Hardware & Technical Worth getting?

[Aqualarius]

I'm interested to know if this seems worth buying:

Case
CORSAIR 230T COMPACT GAMING CASE - RED LED + SIDE WINDOW

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790 (3.6GHz) 8MB Cache

Motherboard
ASUS® H81M-PLUS: Micro-ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs

Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)

Graphics Card
4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready

1st Hard Disk
1TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 32MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY

Processor Cooling
Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£59)

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)

USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)

Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

Cost
£1,006.00 inc VAT and Delivery.

 

[Cmdr Andy B]

sounds about right but one thing i would be concerned about if i was buying it is the amount of space in the case, compact cases can be a real pain to work on as there is never enough room. this sounds like a non issue but if you have pets in the house you may find you need to clean the fans out quite often as they can very quickly become clogged with animal hair. small cases can also have airflow problems as there isn't enough room inside to get everything in aswell as leaving a clear channel for cool air to flow around the case.

the only other issue is the hydro cooler, i had one of the larger ones with a twin rad that ended up damaging my board due to the way it was mounted using the standard clips. i was cleaning out my fans one day and put a little pressure on the pipes to move them out of the way, this snapped the mounting on the board, a part that is often tricky to source and sometimes requires you to buy a whole new motherboard or a different cooler that uses a back plate and through mounts.

thankfully i managed to convince my local PC shop to let me go through their dead systems and managed to find a compatible replacement but for a while there i was looking at a £140 bill for a new board, or £40-50 for a through mounted cooler.

 

[Cody]

The GTX 770 is a power-hungry card, so that PSU may be underpowered - I'd want 650W at least.

 

[Aqualarius]

The GTX 770 is a power-hungry card, so that PSU may be underpowered - I'd want 650W at least.

Apparently the total power for this machine is 503W. When I selected a 650W PSU a message comes up saying it doesn't need that much power. As I'm not very technical would having too much power be a problem?

 

[Zargor]

Apparently the total power for this machine is 503W. When I selected a 650W PSU a message comes up saying it doesn't need that much power. As I'm not very technical would having too much power be a problem?

Consider that the PSU power ratings more often than not are optimistical - they are often given at lower operating temperatures - the PSU looses eficiency when it heats up and will have a lower output so it is always better to have a decent margin. Also, PSUs are often overlooked while in reality they are one of the most important components - they pump the computers blood

The Corsairs as far as I remember are nothing special, good mid-range stuff. I myself swear by Enermax but that's personal bias (one of those lasted me 8 years...)

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

That would be a v nice system. The 550w psu will be OK imo in that machine, but that being said, for the price difference giving yourself more headroom by going slightly better is never a bad thing (there is no downside for having headroom with a more powerful psu).

This is subjective and I know some may disagree, but if it was me, If it is primarily a gaming system you are building I would save some cash and get an i5 myself rather than an I7.

with that cooler you will be able to overclock your processor nicely.

money saved on an i5 over an I7 could go towards you getting a GTX780 over a 770, which imo will give you a much better boost in games rather than having an i7 imo.

in theory in the future the I7 may offer an advantage in gaming, as it supports hyperthreading, but, people have been saying this for years and TBH my I5 - which is a lot slower than a modern i5 - has not been a bottleneck in gaming for me yet.

 

[Cody]

As I'm not very technical would having too much power be a problem?

No, no problem - and what Mike says about the i7/i5 is sensible advice.

 

[Philip Coutts]

I have a very similar set up except I have a Zalman case and I'm running an i5 processor. It's all mighty fast for gaming and for me at least the i7 wasn't worth the extra cash because I was really only wanting a gaming machine.

 

[spacemonkey]

You be surprised nowadays about how low a PSU you need to run a single card nowadays, also very important to pay for a good brand.

There is an actual website you can type in your pc spec and it will recommend the watt for the card.

If you get a Geforce 780 then I would go 650 watt to be on the safe side.