Custom Built PC (Help Needed)

[alistairw]

Hey, I'm looking at purchasing a custom built PC for using programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premier Pro and Adobe After Effects and also the occasional game such as GTA. I need a computer to run all this and be able to handle it all smoothly. I have a budget set at £1500 for a decent computer. 

 

I have configured a computer on PCPARTPICKER and need opinions if it will be decent enough!

Here's the list if you would like to have a look: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/FFV6qk

 

The M.2 storage drive is for the bootup / os disk and will just handle Windows 10. Then, the HDD will handle storage such as games and documents. I may also put an SSD /  another HDD in at a later date once I use up all my storage. I'm also looking for help picking a budget graphic card that will handle everything specified above.

 

Thank you for your help!

[Growlithe]

Personally, I would opt for a larger motherboard, something by ASRock personally, that board will look so small in that case, Note: you're gonna want at minimum a 600w PSU if you want ANY GPU. 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£279.00 @ Aria PC) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£29.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus H97-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£108.54 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (£74.99 @ Novatech) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£91.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£60.98 @ Novatech) 
Case: NZXT H440 (Glossy White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£99.98 @ Novatech) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£97.23 @ BT Shop) 
Total: £842.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-19 18:10 GMT+0000

This is what I would do personally. The 4770 is quite old, and getting the S version seriously reduces the clockspeed. 

edit: I wouldn't trust a $50~ M.2 SSD 

[Slottr]

That power supply makes my heart stop. Good god..

 

ITX Motherboard in an ATX case? Oh boy

[stealth80]

1 minute ago, Growlithe said:

Personally, I would opt for a larger motherboard, something by ASRock personally, that board will look so small in that case, Note: you're gonna want at minimum a 600w PSU if you want ANY GPU. 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£279.00 @ Aria PC) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£29.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus H97-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£108.54 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (£74.99 @ Novatech) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£91.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£60.98 @ Novatech) 
Case: NZXT H440 (Glossy White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£99.98 @ Novatech) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£97.23 @ BT Shop) 
Total: £842.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-19 18:10 GMT+0000

This is what I would do personally. The 4770 is quite old, and getting the S version seriously reduces the clockspeed. 

nex is a bad psu, also 600w isn't really needed unless rolling an AMD card, even then its not a massive requirement

[alistairw]

2 minutes ago, Growlithe said:

Personally, I would opt for a larger motherboard, something by ASRock personally, that board will look so small in that case, Note: you're gonna want at minimum a 600w PSU if you want ANY GPU. 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£279.00 @ Aria PC) 
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£29.98 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus H97-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£108.54 @ Amazon UK) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory  (£74.99 @ Novatech) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£91.98 @ Ebuyer) 
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£60.98 @ Novatech) 
Case: NZXT H440 (Glossy White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£99.98 @ Novatech) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£97.23 @ BT Shop) 
Total: £842.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-19 18:10 GMT+0000

This is what I would do personally. The 4770 is quite old, and getting the S version seriously reduces the clockspeed. 

edit: I wouldn't trust a $50~ M.2 SSD 

 

I was actually looking at this originally, something on these lines anyway: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_RANGER/

[alistairw]

2 minutes ago, Slottr said:

That power supply makes my heart stop. Good god..

I'm going to change it! Don't you worry

[Growlithe]

Just now, stealth80 said:

nex is a bad psu, also 600w isn't really needed unless rolling an AMD card, even then its not a massive requirement

I'm not too familiar with power supplies and how decent they are but I would still have 750W for future proof-ness and said user has about 600~ to blow on a GPU as well, if they wait for the price of a 1070 to come down, they could potentially do SLI 1070's. But thats just me. 

