£1,200 Christmas Remix :)

[Mach234 (or similar).]

Hi,

Thought as I've had my rig for a few years now and it's starting to max out in a few places (including needing to upgrade the RAM), it's about time to consider getting a new setup (especially as it's Christmas .

I use my PC a fair bit including for high end gaming, but the main place it's maxing, is I'm using it for game development (UE4 and 3Ds Max) and it's starting to crash out on map and light builds (running out of RAM: 6GB-DDR3-1600MHz-triple-channel). So need to upgrade to about 12-16GB, so thought might be a good time to make the jump to 5th Gen, DDR4, v3 USB/SATA/PCIe...

I've got about £1200 to put together a new rig and can port over a few components (graphics, optical drive, monitor, OS (still have a spare Windows 7 license unless there's a good reason to upgrade to win10 , keyboard, speakers etc....

So... I was thinking of going for one of the OCUK overclocked bundles Defcon2/3 @3.8/4.0GHz with 16GB of fast quad-channel RAM (4x4GB) (the last one you guys specced me still goes like s*now off a shovel 5 years later). Was also thinking of going for a 128-250GB SSD for the OS and central apps (for speed and to give my HDD a bit of a break). This is my first time with SSD, so - any recommendations? tips? Was thinking of the Crucial BX200 240GB (Kingston 240Gb SSDNow V300 seems to have mixed reviews)?

One question is was what Defcon bundle/combo to go for? (although all of the 4x4GB options are OOS at the moment must be Christmas . Also wondering whether it's worth upgrading to the x5930 (seems after overclocking the main difference with the x5820 is the 28 vs 40 PCIe channels, so unless you want to 2-way your graphics cards shouldn't be too much of a bottle-neck? (was reading TomsHardwire and pretty impressed to see the x5820 is up there with the x5960 unless you're really number crunching on all 8 cores, with the faster clock speeds making up the difference in a lot of cases). Also, worth going for water-cooling?

So...

Current rig ('09):

CPU: Intel 920-i7 OC to 4.2MHz
MOBO: Gigabyte-GA-EX58-UD5
RAM: Patriot Viper DDR3 6GB (3x2GB) 1600MHz
GFX: (orig) ATI-Radeon-HD-4890-XT (1GB DDR5 3.9GHz)
GFX: (upgrade) Gainward GeForce Phantom GTX 760 (4GB GDDR5)
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB (x2)
PSU: Corsair TX650W
OS: Windows 7 64-bit

New rig:

MCR: One of the Defcon 2/3 bundles (OC to 3.8/4.0, 4x4GB RAM) £500-£950
GFX: Gainward GeForce Phantom GTX 760 (4GB GDDR5) (already got)
SDD: Crucial BX200 240GB SSD £60
HDD: Seagate/WD 1TB (7200rpm 64MB 6Gbps) (x2) £40
PSU: Cougar CMD 600W Digital £70
CASE: ? quiet, cool - AntecP100/P183? £100+/-

Is there anything that seems out of place? could be improved? recommendations? Any and all advice would be great..

Ps unfortunately most of the shopping list is out of stock (must be good )

 

[Mach234 (or similar).]

How about buying an X99+CPU bundle - https://www.overclockers.co.uk/giga...rboard-bundle-50-pounds-saving-bu-020-gi.html

And I show you what settings to adjust to set 4.0GHz?

Then just add RAM+cooler.

Sweet! Reckon if I knew what to plug into the BIOS could be up for giving that a go (wouldn't know where to start OC'ing otherwise), don't the settings depend on the RAM modules chosen as well?

How about the SSD for the OS and most used apps? Anything special I need to know?


[Well for starters your current PSU is better than your proposed new one, as are your current hard drives.]

Quite liked the idea of the Cougar CMD 600W PSU (unless its a bit off par), 50W less (enviro geek), full diagnostics (OCD) and modular cables (OCD). Might just get 2 more of the same for my HDDs then.. (I'm going to need a second rig for testing multi-player, networking etc tho)..

 

[Mach234 (or similar).]

Nice, time to start shopping..!