Opinions?

[pete21121]

Hiya guys. Ive been trawling the internet for a good few weeks now, and i think ive finally narrowed my shopping list down to these parts. This is for a fairly budget gaming rig - will be used for diablo 3, all the way upto a bit of crysis hopefully.

Case (bought) - CM Storm Trooper. Replaced roof fan with 2x red 120mm bitfenix spectre pro leds.

PSU - Corsair TX850M

CPU - i5 2500k (OC'd to about 4.4ghz probably)

MB - Between Gigabtye z68x-ud5 and the Asrock Z77 extreme 4 - leaning towards the Asrock.

RAM - 2x 4gb - either mushkin blackline or vengeance low profile 1600mhz

GPU - Gainward GTX560Ti phantom

CPU Cooler - EVGA Superclock. I know its not the best one out there but its fairly cheap and looks fecking cool. Red fan goes with the rest of the case too.

SSD - Corsair force gt 60gb - purely for intel smart response most likely. And its red.

HDD - Whatever SATA drives i can find lying around the house for now lol.

The motherboard is the only thing ive been really confused about. The extreme 4 looks like a better option to me but the amount of gigabyte boards of various chipsets ive been comparing has just fryed my brain.

Thanks for looking over it

 

[Pr3d4t0r]

id go with gigabyte, asrock is a cheap brand

 

[PetrolHead247]

The mobo selected is good, but the MSI Z77 GD55 is also a board you should most definitely consider, and to be perfectly honest the MSI board is better. As for the CPU, the 2500K is awesome and if you find one for £150 or around there go for it, but if not i'd say go for the 3570K as good deals on the 2500K are starting to die down. Also, the GTX560 TI is a good GPU, but i'd be tempted to opt for an AMD 7850 or 7870 if you can stretch that far. Also, don't bother with intel smart response, and spending all that money on a Force GT to use it as a cache drive is a bad idea. Best thing to do is store your OS and programmes on the SSD and use the HDD as a storage drive for files and stuff. The EVGA Superclock is ok, but for that money i'd probably swap it out for a Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo, best value for money cooler out there, it's epic.

 

[pete21121]

id go with gigabyte, asrock is a cheap brand

Even though its Z68 rather than Z77? I mean i personally dont think it would make much of a difference to me for now, but ive seen most people recommend z77 for new builds.

 

[Lauralarry]

you only really need a 650W for this system so I would go for the TX 750M / Hx750, that's about it, build what you want don't take everyone's considerations to serious

 

[PetrolHead247]

Even though its Z68 rather than Z77? I mean i personally dont think it would make much of a difference to me for now, but ive seen most people recommend z77 for new builds.

Don't bother with Z68, it's old tech and is EOL (End of life), go with Z77. And as Lauralarry said, you could save a bunch of cash and go for a TX650M or 750M or a HX650/750. Or you could opt for another brand like Be Quiet, XFX, Enermax, FSP, Cougar etc... But Corsair is one of the best brands out there, but you always wanna take your time and look at other brands too in case there's a cracking deal out there on another unit

 

[pete21121]

Thanks guys, seriously helpful. A 7850 i could probably manage, but not really a 7870 for now. I was gonna get the 850w just in case i decided to go SLI/Xfire, but now that i think about it im more likely to upgrade to a better single card as time goes on. Probably gonna stick with corsair though as they seem to get very good reviews PSU wise.

Lets say i could spend upto £130 on a motherboard, what would you recommend?

 

[xdaax]

motherboard for 130: I would go with an MSI Z77-GD55 which is at aria for 119.99

I don't think a EVGA Superclocked allows you to achieve a 4.4 GHz overclock, but I'm not an expert on that.

 

[PetrolHead247]

Thanks guys, seriously helpful. A 7850 i could probably manage, but not really a 7870 for now. I was gonna get the 850w just in case i decided to go SLI/Xfire, but now that i think about it im more likely to upgrade to a better single card as time goes on. Probably gonna stick with corsair though as they seem to get very good reviews PSU wise.

Lets say i could spend upto £130 on a motherboard, what would you recommend?

There's two ways you could go about this that i can see:

1. You could opt for a TX650M PSU and a MSI Z77 G45 Mobo, there's £55 saved over the original parts and you could then get a 7870 no problem.

or 2. TX650M or 750M or HX750 etc... and a GD55 Mobo with a 7850.

^ The choice is yours

 

[pete21121]

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/730W+be+quiet!+Pure+Power+L8+80PLUS+Bronze+Modular+Power+Supply+?operation=shoppingBasketAdd&productId=46239&context=superSpecial

^ looks like a good buy to me? And im thinking GD55 with the 7850 sounds good. Thanks guys.

 

[PetrolHead247]

http://www.aria.co.u...xt=superSpecial

^ looks like a good buy to me? And im thinking GD55 with the 7850 sounds good. Thanks guys.

Yep, that's a great unit and a great price too. And a GD55 and 7850 sounds good to me.

 

[Taurus]

Consider the Asus Z77 Maximus V Gene its a micro atx but has red theme and works well with a 2500k I have one and its running at 4.6Ghz at 1.325volts with 8GB Mushkin Enhanced Blackline Frostbyte ram.