Best PC specifications via PCSPECIALIST

Everything seems to be sold out on there, lol. If you can get a good deal, then ofc.

Side-note: Noticing something odd with the green dot (online/offline light) next to your forum name on the previous post is showing to me as offline.

 

Good to know, my 680 should still be worth more 2nd hand than if id stayed with amd ☺

 

Yep, and if you don't get the modular, you save a bit of money.

 

We need a thoughtful post best way to spend 750 for his Dad.

If you had to get OCUK to build it and/or need to buy W7 it blows a huge hole in the specs.

I take these 2 things for granted being a reasonably serious simmer, you got to know how to build a tower, how it runs best and always have up to date OSes.

It is no different with the X51 you are still paying for the building of it.

Anyways that is my advice, buy the parts recommended here and build at home with a little help..............and beg, borrow or steal W7HP64Bit ...... lol

 

It's a hundred bucks in Canada?

 

I would like to list a pc from scan, that is slightly over your budget (sorry) but it does include OS and a case.
From what I have listed, it gives the potential to upgrade at a later date if needed.

Corsair Carbide SPEC Series SPEC-03 Aggressive RED LED Mid Tower Gaming Case £45.90
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cors...c-03-aggressive-red-led-mid-tower-gaming-case

750W Corsair RM Series, Full Modular, 80PLUS Gold, 1x135mm Fan, ATX v2.4, PSU £92.10
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750w...l-modular-80plus-gold-1x135mm-fan-atx-v24-psu

Asus MAXIMUS VII RANGER, Intel Z97, Socket 1150, Motherboard £124.76
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus...16)-quad-sli-crossfirex-d-sub-(vga)-dvi-d-hdm

8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Racing Red, PC3-12800 (1600), Non-ECC, CAS 9-9-9-24, XMP, 1.5V £64.56
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/8gb-...pc3-12800-(1600)-non-ecc-cas-9-9-9-24-xmp-15v

Intel Core i5 4690K S1150, Haswell, 4 Core, 3.5GHz, 3.9GHz Turbo, 5 GT/s DMI, 1.2GHz GPU, 34x Ratio, 84W £166.98
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/inte...rbo-5-gt-s-dmi-12ghz-gpu-34x-ratio-84w-retail

Corsair Hydro Series H60 2013 Edition High-performance CPU Cooler, LGA1155/1156/1366/2011/AM2/AM3/ FM1/FM2 £57.12
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cors...cpu-cooler-lga1155-1156-775-1366-2011-am2-am3

2GB Asus GTX 760 DirectCU II OC, 28nm, PCIe 3.0 (x16), 6008MHz GDDR5, GPU 1006MHz, Boost 1072MHz, Cores 1152 £182.11
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...mhz-gddr5-gpu-1006mhz-boost-1072mhz-cores-115

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit Service Pack 1 Operating System Single PC OEI DVD £69.68
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/micr...um-64-bit-sp1-operating-system-single-oei-dvd

320GB Western Digital WD3200LPVX Blue 2.5", 7mm, SATA III- 6Gb/s, 8MB, 5400rpm £32.38
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/320g...00lpvx-blue-25-7mm-sata-iii-6gb-s-8mb-5400rpm

Asus DRW-24F1ST 24x DVD±RW SATA Black Retail with Software £13.18
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/asus-drw-24f1st-24x-dvdrw-sata-black-retail-with-software

That comes to....

Net Total £707.31
Carriage £9.58
VAT £143.38

Total £860.27

The only thing you will need is keyboard/mouse and monitor.

Its not the best pc money can buy but it will serve you well and run what you want it to run, for a long time.

There is room to upgrade at a later date, for example buy a ssd drive, or a second hdd and raid/ buy another two sticks or matching ram/ buy a second matching gpu (although contrary to others I would recommend a bigger PSU for two GPU's.)

If you are concerned about building it, you can arrange for scan to built it for you (although if you do this its best arrange to pick it up yourself then trusting the post).

Some will bash this and recommend going to other shops/websites to save a few pounds here and there (I personally would keep it all in one store, as scan customer service and awards speak for themselves)

Do NOT buy second hand GPU's, CPU's, HDD's or motherboards, you don't know what abuse they have had in the past (unless you personally know the seller)

Any way that's my thoughts. I hope it helps


My bad! the cooler is wrong (as it says it does not support 1150 socket) so...
Corsair Hydro Series H75 Performance Liquid CPU Cooler with 120mm Radiator and Dual SP120L PWM Fans is £59.70
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/cors...-with-120mm-radiator-and-dual-sp120l-pwm-fans

So its a couple of pounds more expensive (sorry!)

