor IS Needed*

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: www.scan.co.uk or www.aria.co.uk but if another site has a better price that is fine

Country: England

Parts Preferences: A nice looking case, possibly an intel CPU unless someone can come up with a better build with an AMD one

Overclocking: Yes for the CPU

SLI or Crossfire: In the future

Monitor Resolution: Preferabbly 1920x1080 or higer

Additional Comments: Just make sure it runs games well and wont overheat if overclocked and running high end games.

I have not yet chosen any parts, which is why I am here to see what you all have to say about this build and budget range, I have learned a lot in the forums and I am now asking on what your advice would be for a PC with this budget.

Thank you

Mac

g-unit1111 · Jun 2, 2012

Here you go:

Case: Antec 1100 - £89.94
PSU: XFX Pro Series 750W - £75.30
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H - £104.12
CPU: 3.4GHz Intel Core i5-3570K - £179.22
Cooler: Noctua NH-U9B - £43.07
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz 1.5V - £43.34
SSD: 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 - £106.00
HD: 1TB Western Digital 7200 RPM - £93.37
Optical: LG Blu Ray Burner - £66.23
Video Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 670 - £328.40
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium - £71.64
Monitor: 24" Viewsonic VA2448-LED LED (Backlit) Monitor, 1920x1080, 5ms, 300cd/m², 10000000:1, Black, Full HD - £138.29

Total: £1,355.70

MacHooper · Jun 3, 2012

Thanks

that leaves some money left over as well so I dont have to spend it all

Guest · Jun 3, 2012

then get a bigger monitor

Asus VE278Q 27" LED Monitor with HDMI & DisplayPort £237.92

MacHooper · Jun 5, 2012

I would but a 27" would not fit on my desk :/

MacHooper · Jun 6, 2012

Does anyone have any suggestions on what I could do to improve the build? A bigger monitor would not fit on my desk so what else would you recommend I get?

Thanks again

Mac

Sunius · Jun 6, 2012

Get a bigger SSD.. OR if your budget is £1700, get a second GTX 670.

Why_Me · Jun 6, 2012

MacHooper · Jun 7, 2012

Why_Me :

Would you recommend this over the other build?

Why_Me · Jun 7, 2012

MacHooper :

Ya. Bigger SSD, better cooling for that Asus card, better monitor imo and a modular psu. The one thing the other build has that's better is the cpu cooler. That's an easy fix though. Dabs sells Noctua cpu coolers so just switch that Cooler Master I posted from Scan for a Noctua from Dabs.

MacHooper · Jun 7, 2012

Why_Me :

Thank you

MacHooper · Jun 13, 2012

Why_Me :

Why_Me · Jun 13, 2012

Well lets break it down some.

Motherboard

Asus Sabertooth Z77 Intel Z77 Socket 1155 £174.92

ASRock Z77 Extreme 6 S1155 Intel Z77 £149.98

It's a difference of £30. So for £30 more what does that Asus offer that the Asrock board does not? It must be something special for an extra 30 quid. Maybe it has 24K gold plated heat sinks?

Power Supply

1050W Powercool PC-1050AUBA, 80 PLUS £94.92

XFX 750W XXX Black Edition Single Rail Semi Modular Silver Rated £101.98

This one is too easy. The psu is one of the most important components of the build. Your psu goes and chances are it's taking other components with it...usually it's the motherboard. You have a generic brand no name psu up there that can't even get Bronze efficiency vs that XFX that's manufactured by Seasonic which is arguably the best psu manufacture out there not to mention it's Silver rated. That Powercool is too expensive for a paper weight and not heavy enough to use as a boat anchor. It serves no purpose.

Graphics Card

Gainward 2GB GeForce GTX 680 Phantom NVIDIA Graphics Card £478.42

Asus GeForce GTX 670 915MHz 2GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI £329.98

Another easy one. That Gainward 680 you have up there is 150 more quid than the Asus card I posted and what do you get for an extra 150 quid? That Asus card has non reference cooling and will o/c like a beast without even upping the voltage to surpass that generic brand reference cooled Gainward 680.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5818/nvidia-geforce-gtx-670-review-feat-evga/11 <----- those benches were done with a stock reference cooled EVGA card.

Monitor

24" Iiyama PLE2409HDS Black Widescreen LCD Monitor, 1920x1080, 1000:1, 300 cd/m², 2 ms, VESA £132.29

Asus ML229H 22" LED-IPS Wide Angle VGA/HDMI £155.55

I posted one of the very few 2ms IPS monitors available on the market. I know of a few people myself that are holding off on purchasing a new monitor until that Asus monitor gets to the US which is suppose to be within the next few months. That monitor just hit the shelves in the UK not more than a month ago now. You need to google IPS vs TN screens. TN had the advantage with gaming for the fact they could get a low response time (2ms) out of them. Now Asus and I believe Samsung have finally come out with an IPS screen that has that low response time. You managed to trade out a monitor that most gamers who also like to watch movies would give left testicle to have.

