Please rate this build

[mdr80]

I've just purchased a customized rig from Chillblast as I've heard good things about them. Can someone please look at this spec and rate it or advise on any changes which I can still do before they start building? It's two primary uses are programming and gaming with other general usage such as browsing, email, office etc. And I think I've decided to go for these two monitors for increased productivity and to game on one monitor and work on the other.

http://www.asus.com/Display/LCD_Monitors/PA238Q/

Thanks.

Chillblast Fusion Thunderbird 1
Cooler Master CM-690 II Lite Dominator Case 1
Intel Core i5 3570K Processor Overclocked to up to 4.7GHz 1
Akasa Venom Voodoo Ultra Quiet CPU Cooler 1
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste 1
Asus P8Z77-V Motherboard 1
16GB Corsair PC3-12800 1600MHz DDR3 Memory (4 x 4GB sticks) 1
Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 4096MB Graphics Card 1
240GB Corsair Force 3 Solid State Drive 1
2000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps 1
LG Blu-Ray ROM / DVD-RW Combi Drive (Blu-ray playback software supplied for Windows 7 only) 1
Corsair CX 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified PSU 1
Sound Blaster Audigy SE PCI 1
17 in 1 3.5" Internal Card Reader 1
Windows 8 Pro 64 bit 1
Standard Chillblast Cable Management 1
Logitech S-220 2.1 Speakers 1

 

[lehtv]

What did it cost?

Case Good.
CPU Good.
Cooler Good.
Motherboard Good but if you're not interested in SLI/crossfire and have no need for wireless, it is unnecessarily expensive.
RAM 16GB is a lot of RAM, I'd say 8GB would be just fine.
GPU 680 4GB's are overly expensive. On your monitor resolution a 670 2GB would perform practically the same, and if you were interested in higher resolution gaming with SLI, 670 4GB would be better value. I guess that's a reference OEM card - I prefer custom coolers like Asus DirectCu II or Gigabyte Windforce.
SSD Corsair's SSD's aren't the best quality, I would get Samsung 830/840, Crucial M4 or Intel 330.
HDD Good.
PSU Alright, but again if you're not interested in SLI, it's overkill.
Sound Asus Xonar > Creative Audigy.
OS What use do you have for Pro?

 

[mdr80]

What did it cost?

£1358.78 excl. VAT.

Probably overpriced I know but I decided a while ago that I wasn't going to build it myself.

 

[lehtv]

£1358.78 excl. VAT.

Probably overpriced I know but I decided a while ago that I wasn't going to build it myself.

Does that include the monitors?

It's not overpriced only because of being pre built, but also because of the components inside. Would save money with 670 2GB, single GPU board, less RAM, single GPU PSU, non Pro OS.

 

[mdr80]

Does that include the monitors?

It's not overpriced only because of being pre built, but also because of the components inside. Would save money with 670 2GB, single GPU board, less RAM, single GPU PSU, non Pro OS.

Thanks.

No that's without the monitors.

I wanted the option to upgrade to SLI in future if needed and I will be using a lot of mods for Skyrim which need over 2GB of VRAM apparently so that's why I went with the 4GB option.

As for Windows 8 I was debating on whether to go Pro or not but it may be handy for my programming work.

 

[lehtv]

Could build a custom 670 4GB SLI rig for that price, that would be around 70-80% faster in games.

Do they have 670 4GB?

As for Windows 8 I was debating on whether to go Pro or not but it may be handy for my programming work.

How so?

 

[mdr80]

Could build a custom 670 4GB SLI rig for that price, that would be around 70-80% faster in games.

Do they have 670 4GB?

How so?

They didn't seem to have the option for 670 4GB for some reason but I may ring them and check that out.

I know with Windows 7 pro version helped with productivity for some development tools but it's not easy to tell if it's the same in Windows 8 so I went Pro just in case. I can always upgrade though if needed so I probably should ring them and downgrade actually.

 

[mfenn]

I know with Windows 7 pro version helped with productivity for some development tools but it's not easy to tell if it's the same in Windows 8 so I went Pro just in case. I can always upgrade though if needed so I probably should ring them and downgrade actually.

Not really. The main things you get with Windows 7 Pro are the ability to address > 16GB of RAM, RD Session Host, and the ability to join a domain.

To the greater point, I agree with lehtv. You could have build an SLI machine right now for that budget.