Upgrade needed.

Associate
Joined
26 Jul 2013
Posts
138
Location
Arbroath,Scotland
Long time since i posted on the forum,been lucky enough to have had 4 years trouble free gaming since my initial build,had to swap out GPU initially,all sorted from OCUK team at that time,i may have a bit of cash coming to me in the new year,and im hoping to have a £2000 budget.
Best spec build for that amount,im not sure if any of my current rig can be used again,would prefer to upgrade my monitor though,play PUBG mostly,but would like to run games at max fps and resolution as possible for the money.
Ive no qualms about doing another build but im willing to look at pre-builds.
Heres my original spec from Sep 2013,cpu still stock :)

Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
Gigabyte Z87X-OC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
BenQ GL2460 24" Widescreen LED Slim Bezel Monitor - Black
CM Storm Trooper Full Tower Gaming Windowed Case - Black
Antec High Current Gamer 750W Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (0-761345-06223-7)
Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gbs Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW)
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gbs 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD
Corsair Hydro H100 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler *Manufacturer Refurbished Unit - 90 Day Guarantee
OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM

Still runs fine but ill donate it to my son after i upgrade.
Thanks in advance
 
Hi,

All you need to do is upgrade your GFX card (GTX1070/1070Ti/1080 etc) and swap the monitor out.

Then you can also overclock the CPU to atleast 4.5Ghz with that cooler and board ( I had one of those boards, fabulous things).

That would give you a nice boost.
 
Hi,

All you need to do is upgrade your GFX card (GTX1070/1070Ti/1080 etc) and swap the monitor out.

Then you can also overclock the CPU to atleast 4.5Ghz with that cooler and board ( I had one of those boards, fabulous things).

That would give you a nice boost.

Looks like he is giving his current system to his Son.
 
Spend a couple of hundred on a PC for the kid, spend all the rest on the awesome stuff for the dad.
 
Thats a great suggestion on the small upgrade but my son only really plays TF2 and Garrys mod,nothing to cpu/gpu intensive so this current rig should be fine,plus i have a ps4 and he has an xbox1,so kinda covered.
Dad wants a new PC.its been 4 years afterall!
I await your part selections with bated breath....
 
Using stulids suggestion if you've got a bond with your rig... We all do , lied to my wife I sold my TJ07 case... And giving him your GPU .
Would leave you 500-680 on GPU and rest on screen !

Ryzen based

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £566.45 (includes shipping: £12.60)


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £700.44 (includes shipping: £12.60)


Both can be OC and upgraded in future​
 
Thats a great suggestion on the small upgrade but my son only really plays TF2 and Garrys mod,nothing to cpu/gpu intensive so this current rig should be fine,plus i have a ps4 and he has an xbox1,so kinda covered.
Dad wants a new PC.its been 4 years afterall!
I await your part selections with bated breath....


My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £2,005.12 (includes shipping: £15.30)



Thats all the budget spent.

Its all nice stuff, such as a decent PSU, a glass windowed case, a capable cooler, excellent screen and a strong GFX card to power it.

And the AM4 socket has been confirmed (well mostly) to support Ryzen2 so theres life in the socket.​
 
Dad wants a new PC.its been 4 years afterall!
That doesn't mean there's been notable gaming performance increases in most components.
Of course graphics cards have advanced but beyond them changes have been very incremental/tiny tweaks.

Thanks to Intel dragging along dual core CPUs and limiting number of cores to four on desktop platform most game developers haven't been truly embracing multithreading.
AMD's Ryzen forced Intel to finally increase core count first time in decade (Core 2 Quad came in 2006) and it will be some time before game developers invent uses for increasing core count.

So with 4C/8T CPU there's no urgent need for bigger upgrades.

But there's one area of gaming immersion whihc might not be that great: Sound reproduction.
Especially FPS games benefit from good sound.
So are you using speakers or some gaming garbage headsets?



im not sure if any of my current rig can be used again
Unless you've broken it case would work.
(my case is 2007 model bought in 2008)

Also high quality PSU would last lot longer.
Though 80+ Bronze was low end already in 2013 and something I wouldn't exactly put to higher end PC.
While efficiency itself isn't directly related to quality those medieval platforms have worser voltage regulation than modern PSUs... of 2010.
And today's modern PSUs from say Seasonic just give ludicrous level voltage regulation.

