Gaming rig, £800 budget.

[Joeyboy]

Treating myself to a new PC since this current gaming PC is now 5 years old, it's served me well, HD4870 still handling Metro 2033 on high settings.

Rather then using cash to upgrade over time, I prefer to make it as "future-proof" as possible, then put up with playing games on med settings (though in fairness this current pc can handle the games I play on high) and after a few years and buying a whole new PC.

I don't know whether to get an SSD or not to get one and put the money on a better GPU. I'm not really much of a CPU overclocker if I do it at all, my Q6600 is at 3ghz, so nothing taxing.

Here's my proposed build with an SSD in it.. (plan is to OC the HD7950 to the HD7970's default settings, so 800mhz to 925mhz and 5000mhz to 5500mhz.)

https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/BKN__OUh9ew0gbdRJBZA8g,,

 

[PP Mguire]

If you aren't going to really overclock then the cooler isn't necessary. If you are going to OC, you will want something a little more beefy like a Corsair H series.

I would exchange the SSD for a Samsung 830 before they are discontinued for the 840 series. Much better SSD and they go for cheap.

I would swap that motherboard out for an ASRock board. Gigabytes customer service and RMA department suck, as does that board.

As much as I don't mind Be Quiet! PSUs, I would swap it out for a Corsair or Seasonic 650w.

The rest looks fine to me. I would personally go for a 670 but that is out of your budget and I would not ditch the SSD. If you are playing Metro on high with a 4870 I'm guessing your monitor isn't 1080p?

 

[Joeyboy]

If you aren't going to really overclock then the cooler isn't necessary. If you are going to OC, you will want something a little more beefy like a Corsair H series.

I would exchange the SSD for a Samsung 830 before they are discontinued for the 840 series. Much better SSD and they go for cheap.

I would swap that motherboard out for an ASRock board. Gigabytes customer service and RMA department suck, as does that board.

As much as I don't mind Be Quiet! PSUs, I would swap it out for a Corsair or Seasonic 650w.

The rest looks fine to me. I would personally go for a 670 but that is out of your budget and I would not ditch the SSD. If you are playing Metro on high with a 4870 I'm guessing your monitor isn't 1080p?

Thanks for the input, I'd prefer to buy from this retailer so I'll stick with the chronos as they're out of stock on the Samsung SSD's. I'll change the PSU and board.

Monitor wise..I'm not sure but I'd assume not? The monitor is almost as old as my rig, so 4-5 years, It's an LG flatron W2242S. I'll probably upgrade it at some point to a 1920x1080 res monitor but I'll be using this for a little while.

Ah they don't stock Asrock boards, though I'll ring sales and ask what they can get their hands on, they're pretty helpful in that regard.

If not, is ASUS any better, something like this?

https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...DDR3+PCI-Express+Motherboard+?productId=49259

 

[PP Mguire]

Then get this one instead. You want your rig to last, you want a quality SSD.
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Sto...e+Hard+Drive+w/+3.5"+Bracket+?productId=49951

Yea, I figured it was lower res. No way could the 4870 do that at 1080p lol.
Basically, until you upgrade the monitor the new rig is kind of a waste. 1680x1050 is pretty much the 720p of today albeit only slightly larger.

 

[Joeyboy]

Then get this one instead. You want your rig to last, you want a quality SSD.
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Sto...e+Hard+Drive+w/+3.5"+Bracket+?productId=49951

Yea, I figured it was lower res. No way could the 4870 do that at 1080p lol.
Basically, until you upgrade the monitor the new rig is kind of a waste. 1680x1050 is pretty much the 720p of today albeit only slightly larger.

I was just about to ask about the M4 haha, Done.

Well I can't max out my current games (Metro, Crysis 2 etc), certainly no AA, so I think I would see an improvement with a new rig. Also considering the new monitor, I suppose actually I could upgrade in early Feb as a birthday present.

Is the Asus board I linked to any better then the Gigabyte board? Mobo's are where I'm not so sure what I'm meant to be looking for.

 

[PP Mguire]

Oh you'll see a huge improvement sure, be able to use all extra eye candy at that res. Just will be slightly held back and you'll get that feeling of wanting "more". You'll love the new build though.

Yea that Asus board is much better. Pity that site doesn't carry a ton of extra better stuff =/

 

[Joeyboy]

Oh you'll see a huge improvement sure, be able to use all extra eye candy at that res. Just will be slightly held back and you'll get that feeling of wanting "more". You'll love the new build though.

Yea that Asus board is much better. Pity that site doesn't carry a ton of extra better stuff =/

Yeah it's range is a little limited. Although they're not always, they're often one of the cheaper sites available and they'll beat anything else by a few quid if you link them to the same product on another site. It's just they try and keep costs down by trying out a range and if it doesn't sell well, don't keep it in stock. You can often ring them up and ask if they'll get their hands on X product for you, most of the time they will do. What I like is it things like RMA's, order problems etc, are things you can post on their public forum and unlike other sites which do this, they don't remove rants/negative experiences, so you're treated much better because others can see what's going on. They're keen on throwing free steam game codes at you for the most minor issue.

Cooler wise, although they don't stock it, would the CM 212 evo be a better cooler choice for possible mild overclocking on a budget? I heard goods things about it and they stocked it until a week ago, so I could enquire.

 

[PP Mguire]

I'm going to say yes. You can put better fans on the EVO.