Build advice

[Thick Rugby Lad]

Hi All,

Looking to build / part build a mid tier gaming PC and am looking for pointers for getting best bang for buck.

Do not need monitor, keyboard, mouse or OS. Need to consider everything else.

We want to build around the i5 4670k (o/c) and the GTX 770, with the intention of going down the SLI route in the not too distant future. We would want to plan for the SLI now, rather than replace parts when adding the upgrade (eg will I need an SLI bridge, or does the M/B handle?)..

I was contemplating something like:

Quasar 210i (CPU, M/B, RAM and CPU cooler) (BU-157-OC ~£360),

GPU: GigaByte Geforce GTX 770 SLI ready (GX-115G-GI ~£265),

PSU: Think this will need to be over 650W to cope with the 2 GPU's. Was looking at the EVGA SupaNova NEX 750 80+ Gold Modular or the OCX ModXStream Pro 700W silent SLI ready (~£90 and £72 respectively),

Case: Has to be big enough for the GPU's and have the room to add the second card relatively painlessly. Was wondering if something like the Lancool K62 (CA-018-LN) but if there's anything else more suitable/cheaper, great.

Storage: After a combination of (relatively small) SSD a HDD.

Lastly, have to factor in wifi, sound (if not covered in other components), cooling - and I don't really want to spend any more than £900. Not after much, am I?!!

Thanks in advance!

 

[Fulax]

A bit over, but upper mid-range GPUs (i.e. 280X and 770) are relatively expensive at the moment

YOUR BASKET
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 770 iChill HerculeZ X3 Ultra 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (C770-3SDN-E5DSX) £263.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Seasonic G series 750w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-SLI Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £99.95
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £69.95
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV "Frost Edition" 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit £59.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Case - Black (CC-9011023-WW) £47.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £47.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
1 x TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter (TL-WDN4800) £27.98
Total : £931.86 (includes shipping : £11.75).



You'll get an SLI bridge with the motherboard.

Unless you are particularly brand-loyal, I'd get a 280X over a 770 for the same money purely for the extra VRAM. Unfortunately they're in rather short supply at the moment.

 

[scotsdragon]

No ssd but pretty close to budget

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Vapor-X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card £275.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 750D Full Tower Case - Black (CC-9011035-WW) £149.99
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £119.99
1 x Gigabyte 990FXA-UD3 AMD 990FX (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £113.99
1 x EVGA SuperNova NEX 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-PG-0750-GR) £89.99
1 x Avexir Venom Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21330904G-2CIG) - Green Light £74.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £46.99
1 x TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter (TL-WDN4800) £27.98
Total : £914.90 (includes shipping : £12.50).



I would get a descent cooler for ocing later on but that's the beauty of pc's you can add alittle here and there 8320 overclock really well and that gpu will give you descent grunt and vram for bf4 and the likes and wont break the bank for crossfiring later on

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 280X Vapor-X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card £275.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 750D Full Tower Case - Black (CC-9011035-WW) £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-SLI Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £99.95
1 x EVGA SuperNova NEX 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply (120-PG-0750-GR) £89.99
1 x Avexir Venom Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21330904G-2CIG) - Green Light £74.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £46.99
1 x TP-Link 450Mbps Wireless N Dual Band PCI Express Adapter (TL-WDN4800) £27.98
Total : £972.86 (includes shipping : £12.50).



same build but with intel although if you want to sli or crossfire you probally would need the 4770k to take full advantage

 

[Thick Rugby Lad]

Fulax, Scotsdragon,

Firstly, sorry for not getting back sooner (I work offshore and work/comms/availability can seriously interfere with the important stuff!) and for putting together the build suggestions - you've given me loads to think about!

With regards to the GPU choice (R9 280X vs GTX770), I can see that there's a difference in VRAM, what I don't know is what sort of difference in performance this translates into - does it give more FPS (and if so, what sort of increase are we looking at), or is the performance increase more evident in the display quality? For info, for the foreseeable future, I will only ever be using one monitor and that's 60 Hz, 1024/780 (hoping to upgrade to an Asus VG248QE 144Hz after adding the 2nd GPU - but that's way off). Unless there's an overwhelming argument otherwise, I'll probably go with the GTX770 as the deal I've got my eye on includes 3 free games, all of which I'm after, which brings the realistic price right down by ~£90.

The Qusar 210i bundle I mentioned included a CPU cooler, an MSI Z87 G43 MoBo (so OK to SLI later), 8 GB of 1600 MHz, DDR3 RAM and a free O/C up to 4.2 GHz on a i5 4670K. With regards to the RAM - and apologies, this is where I show my true ignorance(!) - I'm definitely from the "more is always better" school but when will I need more than this? The bundle would come pre-built and after 8 hours of stress testing. Overall, this looked a pretty good deal to me - what have I missed?

One last question, if I may; do we think that 750W is sufficient for the PSU? I was thinking that, if the GPU required ~ 230 at high load, therefore 2 of them would need 500W max, which would still leave me >250W for everything else, which I thought would be plenty. I've since had someone say that they thought 750W mightn't be enough - any thoughts?

Thanks again for all your help - and I'll try not to let that work thing get in the way!

 

[Fulax]

The extra GB of VRAM won't make much difference now, as there are no games that really push it (apart from Battlefield 4, perhaps). It will become increasingly important, though, which is why I'd recommend the 280X if you can get a good one for a similar price. The problem you have is that because of this bitcoin/litecoin/etc mining boom that's going on, AMD cards are in high demand and short supply - which means high prices. And the 770 comes with three free games, of course.

Get yourself a 1080p monitor before getting another card. If you're currently using 1024x780, it is by far the more pressing upgrade. By far.

You won't need more than 8gb RAM any time soon, but something faster than 1600mhz would be nice. The 4.2ghz overclock that you get with the bundle will be easy to achieve on your own. The vast majority of 4670k chips will reach that speed without breaking a sweat.The MSI Z87-G43 supports Crossfire but not SLI - so dual AMD but not dual Nvidia GPUs. The bundle's CPU cooler isn't as good as the Alpenfohn one. Aaaand...the bundle is more expensive than the CPU, motherboard, cooler, and RAM in my spec.

As for the PSU, you could go a bit higher if you want but I don't think it would be necessary for SLI 770s. According to Guru3D, two 770 pull around 400w, and they recommend a 700-800w PSU. These recommendations are usually based on the assumption that you'll buy a cheap PSU, though, and the Seasonic one in my spec is pure quality.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/geforce_gtx_770_sli_review,4.html

 

[Thick Rugby Lad]

Fulax,

If anyone had any doubts as to the value of forums such as this, I think you've just blown them out of the water. You've just stopped me making a schoolboy error and saved me time, money and much embarrassment - thanks a million!

As far as your spec is concerned, one word: sold. Also, the monitor will be my next purchase.

Thanks once again!

 

[Fulax]

Happy to help

One potential change. I specced you an OEM version of the 4670k because it's quite a bit cheaper than the retail boxed version and I was over budget. The retail version comes with a longer warranty, and Intel's stock cooler (which isn't very good, but is handy to have around as a backup). It now also comes with Final Fantasy 14 and Rome 2 free:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £185.99
Total : £195.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).