PC Spec General Advice

Jonnodude

Jonnodude

Jonnodude

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Joined
15 Jul 2010
Posts
139
Howdy all,


So it's come to that time where I'll be moving out soon and before I do I need to save up and get a new PC (pretty much because my old one needs upgrading so much that I might as well go for a new system and sell the old one for cheap.)


The PC will be for gaming, such as CoD Ghosts, BF4 and all the other "next gen" games coming out later this year, and I have roughly £2000 to spend.
I want to buy the best I can so I can future proof myself for a long while.


I've specced up pretty much what I want and I will be buying the below as a bundled offer built at OC as a full machine:

Case: NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Black

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.50GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor

PSU: OCZ ZX Series 850W '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply

Motherboard: Asus Z87 SABERTOOTH Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
(Edited because I got the chipset wrong.)

RAM: TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 16GB DDR3 PC3-19200C10 2400MHz

GPU: Asus GeForce GTX 780 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Primary Drive: Samsung 128GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic

Secondary Drive: Western Digital VelociRaptor 1TB 10000RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache


I would like to ask your good selves some questions regarding the build ive chosen if I may.

Motherboard:
I'm not too clued-up on motherboards so I'm not sure the one I have chosen is compatible with everything else.
I want to make sure this motherboard will last me a long while because I will want to keep the motherboard and just upgrade the PC as the hardware eventually becomes out-dated.
Can you advise me if this motherboard will likely last me for a good 4+ years, or if not (or if you can recommend me a better one) let me know which that is?
Also I'm kinda confused about which socket is the best.
Edit: Changed the motherboard to suit the processor.

PSU:
I also want to make sure the PSU I get is pretty future proof,since I will eventually upgrade CPU and GPU etc and also because I might decide to get another nVidia 780 in SLI, will the one I have chosen handle it or will I need to get a 1050w PSU?

SSD/HDD:
I want the primary drive to be an SSD obviously for the fast boot and smooth running of windows, but the secondary drive I want to also be pretty quick as well as large because I will be storing all my games/media on there.
I have included the 10000RPM VelociRaptor as my second drive, but I am very tempted to get the Samsung 512GB SSD 840 PRO SATA 6Gb/s Basic as my secondary drive.
Will that make much of a difference or is it not worth paying £200 extra for it?

RAM
I want 16GB of RAM for a bit of future-proofing and I was recommended to get some faster speed RAM (either 2133MHz or 2400MHz) but what I want to know is: Is it worth getting 2 x 8GB sticks in dual channel, or is it worth getting the RAM & Mobo combo that allows quad channel RAM (so 4 x 4GB sticks.)
Is the performance any better with quad channel RAM than dual channel?

Case:
I really like the NZXT Phantom Enthusiast cases, does anyone that has one of these cases know if the componants above will fit ok in this tower?


Thanks a lot for reading all this and I hope you all know a bit more than I do about all this to give me some good advice :)


Thanks in advance!

Jonno
 
Last edited:
Firstly you've picked a X79 (2011) motherboard and a 1150 CPU, they won't work together..

You either need to change to a Z87 (1150) motherboard or change youre chip to a 3820/3930k (2011)

and £180 on a 1TB HDD? Yes, i know it's 10,000 rpm but you have an SSD, the HDD is just for back-up. A stanard 7200 would be fine.. :)
 
Thanks for that guys.

@Doomedspeed:
Thanks for that, I've amended the mobo now.
Also, I will probably be storing my games on that HDD since I would use the main drive for the OS and applications etc, I would put Steam on the secondary HDD since I have a lot of games, do you think the SSD would be worth it over the raptor?
Edit: I know I missed out the cooling, I was just going for the specs in general.

@snips86x
I could indeed do that, but I've got the cash so why not eh? Unless you can think of something else I should spend it on other than the GPU that might need more attention?
 
