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Cran

Cran

Cran

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9 Jun 2016
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Hi Overclockers
Looking for some advice on what to get With 7 to £800 to spend looking for something with these specs

Windows 10
Intel® Core™ i5-6400 Processor
Memory: 8 GB
Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
Hard drive: 1 TB
I have looked at this

Technical specifications for ** Competitor name removed **
OVERVIEW
Type Gaming PC
Operating system Windows 10
SPECIFICATION
Processor - Intel® Core™ i5-6400 Processor
- Quad-core
- 2.7 GHz / 3.3 GHz with TurboBoost
- 6 MB cache
Memory (RAM) 8 GB Kingston Hyper-X FURY RAM (16 GB maximum installable RAM)
Graphics card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 (2 GB GDDR5)
Storage 1 TB HDD, 7200 rpm
Motherboard Asus H110M-D D3
CONNECTIVTY
Wireless No
Ethernet Gigabit Ethernet (10/100/1000)
USB - USB 3.0 x 2
- USB 2.0 x 6
Video interface - HDMI x 1
- DVI x 1
- DisplayPort x 1
Audio interface 3.5 mm jack
MEDIA
Optical disc drive DVD/RW
Expansion card slot PCIe (x1) x 2
SOUND
Sound 5.1 surround sound
POWER
PSU Corsair VS450, 450 W
This costs about £700 plus another £45 for Corsair Raptor K30 Gaming keyboard and HP BR376AA Optical Mouse
Is that good or could i get a better deal here
Long post i know
Hope you all got to here
Cheers for any advice
 
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/tita...intel-core-i5-6400-gtx-970-4gb-fs-170-og.html

MILES better GPU (your 2GB 960 wont really cut it these days in some games)
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1596?vs=1595

SSHD will boot faster than a standard (unbranded rubbish too I'll bet) HD.

Bitfenic Phenom case is a great case by all accounts (http://www.techspot.com/products/cases/bitfenix-phenom-matx.97226/), the one you get with your Vortex Marauder is unbranded rubbish which will be flimsy and noisy.

7.1 sound better than 5.1 (if you are set up for it)

AND finally: you would be getting it from Overclockers, so it will be built right. I wouldn't buy a PC from those shysters that you are looking at. I personally don't know anyone that's bought a PC from them a second time.

Oh, and welcome to the forums. :)
 
Last edited:
You could also consider one of the OcUK configurable setups. They're convenient because they're built to order so you don't have to do it yourself.

Kinetic Z1 would get you some significant advantages over the PC in your post for not much more money. For example, this configuration would give you 16GB instead of 8GB, a Z170 board instead of an H110 board, a GTX970 card instead of a 960, an i5-6500 instead of a 6400 (3.2GHz instead of 2.7GHz) a better PSU and a proven reliable build quality and guarantee. You could also configure it with lower components to get the price down if you want.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

  • 1 x OcUK Kinetic Z1 - Intel Z170 Configurable Skylake DDR4 Gaming PC = £788.90
    • Case:Kolink Octagon Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black
    • Processor:Intel Core i5-6500 3.20GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
    • Memory:Team Group Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD416GM2400HC16D
    • Storage Mechanical Hard Drive:Unwanted
    • Optical Drive:Unwanted
    • Operating System:Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
    • CPU Cooler:Unwanted
    • Primary Solid State Drive / Hard Drive:Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003)
    • Security Software:ESET Smart Security - Trial Key
    • Build Time:Standard Build Systems - Dispatched within 7 working days
    • Warranty:OcUK Standard System Warranty - 3 Year (24 Month C&R + 12 Month Labour)
    • WIFI:Unwanted
    • Graphics Card:Zotac GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (ZT-90101-10P)


Total: £803.00
(includes shipping: £14.10)
​


Or you could dial it down a bit and go with the Kinetic H1. Still better almost everything, but using the H110 chipset (which probably won't matter to you, since you're not using a K CPU and you don't mention wanting to do crossfire/SLI).

