Alternative case for OcUK build.... (And/or spec check)

Audigex

Audigex

Audigex

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Ignore the title, it's just a spec check now: Tower and OS only, he has peripherals and monitor etc. I have free shipping.

Looking at the following for my brother. It's a Photoshop (he does freelance graphic design, so it has to be at least pretty good for PS, although we don't need spectacular) and moderate gaming (mostly older titles) rig.

Case must be no more than 25cm wide, as it has to fit in his PC desk, and I liked the Arc Midi when making a previous build. Budget is up to £870, but that needs to include being built by OcUK (I'm not sure how much that costs) and he'd prefer to keep it closer to the £800 mark unless the extra really gets him something worthwhile

SSD and 16GB RAM are a must, anything else can be changed if there's a good enough reason :) and he'd prefer to keep the optical drive.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £199.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 "ITX Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139) £79.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £69.95
1 x Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 Midi Tower - Black £69.95
1 x Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £61.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD316G1600HC11DC01) £59.99
1 x Silverstone TD03-LITE Liquid CPU Cooler £54.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £53.99
1 x Samsung SH-224FB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM M disc compatible £14.99
Total : £815.77




Any suggestions or obvious problems or areas for improvement? Anything vital I've missed out?
 
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I saw the image before you edited, just think you only need to go 8gb Ram, so that saves up some coins already to maybe get a better GPU. +8gb isn't needed if he is just gaming.
 
Thanks, I've updated it again with a custom build rather than the Micro-ATX pre-built we were looking at (that used cases which wouldn't fit in his desk).

16GB RAM is needed, as gaming is probably the secondary use after Photoshop (and accompanying C4D etc).

He wouldn't mind an i7, but I suspect it pushes the budget too high considering it won't give that huge a benefit.

Basically primary use is Photoshop, with attached use of C4D and similar where needed. Other than that, he mostly plays slightly older games (CS: Source) and FlightGear. He wants it to be moderately gaming capable, but it doesn't have to be kicking Battlefield 4's head in on Ultra settings.
 
Do you have some other storage available? A single 250gb SSD is going to push it.

Cost is ~£60 or so for OcUK to build it. Could build it yourself mind, its really not very hard.
 
Thanks, I'm happy to build it (I've built several before) but since he uses it for freelance work and we had some issues with his previous build, he's probably going to want it pre-built for the 'one unit' warranty - it's much easier to send the whole tower back rather than try to troubleshoot the faulty component when he's on a deadline for a client. We may reconsider if he can get a much better build for the extra £60, but not for a fairly minor improvement.

Storage is fine, he has a 1TB HDD that will make the move over to the new rig, plus 1TB OneDrive storage and I intend to site my current home server at his house when I upgrade, so he'll have access to a few TB of spare NAS space from that. If needs be he can add a second SSD in future if he wants more storage at SSD speeds: he will have the budget to upgrade a little later, it's just the initial budget that's constrained.
 
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Slightly updated with a move to mATX, as the full size case doesn't fit in his desk. Any issues?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £185.99
1 x Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 "ITX Edition" 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £149.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 350D Windowed Micro ATX Case - Black (CC-9011029-WW) £85.99
1 x Crucial BX100 250GB SSD SATA 6Gbps 7mm Solid State Drive (CT250BX100SSD1) £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139) £79.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97M-DS3H Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £77.99
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD316G1600HC11DC01) £68.99
1 x Silverstone TD03-LITE Liquid CPU Cooler £54.95
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £53.99
1 x Samsung SH-224FB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM M disc compatible £14.99
Total : £852.85 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

 
I would go with a cheaper air cooler and put a bit more money into a good quality power supply. The Corsair CX isn't very good.

The Alpenfohn is a good budget cooler, and the EVGA GS is a very good psu made by Seasonic. The 650W is currently cheaper than the 550W version but keep an eye on the price as it is on a weekly offer.


YOUR BASKET
1 x EVGA Supernova GS 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £69.95
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
Total : £99.94 (includes shipping : Ex.VAT).

 
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Thanks, I'll probably keep the closed loop cooler (being mATX particularly I like the way CPU heat is directly exhausted, keeping case ambient temps down) and persuade him to top out his budget for a better PSU :)
 
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