PC Opinion - Feedback/Education needed.
 

Although I feel I've researched it I'm still a newb when it comes to PCs, their components and what is considered good/not good. I've looked at reviews of different PC makers along with various hardware sites and below is the system I'm thinking of getting. As the masses on this website are more experienced than I am I was hoping you could give me an opinion or recommendations.

At this point I don't want to build my own and would rather have someone who knows what they are doing do it.

One of the companies I looked at was CyperPower. Does anyone know anything about them? They have cheap prices but the customer feedback sections all say I should be pretty wary of them as 'you get what you pay for'.

The system below is from MainGear. They seem to 'rate' a little better than CyberPower.

So..does this system look okay? Would I be better upgrading or downgrading any parts of it? Do you see any bottlenecks?

Any help, direction or recommendations would be GREATLY appreciated.

I should note that I don't plan on buying anything until after COD is out and I see how it runs on everyone else's system.

Motherboard:* Asus® P8P67-LE Featuring USB 3.0 and SATA 6G

Port Expansion Adapters:* Discrete SATA Controller

Processor:* Intel® Core™ i5 2500K 3.3GHz/3.7GHz Turbo 6MB L3 Cache GT2

Processor Cooling:* MAINGEAR Certified Intel® Retail Cooler

Memory:* 8GB (2x4GB) Crucial DDR3-1333

Graphics and GPGPU Accelerator:* NVIDIA® GeForce™ GTX 560 Ti 1GB GDDR5 w/PhysX

Power Supply:* 620 Watt Seasonic® S12II 80+ Bronze Certified Power Supply

Hard Drive Bay One:* 1.0TB Samsung F3 7200rpm 32MB Cache SATA

Optical Drive One:* 24X Dual Layer DVD RW Drive w/ LightScribe Technology

Audio:* 7.1+2 Channel High Definition Surround Sound Supporting S/DIF Optical In and Out

Operating System:* Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

I realize there have been a lot of questions of this type on the forum..probably because of the great feedback. Sorry to burden you with another one..

Hi mate read your PM I may be able to help you.

Nice, looks solid. Cooling could be upgraded later, if you were going to try some overclocking. (4.9GHz?)

I'd select Win7 Proffessional, but you'd need to check the differences between Premium and Pro if the difference is worth it to you.

Sounds like a good mid range system. Maybe add a Noctua NH-D14 cooler instead of that cooler? And make sure you get the B3 rev of the motherboard. Myself I like Gigabyte lately but I also have good experiences with Asus. If going for Asus I think I would swap for the "Asus P8P67 Pro B3" which should be a bit more over clocker friendly - or the Gigabyte GA-P67A-UD4-B3... Many other advice will arrive here soon :)

Hey Tree, you've changed your avatar. Why a rainy cloud?

Good rig, I'm confident that it will run just fine:)

The RAM is overkill, maybe it should've been better to save some money there and put it into an even better CPU?

I use the same OS am I'm very comfortable with it, although I don't really get the differences when it comes to Prof and Premium, I don't think it matters one bit when it comes to gaming mainly and browsing the internet though :P.

lol, someone said that im always down about stuff so suggested this avatar and dared me to use it!! Its only a bit of fun so why not!! :grin:

Looks pretty good - only thing I might suggest would be getting DDR3-1600 memory. Minor, but some tests showed that the 1333 did knock a few fps off.

Build your own system. It's very easy to do, assuming you would be confident with rewiring an electric plug, which is much more complicated. If so, the only reason to buy pre-built is if you don't have the time to knock it together yourself. Some people don't, and they're frequently the type that can happily afford a pre-build. To be completely frank, if I could afford a pre-build I'd buy one every time. As another poster intimated elsewhere, I'm never nervous building computers unless they're mine!

Thoughts on specs (as I'm going to upgrade too; I'm just waiting for actual reviews before deciding on hardware; to my mind, it comes down to what gfx card I require - nobody knows what is required/works best yet. Not so stupid as to throw out several hundred quid with mere days to go without any idea as to what might work best.)

This is what I would buy today if I had to:

Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
Asus P8P67 Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge) ** B3 REVISION **
XFX 650W XXX Edition Modular Power Supply
Corsair Hydro H50-1 High-Performance CPU Watercooler (would actually prefer Akasa's one)
OCZ Special OPS 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C8 1600MHz (very cheap on ocuk atm. otherwise, something similar)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB (immediately flash to 6970, Save £100)
Coolermaster Elite 370 Case
Some generic dvd drive.

That's pretty much what I'm buying in a week or so, dependent on reviews. Didn't mention hdds; the Samsumg F4's look sweet, if you want to stay with disc tech. I have two samsung F1s and they are lovely.

Er, did I forget anything? I think I'll just reiterate that hopefully, you'll be playing this game for maybe the next decade. Wouldn't it be a good idea to hold off on the hardware purchasing for maybe a couple of days before committing hundreds of pounds blindly? If you'd say no, I have some grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat business opportunities you simply must hear about.

i looked up your choices and have provided what i think are better options in price range and performance for you core components

motherboard (i have this one :::::::)) $90
ASRock 870 EXTREME3 AM3 AMD 870 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard $90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813157198

CPU = $229 AMD Phenom II X6 1100T Black Edition Thuban 3.3GHz, 3.7GHz Turbo 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16819103913

VIDEO= $210 SAPPHIRE 100314SR Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102909

RAM= $85 G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231311

PSU= $160 SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151087

S!

If you really must go AMD I would suggest waiting for Bulldozer. MSI have announced a M/B which suggests the Bulldozer release is not too far off:

http://www.nordichardware.com/news/7...-in-april.html

Thanks for the responses everyone..I knew I could count on this group.

Anyone know anything about MainGear or CyperPower as far as reliability and that kind of thing?

The ones we care about are expected at the E3. ;)