1080P Gaming & Media - £950

flowrider99 said:
Have you seen the Fractal Design Node 605 HTPC case, it is a lovely case but more expensive than the Grandia GD09
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It looks nice - I'd have to do something like drop from the 6600K to 6400 CPU to get there though. Given the 6600K is only slightly faster than the 6400 is that a sensible trade-off?
 
pwate said:
I'd be very much happier with a nicer PSU though if I can definitely get away with it.
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I wouldn't go less than 750W, personally, although 650W is likely doable I really wouldn't to drop as far as 550W. I believe it is always best to give some headroom to your graphics card.

I would also note that the nVidia 970 is perfectly capable at 1080p and since it has a lower power demand is likely to result in a cooler (=quieter) PC. The Radeon does have more grunt but there's few games you will notice it on at 1080.
 
Mr Jack said:
I wouldn't go less than 750W, personally, although 650W is likely doable I really wouldn't to drop as far as 550W. I believe it is always best to give some headroom to your graphics card.

I would also note that the nVidia 970 is perfectly capable at 1080p and since it has a lower power demand is likely to result in a cooler (=quieter) PC. The Radeon does have more grunt but there's few games you will notice it on at 1080.
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A 750W is enough for SLI. A single GTX 970 will run perfectly fine on a 550W psu.
 
Due to some personal biases \ superstitions I'm sticking with the R9. Might not be fully rational there it feels right. I'm also sticking with a 750W PSU - but I've swapped it for the EVGA. I'm the kind of person who likes a decent PSU!

I've downgraded the RAM, CPU & motherboard to try and get back to target budget of £950 and stuck with the DVD Win 10 just because its in-stock. I can drum up an external DVD drive for the install. The Silverstone case is missing simply because its out of stock on OCUK.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £884.13
(includes shipping: £12.30)
​

£884.13 + cost of getting the case elsewhere (with regrets!) comes to £951.

I'm happy with the in-budgetness. Will think some more about downgrading the GPU in favour of spending more on the RAM \ mobo.
 
Mr Jack said:
I would also note that the nVidia 970 is perfectly capable at 1080p and since it has a lower power demand is likely to result in a cooler (=quieter) PC. The Radeon does have more grunt but there's few games you will notice it on at 1080.
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I'm making a concerted effort to consider swapping for a 970. Would allow for a lower W'age PSU & would help keeping quiet & cool compared to the Radeon (my second to last GPU was an HD4970 which ran at 60 degrees idle :S - that said it did surprisingly well and it punched above its weight for a few years longer than I expected) which is more appropriate for set-top-box machine.
 
pwate said:
I'm making a concerted effort to consider swapping for a 970. Would allow for a lower W'age PSU & would help keeping quiet & cool compared to the Radeon (my second to last GPU was an HD4970 which ran at 60 degrees idle :S - that said it did surprisingly well and it punched above its weight for a few years longer than I expected) which is more appropriate for set-top-box machine.
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The XFX R9 390 does surprisingly well regarding fan noise and heat output.


http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015...ipation_8gb_video_card_review/10#.VqjiKPmLT8A
 
Many thanks - after much swithering I ditched the GD09 case and went with a budget mid tower. Usb, power etc. are on the top so I'm just going to sling it in the media centre on its side with the top facing out. The GD09 was fairly massive for an HTPC case anyway!

There is some overkill here I'm sure but I'm hoping that in return it will run very comfortably for many years.

Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU)
Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
XFX Radeon R9 390 "DD Black Edition" 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (R9-390P-8DB6)
Arctic MX-4 Thermal Compound (4g)
Gigabyte Z170XP-SLI - Intel Core i5 6600K Bundle **£20 Saving**
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C15 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK16GX4M2B30
Super Flower Leadex Platinum 750W Fully Modular "80 Plus Platinum" Power Supply - Black
Raijintek Aidos Direct Contact CPU Cooler - Black
be quiet! Pure Wings 2, 120mm Fan
Raijintek Arcadia Mid Tower USB 3.0 Case - Black

Total order value £977.81

Many thanks!
 
Ah yes - the USB wasn't available when I placed the order but I was able to locate an external DVD to complete the install thankfully.
 
Stock performance seems fine.

Fallout 4 is mostly stable 60FPS @ Ultra 1080p with VSYNC on, "screen space reflections" turned off, Shadow Quality & Distance set to high and Godrays set to medium. This is in the early areas (pre diamond city). With those settings the only dips I have seen have really been in some random corridors in the starting vault.

System gets a little warm under load but given the rudimentary case cooling I'm not too surprised.

CPU-Z core speed looks a little funny. Is this CPU-Z being old and quirky or likely a misconfig?

Idle:
idle.png


Priming:

CPU_load.png


GPU Benching:

gpuload.png


Firestrike:
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/7399719

Skydiver:
http://www.3dmark.com/sd/3785313

Next steps I might try and tweak the cooling a bit (still space for two 120mm fans either intaking or exhausting at the top of the case) to see if there is some headroom for OC'ing.
 
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