Spec Me please £700 - £1000

Naan_H

Naan_H

Naan_H

Soldato
Joined
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Hi all,

Happy new year to you all.

Im essentially needing to replace my Q6600 as im leaving it at my parents house for when i go over there. I am however very much out of the loop with current techonology. Will be used mainly for windows use but i feel like i may dabble in the odd FPS here or there when something good comes out - i do game mainly on the ps3 but prefer FPS on PC if possible - so looking for something with a lot of grunt.

I already have 2x1440p monitors and am looking at:

- a new case (preferably small - i have moved into a flat and cant really accomodate a cosmos)
- an intel quad core cpu (i have had the q6600 since 2007 and is still going strong)
- Quiet CPU cooler
- Motherboard
- 16GB RAM
- SSD (at least 120GB)
- PSU
- GFX card - needs multi-monitor support, preferably with at least 2 DP connections. (i do have a 3rd 1440p monitor but leaving at my parents for now)

and maybe a HDD and bluray drive although im not really sure on these two.
Will use onboard sound for now but may add in a card later, so case has to accomodate this for future proofing.

Budget - i may even be looking at upto £700 - £1000 but the cheaper the better - knowing me i may never end up playing any games as i dont have the time!

thanks in advance!
 
Last edited:
YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Sapphire Radeon R9 270X Boost OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Card £149.99
1 x GeIL Black Dragon 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (GD316GB1600C11DC) **OcUK Exclusive** £119.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87M-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £95.99
1 x Pioneer BDR-208DBK 15X Dual layer BluRay RW / 16x DVDRW Black - OEM £69.95
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £65.99
1 x BitFenix Prodigy M MATX Cube Case - Midnight Black £64.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache WD10EZEX - OEM ** Single Platter ** HDD £47.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler £29.99
Total : £888.95 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Couple of observations; 16gb of ram isn't really needed, 8gb would do you fine. If you want a bit more gaming grunt then go for the 280X.
 
Pretty much what ExRayTed says tbh, 16gb is overkill, i have 16gb and notice no difference if i whip 8gb out.

280x is probably the sweetspot right now for gpus in the price vs performance stakes. Other than that the rest of the build is quality
 
You'll get free shipping, so ignore that. The GPU in this first build is only on offer today, so act fast.

I've gone mATX to keep the size down (the case comes in different colours if white isn't your thing). And 8gb RAM because that's all you need unless you're video editing and whatnot.

DVD drive and HDD to be added as you wish.

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £229.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Asus Z87 GRYPHON Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £109.99
1 x Aero Cool Dead Silence Gaming White Mini Tower Windowed £72.95
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £71.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Pro SR1 CPU Cooler £39.95
Total : £825.84 (includes shipping : £12.50).



More expensive build, but with a 780 and a better motherboard. The Sniper M5's onboard sound chip should negate the need for a sound card, so you can factor that in:

YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Geforce GTX 780 Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £359.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - OEM £169.99
1 x Gigabyte G1.Sniper M5 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £154.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £73.99
1 x Aero Cool Dead Silence Gaming White Mini Tower Windowed £72.95
1 x Plextor M5S 128GB Solid State Drive - (PX-128M5S) £71.99
1 x TeamGroup Vulcan ORANGE 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-19200C11 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLAD38G2400HC11CDC01) £55.99
1 x Be Quiet! Shadow Rock Pro SR1 CPU Cooler £39.95
Total : £1,014.84 (includes shipping : £12.50).



If you want something in between you could add a 4770k to the first build.
 
 
wow, many thanks for the quick replies, thats fantastic.

I think ill stick with 8GB then. I had my eye on the bitfenix prodigy, not seen the aerocool before? Anyone better than the other?

Re GFX - is the 280X the card to get at the moment? i saw it on offer but am really out of the loop - have these just been released? i did use to have a 570GTX im guessing its much more powerful than that?

Re SSD - i thought samsung SSDs were the way to go? are the Toshiba / plextor ones better. i want an ssd that will work out of the box and be stable - i currently have an OCZ vertex 2E and it failed on me - RMA was a pain.

Im assuming all the above coolers are pretty much the same and will fit in the cases easily?
 
The 280x is a good card but if you can stretch then the 290 is a monster. The Samsung Evo is the SSD to get, but you did say the cheaper the better for your build.
 
mickyflinn said:
YOUR BASKET
1 x MSI Radeon R9 280X Gaming Edition OC 3072MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £229.99
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £191.99
1 x Avexir Venom Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-17200C9 2133MHz Dual Channel Memory Kit (AVD3U21330908G-2CIG) - Green Light £149.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87M-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 Micro ATX Motherboard £95.99
1 x BitFenix Phenom MATX Cube Case - Midnight Black £74.95
1 x Toshiba SSD HDTS212EZSTA 9.5mm 128GB Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £65.99
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black £59.99
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 140 BW Cooler £34.99
Total : £917.98 (includes shipping : £11.75).

Click to expand...

Im pretty sure that cooler won't fit in that case mate.
 
 
Thanks again for the suggestions

Ive decided to go for 8GB RAM and get a samung EVO SSD, im really undecided on the gfx card at the moment - im reading about AMD 290 issues, and mantle/gamesworks etc - dont really understand either! Still not sure on the CPU cooler - just want one that is quiet and good at its job and not too expensive.

Will all current top end gfx cards fit the prodigy case?
 
OK all ready to buy some hardware - will be ordering tonight at the latest..

I bought the MSI 280X last week and the BD-R drive on offer last week so saved a few pennies.

I will be going with the Gigabyte Sniper MATX board unless anybody has any other suggestions (im interested in the onboard sound), as well as the Samsung EVO drive. I may just pick up the seagate 1TB on offer today too.

What i am really stuck on is the CPU cooler - Can anybody be more specific on which one to get - i want a quiet and efficient cooler as possible, in the £30 - £50 range max. Thanks for all the great suggestions so far.
 
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