That SuperFlower Platinum King uses third tier cheap ass C(r)apXon capacitors and it would be hardly fit PSU for higher end PC.
BitFenix Formula would have quality capacitors if budget doesn't reach higher, but for higher end PC I would definitely go for top level PSU like Seasonic Focus Plus.
10 year warranty should tell how long you can keep using it...



And the AM4 socket has been confirmed (well mostly) to support Ryzen2 so theres life in the socket.
AM4 is going to be supported to 2020 so also Zen2's tweaked versions might work in it.
https://hothardware.com/news/amd-confirms-am4-socket-support-future-ryzen-processors-2020
 
Used them on many builds, last running GPU and CPU rendering , 24 hours straight for 4-5 job lots .
It's the price that's good, and energy rating if your spanking the daylights out of it .
I don't mind any gamers on here will put there PSU through that much stress, people doing workstation apps then fair enough .
Personally use bequiet , but comes at a cost guess due to FSP making it . Least it has longer warranty , may justify if lessor grade materials are used .
You'd have to get into ripples and all that jazz
Superflower is up their with FSP , seasonic and when enermax made their own - sadly this isn't the case any more :(

Heads up, Ryzen 1700 if overclocking past 4.7ghz needs a damn good tier air cooler or AIO. Have to pump 1.40 volts to hit 4.8 for workstation build, could have pushed 4ghz with 1.45v

If you are going to pass on your rig and Ryzen+Nvidia build above doesn't take your fancy

Intel+Vega 64


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £2,033.37 (includes shipping: £22.50)​
 
Last edited:
WOW,certainly get a lot for your money!
I have no preference for any build intel/amd etc,i havent OCed anything ever either
I tend not to tinker with a build once done,i have renewed my pc every 4 years on or off last 12 years so its overdue,all down to money at the end of the day.
Still consider myself a nub at self building,can put it together without too much hassle,its trying to get balance of parts for best bang for buck really,i appreciate all the input so far,its given me a lot to think about
Right now im leaning towards a whole new rig and ill pass this one on to my son.
Orbitalwalsh,that list is pretty sweet!
Cheers guys
 
Last edited:
Both Ryzen and and Intel have their flaws and strengths not to mention the GPUs.
I have the G1 1070 Ti stulid mentioned and it's a cracker ! Have mine clocked to 2ghz+ can can match gtx 1080 standard versions for cheaper. Also have gtx 1080 11gbps version, once that's overclocked they do pull away but GDDR5X is in very very short supply !
Amd chipsets are great , mainly due to so many lovely freesync screens that are nicer quality and cheaper.. Samsung dot matrix ones... Jesus ! And that VA with £100 knocked off !
But they draw power and heat ! Will throttle unless some sort overclocking and undervolting

If there was Vega 56 in stock , specially when OCUK had them on sale for £380.. hell yes ! But they all sold out, and was a lot of them too!
 
Last edited:
WOW,certainly get a lot for your money!
I have no preference for any build intel/amd etc,i havent OCed anything ever either
I tend not to tinker with a build once done,i have renewed my pc every 4 years on or off last 12 years so its overdue,all down to money at the end of the day.
Still consider myself a nub at self building,can put it together without too much hassle,its trying to get balance of parts for best bang for buck really,i appreciate all the input so far,its given me a lot to think about
Right now im leaning towards a whole new rig and ill pass this one on to my son.
Orbitalwalsh,that list is pretty sweet!
Cheers guys


I think orbitalwash has a bequiet fetish or something, always seems to suggest their stuff when theres no need for it for a gaming rig.

RAM is going to have virtually zero impact on frame rates in games (this has been tested and reviewed to death) over a cheaper 3000MHz kit.

Tests here - https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews...Memory_Performance_Benchmark_Analysis/10.html

144Hz+ monitors make a HUGE difference for a gaming setup, the action is far more smoothed out and I would highly recomend trying to saty with something like that. I've had 60HZ/144HZ/166Hz screens and its such a big improvment, even just moving the mouse cursor on the windows desktop is better on a 144HZ+ screen.

If you just do a simple Google search for 75 vs 144hz monitor for gaming and see the responses across the Internet, no need to take my word for it;)

£2000 budget, plays games, and dont get a high refresh monitor is a mistake I reckon.


We dont know if the Z370 chipset will have support for future CPUs, indeed there is a Z390 chipset coming for early next year so who knows?