 

Adrian, Nice but i'd swap a few things to bring it as close as possible to his £750 limit whilst also getting more gaming performance (in the region of 25-35% more performance).

Swap the PSU for Cooler Master G750M 750W Single Rail Hybrid Modular Power Supply, £63.30 (- £28.80)
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750w-cooler-master-hybrid-modular-80-plus-bronze-1x120mm-atx-v231-psu

Swap the motherboard for the MSI Z87-G43 Intel Z87 Socket 1150 Motherboard, £59.84 (- £64.92)
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-...-sata-raid-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dvi-d-hdmi-atx

Remove the added cooler and use the stock one as i really doubt he'll overclock and the stock is more than perfectly acceptable for that. (- £57.12)

Upgrade the 2.5" laptop sized 320GB 5200rpm hard drive (not quite sure why you recommended this) for a 3.5" Seagate 1TB 7200rpm hard drive, £38.86 (+ £6.48)
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/1tb-...014-sata-6gb-s-7200rpm-64mb-cache-8ms-ncq-oem

Upgrade the gpu for the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 Overclocked Windforce 3X Graphics Card - 2GB, £238.52 (+ £56.12)
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-...gddr5-gpu-1137mhz-boost-1189mhz-cores-1536-dp

(stock over clocked and one of the quietest video cards).

Total of £88.24 savings, final cost £772.03.

He was willing to buy an x51, i don't think he's going to be considering SLI or over clocking anytime soon (nor does he need to).

He would be over the freaking moon with such a pc, it is leap years ahead of the x51's and performs even better than the £1200 version.

You say Scan will build it? But how much?

 

HI DrR1pper

I know what you mean about the changes, the hard drive suggestion was intended to be 2 (but it would of been more money), and put them as raid until he decide to buy ssd (if he wanted too) but yeah if your not it would be logical to buy larger sized HDD.

The cooler for me is they key to getting good performance from your system, I run a H100i and my cpu has never gone above 32°C, so I wouldn't use a stock heatsink and fan ever again or recommend one (but that's just me)

All the different PSU/GPU and MB is just down to personal preference, I have run ASUS mix GPU and MB all the time. I don't think I could pull myself to recommend anything other then Asus for gaming.

ROG rules and GPU Tweak is all you need

Anything is better then the Alienware selection, I don't know what they do to the systems but I know soo many people that are unhappy with them after six months.
(I can only guess that they must have them wound up so tight and overclocked, that they must just cook too quickly)

I have no idea how much scan build service cost sorry!, I have always built my own.

 

Yeah but he's on a budget mate, it's not helpful to recommend things that whilst nice to have are completely unnecessary (especially if he's not going to be doing massive over clocks, if any over clocking at all in fact). So long as the cpu doesn't reach the thermal limit (which is pretty high anyway), the performance is no better if it's at 32°C or 70°C. Stock cooler will keep it more than sufficiently cool for his needs. If he had the cash, i would agree with your recommendation only if he wanted to overclock the crap out of it. He can actually get away with a good extra 500mhz on the stock cooler safely on the stock cooler (not that it's at all necessary).

I would recommend ASUS too, but MSI have a good rep and based on the cost, makes more sense to spend it on the graphics card instead of features on a more expensive motherboard that he is more than likely never going to utilise. Again, he's willing to buy an x51, which can't even fit multiple GPU's, think it's fair to assume sli/crossfire hasn't even crossed his mind (nor is it within his budget or needed/wanted for rf2…i use to have SLI).

I hope you understand i'm not trying to be a dick, i'm just trying to be realistic with his needs and budget.

 

hamiltonfan2205:

Honestly, what do you have against building your own system? I know it may seem a little daunting at first, but it really isn't very hard, and we can help you with a lot of that. You really would be saving a lot of money compared to getting some massively overpriced Alienware... 750 Euro is plenty to get a good system, but a custom built one would blow away an Alienware at that price. DrR1pper has been pushing you to build a custom PC for good reason, and I imagine the majority of us on this site use custom PCs.

Another advantage of using a custom built PC is that you can upgrade piece by piece, and you don't really need to worry about it because you already understand the system (since you built the thing). I usually do about one upgrade a year, usually minor (hard drive or RAM), but this year for instance, I replaced my aging NVIDIA GTX 260 with a new GTX 770, which is kind of a major upgrade. But since these aren't a complete overhaul of the system, I save a lot of money in the long run, and I can always have a system that suits my needs at the time.