CPU Cooler

Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator Cooler with PWM fans, LGA2011 only £66.29

Coolermaster Hyper 612S CPU Cooler £31.93

Normally I would give the Noctua the nod but seeing how the one you chose only works on socket LGA 2011 boards meaning you won't be able to use it...well ya. Stick with Noctua but find a cooler that works with socket 1155 boards. That's what your building...socket 1155.

As far as the SSD's go you screwed most of your money away on that over priced graphics card and board so ya I can see why you didn't take advantage of going with a 240GB SSD. 128GB fills up faster than you might think.

metal orient · Jun 14, 2012

Agree with everything here, one point to make the gainward phantom is hardly reference cooling and focuses on silence.

MacHooper · Jun 14, 2012

Okay well I will just go for your build then

thanks for all the help

MacHooper · Jun 18, 2012

Why_Me :

Well lets break it down some.

Motherboard

Asus Sabertooth Z77 Intel Z77 Socket 1155 £174.92

ASRock Z77 Extreme 6 S1155 Intel Z77 £149.98

It's a difference of £30. So for £30 more what does that Asus offer that the Asrock board does not? It must be something special for an extra 30 quid. Maybe it has 24K gold plated heat sinks?

Power Supply

1050W Powercool PC-1050AUBA, 80 PLUS £94.92

XFX 750W XXX Black Edition Single Rail Semi Modular Silver Rated £101.98

This one is too easy. The psu is one of the most important components of the build. Your psu goes and chances are it's taking other components with it...usually it's the motherboard. You have a generic brand no name psu up there that can't even get Bronze efficiency vs that XFX that's manufactured by Seasonic which is arguably the best psu manufacture out there not to mention it's Silver rated. That Powercool is too expensive for a paper weight and not heavy enough to use as a boat anchor. It serves no purpose.

Graphics Card

Gainward 2GB GeForce GTX 680 Phantom NVIDIA Graphics Card £478.42

Asus GeForce GTX 670 915MHz 2GB PCI-Express 3.0 HDMI £329.98

Another easy one. That Gainward 680 you have up there is 150 more quid than the Asus card I posted and what do you get for an extra 150 quid? That Asus card has non reference cooling and will o/c like a beast without even upping the voltage to surpass that generic brand reference cooled Gainward 680.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5818/nvidia-geforce-gtx-670-review-feat-evga/11 <----- those benches were done with a stock reference cooled EVGA card.

Monitor

24" Iiyama PLE2409HDS Black Widescreen LCD Monitor, 1920x1080, 1000:1, 300 cd/m², 2 ms, VESA £132.29

Asus ML229H 22" LED-IPS Wide Angle VGA/HDMI £155.55

I posted one of the very few 2ms IPS monitors available on the market. I know of a few people myself that are holding off on purchasing a new monitor until that Asus monitor gets to the US which is suppose to be within the next few months. That monitor just hit the shelves in the UK not more than a month ago now. You need to google IPS vs TN screens. TN had the advantage with gaming for the fact they could get a low response time (2ms) out of them. Now Asus and I believe Samsung have finally come out with an IPS screen that has that low response time. You managed to trade out a monitor that most gamers who also like to watch movies would give left testicle to have.

CPU Cooler

Noctua NH-D14-2011 Dual Radiator Cooler with PWM fans, LGA2011 only £66.29

Coolermaster Hyper 612S CPU Cooler £31.93

Normally I would give the Noctua the nod but seeing how the one you chose only works on socket LGA 2011 boards meaning you won't be able to use it...well ya. Stick with Noctua but find a cooler that works with socket 1155 boards. That's what your building...socket 1155.

As far as the SSD's go you screwed most of your money away on that over priced graphics card and board so ya I can see why you didn't take advantage of going with a 240GB SSD. 128GB fills up faster than you might think.

Would you reccomend going for a XFX 850w rather than 750w just for some headroom for overclocking cpu and gpu and eventually getting a second 670? or will 750w be enough?

Why_Me · Jun 18, 2012

MacHooper :

Technically you can get by with a 650w psu for two 670's but the 750w gives you plenty of headroom for o/c, extra drives, fans, etc.... with juice left over.

MacHooper · Jun 20, 2012

Why_Me :

Okay well thanks for the help

will go for the 750w you suggested just in case, I appreciate all the help and will come back if I have any problems, although it will probably be in a new thread in the homebuilt section dependent on what the problem is.

Thanks again.

Mac

Gaming PC Under £1500

Distinguished

Titan

Distinguished

Guest

Guest

Distinguished

Distinguished

Splendid

Polypheme

Distinguished

Polypheme

Distinguished

Distinguished

Polypheme

Distinguished

Distinguished

Distinguished

Polypheme

Distinguished

Share this page