£700 PC

[Jamdude]

I'm building a gaming PC for a friend and it can't be any more than £700, how does this one look?  It needs to have wireless, please recommend any changes you think might help.

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£149.99 @ Aria PC) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£23.98 @ Scan.co.uk) 

Motherboard: Asus Z87-PRO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£143.98 @ Amazon UK) 

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£37.73 @ Ebuyer) 

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£42.26 @ CCL Computers) 

Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 270X 2GB Video Card  (£152.46 @ CCL Computers) 

Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case  (£47.98 @ Amazon UK) 

Case Fan: Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 74.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  (£3.63 @ Ebuyer) 

Case Fan: Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 74.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  (£3.63 @ Ebuyer) 

Case Fan: Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 74.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  (£3.63 @ Ebuyer) 

Case Fan: Arctic Cooling Arctic F12 74.0 CFM 120mm  Fan  (£3.63 @ Ebuyer) 

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£54.61 @ Amazon UK) 

Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer  (£13.18 @ Scan.co.uk) 

Total: £680.69

[coen113]

i suggest a cheaper case and get 8 gb of ram

[D3MON]

threads

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/71458-new-pc-questionssuggestions/

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/71371-straight-gaming-build/#entry978103

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/68787-im-new-to-pc-gaming-and-need-some-help-with-what-my-pc-can-handle-help/

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/68489-1000-pc-for-friend/

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/72111-1300-build-with-tax/#

 

http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/77043-800-build-p/

should give you a rough idea

get an 8320 a 990fx board 2x4gb of 1600 ram dont spend £15 on fans, get a case with fans already in it

edit
CASE-http://www.scan.co.uk/products/sharkoon-t9-value-white-edition-black-case-with-side-window-usb-30-w-o-psu -£50

RAM-Crucial 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600Mhz Ballistix Tactical Memory Kit CL8 (8-8-8-24) 1.5V 311813 33 in stock £68.00 £68.00

CPU-AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz Socket AM3+ 16MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor 409186 28 in stock £109.98 £109.98
BOARD-Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 990FX Socket AM3+ 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard 271789 203 in stock £105.22 £105.22
CARD-Powercolor HD 7870 2GB GDDR5 DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E Graphics Card 487055 18 in stock £148.49 £148.49

never settle silver coupon
OPTICAL-LG GH24NSB0 24x Internal DVD Writer with SATA - OEM 569147 > 200 in stock £12.99 £12.99

PSU-Corsair 750W CXM Builder Modular 80+ Bronze PSU 429987 4 in stock £75.56 £75.56

COOLING-Coolermaster Hyper 212 Evo AMD Socket AM2+ AM3+ FM1 FM2 Intel 775 1150 1155 1156 1366 Processor Cooler 288855 30 in stock £39.05

£39.05

HDD-Seagate 2TB BARRACUDA 3.5" SATA-III Hard Drive - 7200RPM 64MB Cache 319641 > 25 in stock £70.00 £70.00

£679.29p

2tb drive, loads of room  with the 990fx board to add another 7870 and sound cards etc later plus it has an 8+2 power phase so you can easily overclock if you want to (though its been shown that there isnt much need for it), 8320 is likely to be better for the future, everythings going multi-core and the ability to game and stream and render for less money-WIN, 750w allows you to add another 7870, 2tb drive instead of a 1tb=100% more space for only £20 more.

case-good, i can vouch for it, plan to use it in other future builds, CPU-will be better, 10% slower in some games, equal in most, equal to a 4770k in cpu heavy tasks for 40% of the price, BOARD-4 expansion slots should you want to run 4 titans or more likely add in a sound card later, add in another 7870 and run crossfire plus you get sata 6gb/s so you can add in an ssd later, also has an 8+2 power phase so you can overclock without fear of blowing it, CARD-270x is a 7870 with a feature update, but a decent 7870 is £150 a decent 270x is like £20 more, OPTICAL-you wanted one...,PSU-technically overkill at this point, will maybe cost an extra 20p/year BUT will be a damn sight cheaper then having to buy it later just after you bought another card. COOLING-hyper 212 evo-done (got1), HDD-2tb, double the space for £20 more (40% more), id say it makes sense, especially since its still within budget, could even go to a 3tb..

