Desktop or Laptop gaming rig

The case seems a bit on the hectic side. Its largely a question of deciding whether you care about the looks of the case or not. If no then you can shave another 300 off that price. Mine sits behind a desk & I never see it - obvious choice for me. Others like a billion coloured blinking lights in their case so that it lights up like an xmas tree.

SSD...from your questions I take it you've never been near one. HDD are the major bottleneck in modern PCs. SSDs fix that. You selected a 60gb - you can fit the OS on that yes, but on the whole I can tell you you'll regret not buying bigger. I bought a 128gb and I can kick myself for not buying 256gb.

Not sure I'm following on the RAM change. You switched from 8gb sticks to 4gb sticks. Personally I'd rather go 1x Ripjaw 8gb stick. It kills the double channel sure, but also gives you more options on upgrades. Though I haven't looked into the timings etc.

>> Also, is there anything I should be looking for specifically when buying a chassis?
Make sure the GFX length fits. Larger fans are preferred vs many small ones.
 
Just take note that you will not be able to overclock that CPU with that motherboard. Many people don't overclock, even if they do have a k-model Intel CPU.
In this case, you won't waste as much money when going for the k-model CPU, because it costs less than R100 more. When you don't overclock, it will not be any faster than the non-k one. I also won't recommend overclocking with the stock cooler.

I'd recommend that you rather stick with the 550W XFX PSU, because your motherboard doesn't allow for SLI/CrossFire, so there is no point in getting a bigger PSU.

The SSD won't boost your framerate at all, but it will make a difference in some games where you can play as soon as the game finished loading, and there are quite a few FPS that are like that. The biggest problem with the 60GB SSD's is that it is pretty slow compared to the 120GB ones.
So either ditch it for now (and upgrade your HDD to a 2TB), or go for a 120GB one.

When going for 1x 8GB, you will be losing out on the dual channel performance boost, but you'll probably only notice the difference when you check your benchmark scores. If you're going for 1x 8GB, just make sure that you're not paying too much (much more than R800) and that its voltage and latency values are like DDR3 1600 CL9 1.5V.

There is a wide variety of LCD monitors available. If you're going to be playing fast paced FPS, then a TN panel is preferred due to its fast response time compared to the IPS panels. The other thing to consider is the size.
The Dell S2440L (24" IPS panel) got a pretty good review here, which indicated that it had good factory colour accuracy, viewing angles and was only beaten by fast 120Hz TN panels in terms of responsiveness.
Unfortunately Wootware only lists the smaller (21.5" and 23") versions, which I hope uses the same quality panels. Their specs indicate that the 21.5" doesn't have quite that amazing colour accuracy as the 24" one: 82% colour gamut vs 86%.

A case can be a good investment, because you can keep it when you upgrade the rest of your system. Usually the bigger PC cases can provide better airflow, which in turns lowers your CPU and GPU temperatures.
The cheapest, yet decent, cases that I can recommend are the Zalman Z5 Plus Windowed All Black USB3.0 and the Corsair Carbide R200 - both of which are around R650.
Update: my criteria for these cases were: 2.5" SSD mounting bracket, front/top panel USB 3, bottom mounted PSU, good ventilation and cable management system
 
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Ok I am going to drop the SSD completely and go for a 2TB HDD, the idea was jsut to use it fro the OS but it can wait till I can afford a decent sized SSD. I think I will just go for 2x8GB RAM. The Zalman Z5 chassis seems fine.

Now I don't know if I should maybe get a better motherboard. Any suggestions on this? I can't spend that much more on it unfortunatley, maybe and extra 300 to maybe 500. What do you guys think? I might want to overclock.
 
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Asrock Z87 PRO3 Intel Z87 Chipset LGA1150 Haswell ATX Desktop Motherboard @R1700 seems to be the closest... Hmmm.. I'll have to think about this one. I wanna plcae my order tonight so that I can hopefully get it by Friday.
 
Whats the diffs between these two (from wootware):

PowerColor AX7950 3GBD5-2DHV5E Radeon HD7950 Boost-State 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 Desktop Graphics Card - Includes: Crysis 3 Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite @R3,399.00

AND

PowerColor AX7950 3GBD5-2DHPPE RADEON HD7950 PCS+ Edition 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x 16 Desktop Graphics Card - Includes: Crysis 3 Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite @R3,599.00
?

I don't see much diffs... Seems pretty identical to me.
 
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Ok, so I read that the slightly more expensive one has a better cooling system, so I went with that one. Here is the set up I have ordered:


Intel BX80646I54670K Core i5-4670k 3.4GHz LGA1150 Quad Core Haswell CPU @R2,839.00

Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EZRX, 2Tb, Sata6G, (5400-7200rpm) Internal Hard Drive @R1,191.00


Zalman Z5 Plus Windowed All Black USB3.0 No PSU ATX Desktop Chassis @R654.00

G.Skill F3-1600C9D-16GAR (2x8GB) DDR3-1600MHz 1.5V CL9 Dual Channel Ares Desktop Memory @R1,749.00

Asrock Z87 PRO3 Intel Z87 Chipset LGA1150 Haswell ATX Desktop Motherboard @R1,683.00

PowerColor AX7950 3GBD5-2DHPPE RADEON HD7950 PCS+ Edition 3GB GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x 16 Desktop Graphics Card - Includes: Crysis 3 Far Cry 3 Blood Dragon Tomb Raider and Bioshock Infinite @R3,549.00

XFX ProSeries P1-550S-XXB9 Core Edition 550W 80 Plus Bronze Certified Desktop PSU @R699.00

LG GH24NS90 Internal SATA 24x Super-Multi DVD Rewriter @R199.00


Total is about R12550

I'm super stoked and can't wait to get my new machine :D

Thanks for all the help and advice!!
 
