£1400 multi-purpose PC

BelatedFungus · May 4, 2015

Hi guys,

I'm looking at roughly a £1000 budget with a £1500 total budget, coming out of the UK, so all tax is included. The reason I've given a +-£500 is for work related upgrades, nothing to do with games. My preferred retailer is Amazon (For that lovely Amazon Prime), but to shave a few pounds I am more than happy to shop elsewhere.

As for the goals, I'd like to be able to play all (Or at least most) games at high/max 1080p 60+fps and sit comfortably at 1440p 30fps on medium/high. As for work, really it just needs to get the job done without taking 10 minutes to compile.

Games

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive

DoTA 2

Team Fortress 2

Skyrim (With tonnes of mods)

FO:3/NV (With tonnes of mods)

Battlefront 3

GTA 5

The Witcher 3

Deux Ex: Mankind Divided

Rainbow Six: Seige

Programs

Visual Studio IDE compiling C++ daily

Netbeans IDE compiling Java 3/4 times a week

Notepad++

Photoshop/Illustrator (Per project, usually 5 heavy sessions each fortnight)

After Effects

Shadowplay

Currently I use a BenQ GL2450, though at some point in the future I'd like to upgrade to a triple monitor setup with G/Freesync or splurge on a single/twin ASUS Swift PG278Q monitor(s).

No perhiperals needed. OS not needed.

I can only get so much out of my trusty laptop, and he's near the end of his life. What better way to send it off than go all out?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£265.00 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£57.46 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£110.24 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston Beast 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£110.58 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£139.00 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£99.98 @ Novatech)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£99.98 @ Novatech)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB FTW ACX 2.0 Video Card (£289.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£80.45 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£130.50 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Fan (£17.19 @ Amazon UK)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Fan (£17.19 @ Amazon UK)
Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Fan (£17.19 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1434.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-04 09:26 BST+0100

ZetZet · May 4, 2015

Nice, but black drives make no real sense.

BelatedFungus · May 4, 2015

Nice, but black drives make no real sense.

I planned to use one drive as a "constant" drive as in active projects and games, with the other being an "archive" drive for old projects. I'll be using and moving data between the two pretty much daily, what would be a better option?

EDIT: Derp

Edited May 4, 2015 by Glazbee

manikyath · May 4, 2015

that build is pretty much an exact copy of what i have, and from my experience the only downside is that the blacks are rather clicky when torturing them.

a friend also told me that the brown PCB asus boards are lower quality, not sure if thats true, but if you want to be sure, perhaps go for a slightly more high end board.

JoaoPRSousa · May 4, 2015

Swapped the PSU, RAM and SSD and snagged a 980.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£265.00 @ Aria PC)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£57.46 @ CCL Computers)

Motherboard: Asus Z97-AR ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£112.44 @ Scan.co.uk)

Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£92.35 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£111.95 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£99.98 @ Novatech)

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card (£441.95 @ More Computers)

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£80.45 @ Ebuyer)

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£89.99 @ Novatech)

Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Fan (£17.19 @ Amazon UK)

Total: £1503.12

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-04 10:01 BST+0100

BelatedFungus · May 4, 2015

that build is pretty much an exact copy of what i have, and from my experience the only downside is that the blacks are rather clicky when torturing them.

a friend also told me that the brown PCB asus boards are lower quality, not sure if thats true, but if you want to be sure, perhaps go for a slightly more high end board.

Okay, thanks for the feedback. If what you say with the drives is true, I may have to look into Seagate drives too. As for the lower quality PCB, it's a rumour I've never ran into, nor could I find any credible sources with a quick whiz at Google, though I'd be willing to bet it's just a dislike for the colour and nothing worth actually worrying about.

BelatedFungus · May 4, 2015

Swapped the PSU, RAM and SSD and snagged a 980.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£265.00 @ Aria PC)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£57.46 @ CCL Computers)

Motherboard: Asus Z97-AR ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£112.44 @ Scan.co.uk)

Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£92.35 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£111.95 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£99.98 @ Novatech)

Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£99.98 @ Novatech)

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card (£441.95 @ More Computers)

Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£80.45 @ Ebuyer)

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£89.99 @ Novatech)

Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Fan (£17.19 @ Amazon UK)

Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Fan (£17.19 @ Amazon UK)

Case Fan: Noctua NF-A14 ULN 140mm Fan (£17.19 @ Amazon UK)

Total: £1503.12

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-04 10:01 BST+0100

That's brilliant, it'll require another months wait before I can justify it, but it looks so shiny!

manikyath · May 4, 2015

Okay, thanks for the feedback. If what you say with the drives is true, I may have to look into Seagate drives too. As for the lower quality PCB, it's a rumour I've never ran into, nor could I find any credible sources with a quick whiz at Google, though I'd be willing to bet it's just a dislike for the colour and nothing worth actually worrying about.

i have to add that the guy likes his tin foil and snake oil, so it might just be that. i heard seagate is really good, as long as you stay away from the 3TB ones, i heard those somehow have a really high failure rate, the 2TB and 4TB ones seem to be fine tho.

stconquest · May 4, 2015

If the extra cores will speed up your workload, you might look at something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (£311.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£65.46 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X99-UD3 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£166.96 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston FURY 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£151.39 @ Dabs)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£157.95 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card (£278.40 @ Dabs)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£85.93 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic EVO Edition 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£69.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1287.17
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-05-04 10:04 BST+0100

BelatedFungus · May 4, 2015

i have to add that the guy likes his tin foil and snake oil, so it might just be that. i heard seagate is really good, as long as you stay away from the 3TB ones, i heard those somehow have a really high failure rate, the 2TB and 4TB ones seem to be fine tho.

Haha, brilliant. Looks like I'll be looking into Seagate then!