Advice on a new PC

[Etem]

Hey there everyone!

 

All my exams are over, and over the past year, I've been meaning to get a new PC - my current one is falling apart. Using the knowledge provided through research and watching Linus Tech Tips for far too long, I've put together a PC that I believe will do what I need.

The link to a PC Part Picker pricelist, as well as a part list, is below.

(Prices are the ones as of 26/06/13, so the prices of the parts may be subject to change.)

 

http://www.pcpartpicker.com/p/19Pi3

 

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570k (£167)

 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (£25)

 

Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V ATX LGA1155 (£140)

 

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 (£55)

 

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM (£65)

 

SSD: Samsung 840 Series 250GB (£130)

 

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 (£330)

 

Case: Cooler Master Storm Scout 2 White (£73)

 

Power Supply: Corsair Gaming Series 700W 2013 Edition PSU (£71)

 

Altogether, it comes to around £1060.

 

One thing to note is that I am unlikely to want to change the motherboard, as the Built in Wi-Fi is much preferred for me than using a half bent Wireless Network adapter as I do now. However, if a Wireless Card is a much better choice than Built in Wi-Fi, then I am very flexible on the choice of motherboard.

 

1. Budget & Location

First of all, I live in London, UK, so all the prices will be in UK Pounds. Now, the highest I would be willing to go is £1200, and would only really go over that price if there is a build or part that is really great value for money, otherwise, I'd like to stay around the £1000-£1100 mark.

 

2. Aim

I am mainly building this PC for gaming, and plan to play games including, but not limited to Team Fortress 2, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3, and Grand Theft Auto IV at maximum settings in 1080p.

I may end up doing light video editing in the future, but that is not really a main concern for me.

I will probably end up overclocking the CPU up to around 4-4.2 GHz, but I’m not too fussy on that for now.

 

3. Monitors

A monitor is not part of my build, as I already have a 1080p monitor that I can use. I am not planning to change to a higher resolution display or multiple monitors any time soon.

 

4. Peripherals

While I do not need any peripherals in my build, I am planning to buy headphones that include a microphone for gaming after I get the PC. I'm fine with something that does the job well, will not break like the past three £15 headsets I've bought, and is of a good quality. Right now, I'm thinking of something like the Corsair Vengeance 1500, but I'm happy to go for a different one if need be.

 

I also already own a Windows 7 installation disc, and do not need any keyboards or mice for now, as my current ones are doing the job just fine for the moment.

 

5. Why are you upgrading?

Well, as I said before, my current PC is really old (i7 930, GT 520, 6GB Ram, 300GB Hard Drive, a really noisy Optical Drive and a case held together with cellotape). Playing games on this PC is now pretty much not possible (e.g Team Fortress 2 runs at 20 odd FPS at 640x480 with a config that lowers the graphics to their minimum).

I know that I could easily change around the parts instead, but I really want to have something completely different to what I currently have, and besides, I would end up changing around over 90% of the parts anyway.

 

My apologies if the post is too long or I've done something wrong, it's my first time making a proper post here. :lol: In either case, if anyone could advise me on if what I have put together is recommended, or if there are better options available to me, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance! :)

[joelthezombie15]

Looks good. I dont see anything wrong with it.

[virusal19]

Will you be upgrading in the future? If not, a High Quality 600W PSU will be more than enough. (Note - 700W Will allow headroom for an extra 770 in the future)

 

Everything else looks good to me.

[Etem]

Will you be upgrading in the future? If not, a High Quality 600W PSU will be more than enough. (Note - 700W Will allow headroom for an extra 770 in the future)

 

Everything else looks good to me.

I would probably end up upgrading in a couple of years, as long as the PC does it's job well. I only really chose the PSU because of the cool lighting, so I guess I could do with a High Quality 600W Power Supply. Is there any one you would specifically recommend, such as a Seasonic one or something?

[mvitkun]

@Etem

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1athP

 

you need two sticks of ram because the cpu and motherboard support dual channel configurations,it will result in much better performance.

 

the samsung 840 (non pro) is nothing special,I'd go with a plextor drive over it.

[greenroost1445]

For new builds and planning that length of a post is fine to help we need details

[virusal19]

I would probably end up upgrading in a couple of years, as long as the PC does it's job well. I only really chose the PSU because of the cool lighting, so I guess I could do with a High Quality 600W Power Supply. Is there any one you would specifically recommend, such as a Seasonic one or something?