My basket at Overclockers UK:

  • 1 x OcUK Kinetic H1 - Intel H110 Configurable Skylake Micro ATX DDR4 Gaming PC = £700.04
    • Processor:Intel Core i5-6500 3.20GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
    • Operating System:Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
    • Graphics Card:Zotac GeForce GTX 970 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (ZT-90101-10P)
    • Storage Mechanical Hard Drive:Unwanted
    • Primary Solid State Drive / Hard Drive:Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003)
    • Security Software:Unwanted
    • Build Time:Standard Build Systems - Dispatched within 7 working days
    • Warranty:OcUK Standard System Warranty - 3 Year (24 Month C&R + 12 Month Labour)
    • Optical Drive **Not Compatible with Kolink Victory Case**:Unwanted
    • WIFI:Unwanted
    • Case:Kolink Victory Micro-ATX Gaming Case - Black
    • Memory:Team Group Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD416GM2400HC16D


Total: £714.14
(includes shipping: £14.10)
​

Or closest match to the one in your post (the memory isn't as good, admittedly):

My basket at Overclockers UK:

  • 1 x OcUK Kinetic H1 - Intel H110 Configurable Skylake Micro ATX DDR4 Gaming PC = £583.04
    • Processor:Intel Core i5-6400 2.70GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
    • Operating System:Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
    • Graphics Card:Palit GeForce GTX 960 "Reference" 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (NE5X960010G1-2061F)
    • Storage Mechanical Hard Drive:Unwanted
    • Primary Solid State Drive / Hard Drive:Seagate 1TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD - OEM (ST1000DM003)
    • Security Software:Unwanted
    • Build Time:Standard Build Systems - Dispatched within 7 working days
    • Warranty:OcUK Standard System Warranty - 3 Year (24 Month C&R + 12 Month Labour)
    • Optical Drive **Not Compatible with Kolink Victory Case**:Unwanted
    • WIFI:Unwanted
    • Case:Kolink Victory Micro-ATX Gaming Case - Black
    • Memory:Team Group Elite 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD48GM2400HC16DC0


Total: £597.14
(includes shipping: £14.10)
​

So yes, you could get a better deal here.
 
Building (or buying pre-built) any new system without a SSD as the primary system drive (for Windows, apps and games) is madness these days IMO. The performance hit is not worth the saving. A 250GB SSD isn't that expensive and will make a significant difference to overall system speed and responsiveness over HDD.

You're far better off building your own machine from components bought here. You'll get better value for money and a build more suited to your requirements. If you're unsure about building your own, then use the configurator here and have OCUK build it for you. Either way, it'll be a better system than that one you listed.

For the sort of budget you've mentioned you should be able to put together a system with the i5-6500, Z170 board (or H110 if you want to shave the budget a bit), 16GB DDR4, 250GB SSD, 1TB HDD (for storage), AMD RX 480 (due out soon) or Nvidia GTX 960, 550W power supply, case & peripherals, Win 10 OEM. Have a look at the build I posted here.
 
This is the PC im in the process of building now, Its slightly over your £800 max but with a bit of tweaking the price can come down considerably.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £973.21
(includes shipping: £12.30)
​


​

For instance, Replace the 2TB SSHD with a standard 1TB HDD with take another £40 off the price. Swap out the 16Gb ram for 8 and thats another £20 saving.
 
Cern said:
Building (or buying pre-built) any new system without a SSD as the primary system drive (for Windows, apps and games) is madness these days IMO. The performance hit is not worth the saving. A 250GB SSD isn't that expensive and will make a significant difference to overall system speed and responsiveness over HDD.

You're far better off building your own machine from components bought here. You'll get better value for money and a build more suited to your requirements. If you're unsure about building your own, then use the configurator here and have OCUK build it for you. Either way, it'll be a better system than that one you listed.

For the sort of budget you've mentioned you should be able to put together a system with the i5-6500, Z170 board (or H110 if you want to shave the budget a bit), 16GB DDR4, 250GB SSD, 1TB HDD (for storage), AMD RX 480 (due out soon) or Nvidia GTX 960, 550W power supply, case & peripherals, Win 10 OEM. Have a look at the build I posted here.
Click to expand...