[skullbringer]

gaming optimized

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU:  AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£69.99 @ Maplin Electronics)
CPU Cooler:  Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (£23.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-78LMT-USB3 Micro ATX AM3+ Motherboard  (£37.57 @ Aria PC)
Memory:  A-Data XPG V2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  (£68.79 @ Amazon UK)
Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£61.98 @ Aria PC)
Video Card:  Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 4GB Video Card  (£319.33 @ CCL Computers)
Wireless Network Adapter:  TRENDnet TEW-805UB 802.11a/b/g/n/ac USB 3.0 Wi-Fi Adapter  (£30.98 @ Dabs)
Case:  Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case  (£47.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply:  Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£47.67 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £708.27
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-14 16:35 GMT+0000)

[wng_kingsley7]

Fan cooling over rated. You shouldn't really buy that many fans. 4Gb is enough but you'll regret not getting something like 8Gb dual channel kit

[Jamdude]

Snip

Thanks for your suggestion D3MON, I'm not sure about the case as there doesn't look like much room or choice for cable management. Everything else looks good though, I might change it to an AMD build, thanks. I'd get the Gigabyte 270x instead of that 7870 though. Everything else you said seems sound, sorry I can't write much or look a bit more in depth at what you've said but I'm on my phone, I'll comment back tomorrow.

[Jamdude]

Snip

Thanks for your input but that CPU is a bit underpowered compared to the others I was looking at, the motherboard also doesn't seem very good. I'd be going for an AMD GPU considering the price also and an SSD isn't necessary, it's just adding to the cost but thanks anyway.

[Jamdude]

Snip

Probably true, I'll go for 8GB straight off the bat rather than the 4GB

[wng_kingsley7]

Yeah..Why bother who changed the quote >_< 

[WoodenMarker]

Edits: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2knpX

[WoodenMarker]

Thanks for your input but that CPU is a bit underpowered compared to the others I was looking at, the motherboard also doesn't seem very good. I'd be going for an AMD GPU considering the price also and an SSD isn't necessary, it's just adding to the cost but thanks anyway.

A ssd is essential to any modern system. It makes a world of difference. If you haven't used one before, you might not believe how big of a tangible difference it makes.

[D3MON]

Thanks for your suggestion D3MON, I'm not sure about the case as there doesn't look like much room or choice for cable management. Everything else looks good though, I might change it to an AMD build, thanks. I'd get the Gigabyte 270x instead of that 7870 though. Everything else you said seems sound, sorry I can't write much or look a bit more in depth at what you've said but I'm on my phone, I'll comment back tomorrow.

the case is fine for cable management there is about 2cm of clearance between the board and back panel and it fits a 24pin power cable through fine and its good quality steel, its not "dell" heavy but it doesnt feel like tin foil either, it has all optical bays so if you wanted you could have 3x "5in3x5.25" bay adaptor and just fill the front up with 15 hard drives (60 terabytes!), or 15 dvd rw's so you can rip stuff like hell, or as ive done (just trying it) keep the stock 2 fans and have 2 cd drives (1 for a game dvd like gta4 and another for a movie dvd) because im being lazy and not bothering to change, if i could if have no opticals at all.

