Build me a PC worthy of Mordor!!!

trufito

trufito

trufito

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Joined
29 Jun 2013
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18
Hi! So I need a new PC... and I lack the PC construction skills necessary to build my own, so I wanted to either use the configurator or go for one of the premade systems.

Now I want the PC to be capable of handling games like Crysis at high setting at 1080p, and my budget.. well ideally between £700 and £800, but can go up to £850 if necessary (without monitor or accessories).

Now I have a lot of questions, so please be patient with me xD
and hopefully someone will be able to help me out here, as my knowledge of computer hardware is pretty basic :confused:.

Firstly, processor: is AMD good at this price range? Or does the equivalent Intel chip still out perform it? The intel are more expensive and seem to have generally lower clock speeds, but I read that lower intel clockspeed still outperforms high AMD clockspeed processors generally.
I also see a lot of people listing Haswell in builds, but I thought that Ivy bridge were generally better gaming as they were better for overlocking and ran cooler?

Second, obviously is the graphics card. I was thinking the HIS HD 7870. Is this decent for my needs? Is it worth spending the extra money for a 7950? Or any other graphics card you would recommend?
One of my main concerns is getting a graphics card and CPU of equivalent power, so that I'm not wasting money on one overpowered component which will be held back by the other.

The rest, I'm not entirely sure which power supply, fans and motherboard I would need, so I picked them somewhat randomly xd or left default. Also I would ideally want a small SSD with an HDD for fast booting.

So I guess the only thing left is OS - I've heard bad things about windows 8, but I've seen a few people recommending it on these forums.. I thought it was a bad interface designed for touch? Which would you recommend?

So here is a £850 spec I made with the configurator:

Your basket
Product Name Line Total
HIS HD 7870 IceQ X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (H787QN2G2M) £199.99
AMD Piledriver FX-4 Quad Core 4350 4.20GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail
£95.99
Gigabyte 970A-UD3 AMD 970A (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard
£86.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050)
£83.99
Corsair 2013 Edition Gamer Series GS 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020063-UK)
£65.99
TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLD38G2133HC11ADC01)
£64.00
Toshiba SSD HG5D Series THNSNH 7mm 60GB Solid State Hard Drive - (THNSNH060GCST)
£61.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD
£53.99
Prolimatech Megahalems Rev C CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2)
£42.98
Asus Xonar DG 5.1 PCI Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp - OEM
£20.99
OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
£11.99

Total : £801.48 (£844.86 in configurator)
I'm guessing the price is different because I left out a fan and a case xD

Is this build okay? Would an Intel build be better? And could I get the level of gaming I want for cheaper?
Please bear in mind that my options are limited by the configurator :s
Alternatively, are there any premade systems that I should consider?


I apologize that this is so long, I will be surprised and also very grateful if someone replies!
Also sorry my basket/build list is a mess, I couldn't work out how everyone manages to copy theirs all neat and tidy :/
 
bang for buck... amd is the best way to go for a budget build... the amd piledriver 6 core is a great chip, can be overclocked to pass 4.2ghz and a good board to go along with it costs less than an intel i5 chip easily.

I would go:

YOUR BASKET
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 660 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with a free copy of 3DMark advanced edition £149.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x MSI 990XA-GD55 AMD 990X Chipset (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Corsair 2013 Edition Gamer Series GS 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020063-UK) £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £53.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £49.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper T4 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £20.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £718.85 (includes shipping : £10.00).



The gtx660 is the best card for around £150 and paired with the 6 core, it will deliver great frame rates.

The plextor ssd is one of the fastest available and the memory at £50 is a bargain.
 
CinderzFTW said:
bang for buck... amd is the best way to go for a budget build... the amd piledriver 6 core is a great chip, can be overclocked to pass 4.2ghz and a good board to go along with it costs less than an intel i5 chip easily.