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 780 PCI-Express 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £539.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £194.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HG5D Series THNSNH 7mm 256GB Solid State Hard Drive - (THNSNH256GCST) £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-OC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £167.99
1 x NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Orange/Black £104.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £101.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 1220 Series 4 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler ( LGA 1150 / 1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM2+ / AM3+) £91.08
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £73.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2133HC11ADC01) £64.00
Total : £1,525.50 (includes shipping : £13.75).



A few changes made for the better I think,

• Best motherboard in its price range (better than some of the £200+ ones, the OC guru 8 Pack also says it is.

• Orange RAM and black+orange case to suit, can be altered if you dont like it.

• The Antec Kuhler has a customizable LED logo, maybe make it glow orange too?
 
stulid said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI GeForce GTX 780 PCI-Express 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £539.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail with FREE Grid 2 PC Game £194.99
1 x Toshiba SSD HG5D Series THNSNH 7mm 256GB Solid State Hard Drive - (THNSNH256GCST) £169.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87X-OC Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £167.99
1 x NZXT Phantom Enthusiast USB3.0 Full Tower Case - Orange/Black £104.99
1 x XFX 850W XXX Edition Modular '80 Plus Silver' Power Supply £101.99
1 x Antec Kúhler H2O 1220 Series 4 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler ( LGA 1150 / 1155 / LGA1156 / LGA1366 / 2011 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM2+ / AM3+) £91.08
1 x Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD20EZRX) HDD £73.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2133HC11ADC01) £64.00
Total : £1,525.50 (includes shipping : £13.75).



A few changes made for the better I think,

• Best motherboard in its price range (better than some of the £200+ ones, the OC guru 8 Pack also says it is.

• Orange RAM and black+orange case to suit, can be altered if you dont like it.

• The Antec Kuhler has a customizable LED logo, maybe make it glow orange too?
Click to expand...

Thanks stulid, though why an i5 rather than an i7?
 
The infamous, why not an i7 question:

The i7 has no added bonuses over the i5 for gaming, games don't currently use the extra HT (Hyper-threads) that the i7 has included. The i5 is essentially a i7 without the HT, plus is a lot cheaper.
 
ThaReaperGuy said:
The infamous, why not an i7 question:

The i7 has no added bonuses over the i5 for gaming, games don't currently use the extra HT (Hyper-threads) that the i7 has included. The i5 is essentially a i7 without the HT, plus is a lot cheaper.
Click to expand...

The i7 can be a tax on the mis-informed.. :)

Its a great chip at what it does well (using hyperthreading) like video editing, rendering and CAD work though I assume most see it as more of a status symbol..

The real winners are the gamers (no video editing or such) that have saved £70 odd by getting the i5.. Crafty.. :)

So for a gaming rig, i5.

For a cad/video (image) editing/ rendering rig, the i7..
 
Ahhh I see, thanks for clearing that up, however will games likely be using this in the near future since I kind of want my machine to be quite future proof.

Also with the motherboard that stulid recmmended, will this board also be future proof for a long forseeable while?

Also will an 850W PSU handle SLI if I choose to get another card in the future?
 
Jonnodude said:
Ahhh I see, thanks for clearing that up, however will games likely be using this in the near future since I kind of want my machine to be quite future proof.

Also with the motherboard that stulid recmmended, will this board also be future proof for a long forseeable while?

Also will an 850W PSU handle SLI if I choose to get another card in the future?
Click to expand...

Its very uncertain when or if games will use hyperthreading more, sone already do but the impact is so minimal, its unnoticeable.

It really will depends on how the new console chips will work..

I think that by the time hypertheading starts to impact gaming you'll be at the stage to upgrade anyway...

A board is only really as future proof as its socket (1150) as stupid said it's a very good motherboard

850W is more than enough
 
Awesome, thanks for the responce, I guess motherboard change quite quickly so I guess I will stick with the one stulid recommended and pray things dont come out too quickly!
 
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