new pc - spec me happy!

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

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Joined
23 Oct 2002
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3,177
hi guys,

ok, i am wanting to build a new HTPC/gaming rig (i use Kodi). im looking at getting most stuff new but will use my recently purchased CPU (850 gold sunflower or whatever they are called lol) and my blu-ray writer.

after some deliberation i think i will go with a Intel Core i5-4690K, unless someone can persuade me its a bit overkill over an AMD.

so i would like a decent OCing mobo to go with this. SLI would be good and also need a full sized mobo with at least 1 pciex1 for my tv tuner card. the Z97 chipset looks good for intel.

also some RAM to go with that. might as well go with 16gb seeing as the cost is only around £50 more. are these any good:
TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit or should i go with better MHz if i can? seems to be a big price hit if i do.

in terms of storage my old SSD has died so i would like a new one, around 120gb would probably do. enough for OS and say 2 games that require a lot of disk accessing (GTA V?).

are these any good?:
SanDisk X110 128GB SATA 6GB/s 2.5" Solid State Drive (SD6SB1M-128G-1022i) £38.99

i also need a new 4TB HDD as my old NAS is getting a bit long in the tooth now. looking at a WD green or red. dont trust seagate any more. as this will be a HTPC should i go with the quieter green or the more reliable/stable? red?

also thinking of a case. i quote fancy the BeQuiet Silent Base 800 Black Case & FREE Pure Rock CPU Cooler Bundle. are good? will that free HSF be any good for overclocking? im not looking at going too high as i want stability first and foremost. say 4.3ghz? most cases seem to be md towers these days, but this one seems quite roomy and the sound reduction could be a bonus.

another case for consideration is the Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Full Tower Case - Black. hopefully fans not too loud?

and lastly, a GPU. i dont game that much currently but mainly because PC is a bit old. so im guessing this card would eat up GTA V and witcher? im not interested in 4k but have a nice amp, speakers and TV so 1080p @ 60fps would be ideal. i am thinking of a nvidia 970 as they seem to run quieter and have plenty of bang for buck. looking at the MSI possibly as no fans until in heavy use, so perfect for HTPC stuff. seems like i can bitstream to my amp too, which my 580 couldnt do (yet 560 could!?!?).

thanks for all replies. hopefully this doesnt get derailed because i called AMD ATI lol.
 
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250GB SSD would be better - OS/drivers/updates, programs and GTA V (the latter taking up around 65GB alone) won't leave much for a second game on a 120GB. And it's good to keep some space free for better operation/longevity. After installing that stuff, you'll be up to around 95GB even if you disable Hibernation and reduce size of Page File to help free up room. So you'll effectively have about 15GB free (system will reserve about 10GB) and you should keep that free.
 
Danny75 said:
250GB SSD would be better - OS/drivers/updates, programs and GTA V (the latter taking up around 65GB alone) won't leave much for a second game on a 120GB. And it's good to keep some space free for better operation/longevity. After installing that stuff, you'll be up to around 95GB even if you disable Hibernation and reduce size of Page File to help free up room. So you'll effectively have about 15GB free (system will reserve about 10GB) and you should keep that free.
Click to expand...

thats a good point. but bear in mind so far that system has only peaked at 40gb as its not got any of my power stuff on it, just steam, origin and Kodi/xbmc.

i will look into the costs though of a 250 though, edit: for the extra small outlay i might as well go 250 gb, any recommendations?
 
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Htpc needs to be efficient/quiet so intel wins imo..
skylake does hardware accelerated hevc decoding...helping cool n quiet as hevc presumably becomes standard. Nice to have not critical.
128is not enough for win 7+ kodi metadata n games...250 sounds better.
Best gb/£ reccomended
 
Idleman said:
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18672930

How about this case. https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-168-AN&groupid=2362&catid=160
Click to expand...

not a fan of the case, i want back really to match all my AV kit.

not that fussed on going 2nd hand, i would prefer stable and new. neverreally been into 2nd hand PC parts, but will maybe sell some of my old stuff :)

ok, so next is the mobo, i think thats the only thing im undecided about now. quite like the MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Intel Z97. would match the MSI 970 nicely.

also, the RAM question and the HDD need answering too.

wd red or green?!?!
 
realBabelfish said:
so i would like a decent OCing mobo to go with this. SLI would be good and also need a full sized mobo with at least 1 pciex1 for my tv tuner card. the Z97 chipset looks good for intel.
Click to expand...

So you want SLI capability and an extra PCIe lane for a TV tuner card on Z97? Let's see now 16 lanes... 8 for first GPU and 8 for second in SLI... and that leaves... no lanes for the TV tuner. So that sucks. You can't SLI and TV tuner at the same time, you might have to disable one of the graphics cards somehow to use the TV tuner. SLI needs at least 8x and the addition of the TV tuner would drop the 8x down to 4x in order to use one of the remaining 4 lanes for the TV tuner.

