New Gaming Machine Advice

Azeryk

Azeryk

Azeryk

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Joined
23 Oct 2014
Posts
10
So my current machine has past 5 years old now and is starting to struggle with the latest bath of games coming out (Quad @ 2.67GHzm 4GB RAM, Radeon 4890 1GB graphics card), so am looking to get something to last me the next 5 years.

and like everyone I don't want to spend too much :D

after looking through the OC-UK site I found this:

Windows 8.1
Intel Core i5-4690k @ 4.2GHz Quad
8GB DDR3 2133MHz RAM
2TB HDD
Nvidea Geforce GTX 760 4096MB Graphics Card
Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 Sound Card

What I could do with is advice on how decent this is, if any changes should be made, how long it should last, or if I should wait for things to change until the new year.
 
Welcome :)

Max budget?
What can you reuse from your current PC - any HDDs at all (are they SATA?), case?
 
Probably can't use much tbh, HDD is: 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer

Am hoping to keep things around the £900 mark as I want some limit else I'll just get silly with add ons and upgrades.
 
Probably can't use much tbh, HDD is: 500GB Serial ATA Hard Drive with 16MB Buffer

Am hoping to keep things around the £900 mark as I want some limit else I'll just get silly with add ons and upgrades.
 
Sounds good, so basically a new system then

YOUR BASKET
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 970 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £259.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - Devils Canyon Core i5 4690K Bundle **£14 Saving** £258.58
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2133HC11ADC01) £65.99
1 x Seagate Barracuda 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST2000DM001) HDD £61.99
1 x Corsair Graphite Series 230T Compact Mid Tower Case Windowed - Orange (CC-9011038-WW) £59.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £19.99
Total : £944.10 (includes shipping : £8.00).



The sound card wouldn't really be needed, the onboard sound is generally excellent these days and this motherboard has decent audio
 
Looks familiar for most :D although is that pre-built? It's been 14 years since I last tried something like that so probably best if I didnt have to build.
 
It's very easy to build, watch a few videos - can't be that much different :)

If you did want it pre-built though, post the basket into the customer services section and they'll give you a quote for it to be pre-built by Overclockers, any basket and post it there and they should quote you. I reckon it'll be about 80 quid?
If you did want to go ahead and get it pre-built, I expect you'd want to save some money to offset the cost of the building service?

YOUR BASKET
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 970 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £259.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97X-SLI - Devils Canyon Core i5 4690K Bundle **£14 Saving** £258.58
1 x Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT256MX100SSD1) £79.99
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614) £77.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan RED 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLRED38G2133HC11ADC01) £65.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Raijintek Agos Midi Tower - White £39.95
1 x **B Grade** Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (S (HD-257-SE) £26.99
1 x Raijintek Themis Direct Contact CPU Cooler £19.99
Total : £889.06 (includes shipping : £8.00).



Dropped the HDD size and the case
However I highly recommend you build it yourself, more fun and cheaper :)
 
Thanks

so is this spec something which will work well for a while and last like 5 years before falling before minimum for games?
 
I should think so, possibly 2-3 years, then you'll have to perhaps drop settings? I've no idea, how games will develop/whether they'll need more powa I don't know, but yeah I reckon you should be good for at 4 years.
In the future you could drop in a Broadwell CPU (rumoured to be supported by Z97), new GPU, bigger SSD etc etc - highly upgradeable so should stand you in good stead
 
Yeah I know the futures a tad unpredictable but I expect after a few years to be setting games on medium and not high. Went through the same thing with this rig although am now below minimum on a few games and thinking it's a good time to get back to pretty graphics :D
 
It's a very powerful GPU, so you should be good for 4-5 years by turning the settings down then, yeah
 
Shivy011 said:
I should think so, possibly 2-3 years, then you'll have to perhaps drop settings? I've no idea, how games will develop/whether they'll need more powa I don't know, but yeah I reckon you should be good for at 4 years.
In the future you could drop in a Broadwell CPU (rumoured to be supported by Z97), new GPU, bigger SSD etc etc - highly upgradeable so should stand you in good stead
Click to expand...

I'm not sure 2-3 years is 100% accurate.

