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[Finaldeath]

Okay, so going for an i5 series PC. Been planning this (slowly, man I forgot how long it takes to research) for a while now, and no real rush as long as parts don't magically disappear since Windows 7 is a little way off.

• Processor: i5 series. £147
  
• Memory: 2x G.Skill Ripjaw 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £146
  
• Motherboard: ASROCK P55 PRO Socket 1156 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard £81 (not just because it's cheap, but some of the others are tosh for their price, and I don't want massive amounts of overclocking stuff, SLI, etc. - and this one has 2 PS/2 ports )
  
• Case: Antec 200 Two Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case £34 + £20 for 2 more fans (I don't go for cases for looks. No lights is a stipulation).
  
• PSU: Corsair 620W HX Modular PSU - ATX12V v2.2 APFC - £90
  
• Graphics Card: XFX ATI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £200 (going to the ATI dark side - for 3 display outputs! finally... nVidia is too costly right now this card is out since I want a proper boost in power.)
  
• Hard Drives: Maxtor 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM £114
  
• DVD Drives: LG GH22NS50 22x SATA DVD±RW Dual Layer & RAM Black Bare Drive - OEM - £32
  

That's about £890.

Maybe instead of 2 HDDs:

• Crucial M225 64GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive x2 = £230
  
• Maxtor 1TB Hard Drive SATAII 7200rpm 32MB Cache - OEM £57
  

This would total it to around the 1050 mark, mmm...

Reusing my sound card since this current PC will become a server.

Might get a new, third monitor (this has my eye since it is big and cheap even if it has no DVI and is not great colour reproduction). This isn't because I'm made of money, I've staved buying a ton of stuff saving up money. I don't upgrade often!

However, any improvements, notes or if anyone has other, cheaper places to get parts, would be nice (the RAM is one area where it's pretty much impossible to check compatibility since the MB manufacturers lists are so small). If not, I'll go with my list probably after a little more looking around (as well as factoring in delivery costs - some parts are interchangable like DVD and HDD's - so just can choose the cheapest overall there!).

[Power]

Looks alright to me, nothing much to add. Seems like the best from the performance/price point of view.

[r007]

You might be getting away with a smaller power supply, methinks, but that's just a guesstimate.

Also, possibly consider a Blu-Ray drive? They're starting to become viable (IMHO) and I would guess you want/need one soon anyway, seeing as don't upgrade often?

[Finaldeath]

Great Power, nothing glaringly obvious (like me forgetting the PSU when I started typing).

r007 - It sure was tempting but I seriously have zero Blu-Ray movies, I would need a writer to make use of any disks - the writers are still in the insane realm of prices (if anyone can prove me wrong I might swap a DVD writer for one!). I can always get one when I see a good deal (plus a good deal for writeable disks) and add it in the 3rd case drive slot and spare SATA cable location.

Thanks both

[Brahms]

I think you can get a Dvd writer blu ray reader. Might be about a hundo though.

[Chaos]

do you really need 2000mhz ram?
I'm using 1600Mhz G.Skill and it flies..

Quantity is better than speed in this occasion, spend that 160 quid on 4x2gb sticks of lesser ram... 2000Mhz is for the serious overclocker, then he needs some good cooling

[Finaldeath]

I'm going for 8GB of RAM, rather then 4GB. So, which kind would you recommend for that since I don't really want to spend £320 just on RAM.

[Zarf]

That system should fly.
Just one thing, atm you can't use the triple output unless one of your monitors supports displayport (I think thats only the high end Dells). An adaptor is apparently in the works though, but i wouldn't count on it.

I keep having to stop myself buying a 5850/5870, It would pretty much only be so I can play ARMA2 without crashes, and i've got no income atm ... but they are sooo shiny.

And I can't recommend SSD's enough, get some cheaper RAM and put the money towards removing the storage bottleneck. An 80GB intel or 128GB worth of Crucial M225 (either a single 128GB or 2x64GB in RAID0) should do the job fine.
A nice trick i use to conserve space is good old cut and paste - install the game on your SSD and then move the install directory onto HDD's when you need space, you should get around 100MB/s transfers and most games will move over in under 2 minutes. I can comfortably have 5 or 6 games installed alongside Win7+Apps on my 80GB SSD at any point and just rotate out the least played one when i want to try something new.
that way all your shortcuts and saves are in place and it's much quicker than uninstall -> reinstall.

Ram wise this looks good - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-042-GS&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1387 - 2x2GB kit,1600MHz 8 8 8 24 timings, £73 - get two of these and drop the savings on SSDs.

[Finaldeath]

I'm not sure about SSDs, mainly on the price issue. Cheapest 128GB is £170 on ebuyer (and that's the slowest one!) They are great, but the cost!

Maybe I should just bite the bullet, hmm...I'll think about it. Do you know anywhere that has or does them cheap?

RAM doesn't save me that much cash but if that's a better choice, sans watercooling or extraordinary overclocking needed, then great

[Zarf]

Two of these in RAID0 - http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-002-CR = £230

Certainly not cheap, but it's worth it.  Definitely more bang for your buck than 2GHz DDR3.
If you compare it to a graphics card or CPU, it's not really not a shocking amount to spend on a pc component - we've just been spoiled by ultra cheap mechanical HDD's the last few years.

[Finaldeath]

Should be spoilt by cheap SSDs if only they'd come down in price faster...

I might bite the bullet (and get a 1TB disk for secondary stuff - my steam apps folder is 50GB alone for instance). I'll revise my sheet later.

[Officer Dibble]

my steam apps folder is 50GB alone for instance

Mine's 118GB

[Finaldeath]

Okay, I've pretty much decided everything then other then the HDD vs. SSD. Anyone got any further opinions, ie; would you pay £287 for SSD drives?

[Junta]

Sorry, no I wouldn't tbh. I'd spend the extra elsewhere and wait for SSD to be cheaper.

More RAM is cheap and very effective, better graphics card couldn't hurt.

That's just me

[Finaldeath]

I've already got 8GB of RAM sadly! hehe

If the option is to just save the money, it might be worthwhile. It's £173 more for the SSD's...(or the full 230 if I just get my original 2x1TB disks) ...hmmm...