AMD Gaming Build ~£1600

markhaldane1

markhaldane1

markhaldane1

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Joined
28 Jun 2013
Posts
18
Hi all,

I'm looking to build a gaming (with a bit of Photoshop Lightroom use) machine. Not mind-blowing, but very decent and (hopefully!) at least a couple of years future proof.

Here's the spec I have put together on the configuration so far. I will take advantage of the current free building offer; I have built several PC's myself before in the past, but that was many years ago now, so I might as well let someone experienced do this one!

NZXT Phantom Enthusiast Case
AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8350 Black Edition 4.00GHz
Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (seems to come bundled with the system)
Asus Crosshair V Formula Z AMD 990FX Mobo
TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit
MSI HD 7970 Lightning BOOSTED Edition 3072MB GDDR5 GPU (not fussed about doing dual-GPU, would rather have 1 for now and add another in the future if I want a boost).
Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s (for OS and a few key software/games)
Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA 6Gb/s
Corsair Professional Series HX+ 850W '80+ Gold' Modular Power Supply
Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 PCI-Express Sound Card

I will probably go for Windows 8 on this machine. The main uses would be running current and next 1-2 year games, and as mentioned some use of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Any potential problems or improvements you guys would make? This comes out at £1,596 at the moment.
Thanks very much in advance.
 
You could get away with a smaller PSU, 600W of a decent make would probably be more than enough, unless you plan to add more graphics cards.
 
Thanks for the advice Khazzer! I may dual-graphic card in the future, so shall I just stick with the one I've selected? 600W doesn't seem enough for 2x? And I can only save about £35-45 by downgrading.

Cheers,
Mark
 
I am assuming I can somewhat OC that processor in the future too, about the same time as upgrading the GPU (16GB RAM seems fine for a long time) and that the decent CPU cooling system will allow me to do this.
 
Hi Martini,

Thanks for replying. Would you say there is a sizeable difference between the 4770K's and the AMD FX then? What motherboard would you ideally pair a 4770K with? There are no reviews on the available options so I am a bit unsure here.

If I select mostly the same components on the configurator, but build around a 4770K, I can get the following:

- NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - White
- Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor
- No Overclocking Options (Zero Cost)
- Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (Socket LGA1155 / 1150 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / LGA2011/ AM2 / AM3 / FM1 / FM2)
- Asus Z87 SABERTOOTH Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
- TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD316G2133HC11ADC01)
- MSI HD 7970 Lightning BOOSTED Edition 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
- No 2nd Graphics Card Upgrade
- Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7PD256BW)
- Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD2002FAEX) HDD
- OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
- Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 PCI-Express Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp
- Corsair Professional Series HX+ 850W '80+ Gold' Modular Power Supply (CP-9020032-UK)
- Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-05955)
- Asus USB-N53 Wireless-N Network Adapter
- BitFenix Spectre PRO 120mm blue LED fan - White

A total of £1,800 including VAT and built for me.

Thanks,
Mark
 
markhaldane1 said:
Thanks for the advice Khazzer! I may dual-graphic card in the future, so shall I just stick with the one I've selected? 600W doesn't seem enough for 2x? And I can only save about £35-45 by downgrading.

Cheers,
Mark
Click to expand...

Certainly if you do go for 2 GPUs later you will need at least 750W, generally speaking the 600-700W PSUs don't have enough comfortable headroom for that sort of peak drain and usually don't have enough PCI-E power connectors. The one you have chosen is a good PSU with plenty of potential.
 
Martini, many thanks for the link you have offered.

If I am reading this right, the downgrades from my previous listing would be:

- A 600W PSU instead of the 850W Corsair
- The standard 840 Series SSD instead of the 'Pro' version
- The Barracuda instead of the WD Black HDD (I hear they are less reliable but perhaps there is no real difference)
- K2 Mount Doom CPU cooler instead of the Corsair H80i
- No operating system included
- No WiFi adapter

While the 'Pros' would be: the GX 780 GPU, and the overclock to 4.5GHz.

Is that Nvidia a real stunner? Will that overclock make a lot of difference?

Cheers,
Mark
 
My thinking was the price was cheaper and the GTX780 would make the most difference in the gaming, the overclock will help in those very CPU limited areas but they're very few and far apart.

For the PSU, that's a genuine downgrade, nout I can say about that.
For the SSD, it's very minor, not something you'd notice.
For the cooler, it's going to be a minor/not noticeable end difference.

The OS point I can understand, but that gives you free will to save money (Or hold off for a few months), as you could put on the 8.1 preview until 8.1 releases.

Wifi adaptor, again, valid point.
 
I have a GTX780 and it runs everything I've thrown at it like a dream and I've not bothered to overclock the GPU or its memory.
I also have the K2 cooler on my Haswell 4770k at 4.6Ghz, its quiet and keeps the cores below 75 degrees even under 100% load.
 
You can spec the Envy with Windows 8 Pro, so the pre-build Envy is £1,846.

