Recommending a System

Recommending a System

I am going to recommend a variety of systems to a friend who is looking for a gaming PC. I will start with a relatively cheap one, around £500 - £600. Then two more from around £1500 and £2500 respectively. This will give a good overview of the PC market and will enlighten him on which type of PC he wants and what kind of quality you can get for certain price ranges.

This friend wants to start up a company which specialises in recording game footage for machinima style shows, and the in-depth reviewing of various games.

Low-end System

Gladiator CYCLONE Vortex Intel i5 2.80GHz Quad Core NVIDIA GeForce Gaming PC

• Intel Core i5-2300 2.80GHz (Sandybridge) Processor
• Official Intel Cooler
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 550Ti 1024MB GDDR5 DirectX 11 Graphics
• 4GB Corsair DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit
• 500GB 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive
• ASUS Intel H61 Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard
• 550W OCZ ZS Series ATX2.2 80PLUS Bronze Power Supply
• Coolermaster HAF 912 Plus Black Midi Tower Chassis
• 22x DVD±RW SATA Optical ReWriter Drive

£549.95

This system has a solid processor, it doesn’t allow over clocking, but is reasonable for the price. A 1024MB graphics card is a capable graphics card for this system, which will be able play games on a reasonable graphics setting. 4 GB of RAM will be adequate to play most games on. The cooling system is not great as it is a base Intel cooler, this is because this is made for the bare minimum spec, so will only keep it an ‘acceptable’ temperature, not optimum temperature.  Overall, this system is adequate for a standard gamer, but not really for a experienced gamer who wants to game seriously.

Mid-Spec System

Gladiator HELLFIRE Exodus Intel i7 4.50GHz Overclocked Quad Core Radeon HD Gaming PC

• CPU professionally Overclocked up to 4.50GHz*
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit SP1 Operating System
• Intel Core i7-2600K (Sandybridge) Processor
• be quiet! Dark Rock Advanced CPU Cooler
• AMD Radeon HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 DirectX 11 Graphics
• 8GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit
• Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive
• 1TB 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive
• MSI Intel Z68 Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard
• 750W OCZ ZS Series ATX2.2 80PLUS Bronze Power Supply
• NZXT Phantom Black V2 Full Tower Chassis w/ USB3.0
• Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp
• 22x DVD±RW SATA Optical ReWriter Drive

£1529.99

This system is very competitively priced. It has an over clocked CPU which means that it has been pushed to maximum capacity, so that a higher performance can be achieved through it. It has the Windows 7 64 bit operating system it can utilise this systems impressive memory. The RAM runs at a good speed for a balanced gaming system, and will be able to cope with most games needs.  A 1TB HDD is more than adequate for a gaming PC , coupled with the 128GB SSD, this will allow games to be saved to the system and be able to start and load much faster.  The AMD Radeon HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 is the fastest single GPU on the market at the time of writing this (1/02/2012), so is more than adequate for gaming. The cooler is a reasonable cooling system, but its main feature is that it is very quiet, so does not disturb people in neighbouring rooms. The power supply is efficient and an adequate wattage as to accommodate the other pieces of hardware. This sound card is fairly low-end, but will still provide superior sound to the motherboards sound systems.

High-Spec System

Gladiator RAMPAGE Overlord CrossFire Intel i7 4.60GHz Overclocked Hexa Core Radeon HD Gaming PC

• CPU professionally Overclocked up to 4.60GHz*
• Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit SP1 Operating System
• Intel Core i7-3930K (Sandybridge) Processor
• Corsair H80 Water-Cooling CPU Cooler
• 2x AMD Radeon HD 7970 3072MB GDDR5 DirectX 11 Graphics in CrossFire
• 16GB Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit
• Crucial m4 128GB 2.5" SATA-III Solid State Hard Drive
• 1TB 3.5" SATA II Hard Drive
• GIGABYTE Intel X79 Socket 2011 DDR3 PCI-Express Motherboard
• 1050W Corsair HX Series Modular ATX2.3 SLI/Crossfire Compliant Power Supply
• Corsair 600T Graphite Series Mid Tower Chassis
• Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp
• Samsung SH-B123L/RSBP 12x BD-ROM / 16x DVD Writer Drive - SATA Optical Blu-Ray Reader Drive

£2569.99

The Intel Core i7 processor range is the highest tier of processor available at the time of this recommendation, and the 3930K is all but the best of this line, and the difference between this and the next one up will be unnoticeable unless you are doing extreme over clocks, and is almost twice as expensive. This processor has also been professionally over clocked from 3.2Ghz to 4.6Ghz, maximising its output.

Because of the H80 cooling system, the system will be quieter as the fan only needs to remove heat from the water cooling system. In theory this is an effective way of doing so, as it is quieter and better heats can be maintained due to the water cooling, but, the particular fan they use with this system is actually slightly louder than usual, so this is not going to be as quiet as other water cooling systems.

This system’s GPU’s are the same as in the mid-spec system, except they are running in crossfire, which means that there are two of them running separate slots at the same time. This does not mean that it doubles the performance, due to scaling, but significantly increases it. These GPU’s have a large video memory, so will be able to effectively operate 3 screens in eyefinity. Also, when running crossfire, there are driver issues which make maintenance difficult and restrict performance of some games, which could be problematic.

The RAM on this system is more than enough to perform any needs. Runs at good CAS9 timings, and could be over clocked if timing where slightly raised and voltage raised.

The SSD will allow for game storage so it will decrease loading times etc. And the 1TB HDD will be more than adequate for games and any backups or movies that he wishes.

The PSU is very efficient and has a high enough wattage so it can comfortably run this system, as well as anything that he wishes to add.

The case has an interchangeable mesh – windowed panel, and has plenty of room for cable management and drive bays. The person i am recommending the system to also likes the cases look, which is a bonus.

The sound card is far better than the on-board one, so will provide superior sound. Also it comes with blu-ray reader drive and a normal optical reader/writer drive.