Building new gaming rig, advice appreciated!

emkaynox1 · 3 Apr 2015 at 15:14

Hi guys,

I'm planning to build a new gaming rig and would like some advice. I have received some great advice from this forum in the past and hope you can help me again!

Money is not really an object, but I am looking to get the best bang for my buck with a decent amount of future proofing. Ideally looking to at least be able to play modern day FPS titles at high settings with good frame rates.

I already have the following:

Antec P182 Super Midi Tower Case
Enermax Noisetaker 600W EG701AX-VE(W) SFMA ATX2.0 SLI Compliant PSU
Dell UltraSharp 2209WA 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor
Peripherals etc.

So, I'm looking for new CPU/MB, RAM, GFX, SSD (and windows 8.1).

I've done a bit of reading around and this is what I have been looking at:

CPU: Intel i5 4690k - I notice that Overclockers have a few bundles currently with this processor and motherboard for ~£270-£290. Is there much difference between these motherboards? Is it worth considering an i7?

GFX: R9 280X/290X vs GTX970? Not really sure what to go for here... Is the step up in performance to the 290X or GTX970 worth the extra cash? Is there much difference between the AMD and Nvidia cards?

RAM: I think I want to go 16GB, but I don't really understand whether to go duel or quad channel? Does it depend on the motherboard?

SSD: Overclockers seem to use the Samsung 250GB 850 EVO in their pre built rigs, are there other drives worth considering?

Sorry for the huge post with lots of questions, I'd really appreciate any advice/alternative builds to consider.

Thanks so much!

stulid · 3 Apr 2015 at 15:21

Your PSU is 10 or more years old and I think you should get a new one.

YOUR BASKET
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £54.95
Total : £54.95 (includes shipping : ).

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

GFX cards, the 290X and GTX970 are very similar in performance, I think the 290X is quicker and has a full 4GB of full speed Vram (the GTX970 kinda doesn't).

8GB of Ram is plenty for gaming.

The 850Evo is very expensive, Crucial do some nice fast SSDs with better price/performance ratios.

So with that said,

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - Devils Canyon Core i5 4690K Bundle **£12 Saving** £272.98
1 x OcUK GeForce GTX 780Ti "NVIDIA Reference" 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £249.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £72.98
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2400HC11CDC01) £44.99
1 x Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler - Black £14.99
Total : £733.87 (includes shipping : ).

The GTX780ti a very quick card and on a special pre-order price, it is due instock on the 10th.

The BX100 SSD is quick and a good size to hold the OS and games, a 128Gb sized SSD will soon fill up very quickly.

---------------------------------------------

If you want a 290X,

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 290X LE Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £249.95
Total : £249.95 (includes shipping : ).

emkaynox1 · 3 Apr 2015 at 15:42

Thanks stulid!

Good point about the PSU and the SSD, think I will take your advice there.

Regarding the GFX cards, is the 780Ti the superior card? Is there much difference to the 290X?

I want to order today if possible, not sure if I want to wait a week for the 780Ti to come in stock...

stulid · 3 Apr 2015 at 16:28

290X vs 780ti - http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1439?vs=1441

chickey · 23 Apr 2015 at 15:25

stulid said:
Your PSU is 10 or more years old and I think you should get a new one.

Did you end up replacing your PSU, i've one in my system too which has been ticking along quite nicely, i've only a 6950 at the moment but i was looking at upgrading a GTX970 too and was thinking i'd be ok, the PSU does only give 35A on the 12v rail but i thought that would be ok with a single card.

Colin.

stulid · 23 Apr 2015 at 15:46

chickey said:
Did you end up replacing your PSU, i've one in my system too which has been ticking along quite nicely, i've only a 6950 at the moment but i was looking at upgrading a GTX970 too and was thinking i'd be ok, the PSU does only give 35A on the 12v rail but i thought that would be ok with a single card.

Colin.

You have the same PSU?

chickey · 28 Apr 2015 at 17:49

Sorry for the delay i never got an auto notification, or forgot to set it at least. Yeah i've the exact same PSU, Still going strong.