Good Gaming Set up?

[salacious]

Hi all,

I have been searching and come up with this gaming rig:

Motherboard:
GIGABYTE GA-Z77MX-D3H INTEL Z77 Socket 1155 DDR3 PCI-EXPRESS Motherboard £101.99 www.aria.co.uk

Intel Core i5-3570k 3.40GHZ (ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77w)
£167.99 www.aria.co.uk

Case:
Coolermaster Storm Enforcer Mid Tower ATX CASE
www.Amazon.co.uk £59.99

PSU:
750W Corsair TX750 V2 80PLUS Bronze Power Supply
£88.14 www.aria.co.uk

OS:
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium With service pack 1, 64 Bit, English, 1 Pack, DSP OEI
£65.38 www.amazon.co.uk

RAM:
2x4gb DDR3 £34.79 www.crucial.com

ESD Reusable wrist strap £2.39 www.crucial.com

Graphics Card:
Asus NVIDIA SLI Geforce GTX 570 DirectCU II Graphics CArd (1.28gb)
£262.20 www.amazon.co.uk

Cooler:
Arctic Cooling Freezer i30 Quiet CPU Cooler
£29.99 www.aria.co.uk

I have a HDD, am i missing anything? i dont know much about building comps..
Do i need a network component to connect to the internet, or does the motherboard have one? if not can someone recommend a wireless one?

 

[miles01110]

The motherboard should have a NIC component. Do you have a monitor/keyboard/mouse?

 

[salacious]

The motherboard should have a NIC component. Do you have a monitor/keyboard/mouse?

I have a keyboard and the rest, i just need a gaming tower, is there a motherboard you could suggest that has NIC? for under £120 possibly?

 

[schimmel]

I have a keyboard and the rest, i just need a gaming tower, is there a motherboard you could suggest that has NIC? for under £120 possibly?

I've not seen a single motherboard without an integrated NIC (=Ethernet port) the last few years. This one has one, and it would be really rare if it didn't.

 

[salacious]

I've not seen a single motherboard without an integrated NIC (=Ethernet port) the last few years. This one has one, and it would be really rare if it didn't.

thanks for the re-assurance, my workmate just pointed out to me that it should most definitly have NIC, is it possible you could tell me how i could achieve a wireless connection setup? sorry but i know nothing about computers..

 

[schimmel]

thanks for the re-assurance, my workmate just pointed out to me that it should most definitly have NIC, is it possible you could tell me how i could achieve a wireless connection setup? sorry but i know nothing about computers..

Well, there are many ways. There are motherboards with integrated WiFi (not too many though), you can use an USB dongle, or you can use a PCI/PCI-Express card to put inside the machine.

The USB option (don't go for something very cheap, use a serious brand, you'll way more have driver/instability problems otherwise) is probably the easiest.

If you are close to the wifi accesspoint you'll be fine with a USB-dongle, otherwise it may be worth considering an internal card, they have better antennas usually. Integrated on the motherboard has the same benefit, but of course there aren't tons of those motherboards. (But they are kind of cool..)

Wifi however isn't really great for gaming. Depends what kind of gaming of course, but I've found it doesn't work that great for FPS, which is really dependent on a rock solid, no-packet-loss connection. For most other game types though, it'll be fine.

 

[salacious]

Well, there are many ways. There are motherboards with integrated WiFi (not too many though), you can use an USB dongle, or you can use a PCI/PCI-Express card to put inside the machine.

The USB option (don't go for something very cheap, use a serious brand, you'll way more have driver/instability problems otherwise) is probably the easiest.

If you are close to the wifi accesspoint you'll be fine with a USB-dongle, otherwise it may be worth considering an internal card, they have better antennas usually. Integrated on the motherboard has the same benefit, but of course there aren't tons of those motherboards. (But they are kind of cool..)

Wifi however isn't really great for gaming. Depends what kind of gaming of course, but I've found it doesn't work that great for FPS, which is really dependent on a rock solid, no-packet-loss connection. For most other game types though, it'll be fine.

You sir are a legend thanks for the advice, I just thought actually that the unit will be 30 cm away from the router.

Can i ask what you think of this motherboard, im thinking of getting this one instead because of the SATA 6 options:
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...DDR3+PCI-Express+Motherboard+?productId=49262

 

[schimmel]

You sir are a legend thanks for the advice, I just thought actually that the unit will be 30 cm away from the router.

Can i ask what you think of this motherboard, im thinking of getting this one instead because of the SATA 6 options:
https://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Com...DDR3+PCI-Express+Motherboard+?productId=49262

Thanks, no problem!

If you're just gonna be 30 cm away from the router, what is the reason for going WiFi? WiFi will always be less ideal than cabled connection, for many reasons.

The advantage WiFi has is obviously its convenience and cable-lessness.. but if you have a stationary machine 30 cm from the router, I'd say it's a no brainer to connect it via cable! Especially for a gaming machine.

The setup in general looks good I think, even though I haven't studied it in detail and I'm not totally updated on the gfx market. I always read on Andandtech.com and Tomshardware.com before choosing a new setup. It's really cosy and very helpful

Regarding the motherboard: If you're not gonna use an SSD, SATA 6Gb/s is meaningless, the HDD is the bottleneck. Even most SSD's will not surpass that limit. Also, the Gigabyte MB does have 2x 6GB/s SATA ports, so if you don't see yourself putting 3 or more SSD's in there (which would be pretty insane) it's really not worth anything extra. It does absolutely no difference for HD's or DVDs/Blu-Rayplayers.

Speaking of! If you don't have one, you may wanna get a £15-20 DVD unit. You won't use it a lot, but when you need it and can't play a game because of it, you'll probably be pretty annoyed with yourself for saving £15 on not putting one in there

 

[salacious]

Thanks, no problem!

If you're just gonna be 30 cm away from the router, what is the reason for going WiFi? WiFi will always be less ideal than cabled connection, for many reasons.

The advantage WiFi has is obviously its convenience and cable-lessness.. but if you have a stationary machine 30 cm from the router, I'd say it's a no brainer to connect it via cable! Especially for a gaming machine.

The setup in general looks good I think, even though I haven't studied it in detail and I'm not totally updated on the gfx market. I always read on Andandtech.com and Tomshardware.com before choosing a new setup. It's really cosy and very helpful

Regarding the motherboard: If you're not gonna use an SSD, SATA 6Gb/s is meaningless, the HDD is the bottleneck. Even most SSD's will not surpass that limit. Also, the Gigabyte MB does have 2x 6GB/s SATA ports, so if you don't see yourself putting 3 or more SSD's in there (which would be pretty insane) it's really not worth anything extra. It does absolutely no difference for HD's or DVDs/Blu-Rayplayers.

Speaking of! If you don't have one, you may wanna get a £15-20 DVD unit. You won't use it a lot, but when you need it and can't play a game because of it, you'll probably be pretty annoyed with yourself for saving £15 on not putting one in there

im actually an IT technician... (no training though) so i can get HDD and SSD from work, i was going to use a 120gb ssd for boot, and a HDD for the obvious, iv decided to go with the asus motherboard, and you are correct theres no need for wifi, looks like il be using this setup, il get everything without the graphics card this month, then purchase the graphics card a month later.. money doesnt grow on trees unfortunatly

but thanks for your help and il look on those websites that you said.

 

[The-Pro]

This is an obvious one I guess but don't forget the cabling you need. SATA cables etc.

 

[miles01110]

This is an obvious one I guess but don't forget the cabling you need. SATA cables etc.

Those types of cables typically come with the case, mobo, power supply, etc.