I guess it is the right time for me to write a quick review about my new gaming desktop, before it gets too late and all my computer hardware become outdated. Yes, they'll be outdated as soon as Intel Ivy Bridge processors and Nvidia Kepler 600 Series GPU are released. You'd want to ask me why I don't wait for them, my answer is that I cannot wait any longer for them, it will be another 3 to 4 months till the official release of the new hardware by Intel and Nvidia. Anyway, I'm satisfied with my gaming rig which was just customized and assembled by StratOS Enterprise last week.
Altogether, my gaming setup costs me around RM4000 including the rig, monitor, speakers, keyboard, mouse and DVI cable. I'm using a small LCD monitor which supports up to 1366x768 resolution, but its a good thing cause my rig is too overkill for such a small resolution. I can get up to 60 - 100 FPS in all latest games with maximum ultra settings. For example, in Battlefield 3, with ultra settings and 4X MSAA and HBAO, I can easily get 60 - 70 fps constantly.
Here are the specifications of my rig:
Intel Core i5-2500K CPU @3.30GHz (Quad Core 4 CPUs) | Asus P8H61-MLX | Corsair 2X4GB RAM | SEAGATE 1TB HDD | LEADTEK WINFAST GTX560Ti 1GB GDDR5 | LG 24X DVD Writer | Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Casing | Cooler Master PSU GX650W BRONZE EDITION | ASUS PCE-N10 PCI-E Adapter Wireless N | Acer 18.5" X193HQ LCD Monitor 1366x768 | SONY SRS-D5 2.1ch Speakers Multimedia Speakers
Intel Core i5-2500K processor. My rig is somehow imbalanced due to the fact that it can be overclocked, and yet it is "unoverclockable". My processor and GPU can be overclocked but too bad, my Asus P8H61-MLX motherboard cannot be overclocked. Anyway, it is a pretty decent processor and it's actually recommended as this processor comes with 4 cores with a speed of 3.30GHz. In short, it is a quad core CPU. :)
This is my Asus P8H61-MLX motherboard, it is the new H61 B3 Revision, which I don't have any idea what it means. All I know is that before I built this desktop, I always wanted to support some Asus products.
However, this motherboard cannot be overclocked, so my processor is a waste. I don't really mind actually as I have never overclocked my laptops and computers before. I prefer to run at stock speeds in order to maintain the life span.
As you can see in the picture above, I bought 8GB of RAM or to be precise, its a Corsair 2X4GB RAM. Well, RAM doesn't help much in gaming, but I can see the difference between having a 4GB and a 8GB RAM. With a 4GB RAM, it takes much longer for games to load. On the other hand, 8GB RAM helps to load games at around 10 - 20 seconds only. What about getting an SSD? SSD is godlike. And its price is getting cheaper nowadays, unlike HDD which the prices are so expensive like fuck! But, I still prefer HDD because I don't really need the ultimate speed of a SSD, and I require large disk spaces for me to install games and stuffs.
LEADTEK WINFAST GTX560Ti 1GB GDDR5. My graphic card. Its basically a mid end graphics card in the desktop industry. But if we are to compare it to a laptop mobile GPU, it is equivalent to a Nvidia Geforce GTX580M mobile GPU, but GTX560Ti has a higher clock speeds. This GPU is not bad, honestly speaking. I'm playing all my games at maximum settings now, and I can see all the eye-candy like I always wanted!
It supports DirectX 11 games very well, for examples, Batman Arkham City, Battlefield 3 and Skyrim. I can max out all these three games and I'm able to achieve more than 50 FPS indoor and outdoor. Its a recommended card for most of the new games now, no matter if you're playing in 720p or Full HD 1080p.
Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced casing. The very first time I looked at this casing, I fell in love with it immediately. But why?! Its a beast! Look at its aggressive design bro. This casing has a stylish interior black coating and it has a superior cooling performance that supports up to two 200 mm and two 120 mm fans. It has a customized neat cable management, unlike the Elite 430 casing. But its kind of expensive. :/
The above picture shows you how tall the casing is. Its even taller than my monitor. I love the brilliant red LED on the cooling fan. It looks pretty cool and amazing. My speaker is a Sony SRS-D5 2.1 Channel multimedia speaker system. But I find out that I don't have enough space so I just put both the speakers on top of the woofer. Not a very good arrangement, so yeah.
Cooler Master PSU GX650W BRONZE EDITION. Cooler Master PSU, especially the Extreme series and the GX series are not recommended because they can spoil easily, based on lots of reviews. But don't worry, mine is a revised version of the GX650W PSU, which is the Bronze version with Blue LED lighting. Somemore it comes with a 5 years warranty :O.
Seriously, inside all the boxes, there are lots of unused cables and components like what you can see in the picture above. I can't throw them away as I'm not sure if I'll be using them back in the near future. The black thing above feels like a toy. I can use it as a gun or something. It looks very portable and cool.
This is my Asus PCE-N10 PCI-E Adapter Wireless-N Card, and I need it to connect to the wireless internet. The LAN cable is not in my room, so I need this. The wireless adapter is an optional hardware for those who want to build their gaming rig, but its a must for me to have it.
The DVI Cable which costs me around RM40. Before this, I was using the blue VGA cable. And there was a minor problem with it. When I connect my VGA cable from my monitor to my rig with a DVI adapter, everything works fine. However, when I start a game, I can see lots of white lines scrolling up and down and they become very obvious in games with dark environments. Luckily I bought the RM40 cable, and now the problem is fixed!
