Gaming PC Build

Dgibson2011

Dgibson2011

Dgibson2011

Associate
Joined
27 Jul 2014
Posts
42
Hi

I have started a new post as I now know I am after a Desktop Gaming PC (and also found out how to post your basket) :)

I am after a gaming pc to play games on Ultra Settings at, at least full HD, but also future proof for true 4k gaming in the future, plus also for the consumer version of the Oculus Rift when its released.

RJC did a quick quote for me the other night so have used that as a basis and amended only a couple of things.

This is what I have got can you please advise? I have added the bigger PSU as I would like to add a second GPU in the future (for 4k gaming) or would the 850watt one be fine?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 290X Vapor-X OC 8192MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card **OcUK WorldWide Exclusive** £619.99
1 x AOC U2868PQU 28" 4K 60Hz 1MS Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £479.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK - Devil's Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£35 Saving** £356.98
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit (TXD316G2666HC11CDC01) £139.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £125.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 450D High Airflow Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011049-WW) £91.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £88.00
1 x Intel 335 Series 20nm 240GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail (SSDSC2CT240A4K5) £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £39.98
Total : £2,039.40 (includes shipping : £13.75).



Is the AMD the better graphics card to choose or would the GTX 780TI be a better choice?


Thanks

Dom
 
Last edited:
Looks good to me, just very expensive haha.

If you are looking to do 4k, I would be considering 2 graphics card, as 4k gaming is thirsty business.
 
I don't think you need 8GB Vram for 4K. A standard 290X would be fine. Here is a crossfire build.

YOUR BASKET
1 x AOC U2868PQU 28" 4K 60Hz 1MS Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black £479.99
2 x Powercolor Radeon R9 290X PCS+ OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £379.99 (£759.98)
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-UD3H-BK - Devil's Canyon Core i7 4790K CPU & Motherboard Bundle **£35 Saving** £356.98
1 x EVGA SuperNova G2 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
1 x Corsair Obsidian 450D High Airflow Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011049-WW) £91.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H100i High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060009-WW) £88
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £79.99
1 x Kingston HyperX 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black/Red (HX24C11BRK2/8-OC) £67.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £41.98
Total : £2,084.54 (includes shipping : £14.75).



I would check on the Monitor before pulling the trigger, as I think someone mentioned the Asus being the one to go for. I will try and find the post.

Also the H100i isn't ideal if you are using Windows 8.1. I think there is issues with the Corsair link software. If you are running windows 7 then it is fine.
 
Hi thanks for the advice.

Would the 2 radeons give more performance than the 290x 8gb one?

Will install windows 7 to be honest not really a fan of win 8. Plus have already got win 7 so and licence.

Will have a look at the monitor links too. I am guessing it's better to game on a monitor rather than a hd led tv?

Thanks
 
Dgibson2011 said:
Hi thanks for the advice.

Would the 2 radeons give more performance than the 290x 8gb one?

Will install windows 7 to be honest not really a fan of win 8. Plus have already got win 7 so and licence.

Will have a look at the monitor links too. I am guessing it's better to game on a monitor rather than a hd led tv?

Thanks
Click to expand...

The 2 x 290X in my spec will be more powerful than the single 290X 8GB version. You would run out of gpu power before using up the vram on the vapor-x.

I would imagine it will be better on a proper monitor than a tv, but there is no harm in trying it out first.
 
Cheers. Sounds good to me. Never though of trying it on a tv first before getting the monitor :rolleyes:

Should be better for gaming than the aorus v7 x2 I was originally going to get.

Sounds like I will be busy next week working out how it all goes together :D and then comparing how the games look compared to the ps4.
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Samsung U28D590 28" 4K 60Hz 1ms Gaming Widescreen LED Monitor - Black **OcUK Exclusive** £446.99
2 x Powercolor Radeon R9 290X PCS+ OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £379.99 (£759.98)
1 x Intel Core i7-4790K 4.00GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £259.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SOC Force Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard **Overclockers UK Exclusive** £169.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 1300W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £143.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £109.99
1 x Corsair Obsidian 450D High Airflow Mid-Tower Case (CC-9011049-WW) £91.99
1 x Corsair Hydro H105 Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler (CW-9060016-WW ) £89.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £67.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £57.98
Total : £2,198.89 (includes shipping : ).




Over budget, I know.

Still - top-notch stuff, 2-Way CrossFire ready and 3-Way Crossfire capable (er, hope that makes sense). The ability to add a third card may come in handy for 4K.

