PC Gaming Hardware – What PC to Buy Guide

I was inspired by the articles Ive been reading in UK PC Gamer and PC Format on this subject and thought I would do one of my own as I seem to spend most of my time recommending to friends and family what to buy.

To that end I have put together two systems to meet both ends of the market. Both systems are designed specifically with gaming in mind are are complete systems including all necessary peripherals such as screen, mouse, keyboard etc.

The first system is targeted at entry to mid level gamers who are looking for ‘out of the box’ performance. A system that will play all the latest games, possibly offer them some easy upgrades in the future but will largely just do what they want at an affordable price.

The second system is targeted at gamers who like to spend more time inside the case of their PC tweaking and upgrading to get the best possible performance.

So here they are:

The Entry to Mid Level System:

Case:
Coolermaster Elite 335

Cost – £34
A decent build quality case that isnt too showy (if you arent into that sort of thing) but has the capability to be (if you are). Lots of features inside which make it both easy to build and nice to maintain.

Power Supply:
Coolermaster GX 650W

Cost – £58
Plenty of power headroom for most upgrades you might consider later, 80% efficiency which should give you a nice stable platform. Spending less on a PSU is usually false economy especially in a machine you plan on using for games.

CPU:
Intel Core i5 2400 3.1Ghz

Cost – £148
Unless you are planning on overclocking there really is no point in spending money on the higher spec K series chips and on the whole for gaming its best to put the money into graphics power. This i5 sports intels turbo boost and has more than enough power for games.

Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-Z68P-DS3

Cost – £72
Excellent highend Sandybridge board with lots of upgrade potential (including support for Ivy Bridge this year) as well as support for mSata connectors to enable Mini SSDs to use Intels caching capabilities.

RAM:
8GB Crucial DDR3 1600MHz Ballistix Sport

Cost – £35
RAM is very cheap at the moment but prices are creeping up. Lifetime warranty and good service from Crucial when you need it. I would also say that we are now getting to the point that its worth having a minimum of 8GB RAM for gaming comfort.

Graphics Card:
XFX HD 6870 1GB

Cost – £133
A decent low cost card that will fill all your gaming needs on a single monitor. Also cheap enough to consider chucking in a pair to run in crossfire in the future should the inclination take you.

Hard Disk:
Hitachi 500GB 7200RPM 16MB Cache

Cost – £52
Hard disks are still pretty expensive but prices are falling quickly from their peak. I wouldnt be rushing out to buy them just yet though.

Optical Drive:
Samsung 22x DVD/RW

Cost – £13
With the exception of Sony which I would tend to avoid, all optical drives are the same so buy the cheapest. No real point getting Blu-Ray yet unless you are planning on using the PC as a media centre.

Sound Card:
Asus Xonar 5.1 PCI with Headphone AMP

Cost – £26
This card has no onboard processing so it wont boost framerate, however having a plug in card gives a much cleaner experience to sound by separating it from the electrical noise of the other onboard components and the headphone AMP will improve the sound output for unpowered headsets.

Monitor:
LG 23″ IPS235V

Cost – £142
LG are leading the charge for low cost E-IPS screens and at this price and with the favourable reviews they are generally receiving its hard to argue in favour of the older TN panels any more.

Mouse:
Gigabyte M6900

Cost – £16
Clearly modelled after other successful gaming mice, Gigabyte have pulled together a very attactive combination of functionality, performance and price. Its very hard to justify more expensive options with this on the table.

Keyboard:
Microsoft Sidewinder X4

Cost – £33
Microsoft are closing down their gaming peripherals brand so these are going for bargain prices. Back lit, anti ghosting and macro keys make it hard to beat at the price.

Headset:
Plantronics Gamecom 367

Cost – £19
High quality sound, comfortable for long play sessions with a reasonable mic attached. All the convenience without the cost.

Total cost of the above:

£781

The Enthusiast’s Overclocking System:

Case:
Corsair Carbide 500R

Cost – £88
It may not have the ‘moar lights’ mentality however there are few cases on the market that run cooler or quieter than the 500R and they are significantly more expensive. Couple this with the fact that the Carbide is a joy to build with and its perfect for the person who plans to spend a lot of time dipping in and out of their case.

