Spec Check (£700)

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19 Oct 2002
Posts
357
Intel Core i5-4690K 3.50GHz (Devil's Canyon) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
£169.99

Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
£61.99

Powercolor Radeon R9 290 PCS+ OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics
(£179.99) £215.99

Crucial MX100 256GB SATA 2.5” 7mm SSD + 9.5mm Adapter
(£66.66) £79.99

Avexir Venom Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C11 2133MHz Dual Channel
(£54.99) £65.99

SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black
(£41.66) £49.99

Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM
(£33.29) £39.95

Raijintek Arcadia Mid Tower USB 3.0 Case - Black
(£20.79) £24.95

Total £718 inc.

Wish I had ordered this a month ago and not missed the Gigabyte cashback offer, but oh well... Just making sure I haven't overlooked anything before ordering. No overclocking at the moment so no cooler is needed.

Is the PSU sufficient?
 
Looks good, can't really improve it, except to suggest you postpone the 1TB HDD (if you can manage on the 250GB SSD for a bit) so you can get a GTX 970. It would also help cooling-wise, as I imagine that R9 290 will be hot in that case.

PSU is sufficient for GTX 970, borderline for 290 but should be "ok".
 
The 290 is still awaiting stock so I have a bit of time to think anyways. I always wanted to support the AMD underdogs somehow but the power requirements for the Piledriver put me off and now the 290s... damnit AMD.

Pricewise, you have to draw the line at some point, but man, for £258 you'd think the 970 was wrongly priced for its power.
 
Have you considered a GTX780? at £199 they are good value for money.

Also that case is a bit basic for a hot running card such as a 290, try and stretch to the next Rajintek model up.


EDIT.. That PCS 290 comes with free RAM, so i don't think you need more.
 
Have you considered a GTX780? at £199 they are good value for money.

Also that case is a bit basic for a hot running card such as a 290, try and stretch to the next Rajintek model up.


EDIT.. That PCS 290 comes with free RAM, so i don't think you need more.

Thanks! I hadn't even noticed the RAM, although maybe I'm being stupid but I can't see how many GB I'm getting.

Edit: Nm, it's 8 GB (2x4GB)
 
The 290 seems to be more trouble than it's worth even with free RAM :/ borderline power requirements and running hotter.

The GTX780 does seem like a good compromise. If I can run it in the £25 case on the 550W Superflower, I might just go with NVIDIA instead. My last two GPUs were technically Radeons anyway (6850 and a 7730M).

Final build:
i5-4690K £170
Z97P-D3 £62
8 GB 2133 MHz RAM £66
GTX780 £200
Superflower 550W £50
Raijentek case £25
Etc.

Will probably order in about an hour unless there are any objections?

Thanks for your help.
 
The KFA2 780 that is under £200 exhausts all its air straight out the rear so that is one bonus to be had when running in the cheaper case.
 
All done now. Thanks for your help guys, especially with the not so obvious parts of PC building like power consumption and heat exhaust.
 
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