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Today, even though we are working to a budget of one grand this doesn't mean we need to make many compromises. While people will always argue with specific choices I made in this list, we feel what we have created is a well rounded, high performance system which I have tested directly to be totally compatible. I actually built an identical system for a colleague recently so I can guarantee it will perform well, and also overclock by 1.4ghz without any effort. Some of the components are the best in their class and have picked up KitGuru awards. We will assume you already have purchased a Windows operating system, so we won't be adding the price of this to the build.
Firstly, let me talk you through my component selection and the current pricing in the UK.
At the heart of the system we have decided to use a Core i5 760 processor – which can be picked up in the UK for £155.26 inc vat. This is a sizeable portion of our budget, but we are working on the fact that we know this CPU will achieve 4.2ghz with a simple bios setting change, and 4.4ghz if you want to manually push it further. We almost opted for an AMD 1055T 6 core CPU, but the 760 is priced so competitively that we feel it is the best value for money processor on the market. The 1055T is also more difficult to push past 3.7ghz and requires a higher level of bios expertise to fully maximise the potential.
The Core i5 760 is a follow up to the incredibly popular Core i5 750, with a minor clock speed ramp from 2.66ghz to 2.8ghz. This is a miserable default clock increase, but with the aid of our chosen motherboard it will happily sit at 4.2ghz all day without any effort or painstaking bios tweaking from the user. More on this later.
The Intel i5 760 is a 4 core/4 thread design and is built on a 45nm process – it has 8MB of Level 3 Cache and supports MMX, SSE (1, 2, 3, 3S, 4.1, 4.2) EM64T and VT-x.
Our motherboard of choice surprisingly doesn't come from one of the big players such as ASUS or MSI, but from ASrock – in the shape of the P55 Extreme 4. This board scored 9/10 on Kitguru and walked away with our top award. The built in overclocking options work a treat, and it fully supports DDR3 up to 2600mhz while offering solid capacitors as well as Sata 6GBPs and USB 3.0 capabilities. It is still quite difficult to buy in the UK but the retail price is a modest £125 inc vat. We could aim for a cheaper board but we want something capable of massive overclocks which will last the distance.
Our chassis of choice for this build is the no frills Silverstone Precision PS05 which retails for £45 inc vat. There are better cases on the market, but we have used this for several months and by simply adding a £5 fan to an intake position at the front it is more than capable of handling a powerful gaming/rendering system.
The Intel reference cooler that is supplied with the Core i5 760 processor is not a bad solution, but only if you want to run at reference clock speeds. For this we need to aim higher…
… As we are setting up a 4.2ghz final clock speed our recommendation is the Thermaltake Frio, which is retailing for £38 inc vat. We could have opted for the cheaper Contac29 cooler or the more expensive Noctua NH D14, but the Frio strikes a high performance value for money mid way point and will handle the Core i5 760 without a hitch. A single fan is all that is needed, turned down low.
Cutting costs with a power supply is a false economy, but we don't want to blow a huge portion of our budget (£150) on something like the Corsair AX850 either, even if it is awesome. For this system we have opted for the Thermaltake ToughPower XT 775W which is a fantastic, futureproofed, value for money PSU retailing for £78 inc vat.
The graphics card needs to be capable and while we almost considered the Sapphire HD5770 Vapor X Edition we felt that for £30 more, the eVGA 768MB GTX 460 Superclocked proved a better deal, even with only 768MB of ram.
To make the deal even sweeter we noticed that recently the eVGA 1GB Superclocked model has dropped in price to £180 inc vat making it one of our first choices.
A system is nothing without a good, high quality screen and while we have looked at several Dell models recently such as the Dell SP2309W we felt that the Iiyama ProLite E2472HDD combined a very high quality LED 1080p panel with a very reasonable asking price. If our budget was higher then the excellent Dell Ultrasharp u2410 would be top of our list, but it would sap almost half of our budget.
Yoyotech are selling the Prolite E2472HD right now for £187 inc vat, and this version also comes with an HDMI port on the back. Apart from this, it is exactly the same screen we reviewed a while back.
The system we are building promises 2GHZ of DDR3 memory performance and we opted for such high speeds because with a dual memory kit, bandwidth is considerably limited when compared with the high end 1366 slot tri solution. We need this performance to get the most from our rendering programs.
High quality memory plays such an important part in a system build and 2000mhz memory has dropped in price recently. We are using ADATA Gaming Series modules in our system today, but they are quite hard to locate in the UK so we want to offer an alternative which are easy to find.
Kingston are offering new HyperX T1 4GB modules rated at 2000mhz and Yoyotech are selling them for £106 inc vat. We have used these before and while we don't have them on hand today, they are an ideal partner for the ASrock Extreme 4 1156 motherboard.
So far we have priced the system at this:
Processor: Intel Core i5 760 = £155 inc vat
Motherboard: AsRock P55 Extreme 4 = £125 inc vat
Case: Silverstone Precision PS05 = £45 inc vat
Cooler: Thermaltake Frio = £38 inc vat
Power Supply: Thermaltake ToughPower XT 775W = £78 inc vat
Graphics Card: eVGA GTX460 1GB Superclocked model = £180 inc vat
Monitor: Prolite E2472HD = £187 inc vat
Memory: Kingston 2000mhz HyperX T1 4GB modules = £106 inc vat
After a quick calculation we work out that our price to this point is £914 inc vat. This leaves us £86 for a hard drive and so we are going to opt for the KitGuru award winning Intel X25-V 40GB SSD which Yoyotech have on sale now for £81.59 inc vat.
