£400-£450 - CPU-MOBO-RAM spec

Nameless_87

Nameless_87

Nameless_87

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Hi,

I have been a bit out of touch with current technology developments in CPU and such.
A friend of mine wants to start building a PC slowly.
First things will be the CPU, Motherboard and RAM.

Requirements:
  • will be good for at least 4 years
  • i7 CPU

Use:
  • Design work (this mostly)
  • Gaming

Can you spec me a CPU/MOBO/RAM combo for £400-£450 which will be good for the above requirements?

PS: If you want to spec more, like GFX, Case, etc, feel free but my friend did not give me a budget for those as he is looking to buy the other three items first.

Thanks :)
 
The only thing I am worried about is the mobo, as it's a bit on the cheap side (compared to the excellent cpu), meaning will it be good for the CPU if he might want to overclock later?
 
Thanks for the link, and it's a great review!
However, main concern is SLI support, since he will most probably buy an nvidia gpu and might want to SLI later.

So for that, is this one a better option than the above described mobo? since for £20 more it won't break the bank.
 
Nameless_87 said:
Thanks for the link, and it's a great review!
However, main concern is SLI support, since he will most probably buy an nvidia gpu and might want to SLI later.

So for that, is this one a better option than the above described mobo? since for £20 more it won't break the bank.
Click to expand...

If you want SLI support then you want the one you have linked to.
 
Nameless_87 said:
Thanks will give him the choices :)

Regarding the ram, timings of 11 are good as I've never heard of that brand either, usually I go with corsair, but as I said I need to start reading up again...
Click to expand...


For the price they are a good combination of speed and timings.

Teamgroup have been around for ages and to be honest nearly all RAM has lifetime warranty these days.

They are tall, so aftermarket cooler selection should you/he want one will need to picked carefully.
 
Nameless_87 said:
Thanks stulid, however how about this is it as good/better than the ones you posted?

btw... budget is stretched to £470
Click to expand...

Think I would rather have the Team RAM as it is clocked much higher (Haswell CPU's have good integrated memory controllers so usually can run at these speeds) and the timings are not so slack that it has a negative effect.
 
stulid said:
Think I would rather have the Team RAM as it is clocked much higher (Haswell CPU's have good integrated memory controllers so usually can run at these speeds) and the timings are not so slack that it has a negative effect.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks.

Another question... can the mobo (D3H) support 2 x 8GB or 4 x 4GB? Which would be best assuming he wants 16GB RAM?
 
The Z87X-D3H supports up to 32Gb of RAM, so that is a maximum of 4 x 8GB.

Getting 2X8Gb will leave room for more should you need it, also check what OS he is using as not all of the 64Bit ones can address over 16GB.
 
stulid said:
The Z87X-D3H supports up to 32Gb of RAM, so that is a maximum of 4 x 8GB.

Getting 2X8Gb will leave room for more should you need it, also check what OS he is using as not all of the 64Bit ones can address over 16GB.
Click to expand...

Os will be either Windows 7 or Windows 8 64 bit, but I don't know which versions specifically... Which ones do not accept more than 16GB?
 
ok, so my friend likes the following out of the things I said to him:

i7 4770K
Gigabyte Z87X-D3H
16GB RAM (still undecided what to get)

He told me he might save up a bit more and get the other things he need together.

So besides the above, he wants:
SSD (at least 128GB)
Storage HDD (at least 2TB)
Graphics Card
PSU

Case, monitor, mouse, keyboard and OS he already has.

New budget is around £800 including everything (without shipping though).

Any ideas?
 
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