So if that won't be an issue, then I recommend this motherboard bundle with the i5-4690k and a Gigabyte Z97X-SLI. The motherboard not only supports SLI, but also has 3 PCIe x1 slots of which one is above both the PCIe lanes for the graphics cards. Thus you wouldn't have an issue with actually placing everything in.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - Devils Canyon Core i5 4690K Bundle **£12 Saving** £257.98
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED316G2400HC11CDC01) £99.95
1 x Samsung 250GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E250B/EU) £79.99
Total : £447.52 (includes shipping : £8.00 Ex.VAT).



I've also recommended the slighly faster 2400MHz memory, simply because it costs the same as the 2133MHz memory. Might as well get more for your money. And lastly the SSD I recommend is the Samsung 850 EVO 250GB. I purchased one myself a few days ago for my own new PC I'll be building.

As for graphics cards, I'd recommend waiting till AMD release their new cards, which should hopefully be in a couple weeks (which is what I'm doing). Since you'd have more choice with the new cards, or if they are terrible you can still go for a 970, perhaps the price might even drop. But if you are unwilling to wait. Here are the best 970s.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x Asus GeForce GTX 970 DirectCU II OC Strix 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £289.99
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 970 OC Silent "Infin8 Black Edition" 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **WorldWide Exclusive** £289.99



The top 3 are MSI Gaming, Gigabyte G1 and Asus Strix. The Asus is debatable, but the other 2 are definitely in the top 3. I've also listed the KFA2 Infin8 Black Edition, normally costs more but is the same as the others right now. It has a zero coil whine guarantee and has high stock clocks. I'd personally pick the MSI Gaming for the semi-passive fan mode, good clocks and relative quiteness (also is the most popular 970). Once again, I'd recommend waiting a bit before ordering.

Let me know if you need help choosing other bits like a PSU or case.

Edit: As for hard drives, I'd only go with WD Black. Supposed to be the best drives, I've ordered a 2GB for my build. But when my (nearly 3 year old) laptop died, it took the WD Black drive with it and it cost me £400+ to recover the data. Warranty is good, I could have gotten a replacement, but that wouldn't have given me back my data. Funnily enough, I've had better longevity with Seagate Barracuda drives so far than the Wester Digital. Your pick. I'd go with the better longer lasting drives. Unless you do RAID 1, which helps with redundancy.
 
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thanks Mahius,

the gigabyte mobo is out of stock. would this one do the same with the PCI lanes? in fairness i will likely never go SLI but nice to have it available.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-261-MS

i think the MSI gpu seems the best bet. i guess would match nicely with the MSI mobo above?

i recently got a new superflower 850 gold PSU so that should do nicely.

any thoughts on HSF for the CPU? i am looking at a case that comes with a free HSF, any good? :

BeQuiet Silent Base 800 Black Case & FREE Pure Rock CPU Cooler Bundle
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=BU-001-BQ&groupid=2362&catid=2911

most of the data on the 4tb will be TV shows and movies for my son, which gets backed up anyway, so not sure the extra £60 for the black drive will be worth it.

thanks for the advice! :)
 
The cooler that comes with that case bundle states a 130W TDP cooling efficiency which; on paper; isn't much for overclocking an i5-K. How it handles it in reality may be a different story. Check reviews.

I'd want a 160-200W TDP cooler minimum, enough for a medium O/C on that CPU.
 
ah ok cool. will look at something beefier. can always sell the free one ;)

i take it the speedstep or whatever they call it is still in use these days? i.e. if i overclock to say 4.5ghz the machine will only use say 3ghz unless it needs to use more.

so a nice quiet HSF 200w TDP then? :)
 
realBabelfish said:
ah ok cool. will look at something beefier. can always sell the free one ;)

i take it the speedstep or whatever they call it is still in use these days? i.e. if i overclock to say 4.5ghz the machine will only use say 3ghz unless it needs to use more.
Click to expand...

Yes, if you enable it and C-States and don't use Fixed/Override (i.e. use Dynamic/Adaptive).


realBabelfish said:
so a nice quiet HSF 200w TDP then? :)
Click to expand...

Have a look at the better models BeQuiet have, or Noctua or Phanteks or Prolimatech. The Overclocking and Cooling forum is a good place to ask for the current best performers.
 
Danny75 said:
Yes, if you enable it and C-States and don't use Fixed/Override (i.e. use Dynamic/Adaptive).




Have a look at the better models BeQuiet have, or Noctua or Phanteks or Prolimatech. The Overclocking and Cooling forum is a good place to ask for the current best performers.
Click to expand...

cheers mate. do you know if this motherboard can handle my SLI and tv card situation?

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MB-261-MS the gigabyte one is out of stock.
 
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