New Build £1k Budget

FinalSquall

FinalSquall

FinalSquall

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25 Jul 2011
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278
Hi there OC

I am currently thinking of upgrading my sandybridge PC to skylake.
I have a budget of around £1k

I will start with a question, is it worth upgrading to skylake at this time? Will a new, far superior intel CPU be with us any time soon. (As with my regretable, recent GTX 970 purchase)

Ok, things I do not need;
OS
HDD
GPU
Monitor

Things I need and have £1k to spend on;
Good Quality PSU that will support a GTX 1080 in the future (sticking with 970 for now, I am open to paying a bit higher for quality when it comes to the PSU)
MOBO (I like MSI but if there are better price/quality ones around I am fairly relaxed)
CPU - Skylake I5 6600k I suppose
RAM - 16GB+
A nice case that will fit all this and a GTX 1080 when I get one.

Cheers for any specs you come up with
George.
 
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My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £486.25
(includes shipping: £12.30)
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cheapest 16gb ram going, high quality power supply with enough juice for the setup, chose the cheapest(£5-10 difference) bundle going with 6600k and a nice stylish yet subtle cash that has more than enough space and will fit nicely almost anywhere.


obviously you can go separate on the mobo combo and get the board you prefer and go for faster ram if you want also up the power if you think you need more, but for half your budget you got a very good system to add your other bits too.
 
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Hey sorry, I should have specified, I would prefer a tower style case. Also it doesnt have to only just fit the components, infact I would prefer there was a reasonable bit of room to spare.
 
Here are a few cases i like , note that the NZXT H440 will not take a internal optical drive so you will need an external drive .

Also i would go for a modular psu.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £385.01
(includes shipping: £39.06)
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It depends what CPU you've got at the moment as to whether it's worth upgrading yet. Some of the Sandybridge CPUs are still very capable.

That's a pretty decent spec, but remember that the K-series CPUs don't come with a stock cooler.

Also, if you haven't got an SSD, get one. It's much faster than a traditional HDD.

The HX650W is a very good PSU but you could get away with the 550W version, as even overclocking, you're not going to get to the limit with a single graphics card. That said, for an extra £8, you give yourself an extra 100W headroom. Personally, modular is the way forward as you can make it so much neater. The EVGA GS and G2 series are very good choices, as are the Superflower Leadex and XFX XTR ranges.

If you want some faster RAM, then 16GB of this isn't a bad idea:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/cors...hannel-kit-black-cmk16gx4m2b30-my-445-cs.html

3000MHz is a god speed for Skylake, although 2400MHz is fine and you probably won't notice much difference.

As far as cases are concerned, there's a lot of personal preference involved. I've got the Enthoo Pro in Titanium Green with window, but I appreciate the colour isn't for everyone (it also comes in black). It's a sizeable case between a mid tower and full tower with plenty of room.

If that's too big, then there's a smaller version:
https://www.overclockers.co.uk/phan...i-tower-case-with-window-black-ca-031-pt.html
 
FinalSquall said:
Hey sorry, I should have specified, I would prefer a tower style case. Also it doesnt have to only just fit the components, infact I would prefer there was a reasonable bit of room to spare.
Click to expand...

ha no that fine its personal preference, i just think these are nice cases and look good under the tv or where ever :cool:


i know its not a tower as such, but they more square and bulky

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £79.09
(includes shipping: £11.10)
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while i have had to adjust an item of furniture(not a table/desk) to better accommodate what i have, i do not regret my choose of a cube case, find it better than a big tower(had plenty), mean my case is micro atx, but its only really the inside that changes most.


oh yeah i forget the K processors have no coolers, so get a decent one of those.
 
Well I have an i52500K at stock, which is perfectly good, and I am fairly sure that for gaming
I would see a far greater performance gain from a GTX1080
However, my GTX970 barely fits in my case and my mobo is somewhat outdated so I figured its worth looking into upgrades
I already have a fairly nice Samsung SSD although it is not PCI-E
So with the bundle could you recommend me a good Liquid Cooler and a good Air cooler?
 
