Looking for 1100 spec

[njard]

Hi guys, a friend has asked me to help him get a new gaming pc, he has a 1100 budget. any help is much appreciated.

 

[Danny75]

Hello,

You/he going to build it?

Which monitor will he be using (resolution, refresh rate, does it have any Gsync or Freesync)?

How much storage does he need to begin with?

Does Windows need including or will you sort that elsewhere?

 

[njard]

we are going to build it, he does not need a screen i believe just a tower, already has windows.

ill ask him about storage but i believe its pretty much to hold a few steam games, nothing major.

 

[Danny75]

we are going to build it, he does not need a screen i believe just a tower, already has windows.

ill ask him about storage but i believe its pretty much to hold a few steam games, nothing major.

Understood about everything else but I was asking which monitor he'll be using, not if he needed one.

1080p/1440p/4K...60Hz/144Hz... could have a bearing on the spec. If he isn't sure which, we can assume a 1080p 60Hz.

 

[njard]

Understood about everything else but I was asking which monitor he'll be using, not if he needed one.

1080p/1440p/4K...60Hz/144Hz... could have a bearing on the spec. If he isn't sure which, we can assume a 1080p 60Hz.

Ahh cool, i spoke to him and we know its 60hz but thats about it. Also he said he plans to use for some animation stuff in the future.

thanks again for the help!

 

[Danny75]

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Cougar GX-S 550W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £61.99
• 1 x Intel Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £379.99
• 1 x Gigabyte Z370-HD3 Intel Z370 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £124.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1060 WindForce OC 6144MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £259.99
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P300 Glass Midi Tower Case - Black= £54.95
• 1 x Team Group Dark Pro 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C16 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Grey (TDPGD48G320= £89.99
• 1 x Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU)= £98.99
• 1 x ID-Cooling FrostFlow+ 280 All In One CPU Water Cooler - 280mm= £52.99

Total: £1,136.48
(includes shipping: £12.60)



​

I've gone processor-heavy because it's just about doable for the budget and for future-proofing so it won't struggle with any type of work (or games, for years). If you wait till 1st November or so, then the price of the 8700K should come down a bit as more supply comes in. Maybe an offer on the SSD or something else, and it would be bang on budget.

Due to squeezing it (8700K) in, it allows 8GB RAM (price is really expensive just now) for now, that's something he can add more of later, as well as more storage. If he can stretch the budget (by £80-ish), then get the 16GB memory in one go.

GTX 1060 6GB will perform great at 1080p 60Hz, and the 8700K will help max out frames at 1080p. Not that a GTX 1070 and an i5-8400/8600K wouldn't give more frames. But all you need is 60 fps or slightly more, for now (for that monitor), so may as well spend the biggest chunk on the processor so that it's one thing he doesn't have to upgrade for years, and can build on.

I'm a believer in matching video card to monitor. If the video card isn't powerful enough to drive a certain type of monitor, then it's no good. If the video card is over-powered for the monitor, then it's a waste. And next year, and the year after, there'll be faster video cards for the same price, or less. Not so with CPU, as it's better to keep longer, due to (usually) having to change motherboard too, and possibly memory if there's a move from DDR4 to DDR5, etc.

Hope that explains why I've gone for this unusual setup. Usually one spends more or, or the same, on video card as for processor, in gaming setups. But every rule has exceptions.

If your friend has plans to get a higher resolution/higher refresh rate screen within months, then different story.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

When doing animation, you'll be rendering off the GPU - adding fancy rendering packages and takes double as long, GPU is key !
He will have a lot on the go to such a Photoshop for UV textures which favours Intel and also video editing which has favour Ryzen at the moment due to thread count, specially at 4k videos
But price is creeping up as stocks are low as everyone is seeing it's a great chip - saw sights that this chip was untouched on the first day of launch , then as the weekend came... Bam! Gone

Using Intel optane to drive the HDD just under SSD speeds, specially for Windows and 3DS Max /Maya start up

Intel build - key is to overclock that ram in the Z370 board . 8400 and match Ryzen in games and is under the 8600k in game due to its clock speed. Faster ram helps that 8400 out, just like it does for Ryzen

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-8400 2.8GHz (Coffee Lake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £209.99
• 1 x Gigabyte Z370-HD3 Intel Z370 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £124.99
• 1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G30= £158.99
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P300 Glass Midi Tower Case - Black= £54.95
• 1 x Intel Optane Memory 16GB M.2 Module (MEMPEK1W016GAXT)= £49.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Windforce 2x OC 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £398.99
• 1 x Toshiba P300 2TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache High Performance Hard Drive (HDWD120UZSVA)= £57.95
• 2 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0500-KR)= £44.99

Total: £1,159.93
(includes shipping: £14.10)



​

Ryzen build

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Team Group Vulcan T-Force 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-24000C16 3000MHz Dual Channel Kit - Grey (TLGD416G30= £158.99
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P300 Glass Midi Tower Case - Black= £54.95
• 1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 Windforce 2x OC 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £398.99
• 1 x Toshiba P300 2TB 7200RPM 64MB Cache High Performance Hard Drive (HDWD120UZSVA)= £57.95
• 2 x EVGA 500W 80 Plus Power Supply (100-W1-0500-KR)= £44.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 5 Six Core 1600 3.60GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £188.99
• 1 x Gigabyte GA-AB350-Gaming 3 AMD B350 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £101.99
• 1 x Kingston A400 120GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5" Solid State Hard Drive - (SA400S37/120G)= £49.99

Total: £1,115.93
(includes shipping: £14.10)



​

Screen freshes rate and resolution doesn't really matter when rendering, I had 1080p at the time I was in uni and was rendering at 4k for TVs

Gaming is different and Photoshop is about quality of RGB scale

 

[4K8KW10]

Hi guys, a friend has asked me to help him get a new gaming pc, he has a 1100 budget. any help is much appreciated.

we are going to build it, he does not need a screen i believe just a tower, already has windows.

ill ask him about storage but i believe its pretty much to hold a few steam games, nothing major.

