What components should I get?

[Gyldenglad]

Even though you say that it is much more than he really "needs" I still don't get why you would even recommend outdated software when he can make a fine PC that only goes a little over his budget.

I wouldn't slack on quality when it comes to making a PC, even if I have to go over budget.

Eh.. And Corsair Vengeance may be slower on the "specifications" but you can ask any computer expert and they will say it's much better than the rubbish you recommended theres more to it than just the mhz.

[Wooderson]

My original budget was around £600. To build the Intel with the parts you recommended would cost me over £900. So it wasn't just a little over my budget.

I always had the feeling that I'd end up going with AMD because it's so much cheaper than Intel. Clearly you like to play the top spec games like Skyrim on PC and record them at max settings, and it seems you've recommended parts that can handle that sort of thing when it's not what I "want"/"need" or even afford.

£600 is a hell of a lot of money to me. So £900 is hard for me to even take serious in terms of spending.

[Gyldenglad]

With an intel of the specs that I recommended is only £722, not 900.. When a PC that I recommended you can *easily* upgrade as you go or add things if you like, as there are no real bottleneck. If you go with the other system which is cheaper, you have a bottleneck right from the start and you will have to upgrade the whole shit again if you ever see that you wan't to play something a little more demanding (which eventually will become more expensive.. no shit).

AMD is hardly compatible with any mobo or PSU upgrades going along the way, which is why any modders stay heck away from AMD. But rly that is your choice, maybe in 3 years you can go see which became the most expensive

Also.. In 2 years, when this new game comes, which even though you say you don't want to play right now.. (sigh), all you know will play this, but you can't because you don't have another 600 bucks to use on a new machine, but you can stay and play runescape because thats the real deal. Or you could go with intel and maybe use 100 bucks to freshen it up..

I make computers as a living and as a hobby, I use maybe ~ £300 a month upgrading and testing out new equipment. I even have a PC with combined components cost of ~£4000 pounds. I didn't *really* convince you to go that high, but I know what range you must go to what is least acceptable for anyone who want to buy a new PC.

[Wooderson]

It was £722 just for the parts that you recommended... Including everything else like the monitor, keyboard, software and stuff like that it added up to over £900.

I doubt I will ever want to overclock or upgrade my computer in the future as i'm fairly happy with anything which is good for what I want to do at this moment in time.

I don't plan on ever playing on games such as COD, BF, Skyrim and possible future big games. That's what I have my PS3 for.

I appreciate that you're trying to encourage me to future proof the PC but the truth is, i'm not a massive PC gamer... I've been more of a console gamer, and the reason why I want a fairly decent PC for gaming is because I only have the basic laptop which is unable to play Amnesia, Penumbra and struggles to even play RuneScape.

[GraphicsKid]

You cannot "future-proof" a PC. Everything goes out of date within a couple of months... EVERYTHING. My rule of thumb is NEVER NEVER EVER get the "lastest and greatest" when buying computer parts. At the very most, buy one-under. When the nvidia 500 series came out, the price of the 400 series cards dropped like a stone. My 460 has gotten me by just fine. I play Amnesia maxed out, Crysis maxed out, pretty much every game out there maxed out that isn't deliberately a game made so that you CAN'T max it out at launch (like Crysis was when it first came out).

[Your Computer]

Even though you say that it is much more than he really "needs" I still don't get why you would even recommend outdated software when he can make a fine PC that only goes a little over his budget.

I wouldn't slack on quality when it comes to making a PC, even if I have to go over budget.

Eh.. And Corsair Vengeance may be slower on the "specifications" but you can ask any computer expert and they will say it's much better than the rubbish you recommended theres more to it than just the mhz.

You shouldn't take things personally, i was merely recognizing his budget and standards for hardware; pretend i say things with a calm voice.

I used to own similar parts to what i recommended for him, therefore i can guarantee that he would be capable of recording at 60 FPS at 720p using FRAPS because that's what my old system was capable of. In his case, i recommended a GPU and CPU that is better than the one i have, so that assures me more of what the system is capable of.

I didn't recommend him outdated software, and all the hardware i recommended is not entirely old. For the ones that have been there for a while, age does not necessarily make it rubbish. I don't base my decisions on experts, i base my decisions on user reviews. An expert doesn't give me insight on how long a product will last. An expert tends to skip out on common issues that users may have with the system. Take for example, there were a lot of recommendations for the Crosshair V 990FX mobo, but user reviews were showing me that i would have had a 50% chance of receiving either a DOA or faulty mobo.

Yeah, there is a lot more to memory performance than merely what the RAM is advertised at. Given the specifications, however, i can at least be assured that the RAM can handle the stress i plan for the memory with little to no increases in voltages across board. I also realize the memory controller of the CPU plays a big role in this too, but G.SKILL is not worse or lesser than Corsair when it comes to memory. G.SKILL is a very popular RAM manufacturer; bad RAM companies would not be popular.

With an intel of the specs that I recommended is only £722, not 900.. When a PC that I recommended you can *easily* upgrade as you go or add things if you like, as there are no real bottleneck. If you go with the other system which is cheaper, you have a bottleneck right from the start and you will have to upgrade the whole shit again if you ever see that you wan't to play something a little more demanding (which eventually will become more expensive.. no shit).

AMD is hardly compatible with any mobo or PSU upgrades going along the way, which is why any modders stay heck away from AMD.

AMD processors have been capable of being backwards compatible and, in other cases, forward compatible with motherboards. Sure, this kind of design may limit performance in certain areas, but i don't see how this prevents easy or simple upgrades. I don't know much about Intel in terms of compatibility, but i'm sure whether it deals with Intel or AMD the upgrade process is about the same. Just recently i replaced my motherboard from a 770X AM3 motherboard to a 990FX AM3+ motherboard, and i didn't have to buy a new CPU, RAM, GPU or PSU; everything worked, everything was compatible out of the box.

Bottlenecks will always be present on any system. The amount present is the issue, not whether or not a bottleneck exists. Yeah, Intel systems perform better, but that doesn't mean it is incapable of having bottlenecks.

[Wooderson]

What is a "bottleneck" exactly?

[Your Computer]

What is a "bottleneck" exactly?

Pretend the liquid in a bottle is the data being communicated between components. There's a lot of liquid (data), but you can't bring it out of the bottle (component) all at once because of the bottleneck (ability to deal with or handle the data), and so it takes a while to fully empty the bottle. In other words, there is something inherent of the hardware or software slowing down communication. This is one of the reasons for overclocking, to help widen the bottleneck, however slight it may be.

[Wooderson]

I'm not too demanding when it comes to the speed of browsing and stuff....

It will be an upgrade from what I use at the moment, and I'm fairly happy with the speed at which this laptop runs at.