Another System Upgrade Thread! 1200 Sheets.

Soldato
Joined
25 Apr 2007
Posts
5,255
Another system build thread for y'all to look at and offer up valued input. I apologise in advance as this may not come to fruition, since the wife has just found she's pregnant again, which might scupper my plans :P

I hope to have £1200 notes to spend (really can't justify more) and would like a system based around a Sapphire Tri-X 290 (or quiet equivalent) and a suitable system bundle (mobo/CPU/RAM) from OcUK that has an overclocked 4670K. I've put PCs together before but on this occasion would prefer for someone else to stick the main bits together and ramp up the clocks. It will have to last me years without hassle and will NOT be used for further overclocking. It just needs to be reliable and not sound like a hoover.


I already have a copy of Windows 7 a 2Tb HDD, keyboard, mouse etc for re-use, so don't need these.

So, I WANT:

- Intel 4670K overclocked by someone else
- A mobo with onboard sound (do they all have it)?
- A quiet R290
- 16GB RAM - I'm going to keep it for several years so I want to overspec the quantity in case 8Gb isn't enough in 4 years and I can't source extra.
- 24" or 27" monitor (not too fussed for an expensive one and I'm leaning towards a 27")
- An overspecced PSU - one that will hopefully be suitable in several years for my next build.


I'd LIKE (potential to be dropped if it'll really benefits the 'wants' above):

- An ok case that's small-to-medium sized and will fit everything in without a problem. Or on the other hand, do I get a swanky case that'll last me a lifetime?
- An SSD - probably the 240Gb Crucial M500. I've had a 74Gb raptor before and can't be bothered trying to manage an 120Gb model.
- Quietness - not sure if a water cooled CPU fan offered with several bundles provides this.



So then gents and gentesses. Anyone able to offer up something suitable? EDIT - and I should add this mostly for gaming purposes and general browsing. No movies or anything like that.
 
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YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £329.99
1 x Iiyama Prolite GB2773HS-GB1 144Hz 27" Widescreen LED 1MS Monitor - Black £269.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £129.95
1 x ReFlex Gigabyte Z87 - Intel Core i5 4670K @ 4.2GHz Configurable Gaming Bundle £109.03
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED316GM1600HC11DC01) £109.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Standard Build Laptops - Approximately 3 to 5 working days £0
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler £49.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 650W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £79.99
1 x BitFenix Ronin Tower Case - Black £69.95
Total : £1,318.87 (includes shipping : ).



Overclocking will be done by OcUK, but you would save money by doing it yourself.
Motherboard has on-board sound, the quality if getting better.
R290 is nice & quiet, you may also want to consider 280x.
27" 144hz monitor is great, but impacting your budget
PSU will be fine for the above
SSD is one of the best, Crucial has slow write speeds
Cooler is dead quiet, I loved mine untill I replaced it for convenience.
 
My msi gaming edition is fairly quiet. Can hear it ramp up its fans during heavy bf4 but not too bad. Cant usually hear it over the sound of gunfire...
 
I know the early 290s were awful, but here suggests the tri x is one of the quietest cards out there under load. And the 290s are good bang for buck as far as higher end cads go.
 
I went a bit over budget :o


YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11227-03-40G) £341.99
1 x Iiyama Prolite GB2773HS-GB1 144Hz 27" Widescreen LED 1MS Monitor - Black £269.99
1 x ReVenge Gigabyte Z87 - Intel Core i5 4670K @ 4.4GHz Configurable Enthusiast Gaming Bundle £162
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler £49.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD316G2133HC11ADC01) £129.95
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Standard Build Laptops - Approximately 3 to 5 working days £0
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £129.95
1 x Silverstone Strider Gold Series - 850 Watt (SST-ST85F-GS) £99.95
1 x BitFenix Ronin Tower Case - Black £69.95
Total : £1,423.75 (includes shipping : ).

 
Thanks for the input. I kinda thought I was asking beyond my budget but hoped someone might come up with some unthought-of method to 'get rid of this and replace it with that' to fall under 1200 notes. I might have to drop the SSD. This mount doom cooler seems well received, but at 50 notes I assume it keeps things cooler and much quieter than, say, a 20 quid cooler? I have a tuniq tower sat on my current Q6600 that I probably paid 40 quid for. I take it these are not compatible with the 4670 CPU?
EDIT the tuniq website is quite poor but it would appear my older tower cooler is not compatible
 
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You could trim things down a little without sacrificing performance.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290 Tri-X 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (11227-03-40G) £341.99
1 x Iiyama Prolite GB2773HS-GB1 144Hz 27" Widescreen LED 1MS Monitor - Black £269.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Silverstone Strider Gold Series - 850 Watt (SST-ST85F-GS) £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-SLI Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £98.99
1 x BitFenix Ronin Tower Case - Black £69.95
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £67.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
Total : £1,221.32 (includes shipping : £13.75).




Cut the Ram down to 8GB. You can always add more in the future either by getting 2 more of the same, or you could get a 16GB kit and sell the above.

Added a smaller SSD which will fit the operating system and some games. It is straightforward to add a 2nd bigger SSD down the line.

Changed the motherboard and cooler for cheaper alternatives. The board will allow for crossfire if you ever need it. The Matterhorn cooler is very good for the money and will allow you to overclock the i5.
 
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