New gaming desktop, £900 budget.

[Joeyboy]

I have a monitor, but need everything else including the OS. The budget isn't absolutely set in stone, but I'd rather not be going over £900 if possible. I may do a mild OC, if at all, but I'm not looking for expensive cooling.

Here's what I've come up with so far, I'd rather buy from this site has I have very good customer service experience with them (and their prices are pretty good)..

Hopefully this wishlist works..

https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/DBIErZTnFXQPMUbyUtJirg,,

This look good, or can you suggest improvements?

 

[PP Mguire]

Looks good, but change that builder series to a 650w TX instead. The OEM is different between the two and only the TX/HX/AX models get the Seasonic guts. It makes a huge difference.

Another thing I would change is, get some Corsair or G.Skill 1600mhz sticks. The higher speed really makes no difference. I also have never trusted Geil since S939 days.

Next, get a Samsung 830 SSD instead. Speed is relatively the same, but reliability and quality is better.

Finally, I would change the cooler to this.
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...per+212+EVO+Quiet+CPU+Cooler+?productId=47248

I'm done with tower coolers, but for the price this is your better bet. If you want to up your cooler cost a bit I would get a Corsair H series instead.

 

[Joeyboy]

Looks good, but change that builder series to a 650w TX instead. The OEM is different between the two and only the TX/HX/AX models get the Seasonic guts. It makes a huge difference.

Another thing I would change is, get some Corsair or G.Skill 1600mhz sticks. The higher speed really makes no difference. I also have never trusted Geil since S939 days.

Next, get a Samsung 830 SSD instead. Speed is relatively the same, but reliability and quality is better.

Finally, I would change the cooler to this.
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...per+212+EVO+Quiet+CPU+Cooler+?productId=47248

I'm done with tower coolers, but for the price this is your better bet. If you want to up your cooler cost a bit I would get a Corsair H series instead.

Thanks for the input, changed the ram to some corsair vengeance low profile and selected the PSU you suggested. They don't stock the the SSD you mentioned, I'd rather buy it all in one go from here if possible, so as alternatives are any of these a better option then the one in my wishlist..

https://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecial...A-III+Solid+State+Hard+Drive+?productId=45660

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Sto...A-III+Solid+State+Hard+Drive+?productId=45836

Getting one of those with the other changes pushes me to £920ish, so if possible I'd rather choose between one of the above SSD's then get one which is even pricier.

Just to ask, I haven't experienced the extra speed that installing your OS and most used programs on an SSD gives you. Would you recommend an SSD as a necessary component or, since I'm using this for gaming and want it to last as long as possible before it needs upgrading, would ditching the SSD and getting a HD7970 give me a noticeable boost in framerates?

 

[PP Mguire]

The Corsair SSD is faster and more reliable than the Agility, but if it pushes your budget then don't worry about it.
I recommend an SSD to anybody. I can't exactly explain how much faster it really makes the whole computing experience. It doesn't so much help gaming all that much besides loading times in Skyrim and BF3, but overall it makes absolutely everything quicker. That being said, yes I think it is quite necessary. Thing is, you don't have a standard HDD in there, so I'm hoping you have one laying around for storage.
The 7970 would give a boost in frames, but I don't think they would actually be that noticeable. One thing you could do to drop price is get the eVGA 660ti instead. Those DirectCU coolers are known to sag.

 

[Joeyboy]

I can't exactly explain how much faster it really makes the whole computing experience. It doesn't so much help gaming all that much besides loading times in Skyrim and BF3, but overall it makes absolutely everything quicker. That being said, yes I think it is quite necessary. Thing is, you don't have a standard HDD in there, so I'm hoping you have one laying around for storage.
The 7970 would give a boost in frames, but I don't think they would actually be that noticeable. One thing you could do to drop price is get the eVGA 660ti instead. Those DirectCU coolers are known to sag.

Erm..I do have a standard HDD in there haha, there's a 1Tb Seagate in that wishlist, 5th item down.

Ah I see, guess I'll get the SSD then. Sounds a bit dumb is it just the OS itself and games you generally install on it? Do you install the internet browser on it generally as well? I suppose if I look there's probably a recommended list of programs to put on them.

Thanks for the heads up on the GPU, tbh the price difference is £1 on this site. Is MSI a decent brand as they seem to be offering a more heavily OC'd card with what appears to have, for the GPU cooling layman, a more effective looking cooling system then the EVGA's more standard format offering.
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...+Graphics+Card+Graphics+Card+?productId=51491

Though I know EVGA has very good customer support...

 

[PP Mguire]

Man, I didn't even the see drive there the first time I glanced at your list.
You install anything you want on the SSD granted you don't run out of space.

I was looking at the prices of all the 660ti cards. The difference is more than 1, but my main deal was the sag issue associated with the DirectCU cards. I had a 580 with one of those heatsinks that I needed a pill bottle to keep from sagging. Also, the OC isn't as good as the MSI card, but it wont make any difference because the boost clock is only 1Mhz apart from both cards. The 600 series cards don't really get hot enough to be too concerned with heat. In the end, it's up to your preference on what you want.