I would add a SSD as well. You won't regret it.
Edit: I would also get rid of the optical drive. I'm not sure about you but I haven't used mines in ages.
I use a flash disk to load Windows.
 
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SYNERGY said:
I would add a SSD as well. You won't regret it.
Edit: I would also get rid of the optical drive. I'm not sure about you but I haven't used mines in ages.
I use a flash disk to load Windows.
Click to expand...

I'd really love to get an SSD but I can't afford that right now too, it'll have to wait a bit. I want the optical drive to write CDs for my car - it's still old school (no aux input or flash port).
 
quax said:
I'd really love to get an SSD but I can't afford that right now too, it'll have to wait a bit. I want the optical drive to write CDs for my car - it's still old school (no aux input or flash port).
Click to expand...

That board has Intel Smart Response Technology AND Intel Rapid Start Technology, both of which you can use to install the smallest size SSD (30GB) and have the benefits of running an SSD.

I am using a 30GB SSD with my system, having had two x 60GB SSD's pack up on me. In real-world experience, I can't tell the difference between using the Smart Response, and running my OS on 2 x striped SSD's, beyond that my system boots slower. Once in Windows, you can't tell the difference, and all my apps load uber-quick.

The beauty of Intel's Smart Response is that you can use a small SSD, and you don't have to manage the space you're using on your SSD.
 
I would maybe recommend a CPU that can be overclocked as a 'future proof' if you will. Rather better to overclock to eliminate any sort of bottleneck you may experience in the future. You also definitely want a CPU cooler. The stock coolers are terrible and keep your CPU idling around 35*C. With the right cooler, you can have it around 25*C which will prolong its life.

Guys are saying that SSDs are a requirement but to be honest, you can live off a WD Blue as a boot drive if you can bear with boot times of about 30seconds. If you want an SSD, something around 80GB would be sufficient as a boot drive with some extra space to be on the safe side.

In terms of GPUs, something with at least 2GB VRAM would be ideal as games coming out now are getting more demanding and you might want to upgrade to a screen higher than 1080p.

This is a build I would personally go for that falls under your R15 000 budget:

Motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-V (R2 445)
CPU - Intel i5-3570K (R2 754)
RAM - Corsair Vengeance LP 2x4GB (R915)
GPU - PowerColor AX7950 (R3 449)
PSU - XFX Core Edition 650W (R905)
HDD - WD Blue 1TB (R772)
SSD - Corsair Force GT 120GB (R1 741)
CPU Cooler - Zalman CNPS9900 (R712)
Case - Corsair Carbide 200R (R586)

This brings your total to R14 279 excluding shipping. I went for Ivy Bridge instead of Haswell as the difference really isn't too great and Ivy Bridge overclocks better. In terms of the PSU, rather give yourself some extra breathing room to play it safe. So you would have yourself a nice 120GB SSD as a boot drive and 2 or 3 of your most played games. Then you've got a WD Blue with some nice read and write speeds for everything else. The 7950 will bring great results in terms of FPS in todays games and the 3GB of VRAM is perfect as a future proof.

I hope this helps.
 
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DuckKnuckle said:
This is a build I would personally go for that falls under your R15 000 budget:

Motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-V (R2 445)
CPU - Intel i5-3570K (R2 754)
RAM - Corsair Vengeance LP 2x4GB (R915)
GPU - PowerColor AX7950 (R3 449)
PSU - XFX Core Edition 650W (R905)
HDD - WD Blue 1TB (R772)
SSD - Corsair Force GT 120GB (R1 741)
CPU Cooler - Zalman CNPS9900 (R712)
Case - Corsair Carbide 200R (R586)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice DuckKnuckle but I have to buy peripherals for the PC also... So I can't afford that build.
 
I would have gone with the i7 laptop, lenovo y510p with dual sli graphics for R15k but hope your rig is awesome either way, I just prefer being mobile
 
SYNERGY said:
I would add a SSD as well. You won't regret it.
Edit: I would also get rid of the optical drive. I'm not sure about you but I haven't used mines in ages.
I use a flash disk to load Windows.
Click to expand...

Following le Apples bold move.... +1'd for the suggestion
 
DuckKnuckle said:
What sort of peripherals are we talking about? Mouse, keyboard, screen and speakers?
Click to expand...

Yes, thats correct. But I am stripping a mouse, keyboard and speakers from an old machine. So just gonna buy cheapies and swap them. But the screen I will need to buy.
 
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