Salvage/Building a PC

Tomathee

Tomathee

Tomathee

Associate
Joined
8 Apr 2013
Posts
29
Hi there, long time lurker finally getting round to doing a proper build and get rid of my Dell. I'm hoping to keep a few parts from what I currently have at least for the time being and am after some opinions and advice on what I've been looking at to buy. Trouble I'm having with the current setup is one upgrade seems to necessitate another, for a new CPU I would need a new mobo for the socket, for a new mobo I need a new case because Dell use non standard and so on. I use for gaming mostly along with the other standard things. Did think about streaming to the TV etc but I'll forget about that for now as it might come to nothing.

What I have at the moment;
Dell Studio XPS 8100
i7 860
Windows 7
8Gb RAM
MSI 7950
Seasonic 550W PSU

I want to keep the video card and PSU, and if compatible the RAM. My current thoughts on what to buy are as follows;

Case - Decided I'd prefer white as it's in the lounge and a normal 'big black box' (such as Corsair 300R) might not go down too well. At the moment I'm stuck between Corsair 500R, Bitfenix Shinobi and Fractal R4 (out of stock or not sold here). Hard to compare as they are different prices and some go for quiet over cooling etc. Only practical things I can see are the Bitfenix doesn't allow a side fan and the Fractal I imagine the fans at the front would struggle with there being a door in the way. Probably comes down to taste and personal opinion but any pointers would be helpful or other recommendations around or below £90. Checked out the Corsair 540 as it appeared a lot but the footprint is too large.

Processor - i5 4670 seems to be most recommended on here so I'll go for that and probably the K version for resale value and if I ever do OC it. Not sure if I need retail or OEM, I was thinking about a cooler and I guess it would be best to get that at the same time, is that the only difference?

Cooler - Can't decide between an all in one water system such as Corsair H80i or a standard air cooler. If I had a retail processor are these easy to add in at a later date, if budget becomes a problem?

Motherboard - Found it hard to see the differences between some of them. MSI had some good models, such as G43 or G55 but for £20 extra I couldn't see what you got, although I'm sure it's there. Anything less than £100 is what I'm after, saw some of the dearer ones with WiFi but I'll probably take the card from the old PC instead of pay the extra for that feature.

Windows - Only £1 difference between 7 and 8, is it down to preference or should I go for 8 being newer?

RAM - If it's not compatible with the new board, or I should get some new anyway then 8Gb should be fine for now, unless the standard has moved on and I need to catch back up. Not too fussy here althought I guess if there's a faster option I should go for it.

HDD/SSD - Will probably get a fresh HDD in case I sell the old PC as a whole, and have 2 external drives that I'd like to move indoors. Also thinking at the start is best time to add an SSD before the Windows install? Perhaps a 2TB Seagate Barracuda looks a good price and Crucial M500 240Gb for the SSD would be a good combo?

I think that's everything, apart from any sundries like thermal paste or case fans I might need? Can't buy anything for a week or so and might wait a couple of weeks after that so I can buy it all at once or close together in case of problems. I'm still looking at things but hopefully I can get some input to narrow things down and end up with some kind of shortlist or a final shopping list even of what to go for. As for the overall budget I'll try and come in at £600, if I end up missing out or having too many compromises I'll see if I can stretch it a bit further.

Thanks very much
 
Idleman said:
Hello and welcome to the forums.

What is your total budget for all this?
Click to expand...


Cheers Idleman, if within £600 is possible then great, if not I'll have to look into compromises and/or putting extra money into it.

Windows - £75
Case ~£90
Processor ~£170
Mobo ~£90
HDD ~£60
SSD ~£70

Using those rough estimates comes to £555 which would leave £45 in that budget, either for RAM if I can't bring over the old stuff or cooler if I can. Above that would depend on how much above, what the benefits of spending over it are and whether I can scrounge the extra cash or make a cutback and juggle somewhere else in the setup.

Thanks again
 
Should be able to come up with a decent spec. Can you have a look as to what ram you actually have?
D/load and run Cpuz, then click on SPD, this will give the info we need.

EDIT: Ram is DDR3 1600, you can reuse this.
 
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How does something like this look. Case is a personal thing so you might not like the NZXT.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £169.99
1 x NZXT Phantom 530 Full Tower Gaming Case - White £97.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £82.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
Total : £566.04 (includes shipping : £11.75).




Your psu will only be enough for a single gpu. If you wanted to add a second then you would need a bigger psu. (And a motherboard that supports CF/SLI x8/x8 ideally)
 
 
Just had chance to look at the cases, I think both might be a bit on the large side as they're long and wide. The desk isn't very deep so at the moment I have to have the PC sideways-on, partly behind the monitor, and they are quite a bit longer so I'd have to move the screen forward out of its way which isn't good for eyes. Speaking of space I saw some nice micro ATX computers, I hadn't considered it before as I always assumed that smaller meant you couldn't have stuff like proper video cards and cooling but some of them were quite good spec, so I'll apologize ahead of time in case I change what I'm looking for. If not then the motherboard, SSD, HDD, processor and Windows seem to be unanimous.

