€850 Self Build - Advice?

Pop'n'Fresh

Hello Everyone,

I'm planning on building my first PC in about 10 years so I can keep up with modern gaming (BF3, Rage etc.), my laptop has suffered more than enough strain over the past two years I think he deserves a happy retirement.
I have a 19" monitor, usb keyb/mouse and a DVD r/w drive from another desktop I can use on my new computer - everything else needs to be bought.

Here is what I've come up with so far which is slightly over budget.

Item|Price
Total Build Cost €872.88 + €30 Delivery
Aerocool Vx-9 Pro Schwarz, ATX|€48.76
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3, Sockel 1155, ATX|€119.33
Intel Core i5-2500k|€191.80
Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus|€25.48
Palit Geforce GTX 570 Sonic, 1280mb|€294.16
Corsair GS 800w|€91.66
2x4GB Corsair XMS3 PC3-12800U CL9 1600MHz 1.5v|€35.69
Samsung SpinPoint F4 320GB, SATA II|€66


I really don't want to compromise on the basics - Proc, GPU and 8gb RAM and having the option to add a second graphics card to run in SLI at a later date is a must. That's the reason why I chose that particular PSU - Will it run 2 GX 570s in SLI?
If anyone can suggest some tweaks to save a few quid here and there that'd be fantastic, or if I'm better to stay put and go with this build I guess I can live on beans and toast for a couple of weeks

As I said I haven't built a PC in a long time so I'm not 100% on the quality of some of these components so all advice is very much welcomed!

Cheers,
Phil

infowars.com

id loose that case and get the haf 922, and for the main board get asus m5a99x evo might be a wee bit dearer

Pop'n'Fresh

Thanks for the reply..

Do you mean This case? .. and .. This board?

Could you please explain why you'd suggest such changes? The case is double the price and the goal is to reduce cost so I'm not too keen on swapping it out. Mobo suggested is for AMD chips and I want to get the i5-2500k.

For anyone who has previously purchased from hardwareversand.de could you suggest the best form of payment? Since they say they don't accept CC through paypal (weirdest thing ever!) I'm not sure of the easiest way to proceed.

Cheers,
Phil

Serephucus

infowars.com wrote: »

id loose that case and get the haf 922, and for the main board get asus m5a99x evo might be a wee bit dearer

Ignore this.

Your build looks pretty good actually. I think 800W is enough for SLI 570s, but you might want to double check that.

I wouldn't really replace much, to be honest. Maybe get a 64GB SSD instead of the hard drive (if you can get by with the limited space) and pick up a bigger drive down the line, but that's about it.

Pop'n'Fresh

Thanks Serephucus..

I found this Crucial M4 64GB for €97.64. Will a SSD provide a significant performance boost? I've read that you should limit as much data on them as possible, is there truth to that?
Komplett have a super cheap 500GB Hitachi Desktar hard drive at only €44 which makes the SSD €53.64 more expensive - value for money?

Still would love some advice on payment through hardwareversand.de - they are by far the cheapest supplier to deal with so I'll be damned if I'm paying more elsewhere for convenience :P

EDIT:
PS I did some research on the PSU and it seems to be capable of running GX570s in SLI according to the reports on Guru3D.com and HardwareSecrets.com

deconduo

I'd agree with changing the case, though not to the HAF 922. Its a great case but its not worth €100. Maybe something like the 690 Lite:
http://www4.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=38379&agid=631

Serephucus

First off: that 500GB drive is actually very good value - close to what they used to cost.

SSDs:

In short: yes, they're worth it (though I'm quite the advocate, so I might be a little biased). What you're paying for with SSDs is speed. With the M4, you'll boot into Windows in about 20 seconds, and any applications you have on their will open instantly. Any games will load extremely quickly, and it generally just makes for a very snappy-feeling computer.

On the subject of data, it's actually just writes you have to be concerned with. You can put as much data as you like on them, but you do have to do a couple of things to help the SSD out. Mainly, disable your pagefile (it becomes redundant), indexing (pointless also), and defragmentation. With older SSDs, people were very concerned with this, but to be honest, unless you're the type of person who keeps their drives for ten years (and given the way SSDs are going, I don't think you will) you can pretty much do whatever you want with it, as long as you disable the couple of things outlined above.