I would never buy a stock AMD reference designed card, they always seem to skimp on the cooler quality thus ending up with hot+noisy cards, atleast the stock nvidia cooler actually has some engineering put into it and is acceptable.

And finally a heatsink+fan combination will also help pass air over the VRM area of the motherboard - https://www.kitguru.net/compots/leo-waldock/gigabyte-z370-aorus-ultra-gaming-review/ - I dont think I have ever suggested an AIO cooler with this board, its always been heatsink+fan for this very reason.
 
I think orbitalwash has a bequiet fetish or something, always seesm to suggest there stuff when theres no need for it for a gaming rig.

RAM is going to have virtually zero impact on frame rates in games (this has been tested and reviewed to death) over a cheaper 3000MHz kit.

How you personally tries this ? There are many many many reviews supporting and crushing the fact with higher speed memory .

Whither 3 is a classic example
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.eu...2017-intel-coffee-lake-core-i7-8700k-review_1

http://digiworthy.com/2017/10/13/intel-coffee-lake-ram-speed-gaming/

Although , tested at 3200 haha, scaling isn't trackable going up the scale . Have Aorus 7, k3 and itx boards, will bench games across the board and post up with 8 Packs ram that can hit high speeds or low CL . Just solely depends on the games you play, BF1 is another one that likes high ram speed.
OP, might be worth listing games you currently play . @8 Pack maybe able to shed his thoughts for gaming if it's worth just getting unbranded 2133 ram for cheap since techpowerup graphs show coffee doesn't like ram speed or getting a good set of Samsung B-die ?

I think orbitalwash has a bequiet fetish or something, always seesm to suggest there stuff when theres no need for it for a gaming rig.

Using stulids suggestion if you've got a bond with your rig... We all do , lied to my wife I sold my TJ07 case... And giving him your GPU .
Would leave you 500-680 on GPU and rest on screen !

Ryzen based

My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £566.45 (includes shipping: £12.60)


My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £700.44 (includes shipping: £12.60)


Both can be OC and upgraded in future​

^^ Phanteks , much nicer then there larger p400. Built one using it for Computex 2016 but couldn't get it there on time :( also a lot cheaper .
Case choices is all down to personal aesthetic tastes , I love the PC-o11 and UMX4 but a lot of people hate it... How could they , but that's life . Plus I do like the Dark 700 ability to slip Mobo upside down - still nothing beats TJ07!!!!!!! :D

OP, stulid is bang right on the market . 144hz is much better then 75hz for sure.
100hz , 160 and 220hz and can tell the difference over 60hz and each other .
Though , hold out a little longer personally , HDR monitors . Hopefully as well hdmi new standards will force Nvidia hand a little .

I would never buy a stock AMD reference designed card, they always seem to skimp on the cooler quality thus ending up with hot+noisy cards, atleast the stock nvidia cooler actually has some engineering put into it and is acceptable.
That's you, and plenty of owners in the owners club. 2e all know the card throttles , of your have one yourself you'll know there are ways around with both models. Stock fan setting aren't to loud with the 56 , but yeah need to crack it up. Both it's and Nvidia design needs redoing, Gigabytes TUrbo 1080 and Ti, both different designs show improvements can be made, but their blowers sounds is not good .
Looks like AIO version manufacture has its days limited and long with gigabyte ones, hopefully start seeing some Alphacool units on GPUs .
But OP, are ways to tame Vega, EKWB doing their aluminium kit with Vega GPU to keep costs down and Alphacool do their AIO for it which is finally back in stock after AMD cleared the lot out !

Here's both Vega (56) and the G1 linked by stulid

jpXJDLP.jpg

Damn that G1 is nice. PCB redesign has VRMs at the front like AMD cards , means the change around has lead to something like VRM being 5c cooler and larger heatsink surface area created .

And finally a heatsink+fan combination will also help pass air over the VRM area of the motherboard - https://www.kitguru.net/compots/leo-waldock/gigabyte-z370-aorus-ultra-gaming-review/ - I dont think I have ever suggested an AIO cooler with this board, its always been heatsink+fan for this very reason.
Solid review, I've used the board and have the K3 which had the same VRM design. And layout . Prob seen from my blog air cooler is/was on there. Like your choice it's a tower, it does pass air over VRM, the bigger the fan the more air coverage, but again a TOP down design will blow far more air into VRMs then towers would . Also with AIO at top on certain cases like Lian Li PC-o11 , the fans sit almost touching the boards edge.

o3heYeb.jpg

If AIO are so bad , 8 Pack and ocuk wouldn't sell very expensive bundles and boards :)

If you swap out Ryzen 1700 for 1600 as it doesn't make a massive impact for gaming and P300 instead of p400 might be able to squeeze in gtx 1080 Ti black OC if it's still on sale . Now that would be a killer line up !