 

If you decide that you will be upgrading in the future, stick with the 700W PSU, the Corsair one that you picked should be good because Corsair is a high quality brand. 

 

In this case, when you do decide to upgrade you won't need to also get a new PSU.

[Vitalius]

Will you be upgrading in the future? If not, a High Quality 600W PSU will be more than enough. (Note - 700W Will allow headroom for an extra 770 in the future)

Everything else looks good to me.

This.

The 700w is in an awkward place. It's too much for your build (as mentioned in the quote), but it's not enough for SLI.

Either go with 600 or 800. 600 for non-upgrade-ability later, 800 for upgrade ability.

The only other thing is the SSD. You could buy a 120GB and get a 1TB HDD for a lot more storage and keeping snappy boot speeds. I feel 250GB is a bit of a waste honestly.

Beyond that, great build. Perfect for gaming.

One thing, just changing the uk.pcpartpicker.com to www.pcpartpicker.com will list all your parts in US dollars. Going to poundstodollars.com is unnecessary. :P

There's a UK, AU, DE (germany), and FR version along with the US version of PCPartPicker.

Though most of the EU versions don't take into account all the websites, so I tend to only trust the UK and US versions to find the absolute lowest prices.

@Etem

[brownninja97]

Get two sticks of ram as you have a dual slot motherboard meaning it would run better if you had two sticks of ram in the motherboard at once.

[Vitalius]

Get two sticks of ram as you have a dual slot motherboard meaning it would run better if you had two sticks of ram in the motherboard at once.

 

 

@Etem

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1athP

 

you need two sticks of ram because the cpu and motherboard support dual channel configurations,it will result in much better performance.

 

the samsung 840 (non pro) is nothing special,I'd go with a plextor drive over it.

I don't believe he *needs* two sticks of RAM.

RAM bandwidth, speeds, and latency doesn't mean much, even for gaming. For editing video/large image files, sure, but honestly, these days it just doesn't mean much. Capacity is about all that matters for his purposes. 

[Etem]

@Etem

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/1athP

 

you need two sticks of ram because the cpu and motherboard support dual channel configurations,it will result in much better performance.

 

the samsung 840 (non pro) is nothing special,I'd go with a plextor drive over it.

Thanks for that, I was a little skeptical on using only one stick of RAM. That Plextor drive also looks pretty good, I may go for that.

[Deddie]

If you want the games that comes with the HD 7970, I would suggest going with that card instead of the GTX 770.

[Etem]

If you want the games that comes with the HD 7970, I would suggest going with that card instead of the GTX 770.

I was considering that, but I already own Far Cry 3, and Bioshock Infinite can be easily bought during the Summer Sale.

[brownninja97]

I don't believe he *needs* two sticks of RAM.

RAM bandwidth, speeds, and latency doesn't mean much, even for gaming. For editing video/large image files, sure, but honestly, these days it just doesn't mean much. Capacity is about all that matters for his purposes. 

I see where your coming from but dual slot is faster, i dunno how faster but ram prices of the two are about the same. In the end go for whichever one is cheaper.

[Vitalius]

I see where your coming from but dual slot is faster, i dunno how faster but ram prices of the two are about the same. In the end go for whichever one is cheaper.

I usually try to recommend leaving the build open to upgrades in the future. Less RAM slots taken/larger RAM sticks used means more upgrade ability later.

[legopc]

it looks good but you could easely upgrade your old build just get a ssd an new hdd case gpu some more ram and a beter dvd thingy 

[brownninja97]

I usually try to recommend leaving the build open to upgrades in the future. Less RAM slots taken/larger RAM sticks used means more upgrade ability later.

4x4 is 16 and thats a lot of memory, if they are needing that sort of memory or 32gb then they will most likely upgrade  the other parts of the computer to a 2011 socket platform.

[Vitalius]

4x4 is 16 and thats a lot of memory, if they are needing that sort of memory or 32gb then they will most likely upgrade  the other parts of the computer to a 2011 socket platform.

I do it on a 3-5 year basis.

With the new consoles having so much available memory for gaming, I expect games to start utilizing more RAM in the future. Both GDDR5 and DDR3. 

Besides, RAMDisk and Fancy Cache always justify having 16GB+ of RAM.