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[devin42]

. Intel i7 3770k Overclocked,
. 1155 ASUS Maximus V Gene,
. 16GB Corsair Vengeance (2 x 8Gb),
. Asus Xonar DS PCI 7.1 Soundcard,
. Corsair Hydro H60 High-Performance Liquid CPU Cooler,
. LG Blue Ray reader HD DVD black,
. 240Gb SSD SATA Solid state hard drive,
. 2000Gb SATA Hard Drive SATA 3,
. Nvidia GTX680 2048MB,
. No Monitor,
. Corsair Obsidian 650D Black Gaming Case,
. CORSAIR CMPSU-850TXUK,
. No Operating System,
. No Additional Software,
. B.C.L Keypad and optical mouse kit,
. 12 Months Warranty,
. In Store Collection,
. Payment by Debit Card,

This is £1550.

Little bit concerned that the drives aren't branded. Please rate this - do the parts work well together? Have I neglected one area or 'overkilled' another? This rig is for gaming and music production. Thanks.

 

[JMer806]

I mean, your specs are solid, though like you I am wary of unbranded hard drives, especially the SSD. But everything will play together, no problems.

 

[daswilhelm]

that is a decent system. might be overkill with the video card depending on how and what you game on. only thing i would change is that cpu cooler, you can find many air coolers that work just as well or better. also agree on being wary of the no name drives.

 

[devin42]

Cheers guys, one assumes that water-cooling is more efficient but I guess that's not always so. I'm sticking with the 680 to 'future proof' this somewhat, depending on what kind of games are being created for the next gen consoles.

 

[tsnor]

Cheers guys, one assumes that water-cooling is more efficient but I guess that's not always so. I'm sticking with the 680 to 'future proof' this somewhat, depending on what kind of games are being created for the next gen consoles.

Compare frame rate of gtx670 vs. gtx 680 and see if the extra $$ buys you much future proof. (gtx 680 is a monster. 670 is close to 680 and costs $70US less.)

Sealed closed loop water cooling maybe, but after years of playing with aquariums I'll keep water out of my PC. Eventually things leak.

Deleting the SSD (240GB drives cheapest are $150US) and adding your own later might be a good idea. Bad ssds are bad. 240GB is a size used by Sandforce controllers (as well as others). If the drive is a sandforce controller based drive you'll need to update firmware to get working TRIM support. Spinning drives all seem to be made to comparable standard -- just avoid 'green' low rpm drives.

Intel i7 3770k Overclocked: Make sure that the BIOS+Windows power management works with the overclock -- you want things to drop to idle frequencies. Some people cripple turbo boost and power saving to get a consistent overclock. Make sure they give you the BIOS setting to stock-clock your system. Overclocking takes life out of the system, you do not want to run that way all the time. p.s. this is an extraordinary fast processor without an OC, I'd personally skip the OC.

CORSAIR CMPSU-850TXUK: nice PSU.