Hardware Buyers Guide: Late September 2012

This section may surprise you a bit. I'm not going to click on all the most expensive things, I'm giving a realistic option here.
If you want to spend a fair bit more than the Mid-range system, this is what you could get that is an improvement.


Now this is a serious gaming system.

Again I don't recommend the upgrade to the i7 over the i5 unless you need the threads. For gaming the i5 will perform equally as well. If you want a multi threaded system for other work I would suggest a Sandybridge-E system for a hundred or so pounds more.

What we have gained is an Nvidia GTX 680 powerhouse GPU. Even at 2560x1440 this can play any game at high settings with no FPS drop. Prefect for upcoming titles.

We also now have an all in one watercooler for the CPU. Expect some serious increases on your clockspeed!

I've kept at 8GB RAM as there isn't really need for more, if you wanted 16GB it would only be £32 more.

Your motherboard is now multi GPU ready, so come 2 years time you might want to consider picking up a second hand 680 rather than getting a new card yourself.

Now you can play blu-rays, which is a nice addition for a PC of this spec.

Finally, you now have a whopping 240GB SSD. Look to install windows and all your favorite games on this for a huge decrease in load times.

As I'm sure you are all aware, you could build a much more extravagant PC than this, but if we are honest there is no need from a gaming point of view! I try to keep these recommendations to reasonable items people would actually consider, not just look at and drool over.


That's all for this time, but I'll be back with an update in 2 weeks time. Lets see whats changed!