Yeah you can get a fairly high end gaming system for that kind of money. I'd go for something along the lines of below. Obviously you can change things like the case etc if he prefers something else instead. CPU: Intel i5 4440 @ £134 Motherboard: Gigabyte G1 Sniper @ £110 GFX: MSI GTX 780Ti @ £499 PSU: Corsair CX750M @ £69 RAM: 8GB Corsair vengeance 1866mhz @ £72 SSD: Corsair LX 120GB @ £68 HDD: 1TB Western Digital Red @ £50 Optical: Pioneer BDC-207DK @ £40 Case: NZXT Phantom @ £100 Cooler: Corsair H55 integrated water cooler £55 All this comes in around the £1192 mark
OK, reading through... how about this: AMD FX-8350 8 Core CPU Overclocked to 4.4GHz, AMD 990FX Motherboard, up to 16GB DDR3 1600MHz, Super Flower 550W PSU, AMD Radeon R Series Graphics, 7.1 HD Audio, DVD-RW 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 1600MHz C11 Samsung 250GB 840 Evo Series Solid State Drive Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM Hard Drive )AMD Radeon R9 270X 4096MB Graphics Card £1163.69 inc VAT
It's not bad, but for future proofing (lets say he wants to add bits to it later) then that 550W PSU is not going to cut it at all. The AMD chip performs well but the intel beats it in every department for only £12 more. The R9 card performs well in tests and is able to churn out FPS of 25+, on most games that might be ok but you might see some lag if you turn up the settings. The MSI GTX780Ti has FPS rates well into 50's and is an FPS machine but its twice the price. Have a look at reviews here if you're interested. Great site and very impartial and honest opinions of kit. Overclock3D :: Technology News & Reviews
Well some recent reviews of the new gtx980 in SLI it was keeping up with and sometimes beating the titan z, 980x2 are under £900 beating a card that costs £2000 Having said that the 780ti being older spec will start to fall in price so good deal can be had, but they are power hunger things I would so go for either one 980 at £450 or two 970 at £540 myself, plus cpu and board that can do pci e 3.0 x16 x16 and 40 lanes But it won't be cheap but it will be fast a bit like an hp4
My next build will still have SLI on board no matter how many cards I run, tbh my PC is one of the first Asus mainboards to feature Nvidia SLI and it has served me well, I am not much of a gamer and tbh only run games to see the amazing graphics, ten mins later I am off doing something else, I still get off on the tech, the transistor count, speed and the whole "moore's law" of computers, its like fast bikes, I may not be able to ride it how MM does but I like to have a go I get a hit off just seeing some of the top end gaming rigs at Novatech and a few mates have, sometimes I can even just walk away...lol (without getting drawn into the whole "must have")
Right, here goes: ASUS ROG MAXIMUS VII RANGER Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) Motherboard SATA3 ONLY! 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i5 4690 3.50GHz Socket LGA1150 Novatech Vortex Tower Case - Scythe Shuriken Rev.B Quiet Low Profile CPU Cooler MSI GeForce GTX 980 4GB GDDR5 Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Seagate Desktop SSHD 1TB Hybrid SATA 6Gb/s 3.5" 8GB MLC SSD Great BOOT/SYSTEM Disk Corsair Builder Series CX600 - 600 Watt 80 PLUS® Power Supply Samsung 224DB 24x DVD Re-Writer - SATA - Black - OEM (need to check it will run on the MB as SATA and the board only supports SATA3) G.Skill RipjawsX 16GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit Thoughts??
I like it..haha.. its a very personal thing building a system, bit like colour of underwear lol However it pays to get a wide point of view on these things...lol
All this means nothing to me ,but what it does prove is that this forum rocks on helpful intelligent knowledge ,to help a fellow mate out on most subjects raised. Well done dudes.
personally I would drop the sycthe for a h100i or something along the lines of that. The built in water blocks will out perform air and also give means of cooling if your boy decides he wants to overclock in a few years. Also for the extra money of the GTX 980 over the 780 it really i'snt worth it. and to play in a 1920x1080 resolution I would also forget about getting the 780ti version again and save some money. Other than that your last build looks pretty sweet. Also on personal recommendations i would look into the Samsung Evo SSD's they will out live and out perform the one you're looking at and arent expensive. I have a few and cant recommend them enough.
Thanks for your help everyone, it's very much appreciated. ive shown Harry the specs, and he's chuffed to bits ( if I was 13, I would be too!) Two things I have learnt from being a member here are: 1. Very helpful people 2. You love spending other peoples money..... Haha! cheers!!!
I've run Crucial SSD for some time (but quality is always best option) just installed one as a boot drive on my main PC, boot times are way down on my old SATA HDD, also installed a new SSHD for data, it's defo much quicker than a standard HDD, failure wise I'd still argue (or I'd like too) that an SSD is more reliable than a HDD, but hay I think they are all in the same boat as anything that involves transistors etc will fail in time.. all I know for sure is IF they do fail it's always a PITA!
Im still trying to persuade my account manager at Eizo that he needs me to commit to a long term soak test on a pair of these. FORIS Gaming Monitors | EIZO
me want this next lol LG Flatron 34UC97-P 34" WideScreen Super-Wide Curved LED Monitor [34UC97-P.AEK]
Was back down Novatech this morning, (picking up some more ram like you do), most of the big rigs they have all run SLI, we were chatting at it seems even though some conflicting info online re FPS etc and SLI/Crossfire most hard core gamer's still aim for more than one card, anyway all of the systems listed here look great.
I've found these guys based in Hull for best online prices Cheap Laptops, Tablet PC, and Cheap LED TVs | Ebuyer.com, have never bought a system from them but build my own with parts from them. Best build the system around the graphics card like Arthur said and the new Nvidia GTX980 is the top dog at the moment with regards to the graphics card market. Links Below. Cheap Gaming PCs Low Prices UK Deals | Ebuyer.com
I also was a earlier adopter of the SLI setup with 2x 8800gtx cards, although now it's improved in stability and performance i don't think i would return to a duel card set up unless your trying to to achieve a stable frame rate at ultra hd resolutions where you need that extra horsepower. A decent single card should be capable of playing the latest games without slowdown with all of the graphical goodies at max with sensible resolutions of 1920x1080 or 2560 x 1080 etc. Just remember to run a 64bit operating system or all that graphic card memory / ram memory will be wasted on a 32bit o/s Just for a laugh here is a copy of my old receipt from Feb 2007 when i decided i was going to build the ultimate gaming pc at that particular time
