Computer Build

[[NP]Monte Montague]

Dear Sirs,

Please can you give me thoughts on the following.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Dpwxt6

Would be grateful if anyone pointed out if there are any compatibility issues, or generally if something else could be done better.

I am not looking to spend anymore than £778, it was indeed a very strict budget to fit to, but I just got there.

Kind Regards,
Monte.

[Jcstodds]

  If you are using this for gaming as a priority, I would suggest a few changes. I've just built a PC for myself for near that price range so did spend many nights checking benchmarks, pros and cons etc.


Here you go:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/kbrdgs

Reasons:

For gaming, 8Gb RAM will be more than enough for this level of PC. It is quite expensive at the moment - upgrading is easy and you can do in the future as the price drops. It will barely affect performance.

Intel CPU's are more powerful, energy efficient and require less cooling. AMD processors are good at what they do, but they are lagging behind in technology. The i5 is more futureproof.

The motherboard is really up to you, they are all pretty much the same. I just selected a ASUS one (I personally have the MSI Z97S Krait). Just choose an ATX Z97 one which allows overclocking (more futureproof).

I subbed your massive SSD for a smaller one (120GB) which is ideal for putting windows 8 on and one or two games that you play often. Really they do not improve gaming performance that much - and only give better load times. You got a 1TB with that for everything else!

The CPU cooler is one of the hybrid ones. These give a big advantage of not taking up loads of space in your case like a large radiator would, so you get improved airflow and lower temperatures.


Graphics card: The most important thing for gaming. For £100 you should get a 2nd hand GTX 760 or an R9 270X. These retail at around £150 new. This is down to personal preference. However I saw at the moment AMD graphics cards are dropping in price and do offer better performance value for your money.
The best brands for performance and cooling are usually ASUS or Sapphire. Both are pretty reliable.


If you have any questions on any of the choices I can help -
Hope you find this useful in your decision 

[Archie]

Go on with nVIDIA for the graphics card if you are thinking to buy a "good" PC (a bit expensive)... To make it more suitable for your budget, get Asus AMD Radeon R7 265 2GB.

And 2nd hand computer parts may not be reliable so be careful while you're buying one.

For the CPU, Intel Core i7 is the best at the moment but it is a bit expensive for your budget it seems. I'd recommend you buy AMD FX 6300 as it's cheap and strong with 6 CPUs and 3.5 GHz.

Yes, as Jcstodds mentioned, 8 GB RAM is enough for gaming, nothing to add.

This is the PC I am planning to build. Just for 498 pounds.

Spoiler for PC:

Case: Zalman X9, 550 Watt Power Supply
Motherboard: Asus&Gigabyte M5A78L AM3
Processor: AMD FX 6300 6X Core 3.5 GHz 14 MB Cache Memory (6 CPUs)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
HDD: Western 3.5'''' 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache 1 TB
DVD Writer: Asus DVD Writer
GPU: Asus AMD Radeon R7 265 2GB 256 Bytes

[Fuzzy]

Here you go:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/kbrdgs

That looks good yeah.

[[NP]Monte Montague]

Here you go:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/kbrdgs

The Motherboard does not look the best.
It doesn't have Ethernet?

[brian1996]

Imo AMD sucks when it comes to raw peformance and reliability, anyway http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/24vpNG
No need to put in more money to have the Z97 chipset and 0.1GHz extra speed on the CPU, rather put it in more quality for your hardware. The only thing I would change is the PSU from a Corsair CX 500W to a Corsair CX 600W just to have that extra headroom in overclocking but that would be ~5 pounds over your budget.

[Teddy]

It doesn't have Ethernet?

Read:

Code: [Select]

Onboard Ethernet 1 x 10/100/1000 Mbps

[Devin]

The Motherboard does not look the best.
It doesn't have Ethernet?

[[NP]Monte Montague]

Read:

Code: [Select]

Onboard Ethernet 1 x 10/100/1000 Mbps

Thx =)

Imo AMD sucks when it comes to raw peformance and reliability, anyway http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/24vpNG
No need to put in more money to have the Z97 chipset and 0.1GHz extra speed on the CPU, rather put it in more quality for your hardware. The only thing I would change is the PSU from a Corsair CX 500W to a Corsair CX 600W just to have that extra headroom in overclocking but that would be ~5 pounds over your budget.

£5 over my budget is unacceptable.
But thanks for the suggestion =)

[Jcstodds]

  I didn't look at the motherboard. I just chose the cheap one from a reliable brand that allowed for overclocking (i.e. ASUS and Z97). All the motherboards are pretty much the same within their price range. Just choose your favorite brand, or read reviews about their reliability.

Everyone will be biased on brands, it can't be helped. But if you understand what the part does you can get more for your money.

[[NP]Monte Montague]

  I didn't look at the motherboard. I just chose the cheap one from a reliable brand that allowed for overclocking (i.e. ASUS and Z97). All the motherboards are pretty much the same within their price range. Just choose your favorite brand, or read reviews about their reliability.

Everyone will be biased on brands, it can't be helped. But if you understand what the part does you can get more for your money.

ok.

It's just one day I planned to add an additional video card and do that duel video card thing.

"* Some physical dimension restrictions cannot (yet) be automatically checked, such as cpu cooler / RAM clearance with modules using tall heat spreaders." that's what it says at the bottom, are you sure it's ok?

If so, I'd be happy to go with this build.

[SugarD]

I didn't look at the motherboard. I just chose the cheap one from a reliable brand that allowed for overclocking (i.e. ASUS and Z97).

I would personally not recommend overclocking any systems without an upgraded cooling system. Computers today run pretty hot on standard settings. Overclocking them makes them even hotter...especially under heavy load. Plain, old fans just don't cut it these days.

[Teddy]

I would personally not recommend overclocking any systems without an upgraded cooling system. Computers today run pretty hot on standard settings. Overclocking them makes them even hotter...especially under heavy load. Plain, old fans just don't cut it these days.

Ignore this;

As long as you aren't super overclocking you'll be fine with most new cases and basic cooling. While it is recommended to have liquid cooling these days, it's not required for overclocking. All my hardware is overclocked and I don't have any fancy cooling.

[brian1996]

I would personally not recommend overclocking any systems without an upgraded cooling system. Computers today run pretty hot on standard settings. Overclocking them makes them even hotter...especially under heavy load. Plain, old fans just don't cut it these days.

Did you even look at the system specs? If so then you definitely should have seen that there's liquid cooling involved.

ok.

It's just one day I planned to add an additional video card and do that duel video card thing.

"* Some physical dimension restrictions cannot (yet) be automatically checked, such as cpu cooler / RAM clearance with modules using tall heat spreaders." that's what it says at the bottom, are you sure it's ok?

If so, I'd be happy to go with this build.

The motherboard suggested by jcs does not support SLI/crossfire (no dual graphics cards), so you have to change motherboards in order to do so. However I'd only recommend going with dual graphics only when you have already reached the high end stuff and want more power since SLI/Crossfire scaling isn't always linear and peformance gains will differ a lot with several games (it can even cause incompatibilities or just plain not work/not be supported). Also with the current system recommendations you should upgrade your PSU in the future in order to feed the GPUs enough power.

"* Some physical dimension restrictions cannot (yet) be automatically checked, such as cpu cooler / RAM clearance with modules using tall heat spreaders." that's what it says at the bottom, are you sure it's ok?

This shouldn't be any problem since liquid coolers don't take up space on the CPU like heatsinks do.

[[NP]Monte Montague]

I'd not bother over clocking.
Is it really needed?

thx.