Motherboard bundle - some advice please

[TimDMorris]

New to the forums here, but was hoping for a bit of advice...

I was looking at the Gladiator motherboard bundles as a starting point for a new pc. In particular I was looking at:

https://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Bundles/Intel+Overclocked+Bundles/Gladiator+Z68+Core+i5+2500K+4.60GHz+8GB+Overclocke d+Bundle+?productId=44490

Firstly, for use as a media pc with some gaming (and unfortunately some work) does this seem suitable? I think the i7 2600k is overkill, but willing to take adive on that.

Secondly I have a query about the price. Looking at the parts individually I get a price of £401.82:

https://www.aria.co.uk/WishList/M2AmRkOgh36kM4Ql2Uboeg

Whilst I appreciate that some work is involved in putting it together, testing, overclocking it etc, charging £58.11 more seems very steep, especially given the service on offer to build an etire PC for £50 (i think). Is there anyone who can suggest who I might speak to about this to get a sensible price as when I called I was only offered a massive £4 discount! If not can anyone tell me how hard I might find it putting the parts together myself given I've never done this before, but do have techy friends who can help?

Thanks

[Spaceboy]

The bits in that bundle are absolutely cracking :thumb:

I have to say I completely agree with you about the price... especially as the overclock is advertised as *free*

I would hazard a guess that the bundle description needs a bit of an update - I suspect the bundle was originally shipped with a H50 or H70 water cooler (hence the "Water Cooled 2500k" ) which has since been replaced but the price hasn't been changed to reflect that.

Personally I'd buy the bits and plug it together myself. Really not that hard so long as you take a little time :)

/edit: You're absolutely spot on about the 2500k vs 2600k too. The 2600k is really only aimed at those using heavy cpu-bound threaded applications such as video encoding utilities.

/edit2: If I was buying a bundle, I'd get this https://www.aria.co.uk/Systems/Bundles/Intel+Overclocked+Bundles/Gladiator+Core+i5+2500K+4.70GHz+Overclocked+Bundle +?productId=44083 and maybe ask about an upgrade to 8gig.

[alexnifty]

£50 is totally reasonable if you ask me. Look at the build quality and finish: http://forums.aria.co.uk/showthread.php?t=53781

Basically Aria have got people with OCD working on their cases :p

Sure you can build it yourself and it really isn't that hard, just ask us on the forum and we'll take you through it.
But for someone who just wants a decent, well built PC I think £50 is completely reasonable.

[Mr. Grapes]

the 2600K is an absolute BEAST! seriously the best CPU (sensible)money can buy right now (as in not going up to i7 980 chips) and will handle just about any task you care to throw at it. weather its overkill is up to you, and what you do. for gaming it's definitely overkill. a i5 2500K is only separated by 100 MHz and the fact that it doesn't do hyperthreading - that fact will mean you'll only notice the difference in highly threaded applications. if your work involves highly concurrent tasks (code compiling, CAD/CAM or video production for instance) then get the 2600K otherwise it's up to you if you want to spend the difference for what *may* end up being minimal gain (games generally won't really benefit from the extra cores that hyperthreading offers on a quad core)

as to the price difference, well mushkin memory price has been tumbling lately, so i guess they just haven't updated the bundle price to reflect that yet

[alexnifty]

Oh yeah and some gamers even turn the Hypethreading off for games such as Metro 33

[TimDMorris]

Thanks for the comments guys. @alexnifty, I'm not doubting the quality of their builds, and agree that £50 for building a computer seems fairly reasonable to me. What I was surprised about was that it cost more than £50 to just build a bundle, which I would have expected to be cheaper. Maybe I'll ask them If this is just an out of date price as you suggest Mr Grapes and Spaceboy.

[shawry]

I would add, that the £50 to build the pc is probably less VAT.

Obviously that means its as much to build the pc as it is the bundle really, which is probably the case.