These make for fantastic boot drives and almost everyone already has a mechanical drive which can be used for files and storage purposes. If this is your very first system and you have no other means of storage then you could think about the Samsung Spinpoint F1 1TB 7,200 rpm which can be bought for £46 inc vat.
We will assume you have opted for the Intel 40GB SSD so let us tally up the total cost of the Core i5 system then we will show you how to overclock it.
Processor: Intel Core i5 760 = £155 inc vat
Motherboard: AsRock P55 Extreme 4 = £125 inc vat
Case: Silverstone Precision PS05 = £45 inc vat
Cooler: Thermaltake Frio = £38 inc vat
Power Supply: Thermaltake ToughPower XT 775W = £78 inc vat
Graphics Card: eVGA 1GB Superclocked model = £180 inc vat
Monitor: Prolite E2472HD = £187 inc vat
Memory: Kingston 2000mhz HyperX T1 4GB modules = £106 inc vat
Storage: Intel X25-V 40GB SSD = £81 inc vat
Total: £995.
We are confident this system will satisfy both gamers, rendering specialists on a budget, and general ‘all round' PC enthusiasts. Before we detail test results, let us show you how to crank the I5 760 to 4.2ghz by simply changing two Extreme 4 bios settings. It really is that simple.
That is a great idea for an article Zardon. that Core i5 processor is brilliant value for money. Well impressed.
That is a great idea for an article Zardon. that Core i5 processor is brilliant value for money. Well impressed.
4.2ghz with a few bios changes. long gone are the days or playing with a series of voltages to get any overclock at all. I remember my FX processor was a nightmare to get 200mhz out of it.
Intel processors are so easy now to overclock. no effort at all. it surprises me however that they don’t sell them faster out of the box. 2.8ghz? surely this would sit at 3.5ghz without even any effort from intel.
Great idea and an entertaining twist on how to get a good value system. 4.2ghz is surely sexy.
This is exactly why this site is my home page now. Zardon tests all the hardware, then keeps the best stuff for articles like this, which save people so much time when trying to build a system. I have this stored for future reference.
Very entertaining read kitguru – great performance for such a modest outlay. ive seen systems 3 times this price in PC world with half the performance.
I never knew the new motherboards had such great settings all preconfigured for specific processors like this. what a fantastic idea. I cant see the ASROCK board for sale anywhere however.
I just bought the 760 CPU, thanks. I need an upgrade for my dual core and this was well priced.
That frio is a great price. I always thought it was closer to 50 quid, not 38. what a bargain.
I like the system, not sure about the chassis, wouldnt the thermaltake armor A90 be better ?
Of course it would be better, but it wouldn’t be a system for under a grand, it would be a system for over a grand 😉
Great find, love it. I am going to spec this very system next week. Might even pop into yoyotech myself.
I wonder would it be better to include an AMD board like 5850? they cost more however so it might push it over 1000. still might opt for it instead.
I love the I5 processors. and that was a great idea to compensate for dual channel by using 2000 modules. they dont cost much more either which is surprising.
Good job resting and showing the results. I like that power supply its a very good price point. half the price of the AX850.
Good system, id have opted for AMD graphics though and maybe the HD5770
HD5770 would be much slower, makes no sense.
Frio is rubbish, who would use that?
I dont agree, the Frio should not be used. id have opted for the HD5770 and got the corsair H70 instead of GTX460 and poorer cooler.
Why not two HD5670s in Crossfire instead of that power hogging card?
Good all round system, ive no idea why people are complaining about the Frio, its an awesome cooler for the price.
good piece of work, very helpful for people. I tend to stick to AMD cpus and graphics cards, but this is useful for many.
would the 1055T not be better for the price, extra 2 cores?
That motherboard is very good, went and read the full review. seems like a great release from ASROCk.
It is very difficult getting a system built for 1k without compromising somewhere. for 1,500 you can get a much better build. that 500 quid helps with a monitor, better case.
nicely worked out, right to 995 ! for the price its pretty much spot on.
This was good timing, I was looking around tonight for reviews of the 750 processor and this has just been released at the right time. I probably dont need all the bits here as I already have a H50, and lian li case, but the monitor, CPU and memory. motherboard all appeal to me. seems like great combination. if I can get it to 4ghz ill be chuffed.
Good review, thumbs up 🙂
760 is a boring clock increase but this is a nice idea to present it. good value if they all hit 4.2ghz like this one
How far can the i5 760 be pushed Zardon with manual ocing?
Around 4.5ghz with insane voltage 4.4ghz if you are playing it safe. It doesnt overclock quite as good as the K series, but its still good enough.
Good gaming performance. GTX460 is a really good card, really rate em.
155 quid for a quad core which hits 4ghz easy is a hell of a price. 1055T is still £30 and has 2 extra cores, but it wont overclock as hell.
Kingston memory? really?
only complain is that the yoyotech website is really hard to get to work for me, it keeps crashing and the links sometimes dont load, even though I know they are working. I ended up finding all the parts I could on dabs today and working out how much it will cost me. I hope you can use other stores in future instead of yoyotech. scan is ok, but I prefer dabs
I did something similar with my “SuperBudget” home-build at 3.5GHz. Under $450.00 U.S.
Parts are dated, but as the wisest Native American once said, “wat-ta-hey”.
Intel E-5300, Crucial DDR3, MSI MSi P43-C51, GeForce N8400GS/512Mb, ThermalTake 600W, Cooler Master Case and HSfan 212+.
4.2 GHz is nice, but when I build again, I will want more than another 700.
So I’ll be shooting for high 4’s or low 5’s, -if I find a “SuperBargain” way to do that, I’ll let ya’ll know the mix!