Building a PC for Xmas

So I've spent the good part of 2 years convincing myself that I can't really afford to get a Desktop PC, even though I really, really want to build one up from scratch and game on something that isn't a 3 year old laptop. So it being Christmas time and all I decided to finally say "fuck it" and I'm treating myself to a Desktop. I've picked out most of the parts from OcUK, a UK-based (who'd have guessed it) e-tailer who I've heard good things about but I have absolutely no qualms about picking stuff up elsewhere if anyone knows a better place, and I'd appreciate any input or help from those of you that know better then me :)

1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £179.99
1 x Iiyama Prolite X2377HDS 23" Premium IPS Panel Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £139.99
1 x Gigabyte Z77X-D3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £99.98
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TD120BW) £79.99
1 x Toshiba (7K1000.D) 1TB SATA 6GB/s 32MB Cache - OEM (DT01ACA100) £54.98
1 x Seasonic S12II 520W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply £54.98
1 x BitFenix Shinobi "Core" USB3.0 Gaming Case - Black £46.98
1 x TeamGroup Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £23.99
Total : £703.80 (includes shipping : £19.10).

This is literally only a preliminary "let's put things together and see what it looks like" build, nothing is set in stone just yet. For instance, I still need a Graphics Card recommendation as I have no idea where to even start with those things and the naming conventions/brands make it very difficult to compare stuff when you don't know what you should be looking for. I'm also realistically looking at a budget of £1000 (inc. monitor and shipping) but the closer that gets to £900 the happier I'll be.

I'm probably going to pull the trigger on this once my finals are over in about a week and anything you think is too expensive, etc just let me know of alternatives. It would be greatly appreciated!

Don't be so stingy on the power supply.

For video cards I commonly link the Passmark Value/Performance graph:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu_value.html

Now that doesn't say much other than some cards are really cheap and yet powerful, but cross-reference that with a performance chart:
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

and I would say that currently the GTX 480, GTX570, or GTX 660 top the mid/high range budget card list right now (I don't include ATI cards because seriously, fuck ATI cards).

I think you're going to start seeing Far Cry 3 benchmark results for a lot of cards really soon so it might be worthwhile to wait until some performance results come out. Borderlands 2, Most Wanted 2012, and Far Cry 3 are three games that are stressing older mid-range cards, and two of those games provide DX10/11 features.


If you have an old HDD you can pop in, I would do that instead of getting a 1TB HDD.

I wouldn't cheap out on SSDs, do some research there, there are two great threads about it, one of those threads being on Qt3.

You can't keep your current case? If you were in the U.S. I would send you a free case laying around.

I have never owned a Desktop PC Pogo, I've been on solely laptops for as long as I can remember :)

I also remembered Reldan's post a little while ago about not needing more then 500w for most systems, especially if I'm not overclocking. Or do you mean just go find a different brand, I'm pretty clueless about a lot of this stuff to be honest with you. I do know that the Samsung SSDs were pretty well received although looking at some stuff now that might have been the 830 series rather then the 840 one I have linked above. I'll have a good look through those thread tonight though, thanks.

How do you tag people in posts btw? I've seen people do it but have no idea how other then copy/pasting their username in from one of their posts (which I'm sure is not the way you are supposed to do it).

I just meant a different brand, though it's not like there's any comprehensive reliability figures so just get something that has a 1-year manufacturer's warranty on it, and 550W will run anything.

I'm really not sure what pricing for computer hardware in Europe looks like, so it's hard for me to really say whether any of those are overpriced.

Seasonic does have a pretty solid reputation for PSUs - I doubt you'd run into much of a trouble with that one.

I'm partial to the GTX670 as that what's I'm using and it's a solid performer for the price.

Seems like a good build though, should perform admirably.

Unfortunately the 670 is definitely out of my price range.

Seasonic is a reputable power supply manufacturer.

With a 550W power supply and about 250 quid left over for a video card, maybe look at an AMD Radeon 7770 to stay well within both of those budgets.

If you can't spend $150-$200 on a video card, then don't even bother building the computer, just order a pre-built Dell i7 and pop some RAM into it or something. Everything below that price is going to be cheap crap.

Unless you're really just playing League of Legends and that's it. In which case, spend $30 on a video card.

That build looks solid to me, McKnight. (just put a commercial [@] in front of the user you want to tag, btw)

When I did my rebuild a few months ago, I landed on a OCZ Vertex 4 SSD as a perfect balance of size, price, performance, and longevity/quality. There may be new hotness now, but I've been very happy with my Vertex 4.

Graphics card-wise, the $200 price point is more or less the sweet spot right now. I definitely second the Nvidia recommendation; AMD cards are fine hardware-wise but they lag badly in drivers and associated software support. Find yourself a deal on a 660, 570, or 580 and marvel at the amazingness.

This gtx660 should be within your budget. I think this is the same model as mine. It's very quiet and runs cool, so it should last a long time. It is Nvidia's best value card at the moment, so you get excellent performance for your dollar. You'll be able to max out most games at 1920X1200.

Whatever you do don't buy a Amd 7xxx series card there's something seriously wrong with the drivers or hardware. See here.

Pricing is very different over here Pogo, I think you are forgetting that. I could quite happily spend over $200 but I can't spend €350-450 ($500~) which is what that card costs from my, admittedly brief, price check when Reldan mentioned it.