If I go with the configurator option, but spec as similarly as possible (including the overclock of the CPU etc) I get £1,852 for this:

- Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM (FQC-05955)
- Corsair Professional Series HX+ 850W '80+ Gold' Modular Power Supply (better PSU)
- Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 PCI-Express Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp
- OcUK 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
- Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s
- Samsung 250GB SSD 840 SATA 6Gb/s Basic
- KFA2 GeForce GTX 780 3072MB PCI-Express Graphics Card
- TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit
- Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
- Corsair Hydro H80i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (better cooler)
- Stage 4 Intel: Overclock of CPU - 4.5GHz Overclock - K Edition Processors Only
- Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor
- NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - White (sexier case)

So I think the £6 extra is surely worth it for the better PSU and CPU cooler? Am I missing something with the specs you are comparing?
 
nothing wrong with that FX8350 its very a good processor for the money, i think that people dont recommend it enough really.

you could have easily shaved off a fair bit of cash from the fist list.
 
He's obviously done his research and made his decision, if he wants the 8350 let him be, you intel fanboys stop suggesting something he didn't post to want in the first place lol..
 
Samsara said:
nothing wrong with that FX8350 its very a good processor for the money, i think that people dont recommend it enough really.

you could have easily shaved off a fair bit of cash from the fist list.
Click to expand...

No it isn't. It's what, £20 less than a 3570k? Just over 10% less money and is a much lesser CPU. The 8350 isn't a budget CPU at all when it's in the same range as an i5.

ussie said:
He's obviously done his research and made his decision, if he wants the 8350 let him be, you intel fanboys stop suggesting something he didn't post to want in the first place lol..
Click to expand...

Doesn't make them Intel fanboys, it's a forum where people generally want the posters to get the best kit they can get. Except in the graphics card forum, people will just bias towards what they like and insist people get the same whether or not the suggested cards are better than the others.

Somebody telling somebody to get AMD on a low budget? Maybe. The guy has 1,600 though, there is no reason at all to get an AMD CPU on that kind of budget.
 
ussie said:
He's obviously done his research and made his decision, if he wants the 8350 let him be, you intel fanboys stop suggesting something he didn't post to want in the first place lol..
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what the problem is.
The FX8350 isn't the better CPU, there's absolutely no fanboyism in stating so.

You can get a 3930K in a custom build system at this price.
 
Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies. I don't mind at all people suggesting the Intel over the AMD, I hadn't settled on any particular components at all, and if the 4770K is that much better, I'm happy to up my budget. To be honest it's very flexible and wasn't really a 'budget', just the amount I had come up with my first bit of research and spec'ing. I had a nice redundancy pay-out recently and this is a treat for myself so I don't mind £1,800+

So, I'm happy to put a 4770K in this system for the power (as long as I'm not bottle-necking elsewhere) and the GTX780 as it seems to be a very good card without quite going into the realms of silly money. The question I have now is do I take the pre-built Envy rig or configurate my own spec. I need to run through the configurator again!

Is there any difference to an OVC pre-built spec, and a configurator one?
Do they do the stress-testing hours on configurator builds?
Does a configurator build come with the 24 month warranty?
Does that Envy really not come with an optical drive?? And what RAM are they using?
 
Thanks Micky, that is very good to know that I can get the same testing and warranty on anything I build in the configurator. I am tempted to spend more to get the exact parts I want you see... Though financially not quite as sensible perhaps!

I ran through the configurator via a different base point (damn that new Phantom case is sexy, eh!) and came up with the following by selecting the things I really wanted (like the Pro version of the SSD, the Pro line of Corsair power supply (I have always loved Corsair PSU's), adding in a BluRay reader and changing the HDD to WD Cavier Green for a quieter experience (the drive will be used for storage, not game/program running).

- NZXT Phantom 820 Enthusiast Full Tower Case - White
- Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor
- Stage 3 Intel: Overclock of CPU - 4.4GHz Overclock
- Prolimatech Red Megahalems CPU Cooler
- Asus Z87 DELUXE Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
- TeamGroup Vulcan RED 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit
- KFA2 GeForce GTX 780 3072MB PCI-Express Graphics Card
- Samsung 256GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic
- Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache
- Pioneer BDC-207DBK 8x BluRay ROM / DVDRW SATA-II Optical Drive
- Corsair Professional Series HX+ 1050W '80+ Gold' Modular Power Supply
- Microsoft Windows 8 Pro 64-Bit DVD - OEM
- System Build Fan - Noiseblocker BlackSilent Pro Fan PLPS - 120mm PWM

This comes to just a hair over £2k. I have some new questions for anyone who has a spare minute to look over this spec:

  • Is that Prolimatech tower cooler enough for a 4.4GHz overclock, or should I get the Corsair H80i water cooler? The reviews for the Corsair are fairly mixed.
  • I can't see many big differences between the Mobo's on offer, so I went with the cheapest! Is this fine? This has on-board dual-band (up to N) wifi I believe?
  • Are KFA a reputable builder of GPUs? Years ago I think it used to be Sapphire that everyone went for. KFA is the only option of GTX780 in the configurator.
  • There is nothing less than 1000W PSUs available in the 'Pro' starting point of the configurator, a bit of a waste
  • There is no product link for that System fan. Is it just a bog standard? It sounds like the case already has many fans included, plus lighting system built into it, so I didn't select any extra fans/lights.

Thank you all again!
 
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