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Will my custom pc be good or does it need changes?

898 views 13 replies 4 participants last post by  matthewdownloads 
#1 ·
I am going to be buying a new computer soon and have desinged one on pcspecialist.co.uk

I'll paste my main design:

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 311 BLUE CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3570 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P8H61-MX USB3/SI: uATX, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 650 - DVI, mHDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

2nd Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan

Processor Cooling
INTEL SOCKET LGA1155 STANDARD CPU COOLER

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 7 to 9 working days

(If this site has to ability to put that copy/paste into a spoiler tab thing please tell me how lol)

The site says this computer is fine and that it will work well. But according to a friend of my dads (who i've never met) I will need a more powerful power supply. But pcspecialist says for this system that i only need a 350W supply so the 450W one i have chosen should be fine right?

I want to use this pc for gaming and recording videos for youtube. Will it be any good for that and will i need a better power supply? Also the motherboard onlysupports 3GB/s and the HDD is 6GB/s. Is a motherboard with 6GB/s support really worth it? (p.s. im on a budget)
 
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#3 ·
You really should have both a higher wattage and a hopefully a good quality power supply, most gamers would not go for less than a quality 600 watt unit, that leaves you room to upgrade to better graphics cards whereas a 450 watt is near the minimum for mid level card such as the Geforce GTX 650 - nVidia recommends a minimum 400 watt PSU for the plain Geforce GTX 650. The Corsair PSU's they list would be the wiser choice.

SATA 6GB/s is pretty much needed for a Solid State Drive, if you ever decide you'll want one of those and most people do, then you'll limit it's performance by using it on a SATA 3GB/s motherboard. Another advantage would be that the chipset on a board that supports SATA 6GB/s would also be newer and probably a little better all around. An H61 chipset is OK but was originally designed for the older Sandy Bridge processors, but an H77 chipset is newer and better suited for an Ivy Bridge processor; the Asus P8H77-M would be the preferred choice.
 
#4 ·
I have taken off one of my HDD's so i can afford the better motherboard and power. I went with 650W Corsair one. This should be good right?
Also, i noticed on the site that when i have i5 3570 3.4ghz adding the corsair makes the price go up £10 whereas if i select the i5 3470 3.2ghz the power supply only makes the price go up £2??
So now my question is, should I get i5 3470 3.2ghz instead of the 3570? Theres not much difference in them from what ive found except for that the 3470 only does 64bit? Which i dont understand.
Someone enlighten me :)
 
#8 ·
So here is where my computer design is now? Hopefully this is a good pc that can play games and record?

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 311 BLUE CASE

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-3470 (3.2GHz) 6MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® P8H77-M: M-ATX, DDR3, USB 3.0, SATA 6.0Gb/s, CrossFireX™

Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 4GB)

Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 650 - DVI, mHDMI, VGA - 3D Vision Ready

Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W ENTHUSIAST SERIES™ TX650 V2-80 PLUS® BRONZE (£69)

Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs

USB Options
4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
 
#10 ·
I selected a different cooler because the description said that for gaming you should get a different one. But i will take it back to default.
Also theres some wierd thing with the processor and power supply.
When i have i5-3470 selected going from 600W to 650W makes the price change £2 but with i5-3570 it goes up £10? Why does a different processor affect the price of the power supply?
 
#12 ·
If you can, I'd be looking at putting in a 2nd hard disk, a 128GB or even 256GB SSD. You can get a good 120GB one for about £70 (or even £40 if you can live with 64GB) and it will make a very big difference in terms of the overall speed of the computer. Since you're spending all that money on a new machine, for a (relatively) small amount more the performance difference is huge - it doesn't make much sense not to get one.

Edit: Also, I had a look on that website. It doesn't say the brand of 1TB hard disk which may mean you end up with anything. Remember that all your data is going to be on that drive. Is it worth a little more for a branded drive that you know is less likely to fail? Even if you are under warranty, your data won't be recoverable if the disk fails. Also, who knows what the speed of the drive is?

EDIT 2: Also, you might want to consider building the machine yourself. Whilst PCSpecialist will save you a lot of hassle, it's going to be significantly cheaper to buy the individual parts and put it together yourself. Since you already have a list of the exact parts that will work together, if you are confident enough it might be worth considering that.
 
#13 ·
The speed of the drive is 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
Plus i did originally have a 2nd HDD but because of my budget getting a better motherboard and power supply made me have to give up a second HDD to make it all affordable :(
I have also looked at the prices of individual parts and it comes to almost the exact same price as pcspecialist. And even though i am more than capable of building my own pc. And it would probably be fine. I don't trust myself to not accidentally break something and ruin it all so i'm going with pcspecialist for a little more piece of mind :)
 
#14 ·
The speed of the drive is 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE
Plus i did originally have a 2nd HDD but because of my budget getting a better motherboard and power supply made me have to give up a second HDD to make it all affordable :(
I have also looked at the prices of individual parts and it comes to almost the exact same price as pcspecialist. And even though i am more than capable of building my own pc. And it would probably be fine. I don't trust myself to not accidentally break something and ruin it all so i'm going with pcspecialist for a little more piece of mind :)
Nope, the speed of the drive is how fast the drive can access/write data. 7200RPM is the disk spin speed (which yes, is related to access times). 6GB/S is the MAXIMUM possible data rate over SATA 3. Mechanical hard drives won't come anywhere near that, more like 1GB/S (Sata II) = about 150MB per second max.

You can upgrade to a SSD in the future when you have more cash. Installing a hard drive is easy, you'll probably want it as your next upgrade :)
 
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