Help with PC Specs

Hi all,

Was just looking for some advice, I've not had to buy a PC for five years so I'm abit rusty with what's good in regards to hardware these days, I'm looking at the following for £650, does it constitute a godo deal and will it allow me to play games well for a couple of years do you think?

My monitor is only 15" which while I'd like a bigger one has allowed me to play pretty much anything on a very good settings with a Radeon 4890 and a Core 2 Duo 2.33 overclocked. I imagine anything new will be a significant improvement on that but I'm wanting to make sure it's future proofed to an extent. Specs are as follows:

• • Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Quad Core
• • 8GB PC12800 DDR3/1600mhz RAM
• • NVIDIA 650 1GB PCIe 3.0 Video
• • MSI Z77 USB3 & SATA3 MB
• • 1TB SATA-III Hard Drive
• • 24X Double DVD±R/±RW
• • CoolerMaster HAF 912 Case

Any advice much appreciated.

Thanks!

Well, the Core i5-3570k is a great CPU. But the Geforce GTX 650 is a bit of a budget-oriented graphics card, so that wouldn't last long if you expect to play demanding games (especially FPS games and the like).

Could you recommend a good card? I'm completey at a loss as to what's decent these days

Well, on the Nvidia side the GTX 660 is a pretty good card. The GTX 670 is a brute, but it'll cost you. AMD have a pretty good lineup from the 7850 through the 7870 and 7950 to the 7970, which more or less matches the GTX 670.

I'd say the 7850 is the lowest you'd want to go, and stepping up to a 7870 or GTX 660 would certainly help the longevity of your build.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sonson

Could you recommend a good card? I'm completey at a loss as to what's decent these days

---

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...view,3107.html

Much obliged folks, thanks

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mohorovicic

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...view,3107.html

---

That's unfortunately somewhat outdated. There should be an updated version coming quite soon.

Yeah this is good ideas about the PC i like this but i also want to suggest you a PC specification that you should purchase the latest model of PC Duel Core Processor with 180gb HDD and 2 GB Ram Memory and have built-in Super Drive or Blue Ray Drive this is good spec for your new purchase PC and you can use every thing on this PC.....

Shopfronts

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alexis

Yeah this is good ideas about the PC i like this but i also want to suggest you a PC specification that you should purchase the latest model of PC Duel Core Processor with 180gb HDD and 2 GB Ram Memory and have built-in Super Drive or Blue Ray Drive this is good spec for your new purchase PC and you can use every thing on this PC.....

---

With advice like this, you can't go wrong!

Rather than make a new thread it seemed to make more sense to post in this active one.

Also looking to build a new setup and could do with some opinions/suggestions.

I'm currently using an Intel Core2Quad @2.66 CPU and ATI 4870 gpu combination that's done brilliantly for me for the past three/four years however it's now time for a new build. Thinking about an Intel and Nvidia combination this time. Now I'm looking to put something together that's going to be able to comfortably handle Arma 3 and a very heavily modded Morrowind two particularly power hungry titles - that's the standard that I'm looking at. Something that's going to keep me content while the next set of consoles come onto the market.

The two disc drives are for different region playback rather than buying an application for it. It's just handier for me to have two different drives. It's been a handy arrangement with dvd drives in the past. I tend to stick to physical media anyway so two drives are handy from that perspective as well.

I use the pc for games/work/image editing ran through a monitor and music/films/streaming services iPlayer/4oD through a larger tv. The extra ram is great for image editing and modelling as well.

The 750w psu is so I have the wiggle room if I want to put a second gpu in or add any other components.

Also worth mentioning that I've no desire to overclock either. I'm looking at getting the same case I currently have which has good ventilation and a nice quiet fan so there's no reason to go buying aftermarket cooling.

Here's what I'm looking at initially to build.

OS - Windows Pro 7 - SP1 - 64-bit
CPU - Intel Core i7 (3770K) 3.5GHz Quad Core Processor 8MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed
Motherboard - ASROCK Z77 EXTREME 3 Z77 SKT 1155 ATX 4 D3 2100 GLAN USB 3.0 SATA3 HDMI
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) Memory Kit PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 DIMM
GPU - GF GTX670 2GB PCI-E 3.0 - 2GBDDR5 1000MHZ DVIX2 HDMI DP IN
Case - Antec Six Hundred v2 Black and Gun Metal Grey Midi Tower Case (Mini-ITX/Micro-ATX/ATX) or Antec Solo EU (same as currently have)
PSU - Antec EarthWatts EA 750 Power Supply Unit (UK)
Boot Drive - SANDISK SSD 128 GB
Storage Drive - BARRACUDA 2TB SATA - 3.5IN 7200RPM 64MB 6GB/S IN
2nd Storage Drive - (From existing system) Maxtor 500gb
Optical Drive 1 - LiteOn iHOS104 4X Blu-Ray BDROM/RE/RDL/REDL SATA Drive (Internal) (To be set as Region 1 playback)
Optical Drive 2 - LiteOn IHES112 12X Blu-Ray Combo Drive SATA Internal Optical Drive
Keyboard - Logitech Gaming Keyboard G105 UK layout (currently using an old serial keyboard which gets confused with more than two keypresses)

Thanks in advance.

If you're not going to overclock, you can step down to a cheaper partially locked CPU like a Core i7-3770 and a cheaper motherboard.