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/qVxGnn This should be better for you 

[stealth80]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6800K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor  (£407.99 @ Novatech)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£29.98 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI X99A SLI KRAIT EDITION ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard  (£195.98 @ YoYoTech)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory  (£162.10 @ Novatech)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£91.98 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£41.89 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Palit GeForce GTX 1070 8GB GameRock Video Card  (£379.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT H440 (Glossy White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£99.98 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£86.99 @ Novatech)
Total: £1496.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-19 18:15 GMT+0000

 

Don't go Z97 you would be buying out dated tech, if you don't need the 6 cores above then drop to a 6700k + z170 board

[Growlithe]

2 minutes ago, Alistairw02 said:

I was actually looking at this originally, something on these lines anyway: https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/MAXIMUS_VII_RANGER/

ROG motherboards are more for show, not for performance. You're getting a locked CPU anyways, so Z97 would be completely pointless. H97 is much better price:performance 

[Slottr]

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/KDP3m8
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/KDP3m8/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£309.98 @ Aria PC) 
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler 
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£129.99 @ Ebuyer) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (£67.99 @ Novatech) 
Storage: PNY CS1311 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£39.47 @ Amazon UK) 
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (£142.80 @ Novatech) 
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£41.89 @ Amazon UK) 
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Dual Series Video Card  (£397.91 @ More Computers) 
Case: NZXT H440 (Glossy White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£99.98 @ Novatech) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£86.99 @ Novatech) 
Other: Nothing 
Total: £1317.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-19 18:17 GMT+0000

 

 

 

You can change the blue to a black if you prefer.

[stealth80]

10 minutes ago, Growlithe said:

ROG motherboards are more for show, not for performance. You're getting a locked CPU anyways, so Z97 would be completely pointless. H97 is much better price:performance 

Lol that aint true either, I have that exact board for the reason - it has great performance (or did at the time) for a good price

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/motherboards/2014/05/11/z97-motherboard-group-tests/11 backs it up

[alistairw]

I'm still not sure on what to pick for a motherboard. To be honest I'm stuck between MSI and Asus.

[SnowyMus]

I wouldn't personally use that cooler for that CPU, as it's only a 65 W TDP CPU and a cheap $25 cooler is more than fine, though if you really want it for aesthetics, I guess it wouldn't hurt.

 

Also, what are you needing a Z87 motherboard for? You aren't going to be doing SLI, and that CPU isn't unlocked. If you want to overclock, get an i7-4770K or i7-4790K. Otherwise, it's kind of a bit much if you're just wanting a motherboard with features like M.2 or something.

 

You're going to need a graphics card if you want to run GTA V smoothly. Otherwise, if you're going to be getting Haswell and you're not planning on using a graphics card, you may as well get a Broadwell i7 (i7-5775C) as it has Iris Pro graphics, which are quite a bit better than Intel HD 4600.

 

I'd recommend getting a better PSU, too. It's not the worst PSU ever, and it'll probably work just fine, but you could get something worth more for your money.

 

Here's my recommendation for what you may want to use:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£279.00 @ Amazon UK) 
Motherboard: Asus B150M-A/M.2 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (£73.78 @ BT Shop) 
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (£74.99 @ Novatech) 
Storage: Sandisk X400 128GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£50.40 @ Kustom PCs) 
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£69.53 @ Misco UK) 
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB WINDFORCE OC 6G Video Card  (£244.86 @ CCL Computers) 
Case: NZXT H440 (Glossy White/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£99.98 @ Novatech) 
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£78.96 @ Aria PC) 
Total: £971.50
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-19 18:29 GMT+0000

 

I know it's well below your budget by quite a lot, but to me, a budget is something one is willing to spend, not something one must spend. If you don't want to spend your entire budget, then you shouldn't have to, but you do have room for improvement if you need it.

 

If you want a better CPU, I'd recommend getting a 6700K. To overclock it, you'll need a Z170 motherboard, which depending on the board, could cost quite a bit more. You could also get a 6800K, but an X99 board is an even bigger price hike by itself. These processors don't come with coolers, so be prepared to spend even more for one.

 

If you want that cooler back, put it back on. Or if you want a cheaper cooler and just hate the Intel stock cooler for whatever reason, I'd check out the Hyper 212 EVO.

 

If you're planning on using a 1440p monitor or you're getting a 1080p 144 Hz monitor for gaming, I'd recommend substituting the 1060 for a 1070.

[alistairw]

 

Had a browse around and came across this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gigabyte-Z97P-D3-LGA1150-Motherboard-USB3-0/dp/B00K9R1OCW/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1479582145&sr=1-1&keywords=gigabyte+motherboard

 

Anyone had any experiences with this or can anyone tell me if it's any good?