Building a Gaming Desktop

[Da_MoA]

Hello!

Basically ive had my current PC for about 6-7 years now and soon its going to be time for an upgrade! Ive decided that I may as well build it from parts this time as it is apparently cheaper. My maximum Budget will be around £1500 / $2400 I don't have to use the entire budget if it isn't worth it.

Apologies in advance if I make stupid statements as im not really very good with hardware.

Everything in the computer is rather rubbish by today's stands as you might expect the only thing that's been upgraded in that time was the graphics card which is now a ATI Radeon HD 4870.

I have a mouse, keyboard and monitor so don't worry about that, I also have a Coolermaster 750w power supply that should be adequate.

On the subject of cases it would be nice if the case was quite fancy because why the hell not

I would want the PC to be able to run games at high/ultra settings and be able to handle watching HD live streaming content.


ps: I'm based in the UK

*incoming current specs dump*
Most of this means nothing to me to hopefully it will mean something to you guys.


Windows 7 Home Premium Service Pack 1 (build 7601)

System Model

alienware alienware alienware
Enclosure Type: Desktop


Processor

3.20 gigahertz Intel Pentium 4
16 kilobyte primary memory cache
2048 kilobyte secondary memory cache
64-bit ready
Hyper-threaded (2 total)


Main Circuit Board

Board: ASUSTeK Computer INC. P5ND2-SLI 1.XX
Bus Clock: 200 megahertz
BIOS: Phoenix Technologies, LTD ASUS P5ND2-SLI ACPI BIOS Revision 0304 10/07/2005


Memory Modules

3072 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory

Slot 'DIMM_A1' has 512 MB
Slot 'DIMM_A2' has 1024 MB
Slot 'DIMM_B1' has 512 MB
Slot 'DIMM_B2' has 1024 MB


Drives

664.78 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
128.53 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

DTSoftBusCd00 [Optical drive]
LITE-ON COMBO SOHC-5236V ATA Device [Optical drive]
TSSTcorp DVD-ROM SH-D162C ATA Device [Optical drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

HDT722516DLA380 [Hard drive] (164.70 GB) -- drive 0, s/n VDB71ATCC34S8A, rev V43OA60A, SMART Status: Healthy
Nokia S60 USB Device [Hard drive] (8.24 GB) -- drive 2
Nokia S60 USB Device [Hard drive] -- drive 3

 

[Kabutos]

From Scan [scan.co.uk].

 

[Zantos]

Can't really fault first post there. Although I would question the cost effectiveness of a solid state. With the speed they're running at it'll be outdated by the time it arrives.

Also I'd think about getting a fan control. Cool the shit out of the PC when it's running high spec games and not disturb you when you just want to check your emails. Also you can never have too many fans.

If you want to change components about to find the best fit call the supplier you're buying from (if you're in the UK I'd imagine it'd be either e-buyer or CCL), the customer services will probably try and get you to spend more money, but if you call tech support then they can check your parts to make sure they're compatible and since they aren't paid on commission they can actually give you decent and sensible advice.

 

[devotedsniper]

Other than posibly more RAM the above is a pretty good setup (4GB is fine for all games at the moment but im just thinking for the extra £40 you could have 8GB and be set for much longer before having to upgrade anything).

 

[MrTub]

Can't really fault first post there. Although I would question the cost effectiveness of a solid state. With the speed they're running at it'll be outdated by the time it arrives.

Also I'd think about getting a fan control. Cool the shit out of the PC when it's running high spec games and not disturb you when you just want to check your emails. Also you can never have too many fans.

If you want to change components about to find the best fit call the supplier you're buying from (if you're in the UK I'd imagine it'd be either e-buyer or CCL), the customer services will probably try and get you to spend more money, but if you call tech support then they can check your parts to make sure they're compatible and since they aren't paid on commission they can actually give you decent and sensible advice.

well that ssd is "running" at 550/500mbits so it will not be outdated for quite some time..

argh ignore this above, thought he recommended a vertex 3 =/ (Which is the ssd I would recommend)


But if you do not care so much about read speeds you could get 2-4x 1-2tb hdds and raid them.

Will have slower accestime but should be almost the same read/writes speed

 

[Zantos]

Can't really fault first post there. Although I would question the cost effectiveness of a solid state. With the speed they're running at it'll be outdated by the time it arrives.

Also I'd think about getting a fan control. Cool the shit out of the PC when it's running high spec games and not disturb you when you just want to check your emails. Also you can never have too many fans.

If you want to change components about to find the best fit call the supplier you're buying from (if you're in the UK I'd imagine it'd be either e-buyer or CCL), the customer services will probably try and get you to spend more money, but if you call tech support then they can check your parts to make sure they're compatible and since they aren't paid on commission they can actually give you decent and sensible advice.

well that ssd is "running" at 550/500mbits so it will not be outdated for quite some time..

argh ignore this above, thought he recommended a vertex 3 =/ (Which is the ssd I would recommend)


But if you do not care so much about read speeds you could get 2-4x 1-2tb hdds and raid them.

Will have slower accestime but should be almost the same read/writes speed

I mean the academic and industrial research into SSDs, not the actual speed of them. Our university has some world experts in the field that have basically said "Unless you really want one, they're advancing so fast there's no point in having one".