Gaming rig, ~£900, will be used for photo and video editing.

[Elessar_Dan]

Good day chaps. Building a rig for my girlfriend and thought id ask your advice for a bit more detailed tweaking, since you guys have been my go-to guys for computers for the last 6 years Its mainly going to be used for gaming, primarily WoW/SW:TOR plus some FPS games like FEAR3 and TF2. Its also going to be used for a lot of photoshop and video editing since she's an arts major, and this is where I have no idea how to tweak it since ive only ever built PCs for gaming. The specs ive got here are more than necessary for the games shes going to be playing, but i want the computer to remain decent for quite a long time, since i dont know whats shes going to start playing in the future.


Approximate Purchase Date: 3 weeks from now.

Budget Range: ~£900

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, photoshop, some video editing

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, speakers, OS

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: www.scan.co.uk is my go-to place, they're local so i dont have to pay shipping and its always handy to have them there if something goes wrong.

Country: UK

Parts Preferences: I've gone for AMD chipset and mobo simply because thats what im familiar with, but Im not bothered.

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

So first the big three:

MSI 1280MB GeForce GTX 570 Twin Frozr III Power Edition OC NVIDIA Graphics Card - £273.08
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280mb-msi-gtx-570-twin-frozr-iii-power-edition-oc-40nm-4000mhz-gddr5-gpu-770mhz-shader-1540mhz-plus]http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280mb-msi-gtx-570-twin-frozr-iii-power-edition-oc-40nm-4000mhz-gddr5-gpu-770mhz-shader-1540mhz-plus]http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1280mb-msi-gtx-570-twin-frozr-iii-power-edition-oc-40nm-4000mhz-gddr5-gpu-770mhz-shader-1540mhz-plus
Ive gone all out of the graphics card, since its top priority that the computer be able to run anything on the highest settings, and continue to run anything on the highest settings for years to come.

AMD CPU FX Series 4100 Black Edition Quad Core Processor Bulldozer - £88.08
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/10-cashback-amd-fx-4100-black-edition-orochi-core-s-am3plus-36ghz-8mb-total-cache-ht-3200mhz-95w-ret
Its been my experience that the CPU rarely becomes the bottle neck in gaming performance, so ive gone with something somewhat cheaper to free up the budget for the graphics card. But as I said above, im not sure if photoshop is going to demand much more CPU performance, so i could go for something better here.

[Edit]Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 £82
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-ga-970a-ud3-amd-970-s-am3plus-ddr3-sata-iii-6gb-s-raid-sata-pcie-20-(x16)-atx
If ill be honest I dont really know how to pick out a motherboard, I honestly cant tell the good ones from the crap ones, so I just picked the one that had the slots I needed and went for something that looked quality. Would especially appreciate feedback on this item.

The secondary stuff:
EditCorsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CAS9 1.5V CML8GX3M2A1600C9B - £37
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-ddr3-vengeance-lp-cerulean-blue-pc3-12800-(1600)-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-15v

EditXFX Pro 550W Core Edition 80Plus Bronze - £53
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w-psu-xfx-pro-series-core-edition-p1-550s-ukb9-85-eff-80-plus-bronze-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-fan-at

23.6" Acer LCD Monitor Full HD with HDMI ET.UG5HE.019 - £123.89
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/236-acer-g245hqbid-led-full-hd-monitor-hdmi-dvi-vga-1920x1080-2ms-300cd-m-800001-black
23-24" screens are ideal for gaming imo, so i went with a mid-range one. Again, not sure how to tell the good ones from the crap ones so feed back is appreciated.

And the minor stuff:
2TB Samsung HD204UI Spinpoint F4EG, SATA 3Gb/s, 5400rpm, 32MB Cache, 8.9ms, NCQ - £103.44
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2tb-samsung-hd204ui-spinpoint-f4eg-sata-3gb-s-5400rpm-32mb-cache-89ms-ncq
2TB seems a bit excessive, so if i have to cut back id start here.

Seagete 500Gb 3.5" Barracuda Hard Drive 7200rpm 16MB Cache - £59.98
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/500gb-seagate-st500dm002-barracuda-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-16mb-cache-85ms-ncq
Smaller but faster hard drive to boot the computer from and run apps.

SATA 22x DVD Writer SAMSUNG SH-S222AB/BEBE - £13.67
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/samsung-writemaster-sh-s222ab-bebe-22x-dvdr-12x-dvdr-dvdplusrw-x8-rw-x6-sata-black-oem

Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus, Black Chassis - £62.27
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/coolermaster-haf-912-plus-black-mid-tower-case-w-o-psu
Im using a coolmaster on my own PC and im quite pleased with it so i decided to go for one here.

