next »

[Please Support Us!]

Please Support Us!

Please help keep (=WDG=) alive

• Server rules
• Forum rules
• Join us
  
• Clan members
• About the clan
• Server stats
• WDG YouTube Channel
• WDG Downloads
• IRC Webchat

Steam groups:

• WDG community
• WDG clan group
• WDG Battlelog Platoon

Our allies:

• [NuB] TF2 clan
• Velocity Gamers Hub
• Destination Gamer

GoG Links:

• Wix Discord
• Wix IRC channel

TF2 Links:

• Official TF2 Blog
• TF2 Steam Forum
• The Fort 2

April 2024

Mo	Tu	We	Th	Fr	Sa	Su
1	2	3	4	5	6	7
8	9	10	11	12	13	14
15	16	17	18	19	20	21
22	23	24	25	26	27	28
29	30
	Birthdays
Sk1nn3d (40)
	Upcoming Events
Upcoming Birthdays: Sk1nn3d (40)

[hawt!]

So it's my 21st coming up, I currently have a very powerful gong laptop however as a laptop it obviously has its limitations - the thing can play Skyrim smoothly on mid graphics for quite long periods of time with a cooling pad, but I'm looking to get something more heavy for uni.

So I checked overclockers and saw this on sale for this week only:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-237-OK&tool=3

Can anyone give me any feedback on how this will perform? The reviews seem amazing for it, particularly in terms of FPS on the highest settings, but I'm
Not sure about the specs or what GFX upgrades I should get.

Cheers in advance, if anyone's got any other recommendations let me know

[Omnipotens]

So it's my 21st coming up, I currently have a very powerful gong laptop however as a laptop it obviously has its limitations - the thing can play Skyrim smoothly on mid graphics for quite long periods of time with a cooling pad, but I'm looking to get something more heavy for uni.

So I checked overclockers and saw this on sale for this week only:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=FS-237-OK&tool=3

Can anyone give me any feedback on how this will perform? The reviews seem amazing for it, particularly in terms of FPS on the highest settings, but I'm
Not sure about the specs or what GFX upgrades I should get.

Cheers in advance, if anyone's got any other recommendations let me know

Looks like a fairly decent budget package that to be fair, bang for buck looks pretty good. Directly comparing it to your laptop without specs is hard, but if you threw the 560ti in there for example, it would probably roll over Skyrim on max settings.

Some of the newer games like sleeping dogs would chug a bit without some graphic option sacrifices.

The bottleneck you'd face would most likely be determined by how high you could go with the graphics card upgrade.

[Brahms]

Surely how well it performs will depend on what you stack in it?

I've still got a 2500k and 560ti and haven't felt like it was stressed by any of the games I play. Normally just leave stuff at default settings and it looks good enough for me.

[Allytk]

+1 for Omni said. I have a gtx570 and it eats bf3 on max settings. I went with an i5 @4.5ghz so dunno if that would make a difference. Aside from that the build quality from ocuk was good. Wires were really well tidied. Highly recommend ssd for os, boot times are fast.
Sorry if you now want to spend more than you can( I know I spent more than I had saved up for :p ).

[Leftism]

Case wise I've been very impressed with the Corsair Carbide 500R with my latest build. They come in two colours White and Black but the white case comes with dust filters whilst the black doesn't. :\ The way it's set out though - you'll still be using black optical drives, etc so there wouldn't be a problem with mismatching colours.

Anybody know what the mainboard manufacturer for this build is? Doesn't say on the site afaik...

[DeadlyAvenger]

I have an older i7 and an ATI 5850 graphics card and that thing eats all the games I throw at it. Admittedly that's overclocked/watercooled with 12Gb of RAM but I've had that for over 2 years now without any major upgrades.

I'd probably recommend you try and get something with an i5 if you can stretch your budget that far as they're really the best buy for gamers. The i3>i5>i7 is really aimed at low-end>mainstream performance>high end gaming and the 2500k seems to be an absolute beast of the CPU.

I'm a massive fan of ATI cards at the moment - my 5850 has been going strong for over 2.5 years, still performs well and have had very little by the way of driver issues - ATI have really pulled their finger out with their drivers etc. over the last few years. It seems like a few people on here have had problems with nvidia cards recently (e.g. LtMama with GW2)? Either way - spending about £130-150 will get you a decent mid-range graphics card that should be able to handle everything you throw at it for the next few years at least.

My advice:
- Ditch the OS and buy it through the student offer (£40??) or see if you can get a copy free through Uni (if you're a computing/science/engineering student you might) - save £53
- Add ~£130-140 for a graphics card (ATI 7850 or a 560ti)
= £562 + OS
or
- Spend an extra £40~ and get an i5 system (e.g. http://www.cclonline.com/product/83900/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Falcon-II-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-FAL2/) - this includes a 1Tb HDD, a 560Ti and an extra years warranty

[DeadlyAvenger]

Also just saw this - similar budget to the one you suggested Hawt but it comes with a 550Ti discrete graphics card, the 2 year warranty, a 1Tb drive for £430 (+ OS costs)

http://www.cclonline.com/product/83899/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Kestrel-II-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-KST2/

OcUK also charge £16.25 for delivery whereas CCL online is free delivery - so another saving to be had there!

[hawt!]

Also just saw this - similar budget to the one you suggested Hawt but it comes with a 550Ti discrete graphics card, the 2 year warranty, a 1Tb drive for £430 (+ OS costs)

http://www.cclonline.com/product/83899/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Kestrel-II-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-KST2/

OcUK also charge £16.25 for delivery whereas CCL online is free delivery - so another saving to be had there!

