Ready for a new PC

[Harrison]

Great selection of components.

At the moment the i5 750 is the best CPU to buy for price to performance, and the HD5770 is a very good graphics card, which isn't that far behind the higher end HD5870, but a lot cheaper.

Samsung HDDs are also very good. I've been running some 1TB F1 drives for some time now and they perform fast and are very quiet.

A 700W PSU is definitely needed also. With that Graphics card you are going to be using it will draw quite a lot of power, plus multiple HDDs put a lot of strain on a PSU, and the CPU will need a fair bit too. I would say a 700W PSU is the minimum to go for. I don't know the Cougar make my self, but as long as it is a well known make of PSU that will be fine. It is good to pay more for a good make PSU as it is one of the key parts of the system.

Only things I would pick differently would be the case, CPU cooler and memory.

For the CPU cooler my personal favourite is the "Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro rev 2". I've got these in 3 of my systems for some time now and they are a great cooler at a very good price. They are very quiet and do a very good job of reducing temps. The problem I've heard with the Scythe is it can be very noisy when running fast.

As an example of how good the Freezer 7 Pro is. My main PC's Intel Quad core CPU idles at under 20 deg C, and never goes over 30 Deg C under load. And even the oldest system I have with one of these coolers, running an Athlon 64, saw a 10 deg C drop when I added this cooler instead of the stock one.

For memory, what you have picked is good, but I would personally pick Corsair DDR3 1333MHz XMS3 ram. And they do a 4GB kit (2x 2GB) for less than the one you quoted. This is because I've been using their XMS range ram in lots of systems for the past few years and it is very good. And if you wanted the best performing ram their XMS3 DHX with special heatsinks is very good.

Finally the case. This is always personal choice as everyone likes something different. The P183 is a very nice case, and is one of my favourites. I love the dual chamber design, keeping the PSU at the bottom away from the motherboard and other components to make everything cooler. But I think it is actually too small for current system builds. The main reason is the length of current graphics cards, plus the tower style CPU coolers are quite huge these days.. The P183 case is smaller than my current main system's case, which is a Thermaltake Tsunami, and I struggle to get everything into my case, and it doesn't have enough room to work in. In the video you link to he shows the length of space for a graphics card which is about 11.5 inches and that is the same as my Thermaltake case. And I have to remove the graphics card to get to the SATA sockets on the motherboard and 2 of the HDD drive slots cannot be used because the graphics card power connectors need that space, which is very annoying.

I think if you do buy the P183 you might have to remove and not use the upper HDD cage/draw to give enough room for the graphics card.

They make a larger version called the P193 which is just like the smaller P183, but with more room and a huge quiet side fan. Take a look at the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_yyr8l4K74

Personally at the moment my favourite cases are the Antec 300, 900 and 1200 range. The Antec Nine Hundred Two is a big case with brilliant cooling thanks to a huge top fan and front and rear large fans and it still has the PSU position at the bottom of the case. The only thing you would lose over the P183 would be the dual chamber design.

If you really want the P183 then I would suggest getting some measurements for the graphics card length, and also making sure the PSU you pick is compatible because a lot of PSUs do not have long enough cables for the design to reach the motherboard power sockets. And if the case isn't big enough but you want this design, then the P193 is there with a 15" space for graphics cards and easier access to the motherboard.