If the PC is to be used for any gaming (I think it probably is, since the OP is looking at a PC explicitly labelled as "gaming") then a card better than a GTX 960 would have a bigger effect than an SSD.

I recently fitted an SSD and it has a huge effect on boot time and game loading times, but does nothing for the actual gaming, unsurprisingly. If a game has to access any drive during play, it's going to be far too slow. Where I most notice it is the time from logging in to everything (steam, afterburner, radeon settings, etc) loading. From HDD, it's ~20s. From SSD, it's ~2s.

An SSD doesn't make that much difference to "system performance" unless your system is bogged down with lots of drive access. A 250GB SSD is likely to not be enough for "windows, apps and games" when 1 game can be >30GB (I just checked - my Fallout 4 folder in steam is 30.7GB).

If I could afford 1TB of SSD, i.e. enough to put everything on it and not worry about managing physical file placement myself, I would absolutely do that. I recommend it to anyone who can afford enough SSD space to do that. Otherwise, it's a matter of what would be more inconvenient for any given person - the slower loading times from HDD or managing physical file placement yourself. I like having enough storage space to not have to care what goes on which drive. It's very convenient to be able to consider only which folder something goes in.
 
Angilion said:
If the PC is to be used for any gaming (I think it probably is, since the OP is looking at a PC explicitly labelled as "gaming") then a card better than a GTX 960 would have a bigger effect than an SSD.

I recently fitted an SSD and it has a huge effect on boot time and game loading times, but does nothing for the actual gaming, unsurprisingly. If a game has to access any drive during play, it's going to be far too slow. Where I most notice it is the time from logging in to everything (steam, afterburner, radeon settings, etc) loading. From HDD, it's ~20s. From SSD, it's ~2s.

An SSD doesn't make that much difference to "system performance" unless your system is bogged down with lots of drive access. A 250GB SSD is likely to not be enough for "windows, apps and games" when 1 game can be >30GB (I just checked - my Fallout 4 folder in steam is 30.7GB).

If I could afford 1TB of SSD, i.e. enough to put everything on it and not worry about managing physical file placement myself, I would absolutely do that. I recommend it to anyone who can afford enough SSD space to do that. Otherwise, it's a matter of what would be more inconvenient for any given person - the slower loading times from HDD or managing physical file placement yourself. I like having enough storage space to not have to care what goes on which drive. It's very convenient to be able to consider only which folder something goes in.
Click to expand...

In fact im going to have to say that with some new larger games ive noticed on a hdd they have texture pop-in issues where i put the same game onto my ssd and those issues stop. I think this is down to the hdd not being able to load the texture fast enough.

However you are right as a general rule and 99.9% of people would not even care about some pop-in however it annoys me. a SSD is the way forward even for a gaming build. I would rather get a 256gb ssd over a 1tb hdd and just be careful with space until i could afford a hdd for surplus games.
 
if i was you i would build your own, iv just done it for the 1st time and i know that the pc is all me and the feeling of knowing you just built your own pc is grate
 
Angilion said:
If the PC is to be used for any gaming (I think it probably is, since the OP is looking at a PC explicitly labelled as "gaming") then a card better than a GTX 960 would have a bigger effect than an SSD.

I recently fitted an SSD and it has a huge effect on boot time and game loading times, but does nothing for the actual gaming, unsurprisingly. If a game has to access any drive during play, it's going to be far too slow. Where I most notice it is the time from logging in to everything (steam, afterburner, radeon settings, etc) loading. From HDD, it's ~20s. From SSD, it's ~2s.

An SSD doesn't make that much difference to "system performance" unless your system is bogged down with lots of drive access. A 250GB SSD is likely to not be enough for "windows, apps and games" when 1 game can be >30GB (I just checked - my Fallout 4 folder in steam is 30.7GB).

If I could afford 1TB of SSD, i.e. enough to put everything on it and not worry about managing physical file placement myself, I would absolutely do that. I recommend it to anyone who can afford enough SSD space to do that. Otherwise, it's a matter of what would be more inconvenient for any given person - the slower loading times from HDD or managing physical file placement yourself. I like having enough storage space to not have to care what goes on which drive. It's very convenient to be able to consider only which folder something goes in.
Click to expand...