My 2500k was released in 2011 and it still going strong. Overclocked at 4.5ghz with a single GPU, it chews everything I throw at it - not had a single issue if I'm honest.

If you look at the benchmarks between a 2500k and a 4690k, there will be a difference with the performance but its all relative to how you're using the PC.

My PC is only really for photo editing & gaming, so comparing the likes of the synthetic benchmarks and encoding isn't a factor so the jump to a DC i5 isn't going to make a massive difference for me. You've also got overclocking limitations and there yet has to be a new generation CPU which can match the overclocking headroom of the Sandybridge chips.

My point is, the length of service for your PC or will only be determined by how you use the PC, how deep your pockets are or what you're willing to spend when you get "the itch". I'd expect my 2500k to last another few years and the Devils Canyon to a good 5+ years.

Azeryk said:
Sorry about all the questions

But is there much difference between i5 and i7?
Click to expand...

They're essentially the same, expect the i7 has hyperthreading. This type of CPU is aimed at those who are using heavy photo/video editing software, multi-GPU users and need more grunt. The i5 is superb for gaming and general use.
 
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This would be my build.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 970 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £259.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97-HD3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21331104G-2CI) - Blue Light £65.99
1 x Crucial MX100 128GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT128MX100SSD1) £54.98
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Raijintek Agos Midi Tower - Black £39.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £39.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £24.97
1 x LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £819.40 (includes shipping : £8.00).



With free shipping
 
Rhyswh said:
This would be my build.

YOUR BASKET
1 x Inno3D GeForce GTX 970 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £259.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £179.99
1 x Gigabyte Z97-HD3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £79.99
1 x Avexir Core Blue Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17000C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21331104G-2CI) - Blue Light £65.99
1 x Crucial MX100 128GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter (CT128MX100SSD1) £54.98
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £49.99
1 x Raijintek Agos Midi Tower - Black £39.95
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £39.95
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo CPU Cooler £24.97
1 x LG GH24NSB0 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM £13.99
Total : £819.40 (includes shipping : £8.00).



With free shipping
Click to expand...

Some changes I'd make to that

- The Z97X-SLI bundle has a better motherboard and is cheaper
- 212 Evo is beaten by cheaper coolers (i.e the themis)
- 128GB SSD isn't really enough :( and there are cheaper 128GB one's anyway with better performance, the 128GB MX100 uses different NAND or something like that I believe. For ~£20 more you can get a 256GB MX100
 
Didn't realise what mobo came in the bundle, just assumed it wouldn't of been better (poor judgment on my part).
Why isn't 128gb enough?

OP - Apart from OS is there anything else you wanted to run on the SSD? i.e. games or software?
 
Rhyswh said:
Didn't realise what mobo came in the bundle, just assumed it wouldn't of been better (poor judgment on my part).
Why isn't 128gb enough?

OP - Apart from OS is there anything else you wanted to run on the SSD? i.e. games or software?
Click to expand...

The whole idea is you put the games and programs on the SSD, and media etc on the HDD (mass storage)
Much quicker load times on games and software etc, installing the OS, something like BF4 and programs will fill up 128GB really quickly. However it's better than nothing :)
 
I get that but I have a 500gb HDD that I filled in 3 months for games! So it's unrealistic that you're going to be gaming off your SSD all the time! Unless you want to spend a bucket load on a high capacity SSD! There is no performance gain from playing on a SSD, the only benefit is load times, which aren't exactly long on a standard HDD!

I run my OS, photoshop, Reason and Reaper off my SSD. Then I have a storage drive and a gaming drive. Not willing to pay the big money to fit everything (apart from the storage stuff) on to a SSD.

Saying that for an extra£20 it's worth getting the 256gb model.
 
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Rhyswh said:
I get that but I have a 500gb HDD that I filled in 3 months for games! So it's unrealistic that you're going to be gaming off your SSD all the time! Unless you want to spend a bucket load on a high capacity SSD! There is no performance gain from playing on a SSD, the only benefit is load times, which aren't exactly long on a standard HDD!
Click to expand...

Very true :) However given the choice, I'd find £20 at the back of the sofa and get double the storage :D
 
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