Critique my Spec please?

GreenMint

GreenMint

GreenMint

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As posted a few days ago in CPU forum, I've put this together so far, just wondering on any critique?

PC is for my brother for mostly standard home/office work and also playing Football Manager, I can go upto £530 including a Graphics Card (No idea on whats a good budget one nowadays) he will probably only play Football Manager despite him saying he wants to play other games, but would like to get something in incase, ideally able to play games in 1080 or 1440 in medium detail+

Any thoughts?

I do need to add an optical drive, but will have the free shipping option, so they should pretty much offset.



My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £460.19
(includes shipping: £12.30)



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Nothing wrong with that. Just doesn't leave much for a gaming GPU. A GTX 1050Ti 4GB will see him for the next few years at medium 1080p on newer games. Something less than that is going to struggle quite soon. And something like a GT 1030 doesn't cut the mustard for gaming.

So let's start with the storage. 120GB is a bit small for boot drive these days. How much will he actually need for say the first 6 months? Being so easy to add a HDD as and when needed, you could save £20 dropping the HDD and getting a 250GB SDD.

Now the semi-modular PSU. The only cables on the non-modular that won't be used will be one PCIe power cable and one Molex connector cable. That's not much to tidy up. Modular makes more sense with higher wattage PSUs and a ton of cables, or in very small cases. So you can save a wee bit there too.

Processor and motherboard. The 1200 is about on a par with the mid-speed Haswell or Devil's Canyon i5 four cores. And DDR3 is a bit cheaper.

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The Zalman offers a bit more than the Neos coming with 3 fans and fan controller. But looks are subjective so go with what you/he prefer.

That leaves £103 to find a Socket 1150 i5-4XXX (or even i7-4XXX if lucky, a 4770k went the other day for £100) in either the Member's Market or at CEX with 2 year warranty. Along with a cooler. Not hard at all and doable right away, although if you're patient and check daily, you'll probably spot an even better deal than the ones around today.

That would be one way of getting a nice GPU in.

Alternatively, go with a Ryzen build and DDR4 but with faster frequency which Ryzen needs for optimal performance, and source the Member's Market for an £80-ish GPU instead, bringing it to £530 total as you have the free shipping. Something like GTX 960/770 or R9 280/280X. A GTX 970 might be within reach too.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £458.59
(includes shipping: £11.70)



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GreenMint said:
As posted a few days ago in CPU forum, I've put this together so far, just wondering on any critique?

PC is for my brother for mostly standard home/office work and also playing Football Manager, I can go upto £530 including a Graphics Card (No idea on whats a good budget one nowadays) he will probably only play Football Manager despite him saying he wants to play other games, but would like to get something in incase, ideally able to play games in 1080 or 1440 in medium detail+

Any thoughts?

I do need to add an optical drive, but will have the free shipping option, so they should pretty much offset.



My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £460.19
(includes shipping: £12.30)



​
Click to expand...

Looks solid, least with Ryzen, their are 2 more generations of CPU coming out for that socket , so in 3-5 years hell have plenty of options to drop in a CPU to extend the life without changing boards
Changed ram for 3200/3000 speed and 2400 will greatly effect the performance of the CPU
Added GPU and AMD hasn't released chip with on board GPU yet
1TB drive to save £20

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £250.43
(includes shipping: £10.50)




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Board is solid and Excellent service with Gigabyte and reps creeps around on here , as well as UK RMA center for it

Will leave you at £572

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £566.50
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And can see Danny's logic with older system as you get a 1050Ti and hopefully luck is on your side finding an i7 for a good price
 
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Nothing really to critique apart from you have a matx board in an atx case nothing wrong with that apart from the board will look tiny in there :D
 
GreenMint said:
As posted a few days ago in CPU forum, I've put this together so far, just wondering on any critique?

PC is for my brother for mostly standard home/office work and also playing Football Manager, I can go upto £530 including a Graphics Card (No idea on whats a good budget one nowadays) he will probably only play Football Manager despite him saying he wants to play other games, but would like to get something in incase, ideally able to play games in 1080 or 1440 in medium detail+

Any thoughts?

I do need to add an optical drive, but will have the free shipping option, so they should pretty much offset.



My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £460.19
(includes shipping: £12.30)



​
Click to expand...

The memory frequency is extremely important. Take at least the DDR4 3000, and preferably DDR4 3200.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £471.19
(includes shipping: £12.30)



​
 
Badfish said:
120GB SSD is very small, really recommend getting double that at least.
Click to expand...

think theres 1TB or 2TB drives states or quoted- SSD should be fine for OS and Football manager which im guessing is the only game for a while - work stuff im guessing will be on standard Drive- and smart choice if file is always being edited
 
If you can stretch another £26 and don't mind not being able to overclock.....


 
Thanks all for the helpful feedback, I've settled on this for the main spec, just need to add graphics to finish it all off!

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £469.15
(includes shipping: £12.30)



​
 
GreenMint said:
Thanks all for the helpful feedback, I've settled on this for the main spec, just need to add graphics to finish it all off!

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £469.15
(includes shipping: £12.30)



​
Click to expand...


My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £220.48
(includes shipping: £10.50)



​

might be worth seeing thats going in the MM for GPU , if our friend doesn;t mind no warrant/ not new
 
Cheers guys, yep fully aware on the gp front, thankyou! :) just checking the rest of the specs out, case looks good value, don't want or need a window, so this one looks fine!

Will have a prem around on the MM, cheers!
 
GreenMint said:
Cheers guys, yep fully aware on the gp front, thankyou! :) just checking the rest of the specs out, case looks good value, don't want or need a window, so this one looks fine!

Will have a prem around on the MM, cheers!
Click to expand...

might have to explain the pros could out weigh the cons if you find a gtx 980 say for £110 or something over the 1050 2GB
 
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