First Gaming PC Rig

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11 Jun 2014
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26
Hi everyone,

I’m looking to build my first Gaming PC in 2 months. I’ve only gamed on consoles in the past so am completely new to PC gaming.

Over the last week I’ve been researching what PC rig to get for my budget of £1k. But what confuses me the most concerns the minimum spec of rig required to have a good gaming PC experience on FPS & RTS games like BF4, Starcraft etc.

Basically, I don’t want my rig to inhibit me from taking full advantage of the gaming experience. For instance, I assume a low end rig may not be able to keep up with the demands of certain games, putting you at a disadvantage to other players who have better rigs – making the whole experience frustrating where you wished you just safe up a little more to get a better rig. But the question is at what point are we just spending unnecessary money to get a higher end rig that doesn’t actually give you any more of an advantage for the first time gamer?

The PC rig I’ve come up with (so far) is as follows:
• Intel core i5 4670K - £165
• MSI Z87-G55 - £90
• Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 DirectCU II OC 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card- £184
• Corsair 300R window case - £65
• Corsair Vengence pro 8 GB RAM _ £79
• Samsung 840 EVO 120GB SSD and WD Black 1TB HDD - £111
• 650W Corsair CS650M £67
• ASUS DVD-RW Drive - £16
• Windows 8.1 - £90
• Cool Master Hyper 212 EVO - £25

Total - £892 (plus £140 for gaming keyboard and mouse)

I already have a decent gaming monitor.

So for 2 months from now, will this rig be suitable or do I NEED to invest in more high-end components, in order to really enjoy my PC gaming experience?

Also please feel free to suggest alternative components or rig designs, which are within my budget. In particular, I wasn’t sure about the motherboard, GPU or processor. For instance, wasn’t sure if I should go for the EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 760 Superclocked ACX 2GB GDDR5, which is only £10 more. And the AMD FX8350 Black Edition 8 Core Processor over intel’s i5 (obviously I’ll need a different Motherboard).

Many thanks in advance ☺
 
Z97 for sure, now that those boards are out. The Broadwell CPUs due for 2015 might only be supported on Z97's, not Z87's. Whatever happens, they're basically the same price anyway, and are newer.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Intel Core i5 DIY ATX Motherboard Upgrade Kit £329.93
1 x Powercolor Radeon R9 280X TurboDUO 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £209.99
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £74.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £74.99
1 x Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black (CC-9011017-WW) £69.95
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £42.98
1 x Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £11.99
Total : £889.80 (includes shipping : £12.50).




Better graphics card, better and newer motherboard, 256GB SSD.

i5-4670K and 8GB 2133MHz Kingston HyperX memory with the motherboard kit.

SuperFlower Golden Green > Corsair CS. A 550W would be enough but 650W fits so included it. For CrossFire future-proofing, get a good 750W.

Gibbo (OcUK) said he'd chuck in a cooler with every motherboard upgrade kit. So if I were to buy one, I'd try out that cooler first.
 
The 4690k isn't worth the extra tbh, all you get is better heat dissipation and slightly higher clock speed (which you can overclock anyway) - that ~£20 can be spent on better cooling or other components
 
Thanks for the replies people.

Would the price of the 4670K drop in price when the 4690K is released. When I searched the forums on the 4690K, there is a clear divide as to whether it's worth it over the supposedly cheaper 4690K.

In relation to the motherboard, I have read that going for the more expensive boards is pointless for gaming as it doesn't have that much of an impact on performance (compared to the CPU and graphics card). So what is the real benefit of me buying the £120 MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard over the £84 GIGABYTE Z97-HD3 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard? Can you still overclock the cheaper board?
 
There's more features generally. The higher priced boards generally have more CPU power phases (better power delivery to the CPU) to help with overclocking, but this doesn't make a massive difference for small overclocks. The Gaming 5 can take SLI/Xfire configurations (two GPUs), better onboard sound etc etc - more features, more money :)
 
In relation to the motherboard, I have read that going for the more expensive boards is pointless for gaming as it doesn't have that much of an impact on performance (compared to the CPU and graphics card). So what is the real benefit of me buying the £120 MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard over the £84 GIGABYTE Z97-HD3 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard? Can you still overclock the cheaper board?

The benefit is that the set is cheaper, and you're even getting a better motherboard (better sound, SLI-capable, in case you ever switch from Radeon to Nvidia = more upgrade options, etc):


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £173.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97-HD3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £87.95
1 x Corsair Vengeance Pro Red 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (CMY8GX3M2A2400C11R) £79.99
Total : £351.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).




YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Z97 Gaming 5 Intel Core i5 DIY ATX Motherboard Upgrade Kit £329.93
Total : £339.53 (includes shipping : £8.00).

 
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