I'd also recommend a Samsung 830 SSD instead.

Other than that it looks pretty good.

Thank you for the ideas :)

Much appreciated!

Jumping on the bandwagon here: I've had my current PC more or less in its current form for estimated 500 years or so and to make it quick: it's shit. More elaborately:
Motherboard: Asus M2A-MX
RAM: 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400 DDR2 800
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+
GPU: Nvidia Geforce 9500 GT 512MB (Oh boy!)
Hard Drive: Samsung HD753LJ 750GB SATA II/SATA-300

Horrible, isn't it? But the thing is that I plan on getting a laptop in a year or two anyway, so I'm less interested in preparing my System for the future of gaming(TM) than in making sure that I'll be able to play most modern titles at something close to a tolerable framerate (I'm looking at you Planetside 2) and since I'm poor for as little cash as possible.
Tech wizards I implore thee, work thyne advice magick. (Pretty please).

Hmm, I'd rather recommend getting a good, solid desktop now and then getting an el cheapo laptop later. Unless it's imperative that you can play Crysis 3 on your train journeys (or whatever).

You're not going to be playing planetside on any laptop that is for sure, it needs a heavily overclocked high end intel cpu to run at an acceptable framerate in zergs. I barely get 10-30 fps since launch (big zergs everywhere now) on a 3.4 ghz phenom II...

There's also 5times (literally) more performance/dollar to be had in the desktop market than the laptop one for gaming.

i5 3570k, z77mobo, 8GB ram will set you back 350 euros
A gpu will be what sakkura mentioned above, 7850 as minimum if you want it to not be outdated the moment you install it. Those are around 170 euros now I believe. Performance/dollar peaks at the 7850, anything below that will be a worse deal value wise, anything higher or anything nvidia will also be a worse deal value wise, but with nvidia you get drivers that can run all games, and not just 4 out of 5 at release. (amd user speaking of experience)

You can recycle that HDD, probably also your case too, if the psu is above 400W just reuse that as well.


Tip: sell your ram seperately (the ddr2), it is discontinued and ddr2 actually has some decent value now.

Thanks, the advice is very much appreciated. (Fun fact: When I posted my specs on another gaming site, the majority of answers were either people telling me to sell my PC to a museum or pictures of Patrick Stewart being disappointed. I would have found all that very funny if someone else had been the butt of the joke)

It's a vintage build. :)

If you can't quite afford the whole 3570k-based overclocking bells and whistles build, there are cheaper options that will still last longer than a gaming laptop from late 2013.

Any downsides with this build?

BitFenix Outlaw Midi Tower Chassis - Black £39.90

Gigabyte SKT-1155 Z77-D3H Motherboard £77.60

Zalman CNPS9900 MAX Blue LED Heatsink and Fan £44.60

Intel 3rd Generation Core i5-3570K CPU (4 x 3.40GHz, Ivy Bridge, Socket 1155, 6Mb L3 Cache, Intel Turbo Boost Technology 2.0) £168.94

Cooler Master RS550-ACAAE3-UK GX-Series 550W Power Supply Unit £49.98

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 8GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Two Module Kit £34.78

Western Digital 2TB SATA 6Gbps Power Saving Internal Hard Drive OEM - Caviar Green £74.99

Palit GeForce GTX 660 Nvidia Graphics Card (2GB GDDR5, PCI Express 3.0, HDMI, DVI-I, DVI-D, Display Port, DirectX 11.0, OpenGL 4.2, GPU Boost, Kepler Architecture)£166.60

For the OS I'm going to upgrade the Win 8 RC. Don't need M+K, already have a monitor and I have an external USB CD-Rom for the OS install. OS will be going onto a 90GB Kingston SSD that is currently in my laptop.

Total price £657.39. The only weakness I'm playing with (I think) is the graphics card, but I've seen benchmarks that get the 660 up to almost 660Ti levels of performance. Are Palit regarded as decent (they seem to constantly be the cheapest)? The reason I'm edging towards Nvidia is the PhysX support - I really like the stuff they're doing with Borderlands 2 for instance.

Edit - actually, thought of another weakness - the SSD is only SATA 2 I think. Is it worth me spending money to get something like a Samsung 830 for the SATA 3 speeds (will I notice)? Cheers All!

The CPU cooler can get loud, but cools well enough.

The power supply is iffy. There are no reviews of the GX 550W from the major PSU reviewers, but among the others in the GX series, the 650W and 750W have received failing grades while Hardwaresecrets deemed the 450W version acceptable.

The GTX 660 is a good graphics card. It's not so much that it sometimes does unusually well to match the 660 Ti, it's the 660 Ti that has very limited memory bandwidth and therefore slows down to the level of the GTX 660 (or even lower) at high resolutions and/or high AA levels.
Palit is a decent brand... you'll rarely run into downright bad graphics card brands these days.

The HDD is a "green" version, which typically means somewhat lower performance. I'd recommend their "blue" HDDs for good price/performance ratios.

As for the SSD, you probably won't notice the difference. Response time is not affected by the SATA revision, just the bandwidth. And up to nearly 300 MB/sec is still very good.

Thanks - I've changed the PSU to an Antec 620. It adds a bit more to the cost but better to be safe than sorry with power, I suppose.