Help me with a mid-high end computer build

[dan0543]

Hi guys, I'm looking into building a PC for gaming and the odd bit of college work. I am in the fortunate position of having enough money to justify spending £600-800 on a PC. I'm posting this from my family's pc, which is good but riddled with malware from my brother's football streams and my dad keeps on deleting things at random, just because on the programs list it says that it is rarely used. I would like a computer of my own to use for college work and the occasional gaming session, which would last me for a good while.
I already have a screen with a spare computer display port, and a keyboard and mouse. I do have a simple PC, but it has aged and is really slow. it wasn't mine at first either, it needs a good cleanup or a complete wipe and windows xp professional taken off.
A good friend of mine has built a few gaming pc's before and has completed a college course in it, and he's willing to help me build it.
I've weighed up a few options, and the most likely is a list of parts that I pulled from overclockers UK. What I need to know is whether the parts are compatible, or whether I could increase or decrease the power for a low price or whether there are any bottlenecks.
Here are the parts:

Zalaman z11 case
xigmatec tauro 500w 80 + bronze psu
intel i5 2500k 3.3 GHz
teamgroup elite 8gb ddr3 ram, 1600MHz, PC12800
Asus p8b75-m lx motherboard
nvidea gtx660 2gb
500gb hard drive
5.1 channel sound card
24x dvd/cd re-writer
10/100/1000 MB/s network card intel gigabit pro
2x crystal blue 80mm fan xigmatec
windows 7 home premium 64 bit

Some of the sales on these parts are ending today, so any help would be appreciated, thanks.👍

 

[tuga703]

I would suggest this RAM instead as it has CL9 timings rather than CL11: Kingston HyperX 2x4gb
Also, I don't think the network card would be needed as onboard ethernet does the job well for most things

 

[dan0543]

Thanks very much, was expecting a serious telling off for not knowing what i'm doing

 

[djinline]

That looks alright, with tuga703's suggestions. 80mm fans are included with the case, but I guess you're going to replace them to LED fans(?).

 

[dan0543]

I used a website which let me customise and interchange parts, and 2x blue led fans were one option with that case. To be honest i haven't done a lot of research, and they're just for show really. I'm not using that website to order it because of the cost and the limited selection, but i just kept them on the list when I decided to use overclockers instead. I may as well get rid of them

 

[tuga703]

Is this the case you are getting? : Zalman Z11 Plus
If it is, it already comes with 4 fans and has room for 2 more 120/140mm so the 80mm ones might not work

 

[djinline]

Do some price comparison between Aria, Amazon.co.uk, Novatech, Tekheads etc. Always check for any deals and discounts, you could get even better parts for similar price.

 

[RX-7_FD3S]

I would suggest you getting a GTX660 Ti but that's probably what you ment. Also I'm not sure you need another sound card, the motherboard card already come with a 7.1 integrated audio card.

Lastly I would get something bigger than 500 gb as a hard drive, if it's not a SSD, 2 tera is good.

 

[II-zOoLoGy-II]

7.1 for movies not games.

 

[RX-7_FD3S]

7.1 for movies not games.

?? I dont get it, you can set your 7.1 so it output 5.1. Or is there something I'm missing ?

 

[djinline]

I managed to stay under £800. This setup is from Aria, what do you think?

 

[dan0543]

Looks really great djinline, for the price it's about as good as I can find it. I take it that they don't assemble it, but is it all compatible? With this sort of money i could do with being absolutely sure. Thanks very much for the help👍

 

[II-zOoLoGy-II]

?? I dont get it, you can set your 7.1 so it output 5.1. Or is there something I'm missing ?

You have to have encoding for DD 5.1/7.1, the onboard realtek chip does not supply that for games.

A lot of people don't know that, I didn't when I bought my first board- I'm not an audiophile, so I try to make sure people know what they're getting with the board.

 

[djinline]

Looks really great djinline, for the price it's about as good as I can find it. I take it that they don't assemble it, but is it all compatible? With this sort of money i could do with being absolutely sure. Thanks very much for the help👍

Yes, everything will work together just fine. No problem, mate. If you want a 2TB HDD, you'll go £5 over the budget, but you'll get double the storage space. I strongly suggest this.

EDIT: Or keep the 1TB and get yourself a 5.1 soundcard. Your choice.

 

[Ibonibo]

You have to have encoding for DD 5.1/7.1, the onboard realtek chip does not supply that for games.

A lot of people don't know that, I didn't when I bought my first board- I'm not an audiophile, so I try to make sure people know what they're getting with the board.

Thanks nice to know, I always wondered why I didn't get 7.1 in PC games while movies or PS3 worked, now I know.
Like most of the time: onboard is

Get HDD, more space is always nice, there's so much porn out there

 

[Pako]

Personally, I would dump the sound card and just use the onboard audio for now. Get a SSD for your OS and larger drive (1 or 2TB) for storage.

Other than that, looks good!

Note: It used to be that onboard audio meant a performance hit while gaming where a sound card would alleviate system strain and produce better frame rates. While that was true with our P4's and even our CoreDuo's, these new systems have more than enough processing power that an outboard audio card would make immeasurable differences to performance. In my estimation, the only reason for an outboard audio card is for audiophile quality output or desired decoding support not offered by the onboard audio. I will say that if your response is "audiophile", I would challenge if you have the right speakers that are also audiophile grade to really hear the difference. I would also challenge that better headphones/speakers and supporting amps would produce better audiophile results than just an outboard soundcard compared to the onboard audio.

 

[djinline]

Ah well yes a discrete soundcard is not vital, I can surely agree with that, but if you want to hook up a multispeaker surround sound system to you PC, you'll need it because the GA-B75M-D3H only has line-in, line-out and mic input. Right?

SSD is very useful, if you really can't get it now due to your budget, get it later but it would be better to get it right away so you could install the OS in it. 👍