First time gaming build

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

Hey guys, I am new to Linus Tech Tips and new to pc building altogether. I have been watching many videos, reading articles, reviews, guides, tutorials etc to give me a better understanding of components, how they work and how to go about building my first gaming rig. The whole process is still quite overwhelming to me, with such hard decisions I have to make and no real clue as to what I am doing  . I hope to make my first build primarily for gaming but also for video editing/rendering as I am a Filmmaking student and would also like to start making YouTube videos down the line.

 

I used https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/ to come up with this list of components for my build and since I am new to this I was hoping if anybody out there can give me feedback on the build I came up with. My budget for my build is around £1050 at the moment but I do plan to upgrade in the future and want a system that will suit my needs for the foreseeable future. I expect that eventually I will want to learn how to overclock my system to improve performance and also learn how to upgrade to a multi-GPU configuration. There are still some parts I need to choose, if anybody has any suggestions I am open to any and all.  :lol:

 

Here is the list of components: 

CPU: Intel i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£251.84) w/ Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.98)

GPU: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 3.5GB WINDFORCE Video Card(advertised as 4GB due to marketing problems) (£275.99)

Motherboard: MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£88.09)

Memory: Corsair Vengence LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£39.26)

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5'' Solid State Drive (£55.76)

PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£67.98)

Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£49.98)

 

Total Price: £853.88 (according to PCPartPicker)

 

Thank you for reading, I look forward to any and all feedback and I cannot wait to learn more about PC hardware and building 

[DarkBlade2117]

3.5GHz?? You mean 3.5 GBs of VRAM, also get an R9 390.

For the CPU cooler get an BeQuiet! PURE ROCK

Also get a better case like the NZXT S340 or Elite 410

[iNoa97]

Seems good except for 1 thing..

K in CPU's stands of unlocked so you can oc it. (Im pretty sure you already knew that.)

But if you don't have a decent cpu cooler then your not getting anywhere in the over clocking world. I would reccommend a Hyper 212 EVO, or A corsair H60/50/100i/ whatever is in your budget if you want liquid cooling.

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

Thank you for replying. Yeah I meant that hahaha been typing GHz that many times tonight it must have become a habit. How would switching to an R9 390 be better? The case is one of the harder more confusing choices to me :'D 

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

Seems good except for 1 thing..

K in CPU's stands of unlocked so you can oc it. (Im pretty sure you already knew that.)

But if you don't have a decent cpu cooler then your not getting anywhere in the over clocking word. I would reccommend a Hyper 212 EVO, or A corsair H60/50/100i/ whatever is in your budget if you want liquid cooling.

I heard that the Hyper 212 EVO was one of the favourites out there, I was thinking about liquid cooling but I guess the idea of water being wired into my system kind of freaks me out a little haha

[N64CUBE]

Downgrade to a 4690k if you're just doing gaming

 

Get a 390 (I reccomend the Sapphire Nitro)

 

Maybe a better case like an enthoo or something, but that's preference.

[iNoa97]

I heard that the Hyper 212 EVO was one of the favourites out there, I was thinking about liquid cooling but I guess the idea of water being wired into my system kind of freaks me out a little haha

Yeah I was a little freaked out in my first system having water cooling. Basically don't have lots of slack on the pipes and you should be golden.

[EliminatingAngels]

I would get a harddrive. 250gb isn't going to last very long. Also recommend getting a r9 390 as it is usually the same price or cheaper and offers better performance. You would probably need a cpu cooler later on down the road when you decide to overclock. I would also consider getting a better case. 

[N64CUBE]

Hyper 212 EVO is the cooler you should go for btw

[N64CUBE]

Thank you for replying. Yeah I meant that hahaha been typing GHz that many times tonight it must have become a habit. How would switching to an R9 390 be better? The case is one of the harder more confusing choices to me :'D 

Better raw performance and 8gb (4 to 4.5 gigabytes more than a 970)

 

Get a full tower from someone like corsair, fractal design, nzxt, or my favorite, Phanteks. It's all personal preference to the design though

[N64CUBE]

Oh and a hdd like a western digital blue or if you have the money western digital black

[HKZeroFive]

Something like this would do well. The performance difference between the i5 4690K and i7 4790K is minimal unless you're playing something like ARMA:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£174.47 @ Amazon UK) 

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

Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£115.99 @ Ebuyer) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£33.68 @ More Computers) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£55.76 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£37.98 @ Amazon UK) 

Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card  (£259.99 @ Ebuyer) 

Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£58.09 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£79.98 @ Aria PC) 

Total: £840.92

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-30 06:37 GMT+0000

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

Downgrade to a 4690k if you're just doing gaming

 

Get a 390 (I reccomend the Sapphire Nitro)

 

Maybe a better case like an enthoo or something, but that's preference.

I will be gaming initially mostly. I do get more money in a couple of months which would allow me to buy equipment to record and such, plus if I wanted to edit videos for University work I could do so, then again I could upgrade at that time anyway. Is the 4690k bad for editing?

 

Hyper 212 EVO is the cooler you should go for btw

I think i will do, it seems people love it :'D

 

Better raw performance and 8gb (4 to 4.5 gigabytes more than a 970)

 

Get a full tower from someone like corsair, fractal design, nzxt, or my favorite, Phanteks. It's all personal preference to the design though

I was hesitant to go with AMD as I have heard that many games are not optimized for them. The games I mainly play (Total War etc) seem to perform better on NVIDIA which is why I went that way initially. 

