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So i'm building a gaming PC and i'd appreciate it if those of you more knowledgeable than I could rate the spec I've put together Any advice and recommendations would be greatly appreciated too, cheers.

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge)
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CP-404-IN&tool=3 a few pounds cheaper and free delivery http://www.ebuyer.com/349029-intel-core-i5-3570k-3-4ghz-socket-1155-6mb-cache-retail-boxed-processor-bx80637i53570k

Sapphire HD 6950 OC "Dual Fan Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=GX-299-SP XFX version and £165http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-xfx-hd-6950-dd-cooled-pcie-21-(x16)-5200mhz-gddr5-gpu-830mhz-1408-cores-eyefinity-hdmi-2x-mini-d or consider the 7850 which is more powerful http://www.ebuyer.com/385789-msi-hd-r7850-twin-frozr-oc-edition-2gb-gddr5-dvi-hdmi-dual-r7850-twinf-2gd5-oc

Gigabyte Z77-DS3H Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-401-GI good

Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HD-257-SE good

Corsair Vengeance Blue Low Profile 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-336-CS cheaper http://www.ebuyer.com/274036-corsair-8gb-ddr3-1600mhz-vengeance-blue-memory-cml8gx3m2a1600c9b

Zalman Z9 Plus Tower Case with Fan Controller
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-037-ZAgood

Gelid Tranquillo CPU Cooler
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=HS-001-GDcheaper http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cooling/cpucoolers/Gelid/4897025780187.html#utm_source=google&utm_medium=base&utm_campaign=products

Sony DDU1681S-0B 18x DVD-ROM http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CD-000-SLgood

this all comes in somewhere under the £700 mark.

Hope that helps

Thanks alot I'm assuming all of these parts are compatible with each other? knowing me i'd buy parts that aren't...

I was looking at the 7850 however apparently the 6950 can be overclocked to the standard of the 6970. The benchmarks seemed slightly in favour of the 6970 for most games http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/509?vs=549 so that was the basis of my thinking

I'm looking to buy a new laptop for university next year, if anyone knows of any good deals I'd really appreciate it if you'd let me know

It'll be used for general uni work, maybe some specialist math-related software, light video and photo editing, and running the occasional game or two.

Budget is £600-800. A good processor and decent graphics card is a must; ivy i7, a 900p or 1080p screen and an SSD would be ideal, but obviously I can't get it all (or any) at that sort of price.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

Quad core i7 or dual core i7?
What screen size do you want?

i7's are always quad cores, you on about i5

The mobile i7s aren't always quad core, some are dual core
I think they all have hyper-threading though.

Quad core i7 or dual core i7?
What screen size do you want?

Well you see the cd is well out of date..........you have to go to gigabyte's website, look up your specific your motherboard and download all the updates and the bios.
Then use the internet to update the graphics card driver as well. And look for the new software of the wireless card...........remember to get the compatible version for your OS.

Yes it is, 32bit recognised only 4gb, you need 64bit to get full use of the 8gb

Not necessarily, it all depends on what you do, sometimes it can hold back performance, but quite a lot of games aren't that depending.

yo, i've been reading about updating the bios and i came across this:

http://uk.gigabyte.com/webpage/20/HowToReflashBIOS.html

The first lines say:

The whole BIOS updating procedure should be treated with extreme caution. If you do not encounter any system instability or bugs with the current BIOS version, we suggest that you keep it.

So basically i can keep the current bios? I really don't wanna mess my system up and even if i do update the bios, it will be small, noticeable features anyway...

There talking about flashing it when updating it....................i'm talking about a different version.
My motherboard has a software from the cd, which lets me monitor and overclock it while i'm in Windows, it also has a option where it updates the software from the internet. The software i update is the official one from them.

http://uk.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4122&dl=1#ov

so where do i go from here?

I honestly don't wanna mess things up if everything is fine as it is.

All I need left to get for my build is a GPU, and I have about £200 to put towards it. Which would be the best for me to get?

I've been reading that AMD is slightly better around this pricemark so I was looking at the MSI HD 7850 2GB but was wondering if there was any other ones that were better, just before I buy this one.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: I've just come across this article - http://www.anandtech.com/show/6093/amd-radeon-hd-7970-7950-7870-price-cuts-inbound-7970ge-available-next-week

Saying that the AMD 7xxx series is due a decent pricecut in the US. Would this translate to EU stores and if so, would it be worth looking at a high specced one due to my budget?

7850 HD is the best under £200, the other could possibly be the 6950 which sells for around £165 on scan I recall.
Don't think the 7870 would fall that much.

Thanks :}

Might just wait a few weeks I think though, on that article it's expected that the 7950 is to fall to $349, which is roughly £225 so much just see if it comes roughly to that and then spend the little bit more for the extra performance

Thanks :}

Might just wait a few weeks I think though, on that article it's expected that the 7950 is to fall to $349, which is roughly £225 so much just see if it comes roughly to that and then spend the little bit more for the extra performance

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£173.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£73.99 @ Dabs) motherboard will get quite hot, with a lack of heatsinks
Memory: Kingston HyperX Grey 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£38.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F1 DT 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£31.50 @ Ebuyer) cant find it on the website, believes its gone
Hard Drive: OCZ Octane 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£57.99 @ Dabs) people will say to avoid ocz
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card (£83.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk) good for price, but will struggle on max settings on hd for the latest games
Case: Zalman Z11 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.98 @ Scan.co.uk) good
Power Supply: Corsair 600W ATX12V Power Supply (£52.36 @ Ebuyer) good
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer (£12.88 @ CCL Computers) good
Total: £572.79
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)

Think I've finally found the perfect spec for my budget, although if I do a bit of hunting around I might be able to get a few better prices or offers.

Though I'm not sure about the ssd as I might ditch it and spend the money on a better GPU and wait for maybe christmas and then I can buy a bigger ssd?