Christmas Rebuild

Xeno10001110101 · November 24, 2014

1. Budget & Location
Scotland, would like to spend underneath a grand (£1000)

3. Aim

Gaming, 3D blender work (with long term game creation ideas @_@), Solidworks/AutoCAD (Work related), Streaming, LAN machine

4. Monitors

1 x 2560x1440 dell 27" 60Hz

2 x 1920x1080 dell 24" 60Hz (portrait - flanking 27")

1 x 1920x1080 Sony 32" tv (above 27")

5. Peripherals

Nothing required

6. Why are you upgrading?

Main - Currently running AMD Phenom 965 BE @ 4.01Ghz and have started finding bottlenecks in certain CPU heavy games (Payday 2, Evolve) with the occasional BSOD (once every 4~ months different generic error every time, when under very heavy load).

Side - Wanting an update and facelift, been running this CPU for 3~ years now and last update was a single 780 this time last year, which helped, but I feel like I am running out of headroom with this chip, especially since I am wanting to add in my second GPU which I do not currently have enough 8 pin power connectors for (HURDURR). I will be over-clocking anything I get my hands on.

7. Posting reasoning

I have been going to LAN 4 times a year for the past few years. I would prefer a small case so that I can carry it back and forth easily, "near silent" as a perk would be nice. I have picked out two builds one on X99 and one on Z97 both on micro ATX boards.Case is placeholder. I would appreciate any input on good micro atx cases although the Corsair 350D is the largest I would like to go.

Also my current colour scheme is green and black.

BUILD LINKS ON PCPARTPICKER

Z79 build

X99 build

Hope thats enough information for you guys! appreciate any opinions you guys have! Is it worth the extra money to get onto the X99 platform at the moment?

MrTomnus · November 24, 2014

Oof, that's a hefty price for those upgrades... To be quite honest I don't think there's much value for money there. My entire build costs £300 more and will perform ever so slightly worse. Are you planning to sell the parts you're replacing? That way upgrading with that price would be much more reasonable.

You should consider getting a cheaper X99 board unless that one has a feature you really need. At £200, the price to performance goes down quite a bit.

If you're not planning SLI you won't need a PSU with that much power. a 600W will do just fine, and consider going semi modular as that cuts the cost down a lot with the convenience of not having as many cables as a non modular PSU.

If you don't want to upgrade for a while, X99 will be the way to go and those 6 cores will really help you

Xeno10001110101 · November 24, 2014

For the past three years I have upgraded around Christmas time, one year GPU one year CPU (with a break in between). Don't really want to upgrade for a while TBH. There is only 3 X99 mobo's at the moment that I found and this is the only black one.

GPU wise I already have another 780 to put in, just need the power!

I usually keep my parts around, came in handy a few times for the household PC/family.