Help me spec a new 2k gaming machine

Buyer reviews on Amazon are pretty good actually, although I know your thoughts on the orange theme anyway SiDeards :D Ghastly no less ;)
 
lol i dont mind orange, if your going with a Gigabyte Z87-OC mobo, Teamgroup Orange Ram etc, i just dont think those cases are upto much. Not ever used one though but ive seen a few poor reviews of them. Was you considering a loop? orange pastel liquid would look quite good :)
 
Thanks for the list SiDeards, I like the BitFenix but it's out of stock and the price indicates it might not be the best materials.

Budget wise I wouldn't want to spend much more than £150.

I think throughout this thread the conclusions I've come to are that I need to be able to fit a liquid CPU cooler like the H100i or the Fathom OCUK but beyond that it's air cooling and my GPUs running at stock.

I'd also like a side window if I'm going to the effort of spending money on a colour theme with cables and coolant but I'm looking at some cases now without the side panels and thinking how much I could save just going by standard on the inside and not paying any attention to the colours etc. I also game with a headset so sound is not a huge issue to me as long as it doesn't sound like a jumbo jet.

Funny thing is though, spending 2k I can't help but put a high priority on the build 'looking' awesome and not just performing awesome, stupid I know ....
 
Na i agree, your spending a lot of money and its going to sit next to you for a long time, might aswell look the part too right? :) Exactly why i decided for a blue / white / black theme for my build.

Blue was because i wanted the Phantek Enthoo case, and didnt want to have to mod the strips on it, plus blue is my favourite colour. I intend to put blue liquid into the build and clear piping, probably blue Mayhems Pastel. Should look good. The front fans on the Phantek also have blue LED's.

White and black is pretty much a feature of everything else, motherboard is black and green unfortunately, this is the only downside, wish i had opted for another Gigabyte mobo but the G1 sniper packs so much into its price its ridiculous to pass up.

The default fans in the case are all white blades and black bodies, except the front 2 that also have blue LED. So ive gone with white ram sticks, black PSU with blue glowing connectors, although you wont see this as its in the seperate PSU back hidden away.

Will buy white braided cables to finish it all off also.

Have a look around and see if you can get some honest opinions from people who have used that Aerocool case, as the Orange in it would suit your build perfectly imo. The case does look like it has plenty of room and enough features to sort you out too. And its not that bad looking a case either.

Other option i forgot to add was a Silverstone Raven case, they made a few editions, have a look at them, very unique in design too.
 
Here ya go, not sure what the diff is between the 2 revisions of the same case below though.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Silverstone Raven RV01B-W Case with Window - Black (SST-RV01B-W) £163.99
1 x Silverstone Raven 1 Full Tower USB3.0 Windowed Case - Black (SST-RV01B-W USB3.0) £159.98
1 x Silverstone Raven 2 Evo Midi Tower Case - Black (SST-RV02B-EW USB 3.0) £149.99
1 x Silverstone Raven 3 Full Tower Windowed Case - Black/Grey (SST-RV03B-WA USB 3.0) £104.99
Total : £612.01 (includes shipping : £27.55).

 
Gboyd said:
Funny thing is though, spending 2k I can't help but put a high priority on the build 'looking' awesome and not just performing awesome, stupid I know ....
Click to expand...

Think this is normal as I hate seeing people spending good cash on high performance parts and building a messy machine.

I have always been a fan of Cooler Master and now Corsair cases their build quality has been good. Lian Li and Silverstone aslo make really good quality cases.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Corsair Obsidian 750D Full Tower Case - Black (CC-9011035-WW) £160.00
1 x Corsair Obsidian 650D Gaming Windowed Midi Tower Case - Black (CC650DW) £139.94
1 x Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced Windowed Midi Tower Case - Black £74.99
Total : £401.57 (includes shipping : £22.20).