Total - £917.83

The choice of parts comes mainly from looking at a ready-made gaming PC thats roughly in our price range, and then building on from that template, so none of these choices are set in stone. So if you feel that having an entirely different GPU-CPU-Mobo set would be in my best interest feel free to suggest it. Other than that id appreciate feed back on the more indepth technical stuff that im not too familiar with, for example my choice of RAM, the compatibility of the components, the quality of the PSU etc.

Thanks in advanced guys

 

[Silvune]

That PSU will not power a build with a GTX 570. This is because the 12V rails have very low ratings (14A & 13A). A GTX 570 by itself will draw about 18A under full load. Even if both those rails can be loaded fully at the same time, which is unlikely, then the 12V output of that unit would be 324W. That should be called (at most) a 400W unit. Powercool units are hard to trust due to the lack of technical reviews, little problems like that and low price.

XFX Pro 550W Core Edition 80Plus Bronze £53
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/550w-psu-xfx-pro-series-core-edition-p1-550s-ukb9-85-eff-80-plus-bronze-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-fan-at
Or
Antec Truepower New TPN-650 80Plus Bronze Modular £65
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/650w-psu-antec-truepower-new-modular-82eff-80-plus-bronze-sli-crossfire-eps-12v-quiet-fan-atx

I don't think you should be spending £56 on only 4GB of RAM.
Corsair Vengeance LP 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 1600MHz CAS9 1.5V CML4GX3M2A1600C9 £22
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/4gb-(2x2gb)-corsair-ddr3-vengeance-jet-black-lp-pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-15v
Photoshop is a program which likes RAM so you should probably get 8GB now:
Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CAS9 1.5V CML8GX3M2A1600C9B £37
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-(2x4gb)-corsair-ddr3-vengeance-lp-cerulean-blue-pc3-12800-(1600)-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-15v

I also think it's a bit strange using a Mini-ITX motherboard in an otherwise ATX build. The HAF 912 doesn't officially support Mini-ITX either.
Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 £82
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigabyte-ga-970a-ud3-amd-970-s-am3plus-ddr3-sata-iii-6gb-s-raid-sata-pcie-20-(x16)-atx

 

[Elessar_Dan]

As I understood it any case which is ATX compatible is by default also mini-ITX compatible, so i went with that in the hopes of having a motherboard thats easier to cool and thus would keep the whole system quieter.

My entire knowledge of PSU's is based on what I've read from the stickies in the PSU section of the forums, so ill take your word for it that the one i picked is inadequate

And yeah, the RAM you've linked seems much better. Any particular reason why the one i had down seems so much more expensive?

 

[Silvune]

Well it is listed as server RAM so it has optimisations based on being designed for servers. It is also listed as ECC so actually I think there is a compatibility issue as well as the Asus website specifies non-ECC memory.

Actually you are correct about Mini-ITX motherboards being compatible with ATX cases, I had not bothered find that out before.
Now that I've looked at M4A88T-I's product page I double checked the CPU support list and no FX series units are listed.

 

[Elessar_Dan]

Alright, so ive taken your suggestions on board Silvune and updated the list. While looking around on scan i found:

2GB XFX HD 6970, PCI-E 2.1 (x16), 5500MHz GDDR5, GPU 880MHz - 257
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-xfx-hd-6970-dd-cooled-pci-e-21-(x16)-5500mhz-gddr5-gpu-880mhz-1536-cores-2x-mdp-dl-dvi-i-dvi-hdm

Figured its just as good if not better than the MSI 1280MB GeForce GTX 570, and its 25 pounds cheaper. So that plus the savings from silvunes suggestions means ive freed up some budget for new speakers and a gaming mouse.

Logitech 2.0 Speakers Sound System - £8
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/logitech-s120-black-20ch-multimedia-speakers-23w-rms-uk-retail
Price seems a bit low tbh, but logitech havent let me down yet.

Logitech G400 Optical Gaming Mouse - 24
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/logitech-g400-black-gaming-mouse-8-button-3600dpi-usb
Girlfriend really wants a gaming mouse like the Naga razar but tbh i think they're pretty overpriced and overdesigned. Even when i play wow there is no way i could use all 12 of the buttons on the side without screwing up. So i thought this would be a good compromise, 2 extra buttons on the side and two extra buttons in the middle.

Again, any and all suggestions and advice are welcome, thanks guys.