Advice appreciated!

[JSG10]

Hi all,
So I've just installed FFXIV and it runs...ish. Would really like a new rig that could run pretty much any game out there (despite most of my gaming being console gaming) but especially FFXIV maxed out.

Unfortunately my budget isn't that great, no more than £800 MAX really and I've found a spec that is pretty near that (Thank PCS for finance options though! )

Spec:

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£42)
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 970 (3.50GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A78LT-M: mATX MAINBOARD, DDR3, USB 2.0, SATA 3.0Gb/s
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5830 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
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 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2010 (1 License Product Key Card) (£75)
Anti-Virus
KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS 2010 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£10)
Surge Protection
Belkin 4 Socket 2M Surge Protector with £25,000 Protection! (Special Offer £6)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £770.00 including VAT and delivery.


I need a proper surge protector so figured I'd bundle one in along with Office as I'm still using 97!!
There were no higher gfx options so I couldn't go for the HD5870 which I would prefer but then the price starts shooting up
Not sure what the difference between the HD 5830 and GTX460 are but its only £1 difference, is one more preferable to the other?

Thanks for any advice

EDIT:

Just had a play around with the specs and managed to get some different gfx options up, so edited specs are something like this:

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1GB ATI RADEON™ HD 5850 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
450W Quiet 80 PLUS Dual Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£29)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS 2010 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£10)
Surge Protection
Belkin 4 Socket 2M Surge Protector with £25,000 Protection! (Special Offer £6)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £750.00 including VAT and delivery.

OR:

Case
STYLISH PIANO BLACK ENIGMA CASE + 2 FRONT USB
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Free Item
FREE MAFIA II Game (RRP: £34.99) with a qualifying GTX 4xx Series GPU!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
600W Quiet 80 PLUS Quad Rail PSU + 120mm Case Fan (£59)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS 2010 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£10)
Surge Protection
Belkin 4 Socket 2M Surge Protector with £25,000 Protection! (Special Offer £6)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £801.00 including VAT and delivery.


Not sure about that last one though as its pushing the price up. Really unsure what to go for.
Any advice on retaining power but reducing cost would be really helpful

 

[Phoenix]

How about something like this:

Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Free Item
FREE MAFIA II Game (RRP: £34.99) with a qualifying GTX 4xx Series GPU!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS 2010 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£10)
Surge Protection
Belkin 4 Socket 2M Surge Protector with £25,000 Protection! (Special Offer £6)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £799.00 including VAT and delivery.

This is what I would recommend as it is under your budget and will perform very well. The caviar green drive isn't much slower than the caviar black drive but it is quieter and uses less energy. I wouldn't recommend using the Stylish Piano Black Enigma Case because it's not really designed for gaming but the coolermaster elite should keep everything at a nice temperature. The corsair power supply would also be a better choice due to the way in which PSU’s can degrade over time.

 

[JSG10]

Hmm thanks for that

Was thinking of taking the HDD size down as I've got an external for storage but it doesn't make that much difference to the price.
Is a nice spec but more than I'd like to pay :S Maybe I'll just bite the bullet and go for it on finance and pay after Xmas

Oh thanks for picking up on the Black vs Green there, missed that and actually meant to go for the green one and thanks for the advice on the case and PSU

 

[Sleinous]

Yes tbh a spec with a 470 (welcome to my club ) is pretty darn good.

 

[JSG10]

Haha yeah I've seen a number of your posts about the 470! Does look pretty sweet XD I can see me going for that rig, might wait til end of the month though for pay day although if I'm doing the pay 12 months time deal then I don't really need to worry. Its just nerveracking spending that much money! haha

 

[Sleinous]

May still be worth waiting, as then, you get an extra month to gather up the rest of the funding so you dont pay any interest if you manage to pay it all back in time

The 470 is indeed a beast imo.

 

[JSG10]

Oh I'll get it cleared before any interest gets slapped on so I'm not worried about that Just a lot to pay out in one go.
Can anyone advise me as to whether I can pay off say £200 p/m if I go for the buy now pay 12 months time or does it all have to be in one go to clear the remaining finance?

Sleinous, will that rig Phoenix posted up keep cool enough? It should run pretty much everything out there at top spec for a while too right?

 

[PCS]

You have to pay off the total amount in one go, so you can keep the £200 in your account earning interest while you have saved up the full amount to pay it off.

 

[JSG10]

Thanks for clearing that up I'll just have to pay the deposit then wait a little longer to pay it all off.

 

[Sleinous]

I 'think' you can pay whatever back, whenever you want, but best to ask PCS on this one. EDIT: Ah ok

Yep, that rig should keep very cool, however, you could still downgrade ab it on the case and it would still keep cool, the 470 imo is NOt a hot card. I have one folding here right now (for 3 hrs so far) the Velux's are NOT open, and the room is not yet warming up.

In short yes, the rig will keep you going for a while, however, what I did was, spent a tiny bit more, to 'prepare' my rig for a second GTX 470 in SLI Not sure if you'd be interested in adding a second later on, would increase the future-proofness of teh rig by atleast a few more years on from your current lifespan.

Something like this?

Case
PCS MAELSTROM T900 BLACK GAMING CASE (£42)
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4N98TD EVO: DDR3, 2-Way SLI, SATA 3.0GB/s
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Free Item
FREE MAFIA II Game (RRP: £34.99) with a qualifying GTX 4xx Series GPU!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 1000W MODULAR PSU (HX1000) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£169)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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 9 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £904.00 including VAT and delivery.

So... basically this rig has: a 1000W PSU for 2x GTX 470s, and, an SLI motherboard, (2x PCIe x16 slots).