check out some youtube videos when you get the chance, I will mention this case doesnt have 2 fan mounts in the roof i bought it with this as a bonus, because my friends with roof mounted fans often end up with dust coming through the roof and landing on thier cpu and graphics cards while their pc's are off, and when they are on they have to have fans blowing the air up and out (the fans sucking themselfs down ALONG with gravity, cant be good for motor wear and the added noise) and it stops them ever being able to put anything on top of thier pc,  its a nice clean simple design (i see it as a smaller xigmatek elysium) its moddable if you wanted to and has tool free and USB3 abilitys (mine has a 19pin header which we cant use but you could with that ud3 board) and were using an antek h620 so its not like you cant use an AIO cooler, also it has 3 fans and while they dont move a ton of air theyre not too loud and they (3 of them) use molex AND 3 pin, ive got the rear on molex @12v and the front 2 running together through molex modded to run at 7v, tried them at 5v and while they ran SUUPER slow (looked very cool) they moved no air lol. still love this case which is annoying because everyones like "oh its a cheap chinese case, it must be rubbish" and they go and spend £70 on a corsair case with less features.

I know im going to come across as an amd fanboy saying this (im switching to 2011 for the following reason though), quad cores are going to become like dual cores were, people used to say "2 cores are enough for gaming because games only require 2 cores but you have no headroom to do other things which 4 cores give you",

except this time it will be "4 cores are enough for gaming because games only require 4 cores but you have no headroom to do other things (streaming, rendering encoding etc) which 8 cores give you", im not saying the amd fx8 is an 8 core, its a hardware form of hyperthreading (which from what ive seen and read offers larger benefits over non hyperthreading), while intel will give you 4x I5 threads for £150 and 8x I7 threads for £270 you can get 8 amd threads that are cheaper than an i5 (with only a minor penalty in gaming) but the same rendering performance when its needed just like an I7 thats 150% more expensive.

2x4gb of 1600 ram 9-9-9-24 1.5v-done.

also W.M is right with regards to an SSD being a really good idea BUT you cant get one in your budget and NO you shouldnt cheap out on any of the mentioned parts to fit 1 in because 1#youll be screwing yourself over with poor quality or sub par parts (or denying future possiblitys later on) and 2# even if you do youll only be able to get a 60gb or 128gb drive and while the read speeds are similar a 258gb drive will have much faster, often double the write speed performance, I think this is because with a higher size drive the controller has more flash chips to write to effectively doubling the bandwidth, also its double the size BUT it wont be double the price.

compare any 2 ssds from the same make and model a 128 vs 258 and compare the prices and read and write speeds.

as for the graphics card, personal choice, im currently using a 7770, might trade it in and get a 7850 (not a huge cost) or get a r9-290 (WHOLE LOT of saving).

oh and ssd wise, buy this rig^, you'll have change left over, save up and buy a 256gb crucial/toshiba;)/samsung ssd (in tests samsungs are actually slowing down faster as mentioned in the live stream a while back but theyre still good, im just a bit anti-establishmentarian towards the big corps...)

[Jamdude]

Thanks again @D3MON and @WoodenMarker for your comments, what do you think of this build? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Jamdude/saved/39i4

It definitely seems sensible going with AMD at this price point and I don't want to sacrifice anything for an SSD at this point in time. This build is for my friend who's only had really slow IDE drives until now. This 7200rpm drive should be quite a bit better until his next upgrade which will be an SSD when he has the money, but for now a HDD will have to do until he can afford to put a 120GB 840 EVO or something in the rig.

[WoodenMarker]

Thanks again @D3MON and @WoodenMarker for your comments, what do you think of this build? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Jamdude/saved/39i4

It definitely seems sensible going with AMD at this price point and I don't want to sacrifice anything for an SSD at this point in time. This build is for my friend and he's only had really slow IDE drives so this 7200rpm drive should be quite a bit better but his next upgrade will be an SSD when he has the money but for now a HDD will have to do until he can afford to put a 120GB 840 EVO or something in the rig.

Just get the ssd now. What I recommended is cheaper and still has the ssd.

[Jamdude]

Just get the ssd now. What I recommended is cheaper and still has the ssd.