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Hi there,

This is what I selected. I'll start with the case, I have this case and it is wonderful. It's easy to work with and looks great once all the components are in. Same goes with the Super Flower PSU, I have the same in my build and they're great and really high quality. Granted you could save some money and get a 550W or 650W but I went with the 750W but these are great quality and not made from cheap components like some and powers my system including my MSI 1080 Gaming X. I went for the MSI Gaming M5, it's a great motherboard and the fact you said you like MSI mobo's it's a great choice. Finally for the ram, I went with the Avexir Core Red Series for a bit of bling, they look great seeing them inside your case. Selected them in 2400MHz as memory frequency doesn't effect gaming performance, you'll be paying extra for a few FPS. Plus machines run more stable with 2400MHz memory.

My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £648.11
(includes shipping: £13.20)
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Daniel_46 said:
Selected them in 2400MHz as memory frequency doesn't effect gaming performance, you'll be paying extra for a few FPS. Plus machines run more stable with 2400MHz memory.
Click to expand...

Dont be so sure about that.

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18732537&highlight=pack


My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £750.05
(includes shipping: £13.20)
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Included a cooler as mentioned in an earlier post these K cpus dont have one included.

£55 cashback - https://toptechcashback.com/gb/en/pages/cpumb/qualifying
 
Yeah, good article I'm just going off my own experience having used both I didn't see much of a gain. The machine would run more stable with 2400MHz memory though.

Nice build you've shown there, if you go with that build you may just want to purchase an extra case fan for intake at the front as the Phanteks case only comes with one 120mm in the front and one 120mm at the back.
 
Hey all, thanks for the suggestions, sorry for the delay in response. Some of these look very nice indeed! I like the aesthetics of your spec in paticular stulid
and it may just be what I go for, I am reluctant to depart from my MSI mobo which has done a great job (even survived having a cup of tea spilt on it,
although that might have been more to do with GTX560Ti taking one for the team =/). But I have heard good things about Gigabyte, so I should probably leave my brand loyalty behind.
Might just chuck the 750W PSU suggested by Daniel in instead though
 
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Interesting thread as I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on a 1070 or 1080 with a view to getting some VR action soon. People have often said that an OC'd 2500K will still hold its own, but the Eurogamer article on this suggests that a Skylake upgrade would yield some pretty nice gains. Even more so in CPU intensive games.

Curiously, I haven't seen my total CPU usage go above 75% playing the likes of Fallout4. I should have a look at some other games to see what the story is. I'd like more cores for running VMs/Labbing stuff. :)
 
Well, I think I am going to stulids suggestion (but with a 750W version of the PSU), any last minute information? For example is there any new tech imminent that would make me regret the purchase? Are there better PSU's/MOBOs available for the money etc...
 
My basket at Overclockers UK:

Total: £211.67
(includes shipping: £8.70)
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Cheaper ram kits.

Only thing is will the cpu cooler clear them due to the height, if you use the red ram slots on the board they might.
 
I think you should get that stock 2500k overclocked and see how you get on. Most will easily hit 4.5Ghz with a decent cooler and you will probably find that the overclock will keep you going for a good while yet.
 
You are right about that, but I just feel I could use a fresh system, have never been over keen on my current case, and things are starting to just feel a little slow for my liking, plus the GPU doesnt fit that well and a few other issues. I have waited a good while to upgrade the MOBO/CPU but I dont really see any major CPU perfomrance improvements (i.e. major intel breakthroughts) on the horizon so figured its about time I went for it now, paticularly as I think my current system will bottleneck a GTX1080, Which admittedly I wont be getting for a few months yet atleast.

Thanks for those kits suggested stu, will look into them.
 
Those TeamGroup Dark Pro RAM kits are awesome, because if there are any clearance issues they allow for easy removal of only the top part of the heatsink, with 2 or 4 screws.
 
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