Help with First Build

[Lion & Stag]

Hi guys,

This will be my first PC build and all of this is completely new to me, and I apologise in advance if you have to explain issues it to me like I'm five.

1. Budget & Location

My budget is approximately €1000, and my location is Ireland. I can stretch a little further if required however I would prefer to keep things lower. For pricing, I'll probably get most of the components form Amazon.co.uk so if you are to suggest items based on price, there would be the best reference point. (Account for the fact that £1 ~ €1.40 at time of writing.)

2. Aim

Unfortunately, this rig has to be all things for all purposes. I'm a Mechanical Engineering student going on to specialise in Computational Fluid Dynamics with an Automotive Application Aeronautical Engineering degree next year, therefore the two resource heavy activities I'll be doing are 3D CAD (graphics intensive) and CFD simulations (cpu intensive).

As of this moment, I don't game however with this rig I would like to play more modern games on Steam, such as Arkham Knight etc., rather than upgrade my console.

As a bonus, I would like this to run quiet while idling. I don't mind fan noise when under heavy loading but under idle, when listening to music or watching a movie, I'd like not to hear fans.

Easy, right.

3. Monitors

Upon building, I plan on running two 21" HD monitors, (which I have), but I intend on upgrading to a larger 32" screen in the early parts of next year, possibly 4K but that's not set in stone.

4. Peripherals

I need to buy a keyboard, with a preference to a unifying wireless keyboard from Logitech as I already have a Performance MX mouse that uses the unifying feature.

That's it.

5. Why are you upgrading?

I'm upgrading as I've only ever used my laptop for university before and it struggles to multi task resource heavy tasks, and it overheats massively when running Solidworks or Steam. My workflow is starting to increase and my laptop is really struggling. 

6. My Stab-in-the-Dark System List

 

CPU

Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad Core

Already owned.

NB: I got this second hand of a friend for €100 and can be excluded from the budget.

 

CPU Cooler                    

Corsair H100i           or           be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 3

approx. €135                          approx. €90

 

Motherboard

Asus Z97-PRO (Wi-Fi ac)

€210

NB: When at home during summer the rig has to run off WiFi, while at university it's wired.

I have no idea on how to select a motherboard. I assume there is something out there that will do what I need for less.

 

RAM

Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866

€120

NB: May upgrade in future to 32GB but 16GB should be more than sufficient the foreseeable future.

GPU

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB

€350

 

Is this total overkill? Can I go down to say a GTX 760 and save €100?

 

Storage

Kingston HyperX Fury 240GB and Seagate Barracuda 2TB             or            Seagate 2TB Hybrid Internal Drive              

€145                                                                                                                 €105

 

Is it better to spend the money on the SSD and HDD or save on the Hybrid?

 

Power Supply

EVGA SiperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Cert. Fully Modular

€90

 

Case

be quiet! Silent Base 800 ATX Mid Tower
€115

 

It's a toss up between this and Define R5. Both are at comparable prices. Which would you recommend, or is there any way to save here as well? I prefer sleeker looking cases (in the aforementioned case I'd take the all black, not orange highlights). As previously stated, silence is a luxury not a necessity but a quiet case would be preferable.  

Optical Drive

Samsung SN-208DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer
€20

 

TOTAL €1185
This is stretching the budget to the absolute maximum and I'd prefer to bring it down.



That's all folks! 

 

Any and all input is appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Lewis

 

[Indus Monk]

A perfect stab in the dark. Just remember to get WD drives and don't consider an SSHD and get a 750w psu

[JimmyJimJam]

go for the fractal design r5

[Lion & Stag]

Just remember to get WD drives and don't consider an SSHD and get a 750w psu

 

Thanks!

Why use WD over Kingston? (Curiosity)

The estimated power consumption is 356W so I think 650W is plenty. Why recommend 750W?

[Indus Monk]

Thanks!

Why use WD over Kingston? (Curiosity)

The estimated power consumption is 356W so I think 650W is plenty. Why recommend 750W?

was unsure about the Psu

WD for Hard disk and Kingston for SSD

WD is more reliable

[Lion & Stag]

was unsure about the Psu

WD for Hard disk and Kingston for SSD

WD is more reliable

Thanks for clearing that up

[Nena Trinity]

390 is a much better GPU its almost a 980 to a 970 price!

[Lion & Stag]

Ok. Ordered the following parts. Cant wait for it all to arrive.
 
Intel i7-4770K 
Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB PCI-Express 3.0 DirectCU II OC STRIX
Asus Z97 Pro Motherboard
Corsair H100i GTX CPU Cooler

Kingston HyperX Beast 16GB RAM DDR3-1866 (2 x 8GB)

Kingston HyperX Fury 240GB SSD

Western Digital Green 2TB HDD

Wireless USB Dongle
Fractal Design Define R5 (Black)

Fractal Design Silent Series R3 (140mm) Case Fan x 2

EVGA SuperNOVA 750W G2 Modular Power Supply

and I also treated myself to new peripherals

LG 29UM65-P 29" 2560x1080 IPS LED Monitor 
CM Storm QuickFire TK MX Brown Mechanical Keyboard
 

Hope to have it built over the weekend

[Lion & Stag]

Ladies and gents, I give to you Lobo. See a (bad) photo I took here: http://1drv.ms/1hhK0X7

Thanks to all who helped me out with this build, I finally got it up and running today, overclocked the CPU to 4.4GHz and GPU to 1400 MHz boost and memory from 7010 MHz to 8010 MHz.

 

Here are my scores on the Unigine Heaven Benchmark 4.0

FPS:
59.2
Score:
1492
Min FPS:
32.3
Max FPS:
135.3

 

I plan on running a Cinebench benchmark soon but so far, all is good!