A 2TB drive is needed really. It would only be a couple of months until he could get an SSD, I'll ask if he can extend his budget slightly to get one sooner though. Is the Kingston SSD you recommended the best for the price?

[WoodenMarker]

A 2TB drive is needed really. It would only be a couple of months until he could get an SSD, I'll ask if he can extend his budget slightly to get one sooner though. Is the Kingston SSD you recommended the best for the price?

What I recommended would be the same price as what you linked if you bumped up to 2TB. 

Yes, it's the best for the price. 

[Jamdude]

What I recommended would be the same price as what you linked if you bumped up to 2TB.

Yes, it's the best for the price.

Alright well his maximum budget is £800 with a monitor, is there a better monitor with HDMI than this for cheaper?http://m.ebuyer.com/519826 if we can shave some money off parts then there might be room in the budget for an ssd.

[WoodenMarker]

Alright well his maximum budget is £800 with a monitor, is there a better monitor with HDMI than this for cheaper?http://m.ebuyer.com/519826 if we can shave some money off parts then there might be room in the budget for an ssd.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2kDQa

[Jamdude]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2kDQa

I don't want to downgrade the CPU, I'll see if he can add £50 to his budget to get this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2kDUu if not then the SSD will be a later upgrade.

[WoodenMarker]

I don't want to downgrade the CPU, I'll see if he can add £50 to his budget to get this http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2kDUu if not then the SSD will be a later upgrade.

The ssd will make a much bigger difference than going from the 6300 to the 8320 or any other part upgrade. If you want to cut back somewhere, don't do it to the ssd. 

[Jamdude]

The ssd will make a much bigger difference than going from the 6300 to the 8320 or any other part upgrade. If you want to cut back somewhere, don't do it to the ssd.

But the SSD is an easy upgrade that can be done soon after when the money is available, unlike the CPU.

[WoodenMarker]

But the SSD is an easy upgrade that can be done soon after when the money is available, unlike the CPU.

Then get the cooler later: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2kE2A

It's an easier upgrade than the ssd. 

[D3MON]

scratched 

[D3MON]

i wouldnt cut back on any part of a system that would need to be sold later on to put cash towards a better part, id never buy a 550w power supply with the intention of sli/CF later on, because later on youll have to sell it to buy a 650-750w for an additional card, id never buy a fx6300 which you then have to sell to buy an fx8320.....id never buy a 1tb when you can get a 2 or 3tb drive for not much more, id never buy a cheaper motherboard built down to a lower cost risk killing the pc and losing a ton of features just to save 30 bucks, because again you'll likely miss things you'll later want or you will have to sell it to buy what you probably should of bought in the first place,. 
other things like an optical drive, cpu cooler and ssd which can get "added in" later are fine ESPECIALLY if they only cost maybe £30 and can be bought within a very short timeframe or as a group when your next paycheck comes in.

an ssd is a great idea and if your looking at 3 or 4 months before you can buy one then sure dont wait 3 or 4 months, however using a hard drive for something like a month isnt going to be that bad and buying the ssd the second you got the additional funds and then having a complete build and not needing to buy or swap and further parts will be better overall.

take my sig rig for example, if someone bought this now (£60motherboard) instead of buying the 990fx chipset ud3 (£40 extra) then they would be stuffed because they cant add in other cards, they cant make full use of an ssd because its only sata2, they cant overclock worth a damn because of the cheap power phase and that also limits cpu usability, the board DOES support 8350's but thats in the same way that you can put nitrous on a vespa...possible, not advised.
(im an exception i dont care if this board dies, im buying a ud3 to replace it)

[Jamdude]

Snip

So you think something like this would be better?http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Jamdude/saved/3aEU then just add an SSD when possible? The PC is only supposed to last a year so he won't be adding another GPU or anything, the PC will more than likely stay as it is when built apart from putting an SSD in when possible. For that reason I don't think it's worth getting a larger PSU but a 990FX motherboard would be worth the extra cost.