Power Supply:
Corsair TX750M 750W Modular PSU

Cost – £87
Plenty of power headroom for upgrades and overclocking, 80% efficiency which should give you a nice stable platform, and a modular cabling system to manage airflow. Its pricey but when you are playing with voltages, a PSU you can trust is critical.

CPU:
Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3Ghz

Cost – £172
No I didnt choose the i7K. Why not? Performance-wise, particularly with overclocking the i5 and the i7 are similar, the only real benefit of the i7 is hyperthreading which actually can impact games for the worse rather than the better. If you are planning on doing lots of video encoding then get the i7 otherwise save your money, the i5 is rock solid.

Motherboard:
Asus P8Z68-V PRO Gen3

Cost – £147
This Asus board sports all the features you would expect from a highend board as well as plenty of future proofing options. Support for both Crossfire and SLI as well as both PCI 2 and 3 makes it adaptable for graphics and the features offered by the Z68 chipset should see you for a while. The addition of bluetooth is a nice touch too. This board doesnt come with some of the overclocking functions that some of the ‘for gamers’ boards do at the higher end however it does come with the ASUS CPR suite to help protect on some of your more adventurous overclocks and the BIOS has more than enough features to get you going.

RAM:
16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz

Cost – £75
RAM is very cheap at the moment but prices are creeping up. Lifetime warranty and good service from Corsair when you need it. Additionally on this set you have the benefit of decent heatspreaders to support overclocking and also quad channel support should you look to take this RAM with you into a future board that supports it (currently only the socket 2011 boards support quad channel but its a good guess for Ivybridge).

Graphics Card:
2 x Gigabyte 560Ti OC 1GB

Cost – £350
The 560Ti coupled with SLI technology arguably beats everything on the market currently and that argument can only really be held against the GTX590 or AMDs latest 7000 series offerings which two of these cards is significantly cheaper than. Gigabyte overclock this out of the box for you, but the decent cooling will let you take this further. The only real hindrance is the 1GB memory which will be mirrored in SLI not expanded. Truth be told, now is not the time to buy graphics cards, wait until Nvidia show their hand with their new Kepler cards which should be a matter of weeks.

Hard Disk:
BOOT: Corsair 120GB Force 3 SSD

Cost – £120
SSD prices have been unaffected by the price hike on platter based harddisks and are currently going through quite a coup. This Corsair disk is about as fast as you can buy and 120GB should be enough to get your system running nicely.

STORAGE: WD 2TB Caviar Green

Cost – £105
Given the high prices of platter based harddisks at the moment this isnt actually a terrible price. Decent cache and SATA III connectively should see it meet you storage needs happily, and the slightly lower spin speed and power consumption should keep the noise down.

Optical Drive:
Samsung 22x DVD/RW

Cost – £13
With the exception of Sony which I would tend to avoid, all optical drives are the same so buy the cheapest. No real point getting Blu-Ray yet unless you are planning on using the PC as a media centre.

Sound Card:
Asus Xonar D2X 7.1 Surround Sound

Cost – £85
Firstly this is a top notch card which will deliver awesome sound, however it also has its own processing capability thus easing burden on your CPU which may help up your framerate. Was a tough choice between this and the Creative Titanium however I went with Asus as Creatives drivers are still truly awful.

Monitor:
Asus PA238Q LED 23″ IPS

Cost – £220
Consistently reviewed as the best IPS monitor in its class for both image replication and gaming response time. The picture quality is excellent, the panel and the stand are well designed the only real complaint is the 16:9 ratio rather than the preferable 16:10 but that really is nit-picking.

Mouse:
Logitech G400

Cost – £25
The remake of the MX518 which is commonly regarded as one of the best gaming mice produced. The quality and the value of this mouse are second to none.

Keyboard:
Microsoft Sidewinder X4

Cost – £33
Microsoft are closing down their gaming peripherals brand so these are going for bargain prices. Back lit, anti ghosting and macro keys make it hard to beat at the price.

Headset:
Roccat Kave Solid 5.1 Surround Sound Headset

Cost – £64
After forking out the cash for such a decent soundcard you want a set of cans that are going to make the most of it which rules out anything using USB. This headset has a true surround sound system connected by each channel direct into the soundcard and the experience is hard to beat. The mic attached is decent and convenient if there is only one complaint it is that these can be a little heavy and may be comparatively less comfortable than other headsets.

Total cost of the above:

£1584

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