Hi!

My basket at Overclockers UK:

• 1 x Cougar GX-S 550W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply= £61.99
• 1 x AMD Ryzen 7 Eight Core 1700 3.70GHz (Socket AM4) Processor - Retail= £278.99
• 1 x MSI X370 Gaming Pro Carbon AMD X370 (Socket AM4) DDR4 ATX Motherboard= £162.95
• 1 x PowerColor Radeon RX 580 Red Dragon V2 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card= £248.99
• 1 x Kolink Punisher RGB Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black= £52.99
• 1 x GALAX HOF 16GB (2X 8GB) DDR4 PC4-25600C14 3200MHz Dual Channel Kit - White (HOF4CXLBS3200H14HD162K)= £199.99
• 1 x Hynix SL308 120GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (HFS120G32TND-N1A0A)= £55.99
• 1 x Seagate BarraCuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST2000DM006)= £59.99

Total: £1,135.98
(includes shipping: £14.10)



​

 

[Danny75]

When doing animation, you'll be rendering off the GPU - adding fancy rendering packages and takes double as long, GPU is key !
He will have a lot on the go to such a Photoshop for UV textures which favours Intel and also video editing which has favour Ryzen at the moment due to thread count, specially at 4k videos

Right. The question would be when in the future he's going to start animation creation. CPU will also be key for other aspects, which you touch upon. And he may be in a position to upgrade GPU to something faster and less costly than a GTX 1070 by then (or not). A beefier PSU would also be helpful for GPU upgrades. 550W already scraping it a bit if he got his hands on a used 1080Ti or similar, combined with intensive CPU + GPU usage.

If it'll be a couple years, I would go with 8700K for the extra threads or Ryzen 1700 (the latter can just about fit 16GB memory into budget as 4K's spec shows*), although Photoshop prefers Intel as mentioned, and Intel will also pump out more frames; GPU being equal; while gaming at 1080p.

* With a cheaper motherboard and a Samsung 960 EVO M.2 250GB from elsewhere with more reasonable current pricing (or ask OcUK to price match on it) the total for that spec would remain the same.

If he plans to start animation within months, then there's more of a case for going with slightly weaker CPU and more powerful GPU to help with real-time editing, previewing etc, I feel.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

@Danny75 hopefullly 1070 Ti drops the price of the 1070- but i have a feeling that it wont- the 1070 ti from my view will get all the miners going after it, so could see a nice flood of 2nd hand 1070s although seems OP its from new
and then dual cards- depending on how much they'll get into it, are ways to address one card to render one set scene and another card for different time frames, even alt frame rendering - but to be honest its been years for myself so hopefully others and confirm this - but again would be an addition in the future

8700k would be a spanking CPU to be fair as you've pointed out - just the cost of it

 

[4K8KW10]

That Intel Optane with 16GB isn't enough for Windows if you would like to put the OS on that memory alone. Windows 10 and surrounding programming need a partition that is at least 60-70 GB if not more.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

That Intel Optane with 16GB isn't enough for Windows if you would like to put the OS on that memory alone. Windows 10 and surrounding programming need a partition that is at least 60-70 GB if not more.

Its acts like a super cashe - new HDD come in hybrid forms now call SSHD or solid state Hard Disk - which basically does the same. intel version just drives this up in hyper speed. in theory- Windows will load in about the same time as a normal SSD would .

few reviews tried to see if this would work on stand sata SSD to reach speeds of never NVMe SSDs but didn't work out well

its not a perfect solution, but its a means to having a larger storage medium that can be sped up which is greatly need with HDD .

everything has its draw backs

 

[4K8KW10]

Its acts like a super cashe - new HDD come in hybrid forms now call SSHD or solid state Hard Disk - which basically does the same. intel version just drives this up in hyper speed. in theory- Windows will load in about the same time as a normal SSD would .

few reviews tried to see if this would work on stand sata SSD to reach speeds of never NVMe SSDs but didn't work out well

its not a perfect solution, but its a means to having a larger storage medium that can be sped up which is greatly need with HDD .

everything has its draw backs

Samsung 960 Evo 250GB M.2 PCI-E SSD or a 120GB SSD + 2TB HDD don't have drawbacks.
Intel Optane is so screwed. Better to recommend RAM Discs.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

Samsung 960 Evo 250GB M.2 PCI-E SSD or a 120GB SSD + 2TB HDD don't have drawbacks.
Intel Optane is so screwed. Better to recommend RAM Discs.

space , 128GB is perfect size for OS though and could be swapped out for the Intel Booster , but then games would be slow on the HDD - would be SSD levels with it installed but still be faster
and then 256GB is low space for Games - I have 2x 512GB nvme and 1x 1tb ssd for my games - one TB almost filled - once full then will wipe and install one i liked on that drive then add new ones in as they go

all about fitting to the budget - getting a drive then to add another drive in 6 months time can be avoided - specially when SSD prices will continue to increase