 

Oh and a hdd like a western digital blue or if you have the money western digital black

I think I have some old hard drives somewhere I can slap into it, if not I will just put it into my budget. Thanks

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

 

Something like this would do well. The performance difference between the i5 4690K and i7 4790K is minimal unless you're playing something like ARMA:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£174.47 @ Amazon UK) 

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

Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£115.99 @ Ebuyer) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£33.68 @ More Computers) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£55.76 @ Amazon UK) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£37.98 @ Amazon UK) 

Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 390 8GB Video Card  (£259.99 @ Ebuyer) 

Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£58.09 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£79.98 @ Aria PC) 

Total: £840.92

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-30 06:37 GMT+0000

 

Thank you for showing me this build, I guess I would save a lot more if the performance between them is minimal. What would you say are the benchmarks of this build with games like Battlefield 4, Total War Attila etc I mean if you know haha if not where can I find such info? 

[N64CUBE]

I will be gaming initially mostly. I do get more money in a couple of months which would allow me to buy equipment to record and such, plus if I wanted to edit videos for University work I could do so, then again I could upgrade at that time anyway. Is the 4690k bad for editing?

 

I think i will do, it seems people love it :'D

 

I was hesitant to go with AMD as I have heard that many games are not optimized for them. The games I mainly play (Total War etc) seem to perform better on NVIDIA which is why I went that way initially. 

 

I think I have some old hard drives somewhere I can slap into it, if not I will just put it into my budget. Thanks

No it's not bad but if you're editing the i7 is actually worth it

Excellent cooler from experience

It's fine you'll pretty much never run into issues nowadays, HKZEROFIVE had an msi 390 in his list, which I've heard good things about, but Sapphire makes amazing cards so I tend to lean towards them with their beautiful coolers and performance. Whichever calls to you though

Sounds like a good idea

[N64CUBE]

Thank you for showing me this build, I guess I would save a lot more if the performance between them is minimal. What would you say are the benchmarks of this build with games like Battlefield 4, Total War Attila etc I mean if you know haha if not where can I find such info? 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL

Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£251.84 @ Amazon UK)

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

Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£115.99 @ Ebuyer)

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£33.68 @ More Computers)

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£55.76 @ Amazon UK)

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro Video Card  (£298.77 @ PC World Business)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case  (£84.95 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£79.98 @ Aria PC)

Total: £945.95

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-30 06:46 GMT+0000

 

My personal recommendation

[N64CUBE]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL

Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£251.84 @ Amazon UK)

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

Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£115.99 @ Ebuyer)

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£33.68 @ More Computers)

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£55.76 @ Amazon UK)

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro Video Card  (£298.77 @ PC World Business)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case  (£84.95 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£79.98 @ Aria PC)

Total: £945.95

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-30 06:46 GMT+0000

 

My personal recommendation

But if you don't think you'll be editing, swap that i7 out with an i5 4690k

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

No it's not bad but if you're editing the i7 is actually worth it

Excellent cooler from experience

It's fine you'll pretty much never run into issues nowadays, HKZEROFIVE had an msi 390 in his list, which I've heard good things about, but Sapphire makes amazing cards so I tend to lean towards them with their beautiful coolers and performance. Whichever calls to you though

Sounds like a good idea

What Sapphire cards would you recommend checking out?

[N64CUBE]

What Sapphire cards would you recommend checking out?

The nitro. I believe it's their only 390. Just compare it with the msi (msi and sapphire are the best AMD card brands), and see which you like better.

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL

Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/WFv2XL/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£251.84 @ Amazon UK)

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

Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£115.99 @ Ebuyer)

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£33.68 @ More Computers)

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£55.76 @ Amazon UK)

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 390 8GB Nitro Video Card  (£298.77 @ PC World Business)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case  (£84.95 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£79.98 @ Aria PC)

Total: £945.95

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-30 06:46 GMT+0000

 

My personal recommendation

Looks very nice, do you know if I could get these parts cheaper maybe via deals, bundles or combos? I am terrible when it comes to that kind of stuff haha

[N64CUBE]

Looks very nice, do you know if I could get these parts cheaper maybe via deals, bundles or combos? I am terrible when it comes to that kind of stuff haha

I would love to help you but sadly I don't live in the UK so I don't know any merchants or even how valued the currency is there, so I couldn't tell you what a good deal would be

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

I would love to help you but sadly I don't live in the UK so I don't know any merchants or even how valued the currency is there, so I couldn't tell you what a good deal would be

I see, thank you anyway

[HKZeroFive]

Thank you for showing me this build, I guess I would save a lot more if the performance between them is minimal. What would you say are the benchmarks of this build with games like Battlefield 4, Total War Attila etc I mean if you know haha if not where can I find such info? 

 

Although I can't find an exact testing bench that uses a 4690K, the performance gap between the 390 and 970 in BF4 is quite significant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll see if I can find some Total War benchmarks.

[N64CUBE]

Good luck!

[JustAnotherN00bGam3r]

Although I can't find an exact testing bench that uses a 4690K, the performance gap between the 390 and 970 in BF4 is quite significant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll see if I can find some Total War benchmarks.

Wow that is quite a difference, I will implement an AMD card into a new build and see what I can come up with to fit my budget. Thank you for looking