Thanks again for the help so far
 
 
That's a great shot and might end up being right first time. Case is still my main trouble in deciding, the one you recommended was one I looked at and liked, along with an Aerocool Dead Silence and seemingly half the Bitfenix range - Phenom, Prodigy or Colossus. Would all be fine with the video card and PSU I have (MSI 7950 and Seasonic G Series modular), that might help narrow it down.

Out of curiousity what's the reason for that particular SSD? There are similar around the same price and some 240Gb drives only £14 away, but I guess they would have some drawback being so cheap in comparison.

Thanks again Idleman
 
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Which games are you going to be playing and at what resolution? Because despite the 4670 being ~50% faster than the 860, I'm not sure you're going to see a significant improvement in games. Play your games on one monitor with Task Manager active on the other and check the CPU usage. Some games are CPU-intensive; others are GPU-intensive. You might be better off putting your money towards a SSD and a better GPU.
 
Tomathee said:
That's a great shot and might end up being right first time. Case is still my main trouble in deciding, the one you recommended was one I looked at and liked, along with an Aerocool Dead Silence and seemingly half the Bitfenix range - Phenom, Prodigy or Colossus. Would all be fine with the video card and PSU I have (MSI 7950 and Seasonic G Series modular), that might help narrow it down.

Out of curiousity what's the reason for that particular SSD? There are similar around the same price and some 240Gb drives only £14 away, but I guess they would have some drawback being so cheap in comparison.

Thanks again Idleman
Click to expand...

If you mean the M500 and you are not worried about low write speeds, then it's not a bad buy.
 
That's cool if the Toshiba is faster than I'll keep that on the list.

Quartz I gather there won't be too much improvement from a new processor but I think being a Dell won't put me in a position where I can just uproot everything I have into a new case. Also I just want to do it anyway, both the building myself and buying a few nice bits such as the SSD and case. I have the money around now but have a baby due near the end of the year and it's a bit of a case of 'in before that bleeds my wallet dry' :D.

Still on the hunt for a case, such a hard decision between those 5.
 
So in new developments I think I've settled on the Aerocool case, colour to be decided. Seems to have a better layout than the Bitfenix models and be easier to put together. Couldn't make peace with the idea of pulling air in from the top and exhausting it out the bottom with them, and the Silverstone was a bit to 'normal' in looks. I think I will get some new RAM for it as I will probably want to get back into the old one for something or other and it will be a pain swapping it back and forth, I can also go for the faster stuff if it can do it. Also I will go for an external optical drive to save space inside and because I rarely use it, seem to be around £30. I assume I'll be able to get Windows installed from this being a USB?

With all that said I'll add £50 to the budget (£650). One day I'll learn how to copy a shopping basket in but that sounds like it will be enough for what I've said plus the recommendations from earlier.

Then from that, what would be the next thing that people are holding back from including due to budget? A better mobo or cooler for example or some more fans for the top etc? Maybe able to reach £700 by the time I go to buy all of this so one or two 'backups' I can add just in case would be good as I'd prefer to do as much as possible from scratch rather than getting it going and then trying to get it apart to plug in an extra fan cable or whatever in a month or two when it's full of other gear.

Thanks guys
 
Thanks Lee, was at work earlier and it seems the inconsiderate sods have blocked the kind of thing that lets you copy a shopping basket!

So this is what I've come up with, case colour may change, this SSD was a bit cheaper but similar or a little faster than the Toshiba so I'll have to check out some reviews unless someone here confirms the Toshiba is worth the extra ££, same for the cooler. The memory I wasn't sure about, I believe the motherboard takes up to 1600mhz so I looked for that and this looked like a good set for the price, not sure if it will fit in with other parts like being short enough around the cooler etc? Any critiques appreciated, may be due to change if I do some reading and look at alternatives for the mentioned bits. As said above I could also do with a couple of extra things for if I could up the budget to a round £700, either in the shape of fans for the top perhaps or an improvement to one or more of the parts, but I wouldn't be sure which ones to juggle so that one doesn't end up lagging behind.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87M-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £82.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x Aero Cool Dead Silence Gaming Red Mini Tower Windowed £72.95
1 x Kingston HyperX 3K SSD 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive (SH103S3/120G) £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G1600HC9DC01) £49.99
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler £49.99
1 x Samsung SE-S208DB/TSWS External Slimline 8x DVD-RW (TV Connect) - White £21.98
Total : £654.96 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Thanks very much
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87M-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £82.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x Aero Cool Dead Silence Gaming Red Mini Tower Windowed £72.95
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x Samsung SE-S208DB/TSWS External Slimline 8x DVD-RW (TV Connect) - White £21.98
Total : £646.96 (includes shipping : £11.75).




Added faster 2400MHz Ram.

Samsung Evo is a very good SSD for only a few quid more.

Alpenfohn Pure Edition cooler is great value for money, and offers good performance for the price.
 
Some adjustments :)
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87M-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £82.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x Aero Cool Dead Silence Gaming Black Mini Tower Windowed £72.95
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G2133HC11ADC01) £53.99
1 x Samsung SE-218CN/RSBS Ultra Slim External DVD-RW Drive - Black (Retail) £29.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £19.99
Total : £642.96 (includes shipping : £11.75).


E - Swapped SSD + ODD, thanks lee!
 
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