 

PC Spec
Windows 7 64bit
AMD Phenom II X6 1100T 3.4GHz
16GB Corsair vengeance 4x 4GB
Asus Crosshair V Formula 990FX Board
Asus 6990 4GB GPU PCIe 2
Corsair H100 cooler
2 x Western Digital sata 3 raided as one
Corsair Obsidian 650 case
Corsair 1050w PSU

That's my pc spec, and its four years old now. If it wasn't for the cooler, I would not be able to run 26 cars at Nords in the rain.
I have never overclocked my CPU or my GPU, I have never felt like I needed too.

At the time when I was buying it, I had a choice between buying the H100i or two SSD hard drives, I am glad I went for the cooler

I am not disagreeing with you DrR1pper, don't get me wrong. I understand the meaning of budget, probably more then others do. But If by spending a little more means it last longer, then to me that's the real deal.

 

I don't understand why you would say/believe such things, unless you've tested it without the cooler and running with "26 cars at Nords in the rain" had lower performance?

 

Of course man, I know its a combination of the whole system that enables it run as it does.

but its controlling the temps of everything that keeps a system happy, My GPU is fine running no higher then 55°C with an artic twin cooler, my motherboard has never gone above 31°C. If I was not to have the H100 cooler, then the rise in CPU temp would also increase the temp of the motherboard and the GPU. By keeping the CPU at a low temp, it means the circulation of air around the whole system is generally cooler and can perform better.

Have I ever tested my CPU without the cooler... No I have not and I don't wish too either. It is a logical assumption I made and stick too

 

Ah ok, sorry, didn't realize you had an entire all in one system water cooler (is that correct?). However, i'm sorry to burst your assumption, it's not correct. Performance is only affected if you're temperature is causing physical damage to components. Like i said before, 32°C or 70°C, same performance.

The only difference that going low temperature might help with is longevity but i'm hesitant to say if this is even true in such cases with these electronic components (again, so long as below the safe temperature limit stated by the manufacturer) since there are no mechanical parts.

The only reason i bought a good 3rd part cooler for my cpu is that i overclocked it high requiring a better cooling solution.

 

I give up!

No worries then, Your not ever going to change my mind on CPU coolers so you run your pc at 70°C, why not install a fryer on top of the case and cook some bacon and eggs whilst your playing games

 

lol. Sorry man, didn't mean for it to be like that. I don't runt at 70°C though, 55-60 on a high cpu bench test.

I once had a 9800GX2 and you could absolutely cook yourself a fry up on the plastic casing of that thing. I burnt myself pretty badly once when i turned the pc off to take out the card…went for a full palm grab of the thing, felt like accidentally touching a hot frying pan. Had to hold it under the cold tap for a good few minutes….my hand that is.

 

I would be seriously worried if my CPU was running this hot, given that most motherboards threshold is at 63°C.

I think if you are suggesting to people that it is fine or normal to run your cpu so hot, then I am sorry but you should NOT be recommending or suggesting anything.

If you are reckless enough to do such a thing straight after shutdown, then you deserved to get burnt.

 

I did say "55-60 on a high cpu bench test", i.e. in a extreme stress test case in intel burn test representing the very highest possible temperature, something no one ever reaches outside of a stress test. I'm also running at 4.5ghz, a 1.2hz overclock, so considering that…those are really good and well within safe temp range especially for such an overclock.

Motherboard temp thresholds are for the north bridge, nothing to do with the cpu nor can the cpu temperature affect the north bridge (except for only if you water cool the north bridge and cpu together in the same loop).

I've built myself and others plenty of computers and have always over-clocked them so they perform within 80-90% of the cpu thermal limit under extreme bench tests and i've not had or heard any problems back from them. I can only speak of my own experiences here to backup my practice of using allowing these sorts of temps. To borrow a famous quote...“One good test is worth a thousand expert opinions.” ― Wernher von Braun

Wow, well that turned a bit nasty and ad hominem all of a sudden over a first time mistake of touching a card i did not know would be that hot, lol. It was nice speaking with you though.

 

The thing I have against building my own system is the price. And if it's cheaper, my worry is some of the parts might not work together and it might be quite tricky to build.

You say "Why buy the Alienware PC when you can buy something that is twice as powerful with the same price." Please can someone send me a link of PC suggestions in this case.

 

What the hell is a gtx555 and a gtx745? Lol.

Stick with "regular" gaming GPUs. Even if you want a more affordable GPU than say a GTX 780 Ti, the GTX 750 Ti should be the absolute rock-bottom model to consider.

Also, don't be afraid to buy used and throw people offers (Craigslist). You'd be very surprised at how low people are willing to go to sell. You wouldn't believe the deals I've gotten on like my last 6 GPUs. I haven't bought a brand new GPU, motherboard, or CPU in like 10 years, and never received a broken one.