These are ones I would look at for midi small full atx cases the cooler master is cheaper but still decent quality i would have recommended these but they still rather large but much better quality then the previous Haf i posted above. The Haf-X was the go to air coolers case before the Corsair 540 was around :)

YOUR BASKET
1 x Cooler Master Cosmos SE Mid Tower Case £149.99
1 x Cooler Master HAF X Gaming Tower Case - Black (RC-942) £129.95
Total : £296.44 (includes shipping : £13.75).

 
Hi all,

I got lots of help a couple of weeks ago putting together a new build.

I was close to ordering but couldn't decide on a case. In addition there were several items out of stock.

Everything was now back in stock and I was going to order with the 650D but unfortunately the memory went out of stock this morning.

I have been looking at the below all day as an alternative and though I'd check with you all. Also, I saw these 290Xs on offer at the same price as I was looking to pay for the 780s. Unless I am missing something, surely running with 290Xs in Xfire would be better than 780's (heat issues aside but i'll be running them at stock).

YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI Radeon R9 290X "BF4 Edition" 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £399.95 (£799.90)
1 x Avexir Core Orange Series 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001004G-4CIO) - Orange LED Light £179.99
Total : £989.48 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Thanks all.
 
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Gboyd said:
Hi all,

I got lots of help a couple of weeks ago putting together a new build.

I was close to ordering but couldn't decide on a case. In addition there were several items out of stock.

Everything was now back in stock and I was going to order with the 650D but unfortunately the memory went out of stock this morning.

I have been looking at the below all day as an alternative and though I'd check with you all. Also, I saw these 290Xs on offer at the same price as I was looking to pay for the 780s. Unless I am missing something, surely running with 290Xs in Xfire would be better than 780's (heat issues aside but i'll be running them at stock).

YOUR BASKET
2 x MSI Radeon R9 290X "BF4 Edition" 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £399.95 (£799.90)
1 x Avexir Core Orange Series 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz Quad Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U24001004G-4CIO) - Orange LED Light £179.99
Total : £989.48 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Thanks all.
Click to expand...


Those 290X cards run hot and are noisy. You would be better with a non reference card.
 
lee32uk said:
Those 290X cards run hot and are noisy. You would be better with a non reference card.
Click to expand...

Yeah but cheapest non reference we are looking at around £480? So approx. £150 extra to the budget for heat reduction - is it really such an issue running at stock speeds?
 
Finally found the case for my build too. A mix of midi and full, looks perfect for my needs.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Cooler Master Cosmos SE Mid Tower Case £149.99
Total : £159.59 (includes shipping : £8.00).



A few images on the google search on this case shows some red themed builds and it looks unreal :)
 
So potentially a ton in the difference, that's not too scary.



Just need some expert to tell me it can all be done for around 2k and spec it up :)
 
YOUR BASKET
2 x Gigabyte Radeon R9 290X OC WindForce 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-R929XOC-4GD) £455.99 (£911.98)
1 x Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £239.99
1 x SuperFlower Leadex GOLD 1000W Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £149.99
1 x Cooler Master Cosmos SE Mid Tower Case £149.99
1 x Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW) £143.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-UD3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £143.99
1 x Avexir Core White Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21330904G-2CIW) - White Light £79.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £63.95
1 x Alpenföhn K2 Mount Doom CPU Cooler £49.99
1 x Pioneer 24x Internal DVR-221LBK DVD Rewriter - OEM £17.99
Total : £1,966.84 (includes shipping : £12.50).




The 290X's are not worth the extra over the 290 for the price/performance gain imo but they fit in the budget.
 
I was wondering if something can be spec'd that would look similar to the picture above with the red theme. I can see the res but it looks like simple CPU cooling only and a bunch of red light strips and red fluid.

I think it just uses the standard black cables from the PSU but it goes well with the rest of the black/red mix. In my previous orange theme a good bit of cash was spent on getting all the cables and fans orange which this wouldn't need.

But, I'm far from knowing everything I'd need ;)
 
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