New gaming build. £1200 budget

[shade3413]

I am building up a pc for a friend of mine and he has a £1200 budget on the rig. His main intent with the machine is gaming however he may be doing some school work and watching videos on it as well.

Currently I have a list thrown together but it comes out slightly above his budget. I wanted to post here to ask what would be the most effecient cuts and to just make sure my head is in the right place in building this machine. I am shooting for mid-high end gaming and wanted to get him a 24 inch monitor but it looks like that may be the first place to make a cut.

Please let me know what you think of the following:

Asus P5Q Deluxe Intel P45 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2 Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 LGA775 'Wolfdale' 3.00GHz

HIS ATI Radeon HD 4870 X2 2048MB GDDR5

Razer Lachesis Banshee Blue 4000dpi High Precision Gaming Mouse

Corsair 4GB DDR2 XMS2 Dominator PC2-8500C5 TwinX (2x2GB)

PC Power & Cooling Silencer 750 Quad-Crossfire PCI-E 750W Power Supply

Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATA-II 16MB Cache - OEM

BenQ V2400W 24" Widescreen HDMI/HDCP

Antec Nine Hundred Ultimate Gaming Case

Netgear WG311T 108Mbps Wireless Desktop PCI Network Adapter

Currently looking at getting the parts from overclockers.co.uk if no one can suggest a better supplier?

Also any advice on cooling would be helpful. Mainly some cheap solid state heatsinks for the ATI video cards and a processor cooler.

Thanks in advance!

 

[MarcVenice]

Overclocking or not? If not, the ram is serious overkill. Prolly just get this for example: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/...0Kit%20(GE24GB800C4DC)

Could save some money getting this PSU: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/...0SLi%20Compliant%20PSU If you want 750w, the Thermaltake ToughPower 750W or the corsair 750tx look good too.

The videocard might be overkill, he'd be fine with a single gtx280 or even a HD4870/gtx260, or just buy 2 HD4850's for 250, I see you can buy 2 HD4850 1gb for 250 pounds.

gluck ...

 

[disports]

Like MarcVenice says, you could save money by lowering the video card to one of the ones he suggested. Asus P5Q Pro is also a good option to save a little bit more cash.

 

[shade3413]

Hmm the issue with downgrading the graphics card is will lower end cards be enough to handle a 24 inch monitor at 1920x1200? I'd rather him be running things comfortable on a 22 inch than struggling with high settings on a 24 inch at high res.

Yes overclocking is an option and interest.

 

[Roguestar]

1920x1200 = get the 4870 1GB.

Post the requirements laid out in the sticky so we can get a decent overview of your needs.

Motherboard -> Gigabyte EP45-DS3L
RAM -> Corsair 2x2GB DDR2-800 (this will give you leeway to overclock without being stupidly expensive)


Definitely, definitely definitely the best advice I could give you as someone from the UK would be to check prices on www.scan.co.uk and especially check Scan's "Today Only" section on the day you're ordering, as there are often some bargains to be had. In my experience, scan tend to have items for a few pounds cheaper than OCUK, but OCUK have a bigger selection of some items such as coolers and RAM. OCUK's site also really annoys me because they display the exVAT price in huge numbers and the incVAT price in tiny fonts.

 

[sonnygdude]

He should be OK with a single HD4870 1 GB. I'm using the 512MB verssion at 1920x1200 and I've been super pleased with it, usually have AA dialed all the way up and eye candy maxed and the card just chews everything up (I don't have Crysis!)

I agree with MarcVenice on the RAM and smithrwon on the mobo - the P5Q Pro instead of the Deluxe trims £40 off at overclockers UK.

 

[shade3413]

After taking some advice and running on over to the muuuuuch better site Scan.co.uk I threw this together which is surprisingly in budget without cutting much off.

Belkin F5D7001UK 125g Wireless PCI Adapter

Saitek PK 02AV Eclipse II Wired Keyboard, BackLit Purple, Red + Blue Keys, USB 1.1/2.0, Black

Antec 900 - Nine Hundred Ultimate Gamer Case with 200m Top Fan w/o PSU

Razer Lachesis Banshee v2 Blue 3G Laser Mouse, 4000dpi, USB 1/2.0, 7 Buttons, Blue

Intel Core 2 Duo, E8400, Wolfdale Core, S775, 3.0 GHz, 1333MHz, 6MB Cache, 9x Multiplier, Retail

4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator DDR2 PC2-8500 (1066), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuff, CAS 5, EPP, DHX + Fan

640 GB Western Digital WD6400AAKS Caviar Blue, SATA 300, 7200 rpm, 16MB Cache, 8.9 ms

Gigabyte GA-EP45T-DS3R, iP45 Express, S 775, PCI-E 2.0(x16), DDR3 1066/1333/1600, SATA II, SATA RAID

2GB HiS HD4870X2, PCI-E 2.0, 3600MHz GDDR5, GPU 750MHz, 1600 Cores, CrossFire, 2x DL DVI/ HDTV

24" Dell S409W HD Widescreen Monitor 1920x1080 HDMI 16:9 ratio

700W Silverstone, ST70F, Modular, Quad +12V rails w/ 50A, 4x 6pin PCI-E, 1x 8pin PCI-E, v.1 RoHS

It comes to 1198 quid so within 2 quid of the goal which I am quite happy with. I own a 24 inch dell monitor myself but not this one chosen. It is cheap as hell for what it is so that puts me on edge. Anyone had experience with this particular monitor direct or indirect? I couldn't find any reviews for some reason.