Every time I see the word Kestrel, I think of appalling cider.

Back on topic, the CCL one's do actually look better from the point of view of someone who has no knowledge whatsoever about individual chips.

Largely this opinion is based upon the fact it has more RAM and that it's "ideal" for GW2 :>

So what I'm saying saying it, price out of the equation, Deadly's Suggestion > Mine?

[Berath]

Have you checked out pcspecialist.

Not sure how they are for desktops but I got my laptop from there. Worked out cheapest for the spec of everywhere else I looked at

http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/

[terror]

Is there a reason that you're not building a system yourself?

It often works out cheaper and you can tailor it to suit your specific needs.

[Omnipotens]

Is there a reason that you're not building a system yourself?

It often works out cheaper and you can tailor it to suit your specific needs.

In general I agree with you, buit in the case of the system first posted, it looks like a similar experience I had when I was building the PC before this one. I'd priced everything up and an OC deal (using pretty much the same components) worked out to be a tenner more than parts alone, 20 quid if I shopped around to buy bits from different people. It just didn't work out to be as much as a saving as I'd expect, nor was it worth my own "hourly" rate. Plus, it was OC'd and build insured.. so seemed like a bargain.

Looking at what we know about the PC hawt posted from OCUK. the only real unknown is the motherboard - memory vendor is much of a muchness. Working it all out and using the cheapest Asus board rather than ASRock and cheapest branded stuff, the pre-built PC seems to be about 20 quid cheaper (if you discount the daily deals) and a tenner more expensive (if you don't discount the daily deaals.

Throw in a build and it seems like a no brainer in this case.

Of course, if you're a dirty pir8 - then you can knock off 70-80 quid from the self build price, for OS alone.

[terror]

I believe Harry has access to free/cheap software for being a student. Also it means he could get an i5 2500k rather than whichever i3 they're throwing in which I would definitely recommend. It's more the tailoring to suit your perfect rig and any price saved is a bonus.

[hawt!]

I only I could afford this http://www.cclonline.com/product/83167/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Peregrine-Falcon-II-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-PGR2/ :<


I believe I'm going to opt for the http://www.cclonline.com/product/83899/NoMfgCode/All-CCL-Desktops/CCL-Elite-Kestrel-II-Gaming-PC/CCL-EL-KST2/.

Currently, I've chosen the following upgrades and would like some info on the following:

 - I5-3570k 3.4GHZ processor 6MB L3 Cache 5GT/s Bus Speed.

 - Upgrading to 16GB of RAM, can anyone advise on the different types offered? As in, Will there be a huge difference if I buy the 16gb that costs £39.10 rather than £62.80? If so, what will the difference actually be?

 - No idea about motherboards, but if I upgrade to the top one which is like £8 extra, will the difference be worth it?

 - Is upgrading the GFX card from the Asus GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB to the Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7770 1GB for an extra £8 worth it?

 - Haven't opted for an SSD, what even is this? Do I need one?

 - Upgraded the wireless card to the more expensive one, seems to have twice the MBPS so I figured for an extra £8 this would make sense.

 - Opted for the Vantage Type-R Gaming Case simply because it looks badass and has a decent cooling system in place as well as being water-cooling read. Only thing I don't get is that it doesn't have a PSU - what exactly does that mean? It won't have a power supply? I get a power supply in the bundle apparently, what does it all mean?

- If so, the standard PSU is 500w, with all these upgrades will I need a bigger one?


Cheers, I turn 21 on the 20th so if I order it soonish it'll arrive for then.

Any help would be apprecieted!

 -

EDIT: Or, could anyone suggest me a setup (up to around £550-£600) which would run optimally? I could probably shave about £50 off by substituting things, but I'm not sure what to. I basically just want a system that will beast games like Skyrim on max.

[Rct33]

Processor: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/intel-cpu-bx80637i53570k
Cooler: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/cooler-master-cpu-cooler-rr212e20pkr2
Motherboard: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/asus-motherboard-p8b75v
RAM: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/gskill-memory-f312800cl9d8gbxl
Harddrive: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/gskill-memory-f312800cl9d8gbxl
Graphics card: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/xfx-video-card-hd685xzcfc
Case: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/cooler-master-case-sgc2000kkn1gp
PSU: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/corsair-power-supply-cmpsu650txv2
Optical drive: http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/part/corsair-power-supply-cmpsu650txv2

Around £620, downgrade to another i5 if needed. That one can be overclocked a little.

[DeadlyAvenger]

You don't need 16Gb of RAM - it's massively excessive and there'll be no benefit for gaming (or really multitasking or anything).

Get one of the 1600Mhz 8Gb kits - I <3 Crucial, I really think they make great RAM and it's been more reliable than the Corsair stuff I've had before.

SSDs provide a *great* speed boost - one of the most noticeable things you can do to improve how quick your PC feels - the only downside is that you'll have to move things between the SSD & HDD now and again if you run out of space. SSDs have like literally halved in price over the last 6-12 months so now is a great time to get one. A great spec 240Gb SSD is like £120-140.

For a gaming PC - you really wanna be spending £130-150 on the graphics card to get a mid-range card - the 550 Ti is at the upper side of the low-end cards so I'd suggest going for the 560 if you can.

Difference in motherboards won't make much difference - just check if there are any cool features (or more ports or something) on the more expensive one and if not - get the cheaper one. They have the same chipset etc. so not much difference between them.

Power supply would be fine.