Second Build

[Brencog13]

Hey guys, it's been 3 years since you all helped me with my first build and now I'm back to do it again.
My budget is £800-£900, preferably on the lower side of that range. I already have a copy of W7 and I'll be purchasing a monitor, mouse and keyboard separately.

HDD - a WD Black 1TB - £70 (already purchased as I didn't want to miss the discount and i know you still recommend the WD Blacks)

GPU - Sapphire HD 7950 Vapor-X OC 3072MB - £263

CPU, Mobo and RAM - i5 3570K @ 4.50GHz, Asus P8Z77-V LX2, Patriot Intel Extreme Masters 8GB DDR3 1600MHz - £315

Case - Antec 1100 - £70

DVD drive - Liteon 20x Dvd±rw - £14

PSU - the main thing I need a suggestion for. Modular would be good, since the case has a window in it

Total minus PSU - £732

Thanks for the help guys

[Jbc223456]

What are you planning on doing with this build? High-end gaming? Photo Editing? Video Editing? I'm assuming it's one of those three (or a combination of them) since you are getting a 7950.

Getting to your components, I wouldn't go for that combo. It's nice to have an overclocked CPU, but if you're gaming an overclocked CPU isn't going to help in that department. Game performance depends on the GPU. Instead, I'd go with the i5-3550P for CPU, 2x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile for RAM, and an ASUS P8Z77-V LK for Motherboard. This essentially brings that £316 combo down to £270, and you won't be sacrificing much at all. This will save you some money to get a great modular PSU, such as the Corsair TX750 750W PSU which is only £93. Bringing your grand total to approximately £780 including the PSU that I have suggested, which is £120 less than your posted budget.

[Brencog13]

I'm after a gaming rig, yes. However I do also do a fair amount of programming for my degree (and some video encoding) so the extra processing power of the OCed bundle is still something I'd be interested in (plus that extra bit of speed while avoiding said programming can't hurt :P ). I can easily stretch to £855, so thank you very much for the PSU recommendation!

[birddog_61]

Originally Posted by Jbc223456 What are you planning on doing with this build? High-end gaming? Photo Editing? Video Editing? I'm assuming it's one of those three (or a combination of them) since you are getting a 7950. Getting to your components, I wouldn't go for that combo. It's nice to have an overclocked CPU, but if you're gaming an overclocked CPU isn't going to help in that department. Game performance depends on the GPU. Instead, I'd go with the i5-3550P for CPU, 2x Corsair Vengeance Low Profile for RAM, and an ASUS P8Z77-V LK for Motherboard. This essentially brings that £316 combo down to £270, and you won't be sacrificing much at all. This will save you some money to get a great modular PSU, such as the Corsair TX750 750W PSU which is only £93. Bringing your grand total to approximately £780 including the PSU that I have suggested, which is £120 less than your posted budget.

I have to disagree here, even as fast as the new processors are they can and do still benefit from overclocking while gaming. Clock speed is still extremely important, and until chips release that are running over 4ghz from the factory then overclocking will still provide a pretty big difference. Now keep in mind this is if the gpu is very fast, overclocking the 3570 wouldn't help much on say a 8800gt, however it will with a gtx 680.
Intel Core i5-3570K Gaming Performance | bit-tech.net

[Jbc223456]

Thanks for point that out birddog. What I should have said is that OCing the CPU wouldn't help much. Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between 19 fps, especially when the fps gets over 100. If you get a monitor that can only refresh at 60Hz, you're not going to be able to tell the difference in real time since the monitor refreshing at 60/s and the game at 100+/s. The only difference is in actual testing, using software such as 3DMark, etc, so in reality, it doesn't really make the much of a difference. To each their own I suppose though.

[birddog_61]

Originally Posted by Jbc223456 Thanks for point that out birddog. What I should have said is that OCing the CPU wouldn't help much. Honestly, I couldn't tell the difference between 19 fps, especially when the fps gets over 100. If you get a monitor that can only refresh at 60Hz, you're not going to be able to tell the difference in real time since the monitor refreshing at 60/s and the game at 100+/s. The only difference is in actual testing, using software such as 3DMark, etc, so in reality, it doesn't really make the much of a difference. To each their own I suppose though.

That's why I like 120hz monitors, the higher your refresh and fps the smoother your aiming feels and the easier it is to get on target.