Building my Second PC

[Acerius]

Hello everyone.

 

Today for the first time in around 3 or 4 years (well, to be more precise, in October/November time) I plan to build my second ever gaming rig to replace my current and beloved. I've put together a part list of what I feel would be good bang for my buck and that should be relatively 'futureproof' as I won't have that many opportunities to build a new system or upgrade in the near future. My estimated budget is around £600 GBP, with some parts such as my old 1TB HDD as well as my networking card and optical drive being taken out of my old system. I'm not sure what I'll do with the old parts yet but they'll probably be kept as spares as I don't have the original boxes for them any longer. Some may question why I'm ditching my current processor and the reason being is that the new Ryzen processors are becoming increasingly appealing for their price, not to mention the one I have picked having higher synthetic benchmarks on many websites compared to my current processor. My processor according to Intel has also reached end of life so finding new motherboards and so forth would become increasingly difficult.

 

I'm doing moderate gaming with not many AAA titles included, with my main games being CS:GO, RUST, Citadel: Forged with Fire, Civ5 and Shadow of Mordor. I may get some AAA in the future but a lot of them will be similar system intensities to the games listed. I do a bit of graphics design but no 3D modelling or intensive rendering, just simple graphics on programs such as GIMP and I don't plan to do any video editing in the near future. I do a lot of written work and a bit of web development, as well as watching a lot of media such as Netflix; that's about as far as my repertoir goes. I currently play on a 60Hz 1920x1080 monitor (bog standard) but may upgrade to a slightly larger monitor with a higher resolution later on, but a higher refresh rate would be first priority. I do plan to overlcock my CPU quite a bit which is why I'd prefer having a water cooler, as I not only prefer the aesthetic/noise but it's also a good talking point for my friends who aren't really into computers. Red and black are my favoured colours and if anyone else does suggest a different build, I don't mind different colours so long as the palette doesn't go beyond two colours. I was contemplating whether to stay with an ATX-size system but ultimately decided to go with MicroATX as the 88R is appealing for having a front-mounted 240mm radiator and so forth, but feel free to suggest ATX if needed. With cases, a side-window is a must and at least a single exterior bay for my optical drive and preferably black.

 

This is my current system

CPU: Intel i5-4670K OC @ 4.1GHz

CPU COOLER: Some 120MM/140MM water cooler mounted on the rear exhaust running in push configuration.

RAM: Some budget 8GB DDR3-1600MHz

MOBO: Some basic ASUS ATX motherboard that I ripped out of another system.

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650

HDD: 1TB @ 5400RPM

 

Proposed £600 GBP system to be purchased and built around October/November time

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£146.96) [overclock planned]

CPU COOLER: Deepcool - Maelstrom 240T 167.3CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£49.97)

MOBO: MSI - B350M GAMING PRO Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£74.97)

RAM: Corsair - Vengeance LPX 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£67.32)

STORAGE #1: My old 1TB 5400RPM HDD to be ripped from current PC

STORAGE #2: Silicon Power - Silm S55 120GB 2.5" SSD (£41.19) [to become boot drive]

GPU: Gigabyte - Radeon RX 460 4GB WINDFORCE OC Video Card (£125.84)

Case: Corsair - Carbide Series 88R MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£45.06)

PSU: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£50.04)

Plus...

ASUS PCI-E wireless networking card from old PC and ASUS optical drive.

 

Let me know what you think and whether this would be worth building!

 

EDIT: If you think it would be worth me keeping my i5-4670K then let me know!

[Princess Luna]

Frankly with a 4670k you could just throw a GTX 980ti ~ 1070 on it and call it a day.

[Gungpae]

Keep the i5-4670k and get a better GPU and possibly an SSD

[GrayTech]

I wouldn't upgrade from an i5-4670K to a R5 1400. If I were you I would get a good GPU and maybe a better PSU if your current one is low quality. You can upgrade the CPU after purchasing a good GPU but then I would get something like the R5 1600.

[Acerius]

19 minutes ago, GrayTech said:

I wouldn't upgrade from an i5-4670K to a R5 1400. If I were you I would get a good GPU and maybe a better PSU if your current one is low quality. You can upgrade the CPU after purchasing a good GPU but then I would get something like the R5 1600.

 

22 minutes ago, Gungpae said:

Keep the i5-4670k and get a better GPU and possibly an SSD

 

25 minutes ago, Princess Cadence said:

Frankly with a 4670k you could just throw a GTX 980ti ~ 1070 on it and call it a day.

 

Okay, that sounds fair enough. If I keep the i5-4670K however I would still like to purchase a new motherboard; which LGA1150 chipsets support overclocking?

[GrayTech]

Just now, Acerius said:

 

 

 

Okay, that sounds fair enough. If I keep the i5-4670K however I would still like to purchase a new motherboard; which LGA1150 chipsets support overclocking?

Z87 and Z97

[Acerius]

Okay, so I've taken that move into consideration and come up with this build instead. Is this more worth my money?
 

CPU: Intel - Core i5-4670K OC @ 4.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (already have, so no cost incurred)

CPU COOLER: Deepcool Maelstrom 120K 61.9 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£39.99)

MOBO:  ASRock Fatal1ty Gaming Z97 Killer LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard (£116.41)

RAM: Kingston - Savage 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£56.99)

STORAGE #1: My old 1TB 5400RPM HDD (already have so no cost incurred)

STORAGE #2: SanDisk - SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" SSD (£48.99) [will become boot drive]

GPU: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Mini ITX OC Video Card (£242.53)

CASE: Corsair - 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (£39.99)

PSU: Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£51.49)

Plus...

ASUS wireless networking card from old PC

ASUS optical drive from old PC.

Total upgrade cost: £596.39

 

@GrayTech @Gungpae @Princess Cadence

 

[Princess Luna]

No really I would literally just buy a second hand GTX 980 for a good price and done (as long as you own a PSU capable enough) maybe get a SSD for boot drive would be neat indeed to speed up stuff.... the thing is going from a 660 to a 980 is a huge jump that your CPU can still support and you'll probably have all your needs satisfied if you're at 1920x1080p without extra expends.

 

It'll last you long enough to save up for a brand new platform here in a year or two.