Before buying PC please ask our advice first!

Right had a look for you and this is what I would build with your budget:

http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/dKNn

Plus this PSU which it didn't have for some reason: http://www.scan.co.uk/products/750w-ocz-ocz750fty-uk-fatal1ty-series-85-eff-80plus-135mm-fan-psu


CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-GD55 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB LP (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Corsair Force Series GT 90GB 2.5" Solid State Disk
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card
Case: Cooler Master HAF X ATX Full Tower Case
Optical Drive: HP 1270i DVD/CD Writer
Monitor: Asus VH236H 23.0" Monitor
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)
Keyboard: Logitech K800 Wireless Slim Keyboard
Total: £1150.39

I changed the processor for the reasons I listed above - the 3770k sounds best for you.

Motherboard - I have that exact one and it's rock solid stable (even with a huge OC) and plenty of features, I can't recommend it highly enough.

CPU cooler - Be warned, that thing is HUGEEEEE. I love it though, by far the best cooler out there. Also allows a really nice overclock without raising temperatures much. I know you said you don't know much about overclocking but it's really easy to read up and and slowly ease yourself in to - with a decent cooler on an IB i7 chip you can get 25-35% performance boots by overclocking, so it's definitely worth looking in to (but as always BE VERY CAREFUL IF YOU DO IT AND START VERY VERY SLOWLY).

16GB memory should be enough even for rendering. Make sure you get the LP (low profile) stuff since it means it won't get in the way of the CPU cooler. I have the vengeance sticks and they're good, stable sticks.

I added a 90GB SSD purely as a boot drive. Honestly the difference it makes is immense. If you were going to install any programs on the boot drive then maybe you'd want to look in to a bigger one (W7 installation will use about 16GB) but 90GB is probably adequate. Could maybe even get away with 60, that's what I used to run.

The main HDD I upgraded to a 2TB since it's ~£10 more for double the capacity - trust me the day will come when you get over 1TB and you'll be thankful but if you really think you'll use less then go for a 1TB/1.5TB drive. All your programs would be stored on there, with Windows and anything you want booting quickly (e.g. I have Photoshop and Vegas Pro) on the SSD.

The graphics card is probably one of the best out there right now. It's pricey, but it's damn good. It's an underclocked GTX680 (so it's basically the same card, they just scale the speed back a bit and lower the price) and can easily outperform it. The only reason I added the pre-overclocked version was because for some reason it's £15 cheaper on Scan. If you see a non overclocked one cheaper elsewhere go for that. Ideally look for EVGA or MSI cards, they're usually the best. EVGA have some excellent returns policies and customer service.

Case: Very good case for airflow, although with the size of the gfx card and cpu cooler you have to remove the side cooling duct (just gets in the way anyway in my opinion). It's a big case though. Really big. Check the measurements if you decided to go for it and make sure it'll fit where you want it.

Optical drive: I just put one in since I don't really see a need for 2 but if you think you'll use it regularly enough then add another one. It's only £13.

Monitor: I don't really know about this monitor but it's the one you added so I left it in. If you wanted to spend more to make sure you got "the best" so to speak then look at an IPS panel monitor. They're usually £200+ though for a 23 inch.

I left the OS and keyboard the same too.

Comes in at ~£1150 for everything. Obviously it is best to use as few suppliers as possible to reduce hassle with returns etc and also shipping costs. I recommend looking at Scan (http://www.scan.co.uk) as they're usually amongst the best priced. They also have a great "Daily Deals" section, well worth a look! Check it on the day you decide to buy and whatever it is you buy, they might well have an offer on it. Sometimes it's only £2-3 and sometimes it's ~£20, every little helps! Obviously look on other websites too for costs there, that price is just a rough guide but those are the parts I'd pick and it should cost around that.

Oh and it runs WoW on ultra at all times on dual screen with ease - I do it and have a very similar rig

EDIT: Forgot to add PSU price in, so ~£1225 for it all.

Wow, thank you so much - this is just the sort of help I was desperately needing!!

I'll go through everything, check some suppliers out and get back to you

Wow, thank you so much - this is just the sort of help I was desperately needing!!

I'll go through everything, check some suppliers out and get back to you

I've been recommended the Samsung Syncmaster RZ 22", one of the few true 120Hz monitors and goes for a very reasonable price. Steelseries FTW.

I forgot to thank you for the info

I spent all day today on Overclockers on the mech keyboard thread!

Right now I'm leaning towards the Qpad MK-50, about 65 quid.
Cherry red switches.

Have you ever used the cherry reds? The only thing that put me off the steelseries was the negative attitude towards the cherry blacks

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B007KTY4A6/ref=asc_df_B007KTY4A69050216?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&tag=googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B007KTY4A6

Get that motherboard instead it's cheaper than that, but also much more highly rated in reviews for it's performance.

Look at Samsung f3 harddrives as well much better reliability.

also have a look at other SSD's like these which have more space but also reliable http://www.ebuyer.com/268693-corsair-120gb-force-3-ssd-cssd-f120gb3-bk

http://www.ebuyer.com/341349-kingston-120gb-v-200-ssd-svp200s3-120g

http://www.ebuyer.com/266526-crucial-128gb-m4-ssd-ct128m4ssd2

http://www.ebuyer.com/318420-samsung-128gb-830-series-ssd-kit-mz-7pc128n-eu this one is particular good


Also that specific gtx 670 is a lot of power, heads up and your games will be capped in terms of fps so you won't get anymore out of SC2, plus that's stock cooler which I don'tl ike.