Agreed on the GTX 960, which is why I suggested the RX 480 (when it's out).

A SSD won't improve game framerates of course. But it will improve game start up times and transition / loading speeds in games that need to load zones, maps, textures, cut-scenes, instances etc as you play (eg MMOs, RPGs, map-based FPS, story driven games etc).

Overall system performance *IS* very much improved by a SSD. Windows constantly accesses the hard disk, even if you have a well optimised system where unnecessary services and processes are disabled. Many people don't optimise their systems though and so ARE bogged down by lots of disk access. If you have a HDD you'll often hear your disk chuntering away for no reason. With a SSD this activity still occurs of course but you don't hear it and you don't notice it because it all happens so much faster.

A 250GB SSD does mean you have to pick and choose what you install if you have a large games library. 500GB+ would have course be better, but pushes the cost up. A 250GB SSD + 1TB (or larger) HDD is an affordable solution, if you don't mind installing some of your less-used games onto the HDD (or moving them between the SSD and HDD as needed). Personally for me I find that 500GB SSD + 3TB HDD is the sweet spot for my needs, but everyone has different requirements.
 
Cern said:
Agreed on the GTX 960, which is why I suggested the RX 480 (when it's out).
Click to expand...

Cern said:
[..] AMD RX 480 (due out soon) or Nvidia GTX 960 [..]
Click to expand...

Overall system performance *IS* very much improved by a SSD. Windows constantly accesses the hard disk, even if you have a well optimised system where unnecessary services and processes are disabled. Many people don't optimise their systems though and so ARE bogged down by lots of disk access. If you have a HDD you'll often hear your disk chuntering away for no reason. With a SSD this activity still occurs of course but you don't hear it and you don't notice it because it all happens so much faster.
Click to expand...

I only notice it with a HDD because it makes a slight noise. Usually very briefly. It's not bogging down my system so much that speeding it up makes a dramatic difference to overall system performance. That would be Windows updates :)

Useful to have an SSD? Yes. I have one set up as a cache and I certainly notice when something is loading from the HDD rather than the SSD.

Madness to not go back to the days of having a drive too small for everything you want to store and having to plan what goes on which drive and shuffle stuff around to fit? No. Not madness.
 
Angilion said:
I only notice it with a HDD because it makes a slight noise. Usually very briefly. It's not bogging down my system so much that speeding it up makes a dramatic difference to overall system performance. That would be Windows updates :)

Useful to have an SSD? Yes. I have one set up as a cache and I certainly notice when something is loading from the HDD rather than the SSD.

Madness to not go back to the days of having a drive too small for everything you want to store and having to plan what goes on which drive and shuffle stuff around to fit? No. Not madness.
Click to expand...

I'm not advocating having a SSD as the sole drive. If the budget choice is strictly between a small SSD (250GB or less) or a 1TB HDD and nothing else, then go with the HDD because yes running out of space is likely to be a pain.

But all eggs in one basket, whether SSD or HDD, is a bad idea anyway. Everyone should have some form of backup solution.

A good setup could be something like this:

SSD - for Windows, apps, games.
HDD - for file storage, games overflow, scratch disk etc.
HDD - for backups, internal or external. Could be replaced by another backup strategy perhaps (eg USB flash sticks).

As for sizes, the largest you can afford is obviously better, but 250GB SSD + 1TB HDD is a reasonable starting point if on a tight budget. Can always back up important files to a cheap high capacity flash stick.
 
Cern said:
I'm not advocating having a SSD as the sole drive.
Click to expand...

Since I never said you were, your reply isn't a counter-argument to anything I wrote.

You're fine with having a main drive too small to fit everything on and having to decide what goes on what drive and shuffling stuff around as required. Many people are. My argument is that it isn't madness to not want to do that and to prefer the convenience of a higher-capacity drive even if load times are increased, particularly when the money saved could go to a better graphics card that would be of more benefit to gaming.