Obviously it's £100 more, and £60 more if you go for the Athlon quad core instead of the Phenom, but it would last way longer obviously, so depends really on how long you want the rig to last.

I also speced a similar rig for a friend, with an i5 cpu instead and a GTX 465

 

[JSG10]

Thanks Sleinous, that really is pushing the budget though (but it is awesome!) :S Not sure, I don't really do that much heavy gaming due to time restraints but it would be nice that when I do game I could do it all maxed out and as smooth as possible. What sort of lifetime do you think that previous rig would have before it might need updating? Would last a good few years surely?

 

[Sleinous]

Thanks Sleinous, that really is pushing the budget though (but it is awesome!) :S Not sure, I don't really do that much heavy gaming due to time restraints but it would be nice that when I do game I could do it all maxed out and as smooth as possible. What sort of lifetime do you think that previous rig would have before it might need updating? Would last a good few years surely?

Oh yes, deffinatly a good few years, if you continue checking these forums way after your build arrives, as soon as you notice me purchase a 2nd GTX 470, thatll either be - when GTX 470s are discontonued so price may start to re-increase OR my first GTX 470 can no longer max out games and needs to be paired up. When that's the case, you're rig should also soon start to feel that.

 

[JSG10]

Pcs are just going to be mind blowing in a few years time! Think for now I'll stick with the previous build and not worry about SLI. That gtx470 will keep me going for some time! In a few years I guess I'll just set the graphics options to "medium" lol

 

[Sleinous]

Yes, seems like a good plan. Maybe by then there'll be some crazy way of bridging to pc's to run as one lol, without the whole supercomputer notion

 

[JSG10]

Hi again guys,

I think I'm pretty much set on my spec now, decided to chuck in a monitor too because... well why not? Seems a bit daft getting a potent GPU then using a crap monitor!

This is what I'm thinking I'll be ordering pretty soon:


Case
COOLERMASTER ELITE 310 BLUE CASE
Processor (CPU)
AMD PHENOM II X4 955 (3.20GHz/8MB CACHE/AM3) - BLACK EDITION
Motherboard
ASUS® M4A87TD/USB3: DUAL DDR3,SATA 6.0GB/s, USB 3.0
Memory (RAM)
4GB SAMSUNG DDR3 DUAL-DDR3 1333MHz (2 X 2GB)
Graphics Card
1280MB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX470 GDDR5 PCI EXPRESS - DirectX® 11
Free Item
FREE MAFIA II Game (RRP: £34.99) with a qualifying GTX 4xx Series GPU!
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR GREEN WD10EARS, SATA 3 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Memory Card Reader
INTERNAL 52 IN 1 CARD READER (XD, MS, CF, SD, etc) + 1 x USB 2.0 PORT
Power Supply & Case Cooling
CORSAIR 650W PSU (TX650) 80+ ULTRA QUIET (£76)
Processor Cooling
STANDARD AMD CPU COOLER
Sound Card
ONBOARD 8 CHANNEL (7.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
ONBOARD 10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT
USB Options
6 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL (MIN 2 FRONT PORTS) AS STANDARD
Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE Microsoft® Office Starter 2010 (Limited functionality Word & Excel)
Anti-Virus
KASPERSKY ANTI-VIRUS 2010 - 1 Year Licence for 1 PC (£10)
Monitor
IIYAMA E2271HDS 22" LED WIDESCREEN, HDMI/DVI-D FULL HD 1920x1080 (£139)
Surge Protection
Belkin 8-Socket 2M SurgeMaster with £175,000 Protection Warranty! (£18)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 9 to 12 working days

Price: £950.00 including VAT and delivery.

Got a couple of questions though, firstly is that case going to be adequate? I'd love to get the 600T as I think it looks awesome but I can't justify spending that much extra on a case if my chosen one is ample enough.
Is it worth getting the Anti-Vir? I've never bothered with paid for ones before and always got by with AGV, Adaware and Spybot. Is Kaspersky actually worthwhile? (I have heard positive things about it)
Also, I'm not going to bother worrying about SLI as I really don't think I'm going to require it, in a few years I may well regret that decision but I can't see how, just the single GTX 470 should keep me going for a long time to come. I was reading some reviews on it last night, very mixed! Some where saying that even the 5850 outperforms it!? I thought that couldn't be right but then checked out some FFXIV benchmarks HERE and it seems that its true? Not sure what to opt for now, GTX 470 or the HD 5850. If I wanted to beat them both I guess I'd go for the 5870 but then thats over a grand :S

 

[Phoenix]

Looks like a good build, the GTX470 will outperform the 5850 in most games (from the benchmark link you posted it looks like the 5850 is better in FF14 but it in general the 470 is the better card) and the case should be fine. I'm not sure how good Kaspersky is but for £10.00 it's probably worth having. If you don't intend to play any other games on the pc then the 5850 would be a better choice but i'm guessing you'll have other games that you'll want to play as well.

 

[JSG10]

I've grown some balls and done it! XD
Ordered the above spec, stuck with the GTX 470
Just off to work now though so am going to take the finance pdf with me and print it off there, sign and send in the morning on my way home I'm hoping PCS aren't too busy and can crack on hehe

 

[Sleinous]

Ooh they're always busy - usually because Gorman is busy distracting everyone else with videos of cutlery slaughter ^^

 

[James]

Very nice Spec.
Excellent choice in Monitors too, my only other option would have been the 24" one

Virus protection, A cheap free firewall such as ZoneAlarm works very well, and the running AVG is good as well as a weekly check with SpyBot, no need to splash any cash on something that can be done easily for no charge.

 

[JSG10]

cheers 22" is give by me, its an upgrade from my 19" and in limited with space. Its going to look fantastic. can't wait.
A the spoon movies had me giggling away lol