New PC build thoughts/advice

je11693

je11693

je11693

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Joined
21 Sep 2018
Posts
153
Hey guys, I just wanted to post the below build to see what more experienced people thought. This will be my first try at building a PC. Let me know if you have any advice!

Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor
£169.66
Cooler Master - Hyper T2 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
£16.80
Motherboard Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
£70.96
Memory Corsair - Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
£86.99
Kingston - A400 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive £33.54
Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive £35.76
MSI - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card £150.99
BitFenix - Nova ATX Mid Tower Case £26.50
Corsair - CXM (2015) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply £47.99
Zalman - ZM-K300M Wired Gaming Keyboard £8.35
Genius - DX 110 Wired Optical Mouse £4.97

Total £652.51
 
Spankme said:
Personally i would ditch that case, if your spending good money on parts why would you cheap out on the case
Click to expand...

I didn't think the case would affect performance so just went for a cheap on. Can the case impact performance, or is it more just to make it look better? Any suggestions for a more appropriate case?

Any thoughts on the rest of the build?
 
je11693 said:
I didn't think the case would affect performance so just went for a cheap on. Can the case impact performance, or is it more just to make it look better? Any suggestions for a more appropriate case?

Any thoughts on the rest of the build?
Click to expand...

Yes a case can affect performance, bad air flow = heat
Bad cable management = dust which kills pc's :)
Lots of heat + lots of dust = well lets not get in to that lol

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £324.94 (includes shipping: £28.02)
​
 
Last edited:
Spankme said:
Yes a case can affect performance, bad air flow = heat

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £324.94 (includes shipping: £28.02)
​
Click to expand...

Main reason is it's already pushing the upper edge of my budget so was trying to cut as much of the cost as I could. Thanks for the suggestions, I'll have a browse through them.

Does the build I suggested include a sound card and USB ports (and if so, how many) or do I have to add them separately at additional cost? Also, if it doesn't include wifi, what do I need to add to make it so that I can use wifi on it?
 
Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX has 4 usb 3.0 ports, you dont need a sound card onboard is more than good enough these days and wifi? dont do it, for the cost of a wifi adapter you can buy home plugs :)
 
Spankme said:
what is your buget and what resolution are you playing at?
Click to expand...

My budget was ~£500-600. I'll mostly play simulation type games (mainly Factorio, for which RAM speed/latency is apparently very important), hence my choice of RAM. Intel is supposed to be better for this game too given it has the turbo boost which is why I went for this CPU. Would also like the option to play other types of games like stealth, thrid-person games, and not really interested in playing first person shooters on it.

Ah ok, so it's the motherboard that has the USB ports. Think I know what you mean on the wifi, I just checked and my wireless home router has ports in the back. I presume the motherboard is the place the wires coming from the router would connect to?
 
lee32uk said:
This case is pretty good for the money. The ATX version is also the same price, but out of stock on here at the moment.

Comes with 2 front fans installed. I would move one to the rear for exhaust.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £60.49 (includes shipping: £10.50)
​
Click to expand...

With those two fans included, could I then take out the cooler I included in my original build list?

The description says it includes "USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and audio jacks". Would I be able to use the 2.0 USB port for one of the USB 3.0 ports on the motherboard?

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll need to check measurements to see if the storage components in the list will fit in this.
 
Most cases these days come with at least 2 fans, 1 for intake and 1 for exhaust, most come with 2 ssd mounts and a drive cage that accepts 2 or even 3 x 3.5"" mechanical hard drives.
Intel stock coolers are usually garbage so i would keep the air cooler personally.
So when a case says it includes usb 3.0 ports u can use both 2.0 and 3.0 in them. The usb ports on the case plug directly in to your motherboard. so you will have 6 usb ports at the rear and 2 at the front of the case somewhere
Also most of the newer popular cases do not have optical drive bays for cd/dvd drives as they arnt really needed these days due to windows being able to be installed from a usb :)
 
je11693 said:
Hey guys, I just wanted to post the below build to see what more experienced people thought. This will be my first try at building a PC. Let me know if you have any advice!