I've never used a mechanical KB, but from reading I can see that Cherry Red switches require less force to actuate than Cherry Blacks.

Your best bet is to try both types of keys; I don't know how you'll manage that though as I don't know of any brick-and-mortar stores that sell these keyboards.

Honestly I would never, ever go for an ASROCK board. They're a spin off of ASUS and whilst ASUS are decent, ASROCK are crap. The capacitors are sub-standard, RMA's are common and the returns process is horrific, not to mention the non-existent customer service.

I'm sure many people have fine experiences with ASROCK boards but I've had 3 now, 2 have completely failed within 4 months (capacitor failures) and the other failed after 2 years (not sure why, but I'd still expect it to last longer than 2 years).

The Corsairs really have very few issues with reliability. Like the Vertex OCZ drivers, the older versions had stability issues due to chipset drivers, but the new chipsets and drivers solve those issues. If the Samsung is cheaper then I'd go for it, it's a cracking drive, but it wasn't when I looked. Might be in some places though.

The Crucial M4's are excellent and highly recommended, think they're a bit more expensive though. The Kingston drives (or Sandisk) are just **** from my experience, I wouldn't take them.

Like I said with the 670, I only included the OC'd version because it's ~£15 cheaper than a stock clocked version. I'd go for one with a stock clock over it at standard prices. Also stock coolers are fine, there are no reasons to add an aftermarket cooler to a GPU for the vast vast majority of users......

As for game caps, things like SC2 aren't capped at all unless you turn on Vsync. They're not like console games with a 60FPS limit. Obviously you don't see any difference above 60FPS, but there is no cap.

The OCZ definitely have issues, they are a few quid more but you get 38gb worth of storage more which is a very good deal.

I'm speaking in terms of temps wise, the after manufacturer who add on there own coolers are so much better, especially if the user is going to use it to render over long period of times, temps become important.

I'm pretty sure you are capped in many cases, especially due to the screen and internal cap limits in some cases.
Hence the 670 is overkill in terms of SC2.

LA Noire

You said you don't have the time to build yourself - I built mine and within 3 hours of the parts arriving I had it built and my OS was installing.

Also I know you want it on finance, have you looked at Scan.co.uk finance plans?
Interest free for 9 or 12 months, plus you can buy all the individual parts and save yourself a small fortune.

You could probably knock a minimum of £250, maybe up to £350 off your build price buy just buying the parts from them and building. It's really not hard, you still get your interest free finance and save a small fortune. Assuming it takes 3 hours to build, you're essentially saving over £100 per hour of work.... That's a bloody good hourly rate.

that sounds a bit funny to me




http://www.ebuyer.com/260589-samsung-syncmaster-s20a300n-lcd-led-20-ls20a300ns-en it's £67 from ebuyer.

So 2 of those with mouse and keyboard is £149, so £351.




how much you looking to spend?

I have the Vertex 4 in my new rig and no issues at all so far, it's fantastic. Most review sites agree too - the days of old with crap chipsets are over, the new SandForce controllers are pretty damn good.

I get what you mean about the GPU cooler, thought you meant adding an aftermarket cooler. I have the stock cooler on my EVGA 670 and I've stress tested over 48 hours (CPU, RAM and GPU testing) with no issues at all, temps don't even exceed 65C at full usage. I know non-stock coolers are generally better but I haven't seen any issues with this one. The power draw is pretty high though, but obviously that's just the card.

For something like SC2 then yes of course the 670 is overkill, it's a card built to demolish any game around today and for the near future. If all it was needed for was basic gaming I wouldn't recommend it at all, but since there'll be a lot of rendering, it seems a good choice. Plus the poster said they wanted to buy now and not need to upgrade for a while - a 670 will last 4/5 years before being outdated.
Very few games are capped, only (poor) console ports. From Dust springs to mind.... what an awful game.

Thanks just made as similar build as possible on scan.co.uk and it came to £1430. The psu is upgraded for about £25, case seems overkill because there's so many to chose from and it's the most expensive one on pcspecialist.

aaannnd cooler is this >>> Corsair H80 Hydro Series High Performance CPU cooler for £75.36, no idea whether I need it or not I just sorted by most popular and chose one that looked decent.

Prices seem better if slightly but choice is way too much for me and it's 9 months finance not 12 which is kind of annoying but ok still. not £250-350 off build though.

What parts would you recommend for the things I listed? And what about the extras like fans and power supply?

Is this PC worth it? O_o not really a tech expert so need some advice.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B004LFCIA0/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&s=computers&psc=1

The Syncmaster doesn't look bad

I'm hoping to get a Steelseries 6GV2 to use with a laptop, I've never had a mechanical keyboard though so I don't know what they 'feel' like when typing.

I've never used a mechanical KB, but from reading I can see that Cherry Red switches require less force to actuate than Cherry Blacks.

Your best bet is to try both types of keys; I don't know how you'll manage that though as I don't know of any brick-and-mortar stores that sell these keyboards.