Starting afresh

[Oldaccount1234123]

Hi all,

 

I currently have an alienware PC (Specs in my sig), and I have decided to upgrade for Christmas to a new build. If you are interested in the full back story of the problems I have had, please check out my other topics. 

 

1. Budget & Location

£1500 (Great British Pounds, which is around 2200 USD), England

2. Aim

I will be using this PC for gaming, work (word processing) and web browsing. I will occasionally do some rendering of videos. The games which I play mainly are CSGO, DotA, ArmA 3 and Star Citizen. 

3. Monitors
I am currently running 2 1080p monitors, and might upgrade to either an ultrawide or 144hz in the future. 

4. Peripherals
I won't need to purchase peripherals, but I will need a copy of Windows 7. My friend told me that you can buy it very cheap on reddit, for around £10 or so. 

5. Why are you upgrading?

 

Here is a copy and paste from my old thread, written several months ago:

 

I purchased an Alienware Area 51 (Specs below) in 2013 from my local computer shop. It was my first proper computer, as before I had a very run down HP which was very slow. I believe the alienware was built in 2011, and was no longer in production at that time. It all worked well, and I loved it and enjoyed playing many games on it and having my friends be in awe. However, one day it simply broke down. Every 30 minutes or so, it would just lose power and restart as if there had been a power surge. After a couple of weeks of engineers trying to fix it (Turning it on and off, rebooting the BIOS, saying that it worked when they tested it), they finally came to the conclusion that it needed a new PSU. So they ordered one in, a dell engineer came and it was all sorted. Good I thought - however, I was wrong. About a year after, the computer wouldn't turn on, and no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to work again. So once more the engineers came and deduced that the liquid cooling had leaked and the Mother Board, CPU and pretty much everything had to be replaced. We were insured so it was all OK. Now, just recently(3 weeks ago), it was having the same problem which I had in the first place (Losing Power) and so we sent the computer back to the engineers once more to try and fix it. Despite us telling them it was probably the PSU again, they said it was the Graphics card and so they said they ordered in "The best graphics card on the market" which was a GTX 970... So anyway, they stuck that in and lo and behold it didn't work. This is the story up to 2 weeks ago. Since then they have said they are trying to get a PSU (Which should come this week) and something or other else which they say should do the trick.

 

Since initially writing this, my PC has been performing fine, but is still crashing on several games, which is ruining my gaming experience, which is why I am upgrading. I understand that this might look like a waste of money, but I've had this PC for about 3 or 4 years now, and I would very much like a change from a large, slightly outdated alienware. 

 

 

 

 

 

So, moving onto the new build. Here are some requirements which I have decided on:

 

1. DDR4 RAM
2. SSD
3. Large HDD
4. Preferably an i7 CPU as I occasionally do rendering.

 

I opened up PC part picker and threw together a quick build, so let me know what you think of it, and how I can improve:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£319.98 @ Aria PC) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£24.98 @ Novatech) 

Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£114.99 @ Ebuyer) 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  (£89.29 @ More Computers) 

Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£136.52 @ More Computers) 

Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£96.24 @ Amazon UK) 

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB STRIX Video Card  (£599.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 

Case: NZXT H440 (White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£88.98 @ Aria PC) 

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£82.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Total: £1553.56

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-08 17:07 GMT+0000

 

In terms of the GPU, I wasn't sure which 980Ti to go for. The STRIX and the Hybrid both appeal to me a lot. Which is better?

 

Thanks in advance

 

- Daanish

[Master Disaster]

I wouldn't change a thing from your build tbh. It's a great build as it is.

You could swap the black for a green or blue and save a little if you really wanted to.

[Crowes]

Very nice!

[Oldaccount1234123]

I wouldn't change a thing from your build tbh. It's a great build as it is.

You could swap the black for a green or blue and save a little if you really wanted to.

 

 

Don't get the black HDD, get the blue. There's no difference.

 

Kk - so there's not much difference between them? All I saw was that black is best so I went for that

 

 

Very nice!

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

Also, what's a cool case. I just picked the NZXT cos it looked cool imo

[TheRandomness]

Kk - so there's not much difference between them? All I saw was that black is best so I went for that

 

 

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

Also, what's a cool case. I just picked the NZXT cos it looked cool imo

The WD Blacks are usually much louder than blue but they last longer.

[PatTheGeek]

Intel i5-4460 3.2

Asus H81M2

ThermalTake 530W Smart

Gigabyte Nvidia 970 Windforce 4GB

1x8GB Crucial Ballistix 1600

2x be quiet! Shadow Wings SW1 

 

Any way to save some money , is this rig any good and also could upgrade for a slightly higher price (bare in mind Im in the UK) THANKS!

 

Also alredy got HDD and optical drive and also I dont want an ssd

[SolarNova]

Build looks ok, for that price there are many combinations, all good.

 

One thing I will say, what ever u decide on, Contact the main retailers :

 

OverClockersUK

Novatech

Scan

Dabs

Ebuyer

Aria

 

Give them the list, and ask for their best price /deal.

 

I know from experience that at least 1 of them 'should' come back and give u a deal when ur going to them with a shopping list of that price. of course they have to stock all the items u want in the first place.

 

The only thing I will say about ur list, is that u got a white case, white theme motherboard ..but red RAM and red theme GPU. When spending this much on a machine it might be worth while to shop around the different brands to put together a matching color scheme.

[Oldaccount1234123]

 

Intel i5-4460 3.2

Asus H81M2

ThermalTake 530W Smart

Gigabyte Nvidia 970 Windforce 4GB

1x8GB Crucial Ballistix 1600

2x be quiet! Shadow Wings SW1 

 

Any way to save some money , is this rig any good and also could upgrade for a slightly higher price (bare in mind Im in the UK) THANKS!

 

Also alredy got HDD and optical drive and also I dont want an ssd

 

 

Make your own thread brah - you should get lots of replies there!

 

 

Build looks ok, for that price there are many combinations, all good.

 

One thing I will say, what ever u decide on, Contact the main retailers :

 

OverClockersUK

Novatech

Scan

Dabs

Ebuyer

Aria

 

Give them the list, and ask for their best price /deal.

 

I know from experience that at least 1 of them 'should' come back and give u a deal when ur going to them with a shopping list of that price. of course they have to stock all the items u want in the first place.

 

The only thing I will say about ur list, is that u got a white case, white theme motherboard ..but red RAM and red theme GPU. When spending this much on a machine it might be worth while to shop around the different brands to put together a matching color scheme.

 

 

Thanks for the advice! I will be sure to do that.

 

In terms of the colour scheme, I haven't thought about it actually. I just picked a random case to use for the build. In regards to the GPU, I was thinking about getting the Hybrid instead, which is gold and black. Disregarding the colour, would this be better than the STRIX?

[SolarNova]

Depends what ur gunna wanna do with it.

 

The Strix (non OC edition) has a lower stock clock, and runs on air.

The Hyrbird (assuming ur talking about the EVGA one) has a higher stock clock and runs with a AIO water cooler on the GPU and air for the VRMS and VRAM.

 

The Hybrid will take up more room as ull need a space for the 120 radiator. But so long as u use a quiet high quality fan will be quieter and should OC better.

 

Alternatively their a are more OC orientated cards available that run on air, but they can cost more. Like the Asus Matrix, Gigabyte Windforce, MSi Gaming, and EVGA FTW.

 

its just down to personal choice really, they will all perform good, some will be slightly better than others at stock depending on their clock speeds. When OC'd by the user, its generally down to the Silicon lottery, Board design (i.e Power Phase design & Cooling), and binning process.