Mobo comes with free 8GB of RAM. Added another matching 8GB to make it 16GB.

If you'd like to be covered for 4-Way CrossFire (unnecessary imo but still), go for a different case with more than 7 expansion slots (9 to be safe) and a good 1500W PSU.
 
Cheers Danny.

That sounds even better to me and if it's worth it would be silly not to spend the extra to future proof performance. Wonder what 3 of the graphics cards would push out for the games :D.

Just a quick question (if I can explain it) do you have to put each graphics card in the first 2 slots or can you put card 1 in slot 1 and the 2nd card in the last slot? Am just thinking if you could would it help any with the cooling having the extra spaces between the cards? (Hope that makes sense?)
 
Generally the motherboard will only have 2 slots capable for graphics cards (PCIE x16). Therefore you will be limited to using the slots provided.

On the motherboard you specced originally, you have the following slots:
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x16
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x8
1 x PCI Express x16 slots, running at x4
3 x PCI Express x1 slots
1 x PCI slots

Therefore you will have to go for the slot running at x16b and the other into the slot running at x8.
 
Ah I see. So using the motherboard Danny put in his quote the gigabyte z97x I would use the first 2 slots 16x PCI, 8x PCI and if I did add a 3rd card would use the next one at 4x.
 
Also you would need to make sure on how well 3 way or 4 way crossfire scales.

There is no point in spending £££'s on gpu's if you are only getting a small increase in fps.
 
Hi lee

Never thought if that but also just did some quick googling and the majority of people are saying 3 cards causes an issue with cooling and suggest using either the last PCI slot or going water cooling which puts the price up.

Need to do some more looking am wondering to go back to the first option of the radeon 8gb card and get another one in a couple of months, although I have seen a post about them being an exclusive to ocuk so my only concern is not being able to get another one in a couple of months.
 
Again, 8GB cards are not needed. The furthest I would go is to the 6GB 780s, which are good value compared to standard 780s.
 
Dgibson2011 said:
Ah I see. So using the motherboard Danny put in his quote the gigabyte z97x I would use the first 2 slots 16x PCI, 8x PCI and if I did add a 3rd card would use the next one at 4x.
Click to expand...

I think the 1st and 3rd slot on the SOC-Force will be the 16X and 8x respectively, so that you have space between two cards. But if you decide on maximum two cards, might as well go for the UD3H-BK which has good spacing between slots 1 and 2.

This'll give you some idea of the difference in performance between 1, 2, 3 and 4 290X cards:



Cooling-wise, if you wanted to use the fourth (last) slot on the SOC-Force mobo for a third card, instead of the third slot, you'd need a different case with more expansion slots. Corsair Graphite 760T for instance. Some NZXT cases are good for multi-GPU cooling though. Interior fan placement just behind the GPUs to feed them, and also big side fan to either intake or exhaust (whatever works best with those GPUs). Thinking of the Phantom 630. A good exhaust fan on the side will help prevent heat accumulation.

At the end of the day it's up to you. I'd just advise you to do a lot more research, so that you don't spend all that money on a set-up that can only run two cards, only to find a third card would have been ideal. As once you've got the basics you're stuck with them unless you tinker with selling off parts to replace with others, and incur some losses.
 
Yeah sorry shivy am listening and appreciate the advice and also the help, just trying to get everything right before ordering. Have got it in my mind that the more memory the better the card is going to be, which clearly isn't true.

Just seen a quote in another thread for someone asking for a 4k gaming rim and they were quoted the 780 with 6gb for £399 each but looks like the offer has finished :(

Been reading up on the r9 290x and they have good reviews and look like a good bit of kit.

Have learned a lot already over the past couple of days from everyone in here. :)
 
Shivy011 said:
Again, 8GB cards are not needed. The furthest I would go is to the 6GB 780s, which are good value compared to standard 780s.
Click to expand...

I agree. In fact, for a bit more money, some nice and cool(er) EVGA 780 6GB's might be ideal. Obviously would need a different Tri-SLI mobo (if planning on having three cards eventually). Did try a spec with those prior to the 290s spec but it was quite over budget lol.
 
Yeah, the R9 290(x) are great. However, the R9 290X is not worth the extra over the R9 290 as the performance difference doesn't justify the quite large extra cost :)
 
Thanks Danny am learning fast and like you said need to make sure I get it right :)

Just want to say thanks for all the advice and options people have given so far, and hopefully when I am done will be able to pass some of that advice and help onto others
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom