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[hawt!]

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.

Yeah I'm going to get the more expensive GFX card, the website has a rough performance guide of what you can expect FPS wise / Settings wise with each chip, runs everything on the 1900 resolution highest settings on things like skyrim at 40fps.

In terms of performance on the SSD, what exactly does this mean? Loading times? Or physical performance in games?

[hawt!]

One final thing sorry - which processor?

If I have to I'll splurge out on the one rct33 suggested, but will there be much difference going for a slightly more budget i5? If so, how much we talking?

[DeadlyAvenger]

As far as I can tell - the clock speed differences between them are pretty small and you can do always do a touch of overclocking to make up the difference for free. The 'K' at the end of the processor means it's 'unlocked multiplier' which makes it easier to overclock - if you're never going to overclock it's not worth it.

I think the 2500k is probably the chip to go for - it's high-performance and they're apparently great for overclocking.

Yeah, sorry. I mean things like booting up your PC and loading commonly used programs - it takes like 30 seconds with an SSD but minutes with a normal HDD and any games that installed on it will load super first.

[terror]

An SSD will mean your PC boots crazy fast (will be completely usable in ~50 seconds), games will load very quickly (almost no loading times) and for games that stream textures (BF3, RAGE etc.) you won't get the lag sometimes associated with loading into a new area or moving quickly across the map.

The main reason I got an SSD was that I found BF3 would stutter slightly if I was moving too fast (in a vehicle normally) because my HDD was struggling to load the textures fast enough for all the terrain covered. This was instantly solved by the SSD and all the other benefits mean that even if I never play BF3 again I'll always be using an SSD for my main boot drive with my most played games on as well. With SSDs at the price they are today I'd say they're pretty much a must have. I've convinced 2 of my RL mates to get them and they've both thanked me repeatedly for it.

[cautet]

As above it helps with lots of things. SSD is the upgrade that will make the most noticeable difference to the performance of everything. Much more so than the difference between an average and a great graphics card or between average processor and a great one or going overboard on the memory. of course most games now are not more intensive on anything than they were 7 years ago and the mid range stuff you can get now is far better than the high end stuff of a few years ago.

[hawt!]

Right so after a lot of discussion with Deadly and Omni, I've decided to build my own using the following components:

http://www.ebuyer.com/lists/list/61021

Cheers for all the info, as a final question can anybody recommend any additional cables / leads / pastes that I may need so it builds smoothly?

[terror]

Personally I'd get a 120Gb SSD, purely so you could stick a game or two on there instead of just your OS, but aside from that you're golden.

You shouldn't need any additional cables as they should be supplied. It's always nice to get proper thermal paste to make sure you get the most out of your CPU but it's not necessary and only makes a large difference if you're going to overclock (which I assume you're not doing as you're going with stock cooling), although it's not that expensive.

[Guilt]

Get a better PSU, with only one SATA connector and only a single 6pin for graphics card your going to struggle when you want to upgrade, and buying an 80+ CERT psu will save you money in the future.
Plus do you want your £650+ of new kit hooked up to a no-name cheap PSU, I think I'd spend a bit more for piece of mind.

how about this...
http://www.ebuyer.com/190751-be-quiet-530w-pure-power-psu-bn106

 

[DeadlyAvenger]

Agreed on the PSU - get the one you showed me last night. Corsair PSUs are some of the best AFAIK - I've got one in my PC.

Also agreed with the SSD - with a 60Gb one you'll soon run out of space for programs (let alone a couple of steam games) so you'll be forever having to move stuff around to make space (I still have to move stuff around every month or so). Especially as they're like half the price they were 6-12 months ago.

[hawt!]

Agreed on the PSU - get the one you showed me last night. Corsair PSUs are some of the best AFAIK - I've got one in my PC.

Also agreed with the SSD - with a 60Gb one you'll soon run out of space for programs (let alone a couple of steam games) so you'll be forever having to move stuff around to make space (I still have to move stuff around every month or so). Especially as they're like half the price they were 6-12 months ago.

Yeah I'll change the PSU, but I'm not changing the SSD, don't really want to stretch my budget that much.

I'm fine with simply having my OS + one game on there, I don't really play a large selection of games at any given time so moving them around is fine by me.

[Brahms]

Always buy an expensive PSU.

[Ravenwing]

I just bought (re-installing pc as I type this) a new "computer". Got the I5 3570k with Z77 Gigabyte mobo + 8 gig memory + GTX 660 TI. I'd classify that as a solid midrange pc. Getting an SSD for xmas as a pressie to myself ^^

I notice the above mentioned discussion about the PSU: I bought the GTX 660 TI and failed to notice it has 2 connectors to the PSU (it simply refuses to run on 1) Luckily I invested in a great PSU years ago and it has 2 connectors. So I can only recommend the above mentioned, ALWAYS GET A VERY GOOD PSU! As for the 60 gb SSD - I wouldn't buy that tbh. I downloaded GW2 a couple weeks ago and that was 22gb. I didn't have the money atm to get the Samsung 830 SSD (256gb). So I simply didn't buy one rather than go for something I'll regret later. Stick with your current HD until you have the money for something solid (pun intended). Just my 2 cents

[Berath]

Very nice

[cautet]

On the PSU - getting a good one is nice as this is probably the most likely thing to blow up with graphics card a close 2nd (but the graphics cards companies are usually really good about replacements plus the PSU can take other things with it). You don't need to spend mega bucks on one though or go overboard on the power requirements.

On the SSD - I can see the logic in getting a large one, but really a smaller SSD is fine. I am currently only using a 30gig one as I got one a few years ago. It's just about big enough for my vista64 plus essential programs, with Steam and most games on a normal hard drive.

It's a bit of a compromise but means windows boots quick and office and other programs that either irritate the hell out of me or I use a lot also run quick.  I also moved My Documents over to the Hard drive as well as Downloads. The amount of organising you need to do otherwise is a right pain. Even so, 30gig is tight as a knats arse and needs lots of cleaning up of windows files for me after the 10 million updates each day that it doesn't clean up properly.

My point though amidst the rambling is that the SSD still makes a huge difference even at that tiny size, and even with all my games on a HD.

[Brahms]

Brahms price priorities:

Low tier: Storage, memory
Mid Tier: Processor, motherboard, keyboard, mouse
Hard Tier: Graphics card, monitor
God Tier: PSU, case