Gaming PC spec, help needed.

The Only Beardy said:
My turn... mines all white and green... pretty sweet build and a nice green lit mouse and keyboard to go with it. Did blow the budget slightly though!

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 290 Gaming Edition 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £347.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £239.99
1 x Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £119.99
1 x Ducky DK-9087 Shine 3 TKL Mechanical Keyboard Black Cherry MX Switch - Green LED BackLight £109.99
1 x NZXT Hale Power 90+ 650W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £99.95
1 x NZXT H440 Mid Tower Case - White £94.99
1 x Silverstone Tundra Series TD02 Liquid CPU Cooler £89.99
1 x Avexir Venom Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21330904G-2CIG) - Green Light £79.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £79.99
1 x Razer DeathAdder 2013 6400 DPI Essential Ergonomic Gaming Mouse £64.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
Total : £1,410.77 (includes shipping : £19.10).

Click to expand...

The gpu doesn't fit the colour scheme :p
 
Danny75 said:
The reasoning behind it (and I don't mind if anyone disagrees at all) is because he'll be going XFire. Now, if he adds a second 290 he'd then be paying over a £100 more than he would for a second 280X. Wouldn't 2 x 280X be more than enough for all his gaming needs for a few years to come? I can't imagine that it wouldn't, personally. :)
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that's a good point, i guess i was concentrating on there here and now
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X Rev2.0 WindForce 3X OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card with Battlefield 4 PC Game £259.99
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £239.99
1 x Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £119.99
1 x NZXT Hale Power 90+ 750W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £119.99
1 x Ducky DK-9087 Shine 3 TKL Mechanical Keyboard Black Cherry MX Switch - Green LED BackLight £109.99
1 x NZXT H440 Mid Tower Case - White £94.99
1 x Silverstone Tundra Series TD02 Liquid CPU Cooler £89.99
1 x Avexir Venom Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21330904G-2CIG) - Green Light £79.99
1 x Samsung 120GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE120BW) £79.99
1 x Razer DeathAdder 2013 6400 DPI Essential Ergonomic Gaming Mouse £64.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £59.99
Total : £1,342.81 (includes shipping : £19.10).



Got a new spec with a more powerful PSU for future CF and a GPU that doesnt trash the colour scheme :P
 
Wow, I go away for a few days and come back to all this!! Many thanks to everyone here, I didn't expect so many responses so soon!

I have gone through all your suggestions and now shown them to the person who the pc is intended for. I think you have whetted their appetite as they now have decided to stretch their budget to accommodate two GPU's :) They really are looking at the R9 280 or 290. I will get back shortly with a more concrete idea very soon.

Thanks again to everyone!
 
Hello again and thanks everyone,

Apologies for the slow response. After sitting down with my friend he has come up with the following, something of a combination of ideas from everyone here :) He is not too concerned with colour co-ordination but this is what we have come up with.....


CPU - Intel CORE I7 4770k 3.5ghz (Haswell) LGA1150 £269.99
GPU - 2 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 280x REV 2.0 Winforce 3x OC 3072mb £579.98
SSD - samsung 120gb SSD 840 EVO SATA 6gb/s basic £79.99
HD - Seagate barracuda 2TB £59.99
CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i High performance LCPU £99.95
CASE - Corsair Obsidian 750D £138.38
OS - Windows 8.1 64bit £69.95
DVD - Pioneer 24x Internal DVD rewriter £17.99
Keyboard - Corsair Vengeance K65 £69.99
Mouse - Roccat Kone Pure £64.99

Total - £1,381.25 As you can see the budget has since gone up! LOL

Sorry for no links! I cant for the life of get it to work properly for some reason :(

This just leaves the question of a suitable Motherboard, RAM and PSU. Anyone who can suggest which would be most appropriate would be of a great help. Also if anything with the above seems wrong or just plain stupid, please do not hesitate to point it out :)

Once again, many thanks to everyone on here!
 
These two 280Xs come with a free PSU:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCUII TOP Crossfire Bundle - Includes 2x Graphics Cards with FREE 650W GOLD PSU £599.98
1 x Gigabyte G1.Sniper Z87 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £119.99
1 x Kingston HyperX Beast 8GB (2x4GB) PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (KHX21C11T3K2/8X) £71.99
Total : £801.55 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Alternative spec. This motherboard comes with a free 120mm AIO cooler, so you could drop the h100i and save a bit of money:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Asus Radeon R9 280X DirectCUII TOP Crossfire Bundle - Includes 2x Graphics Cards with FREE 650W GOLD PSU £599.98
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-UD4H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard with *FREE COOLERMASTER SEIDON 120V COOLER £163.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit (TXD38G2666HC11CDC01) £69.95
Total : £843.52 (includes shipping : £8.00).



(obviously if you specifically want the Gigabyte 280X you can just get the Superflower PSU that comes free with the ASUS ones. But the ASUS cards are better, I'd say)
 
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As long as you don't go overclocking, well I think a mild overclock should be fine just don't go mad with it. Also don't go running furmark + other bench marks etc at the same time.

Personally I wouldn't go with the 750d but then my experience with it hasn't been good, if you want to know my grievances with it have a look at the thread in the news/new deals section of the forums. While the main point was the compatibility issue with my motherboard(the Maximus vi formula which corsair have acknowledged and are releasing an 'updated' 750d) there were some niggles that you don't expect with a case in at that price range.

Also personally I prefer Logitech mice.
 
I've never messed around with one, but I think the 750D will struggle a bit with an air-cooled multi-GPU setup. Looks more oriented to watercooling.

Restricted front intake, no interior fan for direct air feeding between GPU's, no side fan, no integrated fan controller (to easily switch to gaming-suited RPM).

Could buy a 120mm fan for the bottom, to bring a little more air in. But the issue will be exhausting the heat created by two GPU's on load, quick enough.

Check out this Anandtech review before buying, so you know what to expect, and bear in mind the multi-GPU testing was done with 2 x 580's which likely run a good deal cooler than 2 x 280X's. Also, they would have reference coolers, which blow the hot air out the back of the case, not spread it inside the case.

Corsair's seemingly ancient struggle with air cooling performance is starting to finally wane, but their balanced approach with the 750D's fans sacrifices performance in overclocked multi-GPU configurations.

...

The 750D winds up being one of the louder cases as a result. Corsair's thermal target clearly wasn't something as grueling as this type of system, but this highlights the value of having either PWM fans or a built-in fan controller. Either will allow the case to be more flexible in terms of the systems it can support instead of starting to hit limits.

...

Our full fat testbed unfortunately hits the limits of the Obsidian 750D's stock cooling configuration. Thermals are mostly competitive but measurably weaker than the competition.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/7359/corsair-obsidian-750d-case-review/3
Click to expand...

That said, if you know someone who has run the same setup in a 750D and had/has no major issues, or if you'll be watercooling at some point, feel free to ignore this heads-up.

Other than that, going for two Gigabyte cards ends up £100 more expensive than two MSI cards. Money that in my opinion would be better spent on a 250GB SSD, for example, with enough left over to buy BF4 if you wanted it.

In any case, weekly offers change later today (Wednesday), and it's your money. All the best. :)
 
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