As for the backup, of course. But that has nothing to do with SSDs unless you want very fast backups and have enough spare money to use SSDs for backup. I use external HDDs for backup, although the ludicrous amount of time that Windows 7 takes to do backups (>24 hours seems commonplace) means that I don't do it often enough and end up just imaging my internal HDD (which is much faster). Still, HDDs are cheap enough for that to be practical.

I use my SSD as a cache managed by software, since I can't reasonably justify the cost of a 1TB SSD (which is what I'd need, since I'm using 430GB and rising for "windows, apps and games") and I don't want to be managing physical file placement myself. This on this drive, that on that drive, move stuff around to install a new game...no. I had more than enough of that in the days of 40MB HDD and floppies.

I'm not saying that everyone should do the same. I'm saying that it isn't madness.
 
Makes no odds, just going to say anyways, but I have no ssd and my computer started out with a 6gb/s 1tb drive which was pretty quick in loading 8.1 and software along with transfers, it has slowed down more now with a lot more stuff on the drive(have about 200gb left) and I do now have a 750gb and a 500gb drive both which are 3gb/s so things can be more slower at times which would be obvious, however so far I don't regret not buying an ssd yet. I'm more for storage than speeds.


Basically the point is ssd is wise, but going mechanical is not actually bad, I would rather have my drives than an ssd if it meant I could have better components elsewhere and I would've thought a 390x could fit in with your budget.
 
Angilion said:
You're fine with having a main drive too small to fit everything on and having to decide what goes on what drive and shuffling stuff around as required. Many people are. My argument is that it isn't madness to not want to do that and to prefer the convenience of a higher-capacity drive even if load times are increased, particularly when the money saved could go to a better graphics card that would be of more benefit to gaming.
Click to expand...

Ok, I'll retract the word "madness" if it helps. The point I'm trying to make is that a 250GB SSD + cheap HDD is a perfectly good starting point for anyone building a system on a relatively tight budget because of the performance boost it offers.

I don't know why this is so controversial. There's plenty of people on here advocating builds with only a 120GB SSD as the system drive. And plenty of people seem to be managing just fine with a 120GB SSD too (usually in conjunction with a larger HDD of course).

You don't need to install everything you own onto the SSD. Just install selectively, with lesser used or less important stuff on the HDD. Ideally we'd all like to have 1TB+ SSDs and not worry about what gets installed where, but prices don't suit everyone.

I do appreciate that for some people keeping everything in one place is more important, in which case use a HDD. But if you don't mind being selective about what is installed on the SSD, or simply don't have that much stuff you need to install, then a SSD will usually be the better option.
 
Cran said:
Thanks for all the Feedback
I saw a 1TB SSD/HDD Hybrid Drive somewhere on the net are these any good
Click to expand...

hybrid drives are meant to be good as you get some ssd like performance but with greater storage, however a proper ssd will wipe the floor with it.

i was looking at one myself before to go with my 1tb mech, so 2tb system with a hint of ssd, but then i thought, these would be more ideal in 2.5 format and in a laptop.

i wouldnt go with my setup from scratch unless you want to juggle stuff round, i have over 300gb movies, 50gb of music, 100 or so gb of games and then files/videos ive made and other stuff, so i need to juggle it about ha which is why i added my 2 extra drives, so you should just get whatever ssd over 100gb you feel fits in your budget and get a 1tb or a 2tb for nearly £20 extra. :)
 
Cran said:
Thanks for all the Feedback
I saw a 1TB SSD/HDD Hybrid Drive somewhere on the net are these any good
Click to expand...

They're a HDD with a small SSD used as a cache. They're much faster than the same HDD if they're reading from the cache, otherwise they're the same speed. How good they are depends strongly on the size of the SSD cache. Most have only 8GB, which isn't really enough in my opinion. Some have more, but they're usually either slower laptop drives or expensive enterprise drives. SSD caching on desktops is usually done with a seperate HDD and SSD and caching software (either 3rd party or Intel's Rapid Storage Technology on supported motherboards), when it's done at all (which isn't often).
 
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