Intel - Core i5-8400 2.8GHz 6-Core Processor
£169.66
Cooler Master - Hyper T2 54.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
£16.80
Motherboard Gigabyte - B360M DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
£70.96
Memory Corsair - Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory
£86.99
Kingston - A400 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive £33.54
Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive £35.76
MSI - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Video Card £150.99
BitFenix - Nova ATX Mid Tower Case £26.50
Corsair - CXM (2015) 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply £47.99
Zalman - ZM-K300M Wired Gaming Keyboard £8.35
Genius - DX 110 Wired Optical Mouse £4.97

Total £652.51
Click to expand...


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £668.49 (includes shipping: £12.60)​
​
 
Spankme said:
Most cases these days come with at least 2 fans, 1 for intake and 1 for exhaust, most come with 2 ssd mounts and a drive cage that accepts 2 or even 3 x 3.5"" mechanical hard drives.
Intel stock coolers are usually garbage so i would keep the air cooler personally.
So when a case says it includes usb 3.0 ports u can use both 2.0 and 3.0 in them. The usb ports on the case plug directly in to your motherboard. so you will have 6 usb ports at the rear and 2 at the front of the case somewhere
Also most of the newer popular cases do not have optical drive bays for cd/dvd drives as they arnt really needed these days due to windows being able to be installed from a usb :)
Click to expand...

Thanks, really helpful info. Sounds like there would be room for the SSD and HDD in pretty much any case. My thinking on the cooler was that the case manufacturer would put in two fans of better quality than a stick Intel one, so I could leave out the one I had in my list to save a bit of the cost.

How can the USB ports at the back plug into the motherboard if the motherboard is situated towards the front of the case?

RE: Windows, I was thinking of just using an open source operating system (Win 10 64 bit is ~£110) like Linux. I presume some games will not run on this, but quite a few do? (Factorio does)
 
orbitalwalsh said:
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £668.49 (includes shipping: £12.60)
​
Click to expand...

I had considered a Ryzen CPU but apparently the Intel one has better single core performance which is supposed to be very important in Factorio, and you also have the Turbo boost on the i5.

I will look into that case as well as the gold vs bronze power unit.
 
je11693 said:
How can the USB ports at the back plug into the motherboard if the motherboard is situated towards the front of the case?
Click to expand...

The board itself has 6 usb ports at the rear. the case will have 2 usb ports on it which will need to. be plugged in to the board to work
 
Spankme said:
The board itself has 6 usb ports at the rear. the case will have 2 usb ports on it which will need to. be plugged in to the board to work
Click to expand...

That's where I'm confused. The motherboard sits near the front of the case correct? So the two at the front plug into it. But it's not near the back of the case, so I was confused how the rear ports on the case can reach the motherboard to plug into it..
 
je11693 said:
That's where I'm confused. The motherboard sits near the front of the case correct? So the two at the front plug into it. But it's not near the back of the case, so I was confused how the rear ports on the case can reach the motherboard to plug into it..
Click to expand...

They don't buddy.

The case that you are using will have a cable coming from the top front of the case, it will look like this.

DAvheaJ.jpg


It will plug into the motherboard to power the front ports in a plug that looks like this :)

oBd1L28.jpg


Also if the front has USB 2.0 the cable is a little different,

It will look more like this.

ou4LIq4.jpg


It will plug into the board in the same fashion, you will just need to locate where on your motherboard ( usually, at the bottom )
 
je11693 said:
With those two fans included, could I then take out the cooler I included in my original build list?

The description says it includes "USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and audio jacks". Would I be able to use the 2.0 USB port for one of the USB 3.0 ports on the motherboard?

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll need to check measurements to see if the storage components in the list will fit in this.
Click to expand...

An aftermarket cooler is usually quieter than a stock Intel one. If you go with the i5 8400 then I would get a cooler such as the Cryorig M9I.

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £21.65 (includes shipping: £4.66)​
​


As for the usb ports then the info from Harry above shows an example of the front case usb and how they connect to the board. The rear usb ports on the motherboard don't need any additional cables as they are soldered directly to the motherboard, so you only need to install software drivers for those.
 
je11693 said:
I had considered a Ryzen CPU but apparently the Intel one has better single core performance which is supposed to be very important in Factorio, and you also have the Turbo boost on the i5.

I will look into that case as well as the gold vs bronze power unit.
Click to expand...

I had that chip, turbo boosts to 3.8ghz all cores, can clock the 2600 at 4.2ghz all cores if lucky , normally 4ghz .
 
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