Thanks Doc, that card looks perfect! Maybe I can snag a 580 up super cheap but otherwise it looks like I'll be going with that. I've been wary of ATI for quite some time now, their name always seems to pop up when there is an sort of game problems (enough that even I noticed it).

DocLazy can you or anyone else fill me in on what the hell the difference is in the 660 models? There is up to a £50 swing on prices, I picked 3 cards at random incl. the one you linked previously, and I have no idea why (this is not counting the Ti stuff which I know about) there's such a big difference.

Brand for one thing. Generally MSI is cheaper than EVGA is cheaper than ASUS for the same products (and from reputation for build quality if prices were equal I'd buy them in the reverse of that order). The more expensive ASUS-branded one apparently is using copper heatsinks, which they probably use to justify the cost with the idea that you could OC it more easily.

The price difference is from better build quality and more efficient heatsinks. The Asus one I listed is a little overkill. It was just the first one that popped up that I recognised. There is a cheaper Asus version that would be the better buy, especially if you don't plan on overclocking. But I'd probably go with the MSI if you want to keep the price down.

You guys are awesome, thanks! So the only difference is for overclocking? Cheap one it is then, I don't plan on doing any of that (well maybe CPU much later on when I can afford the cooler).

There is some difference in build quality. But my last card was an MSI and that thing lasted a good 5 years. Including me splashing some coffee on it. So you should be good with that card.

Ok, I found that site I linked earlier is far cheaper (I'm saving about £50 which is fairly decent) but I their case selection is pretty awful. I figure I could probably just grab the case separate back on OcUK or maybe someone could recommend me one from here? Preferably under £50, I was thinking this one but I mean god knows, I'm just picking something that looks nice and comes with fans pre-installed.

Also this might seem like a stupid question but do I need to pick up any cables? I have a couple of HDMI and Ethernet cables lying around but that is literally it. I'm going to assume monitors have a better cable connection then HDMI? I have no idea.


I love you guys for all this help btw, thanks again!

Ok, I've decided on this (shopping cart link). I cut costs on what I felt I could while still getting a reasonable rig. It's £891.36 (~1100€) and I think I have everything I could possibly need. I'm going to be using headphones rather then speakers aswell, just incase it matters (I don't think I need a soundcard though right?).

-edit- On the advice of a friend I've upgraded the monitor to an IPS Panel (grabbing a Dell Ultrasharp he recommended) and am going with my first choice of specs. I'll probably pull the trigger this weekend so you have a little time to convince me if I've made a mistake.

I haven't done a price comparison against building yourself, but check computerplanet.co.uk. They have a great range of options in how the PC is built (you can choose every component), without the hassle of you having to do it yourself. They seemed to be by far and aware best value OEM I found.

Also, arstechica just published their system guide.

Thanks for the link Quitch but that leaves me with a system that's slightly more expensive and has some parts that I can't choose the quality of. Seems like a nice site though definitely.

Besides, half the point of this whole venture is that I get to build the thing myself :)

Looks all good to me.

Onboard sound is much better than it used to be. it's at the point now where you will have a hard time telling the difference between onboard and a soundcard.

Just to warn you, people were saying that in 2001 about C-Media on-board sound as well :)

I am going to be the contrarian here.

If the point of this exercise is that you want an awesome PC and you just want to save money, my opinion is that building a PC is absolutely the wrong way to go about it, and years of reading internet forums - and of building my own PCs for fun - tells me that we'll be back in this thread three months from now trying to help you debug some weird crashing problem with people helpfully suggesting you try replacing the RAM, upgrading the power supply, etc. etc. etc. Don't do it.

If, however, the point of this exercise is that you like dicking around with computers and building one will be fun and you won't be particularly upset if it all goes pear-shaped, then carry on and enjoy yourself.

You don't need to buy cables. Power supply (oh, try to get a modular power supply) comes with everything you need, hard drives usually include a SATA cable, and if they don't, then the case might even include a SATA cable. Monitor *might* have a DVI cable, but if you have HDMI output on whatever card you choose then it won't matter (as long as your monitor accepts HDMI, and it probably will).

What makes modular PSU's a must buy?

That's fair enough, I do know the risks. However I don't think I could justify the cost of this to myself if I wasn't building it myself, half the reason I'm getting a desktop is to be able to do just that. Otherwise I'd just buy another laptop for €1,200 and be done with it.

I'm also saving 2-300 quid by building it myself rather then buying a ready-made custom rig. That's ~a quarter of the budget I allocated myself, so not a negligible amount. Besides, it's not like that RAM would be any less faulty if someone else had installed it ;)

I don't know if it's a must-buy, but it helps keep the case free of clutter since you can just disconnect any extra power cables you don't actually need. As PSUs go, that's a pretty handy feature.

I probably should have updated this earlier... I finally pulled the trigger (this is my final basket) although I ended up getting the monitor on Amazon for a lot cheaper. The changes were mainly due to stuff being out of stock, I had to upgrade to a 180GB SSD for instance and I also got a Seasonic G series which is modular on Reldan's advice (and having put it together already, thank god I listened). The whole thing ended up costing me ~€1,100.

Everything arrived last Thursday and I had it up and running that night. It's now Sunday and it works perfectly, no problems what-so-ever (touch wood) and I'm incredibly happy with the whole experience. Thanks again for the help and advice everyone, Merry Christmas :)

I declare McKnight the Anti-Dean.

Congrats on the new system!



(no offense to Dean, who just happens to have purchased PC parts that were apparently left at a burial ground to steep in curses before being shipped out)