I would go:

YOUR BASKET
1 x KFA2 GeForce GTX 660 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with a free copy of 3DMark advanced edition £149.99
1 x Plextor M5 Pro 128GB Extreme Series Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5P) £99.95
1 x AMD Piledriver FX-6 Six Core 6300 Black Edition 3.50GHz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £89.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-Bit - OEM (GFC-02050) £83.99
1 x MSI 990XA-GD55 AMD 990X Chipset (Socket AM3+) DDR3 Motherboard £79.99
1 x Corsair 2013 Edition Gamer Series GS 600W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020063-UK) £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £53.99
1 x Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU) £49.99
1 x Cooler Master Hyper T4 CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £20.99
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £718.85 (includes shipping : £10.00).



The gtx660 is the best card for around £150 and paired with the 6 core, it will deliver great frame rates.

The plextor ssd is one of the fastest available and the memory at £50 is a bargain.
Click to expand...

if your going amd at the moment go for nothing less than the 8350 or if on a budget the 8320 don't skimp and get the 6300 or 4300 however do consider intel, you can get an i5 haswell or ivybridge for not much more than the 8350 and a motherboard
 
I wouldn't imagine that the slightly hotter running of a haswell, and thus its reduced capacity for overclocking, would offset the fact that it's a faster chip in the first place. I'd imagine the heat issues are only really a factor if you are chasing extreme overclocks, for the sake of benchmarking achievement.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £194.99
1 x MSI HD 7870 Black Knight 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (R7870-2GD5T/OC) £167.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £99.95
1 x Microsoft Windows 8 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00403) £79.99
1 x Crucial RealSSD M4 128GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive (CT128M4SSD2) £74.99
1 x Patriot Viper "Black Mamba" Generation 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (PV38G240C0K) £64
1 x Thermaltake Smart Series 530w Modular '80Plus Bronze' Power Supply £49.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £49.99
1 x Thermalright HR-02 Macho CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366) £39.98
1 x OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £16.99
Total : £850.86 (includes shipping : £10.00).

 
in answer to a few of your questions:

- yes a 7950 is worth the upgrade over the 7870, it's will last you longer in terms of performance future proofing too
- windows 8 is very much based around tablet use and "apps" as we have come to know them, whereas Windows 7 is the purest windows experience IMO

Also are you building the system yourself or thinking of getting a pre-built one?
 
Thanks for the responses.

How do the HD7870 and GTX 660 compare? I tried doing a search and from what I read they sounded pretty equally matched?
I will try to get HD 7950 if my budget allows it.

Yeah that is what I have heard about windows 8, but I also read some people saying on here that it is faster? Also I remember reading before that mircosoft were planning to overhaul the interface somewhat with the first service pack?

Well I've never built one before, so I was thinking of using the configurator (particularly as they have the build for free offer on at the moment), or getting one of the prebuilt/predefined systems, but I can have a go at building it myself if necessary.

I did notice that on the configurator, for the amd gaming configurator, there doesn't seem to be an option to overclock the cpu, but the option is there for the intel builds. Any idea why this option isn't available?
 
660 and the 7870 are pretty much tied. The lead swings both ways dependent on games. the 'compute' power is gimped on the 660 with only 192bit bus and effectively 1.5gb of vram.

Overclock yourself. Its not rocket science.

Don't worry about a soundcard as you can use onboard. The iceq is a really good cooler but the 7870 is imo overpriced at £200..
 
trufito said:
Thanks for the responses.

How do the HD7870 and GTX 660 compare? I tried doing a search and from what I read they sounded pretty equally matched?
I will try to get HD 7950 if my budget allows it.

Yeah that is what I have heard about windows 8, but I also read some people saying on here that it is faster? Also I remember reading before that mircosoft were planning to overhaul the interface somewhat with the first service pack?

Well I've never built one before, so I was thinking of using the configurator (particularly as they have the build for free offer on at the moment), or getting one of the prebuilt/predefined systems, but I can have a go at building it myself if necessary.

I did notice that on the configurator, for the amd gaming configurator, there doesn't seem to be an option to overclock the cpu, but the option is there for the intel builds. Any idea why this option isn't available?
Click to expand...

I'll look into the AMD configurator overclock issue, we can overclock them it just seems the option isn't there currently!

Windows 8 is slightly faster and takes up less space on your SDD/HDD but is slightly more fussy.
 
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