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PhoenixRising

PhoenixRising

PhoenixRising

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Joined
2 May 2016
Posts
52
Location
UK
Im planning on building my son a gaming pc, he's a ps4 player but would like to start pc gaming, i've never built a gaming pc so unsure what to buy, so i'm looking for some help/advice. My budget is £1200 or less if possible and that's to include Monitor, mouse and keyboard.
 
With that sort of budget I think it would be a good idea to build around the i5-6600k CPU, with a Z170 motherboard, 16 GB DDR4, 250GB SSD (for Windows and games), 1TB HDD (for storage), 550W or 650W Gold rated PSU, custom cooler. Approximate cost of all this is about £550.

For GPU the best bang for buck looks to be the new AMD RX 480 at around £200 which should be good for gaming up to 1440p. It's due to be released very soon.

Case, mouse and keyboard are things of more personal preference. Allow about £120 in this area.

Windows 10 adds another £80.

This leaves you about £250 on your budget for a monitor, which should get you a 27" 1440p or 1080p monitor.

Nothing is truly future proof, but something of this sort of spec should last a long time and can be upgraded further in the future if desired (eg i7-6700k, more powerful GPU, more RAM etc).

I've deliberately not listed specific products, as to get the most out of your budget it's probably a good idea to keep an eye on the daily and weekly deals here and special bundles which can bring you some savings.
 
You probably need to start by deciding how much you want to spend on a monitor and then go from there. I'm not sure many here would put an >£400 monitor on a £1200 build. I tried my best to fit in the £600 Acer super wide :D

  • You shouldn't buy a graphics card right now. I'm not sure if the proper 1070 Nvidia cards are due after the FE1070 cards this Friday? The AMD 480 is due out on the 30th (or 1st?).

  • The monitor below assumes an AMD card.

  • You might have to consider a Gsync monitor and a 1070 graphics card. There is a 'TN' type Nvidia GSync monitor for about £380 on OCUK. The cost of that and a bottom end £330 1070 card next week would about even out.

  • You would need to budget for headphones and long term storage later.

  • There are zillions of cases to choose from.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £1,174.58
(includes shipping: £14.70)
​
 
Something like this as a base, then throw in a GTX 1070 (coming out on Friday) and that should leave about 200 spend on your monitor, then a cheapo mouse and keyboard.


My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £663.87
(includes shipping: £0.00)
​


​
 
My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £858.64
(includes shipping: £20.82)
​


​


Then buy a R9 480 with the change when it comes out.
 
PhoenixRising said:
If i was to get the i5 6600k would i be better off getting a motherboard that auto clocks?
Click to expand...

If it fits in the budget then I would recommend getting one, the overclocking can offer up extra performance. The motherboards that overclock often are built with higher quality components as well, designed for high-performance/gaming pc's (although a bit of it is marketing) for example networking and sound solutions aimed at improving the "gaming" experience.
 
PhoenixRising said:
Will the RX 480 be a good gpu to get ??
Click to expand...

From leaked benchmarks (yet to be officially confimed however) it will have compute performance close to the GTX 980, which at the price point is very good value and would fit this price-point very well. If you were to jiggle the components a bit (get a few promotions etc) then you could get a higher performance card

But since the person in question is coming from ps4 gaming, the rx480 will provide a considerably better graphical experience, so would be a great place to start and in the case of it being upgraded, I imagine the rx480 will hold its value very well (alike to other value oriented (yet high end) cards like the 960/970, 270/270x etc...)
 
stulid said:
My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £858.64
(includes shipping: £20.82)
​


​


Then buy a R9 480 with the change when it comes out.
Click to expand...

can you recommend case fans for this build please Stulid, the quieter the better and if possible red/red light
 
PhoenixRising said:
can you recommend case fans for this build please Stulid, the quieter the better and if possible red/red light
Click to expand...

Even though you want Stulid to answer this I will chip in with a couple of fans I recommend

Noctua- any fan (if appearance and cost aren't an issue)
The askasa apache fans are awesome, pretty decent price on ocuk at the moment too!
If you are dying for red LED's then I would reccomend aerocool dead silence fans or corsair sp/af led fans
 
Benjamham said:
If you are dying for red LED's then I would reccomend aerocool dead silence fans
Click to expand...

Can vouch for these. They are superb case fans, and even very good for some rads (tested on H105 equal performance to stock fans, lot less noise). Used them in a Carbide 540 Air build and they were a massive improvement over the stock fans of the case as well. Recently had a chance to check how they were performing after two years, and they were still as silent.

For any readers in the US though, the version sold there (possibly everywhere else other than Europe) has different specs and the above recommendation may not apply.
 
Thanks Benjamham and Danny, i was only aiming it at Stulid as he'd done the build but suppose i should have left it open for everyone/anyone to answer, but much appreiciated.
Im looking at red as my son wanted a red and black colour scheme.
 
Last edited:
PhoenixRising said:
Thanks Benjamham and Danny, i was only aiming it at Stulid as he'd done the build but suppose i should have left it open for everyone/anyone to answer, but much appreiciated.
Im looking at red as my son wanted a red and black colour scheme.
Click to expand...

No worries, If he wants lighting in the case then I would recommend getting the best quality fans possible and then getting LED strips if the chosen fans don't have LED's
 
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