3200 8 pack ram for when Zen2 comes out with a much better memory controller ;)
1tb SSD as you don't really need a NVMe , price wise rather have a lot of space , and 1080 Ti.
Slap in a cooler for over 3.7ghz and the screen mentioned above .
Job done
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £1,564.49 (includes shipping: £12.60)​
 
Last edited:
I've tried a lot of hardware and seen what wasted purchases are.

RAM yes I've had all sorts - https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/posts/29571209/

And 3000Mhz is all that is needed for a gaming system, anything else is a waste of £ that can be used elsewhere to give actual gains in frame rate. BF1 for example - https://www.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2016/game-bench/battlefield/ram/bf1-ram-bench-6700k.png - going over 2400Mhz to 3200Mhz does show a touch more fps, but 3000Mhz which isnt tested there would be right ebhind the 3200Mhz result and is what I am recomending to buy as the % increase in performnce from 3000Mhz to 3200MHz does not justify the extra % in purchasing costs.


AMD reference coolers have sucked since the 4870 days and onward, atleast Nvidia coolers only sucked once (5800ultra).

Ive had that Ultra gaming board (and many others) and its as said, it needs airflow around the VRM, many air heatsinks have some of the lower fins bent down to help do this.

If AIO are so bad , 8 Pack and ocuk wouldn't sell very expensive bundles and boards :)
With the Ultra Gaming? or boards they arent having such a issue;)

OP, stulid is bang right on the market . 144hz is much better then 75hz for sure.
100hz , 160 and 220hz and can tell the difference over 60hz and each other .
Though , hold out a little longer personally , HDR monitors . Hopefully as well hdmi new standards will force Nvidia hand a little .

If I'm right, why then do a spec taking away this key factor? its absolute madness to reduce the quality of the one thing that connects you into the gaming experience.


You keep showing random images of stuff, do you want me to start showing stuff I got? stuff you can't even buy in shops:D



Edit,

Here is some random images of stuff I've had/own just for the sake of it,

DSC_0134_zpsklqbjfa7.jpg~original


DSC_0139_zps1qernvfz.jpg~original


DSC_0169_zpsj3cmqhzt.jpg~original


DSC_0181_zps8detrrk9.jpg~original
 

or this:

My basket at overclockers uk:
Total: £1,875.52 (includes shipping: £14.70)
 
Last edited:
3600 c16 yielded the best performance in all my testing with xmp no tuning on both asrock and Asus boards.
 
^
^
Monitor?

3600 c16 yielded the best performance in all my testing with xmp no tuning on both asrock and Asus boards.

In what usage? benchmarks or just everyday gaming performance as I am not seeing the % gain in frame rate being justified by the increase in cost.

If you benchmark (3dmark, superPI, Xtu etc) then yeah get the maddest ram you can get.
 
Superb discussion on this, stock cpu coolers are a bit **** tho eh? Water or air aftermarket?
All within the 2k budget, I could wiggle another 100 quid but would love to keep it as low as possible, these mobos are all capable of OCing I take it?
If I go for a cpu watercooler, I could just up the cpu speed a little without having to get into raising voltages etc, I was tempted to try on original build 4yts ago but it seemed like a dark art then, still does to be fair though.
 
Intel stock coolers are only fit for the bin, the Ryzen coolers are ok.

AIO arent useless (ive had Corsair/Antec and currently on a OCUK tech labs 240mm+ ones) they have all been fine to use, but then so is a £25-30 heatsink+fan combo which gives you the added benefit of blowing some air over the motherboard power circuitry (which with that Z370 ultra gaming isnt a bad thing to do).

AIO do look way nicer because you dont have a hunking great chunk of metal in your face.

All those board can OC, if you OC just by changing the multiplier the board may auto adjust the Vcore for you to help and thats something you need to keep an eye on as you obviously dont want the board to zap 1.4V into your cpu for no good reason, all CPUs vary in overclocking quality and the amount of Vcore they need for any given overclock will vary.

So you would be wise to manually set the Vcore to whatever is stable rather than leaving it on AUTO values.
 
Back
Top Bottom