System build with longevity

Doraku

Doraku

Doraku

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Joined
7 Nov 2011
Posts
128
Location
North Yorkshire
I asked earlier about a modular PSU but my topic strayed so I thought it was appropriate that I started a different one. RJC initially provided me with a system build but I thought I would extend it to other hardware I need:

RJC said:
Rough build below:


YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £197.99
1 x Gigabyte Z87-D3HP Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard £106.99
1 x Seasonic G series 550w '80 Plus Gold' Modular Power Supply £76.99
1 x TeamGroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-21300C11 2666MHz Dual Channel Kit (TXD38G2666HC11CDC01) £65.99
1 x Alpenföhn Matterhorn Pure Edition CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / 1366 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £29.99
Total : £489.35 (includes shipping : £9.50).

Click to expand...

Hardware/cost:

Motherboard (ASUS, Gigabyte)
CPU (Intel? Quad core)
RAM
PSU
1TB HD

@ ~£510
---
Cheap Graphics card for ~£45, I will update this in late 2014 (possibly with a heavy duty card).

Other details:

1. honosuseri said that I should avoid the bundles. Are they that bad? I don't like installing the CPU or the CPU cooler (because the clips would break easily).

3. I want to be able to play Total War: Rome II (hence the cheap GeForce GT 630 because I am happy to play the game on medium), and later Star Citizen.
 
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I didn't post again as you seemed very against building your own . You said you hated pretty much every part of the build process lol

It's not that they are bad but you can often get better value if you balance the build yourself. You have a bit more work to do granted but I think it's worth while, it can also give you more freedom for styling how the rig looks too.

Just to give you an example.......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £185.99
1 x VTX3D HD 7870 Black Boost Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £155.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £54.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £51.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £45.95
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 120 REV A (BW) Performance CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £24.98
Total : £579.83 (includes shipping : £10.00).



The Nvidia 630 is a total waste of cash tbh. This mobo might be "old" tech but being a Z68 it's still packed with goodies like sataIII and overclocking options for K CPUs. For the price it's hard to complain.

By picking good value parts and working a little Spec'ing magic you now have a 7870LE GPU. These OC to trade blows with stock 7950s, for £150ish vs £240 that's a lot of bang for buck! OK we maybe a little over your intended budget but that rig is good to game now not later no GPU upgrade needed ;)

Haswell is the new intel socket (1150). It's got a better IGP, a little more ooompf and the memory controller is happy with faster RAM but you have to balance things yourself to your budget as it will cost you a bit more cash.
 
Potty27 said:
Hono's build looks good, but for £2 extra I'd get the C9 ram:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-068-PA&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

To keep it in budget you could remove the gfx card and get a decent used one, could get a 5850/6870/5870/460/560/560ti in the £50-60 mark.
Click to expand...

Gonna be honest the C9 RAM will make no noticable differnce...

I'd stick with hono's build. the 7870 LE is a beast of a card and will last year (longer than a secondhand 5***/6***/4**/5**)
 
honosuseri said:
I didn't post again as you seemed very against building your own . You said you hated pretty much every part of the build process lol

It's not that they are bad but you can often get better value if you balance the build yourself. You have a bit more work to do granted but I think it's worth while, it can also give you more freedom for styling how the rig looks too.

Just to give you an example.......

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-3570K 3.40GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail £185.99
1 x VTX3D HD 7870 Black Boost Edition 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card £155.99
1 x Corsair Builder Series CX 500w Modular '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020059-UK) £54.98
1 x Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD £51.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TED38GM1600HC11DC01) £47.99
1 x Gigabyte Z68AP-D3 Intel Z68 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard £45.95
1 x Thermalright True Spirit 120 REV A (BW) Performance CPU Cooler (Socket 775 / 1150 / 1155 / 1156 / AM2 / AM2+ / AM3 / FM1 / FM2) £24.98
Total : £579.83 (includes shipping : £10.00).



The Nvidia 630 is a total waste of cash tbh. This mobo might be "old" tech but being a Z68 it's still packed with goodies like sataIII and overclocking options for K CPUs. For the price it's hard to complain.

By picking good value parts and working a little Spec'ing magic you now have a 7870LE GPU. These OC to trade blows with stock 7950s, for £150ish vs £240 that's a lot of bang for buck! OK we maybe a little over your intended budget but that rig is good to game now not later no GPU upgrade needed ;)

Haswell is the new intel socket (1150). It's got a better IGP, a little more ooompf and the memory controller is happy with faster RAM but you have to balance things yourself to your budget as it will cost you a bit more cash.
Click to expand...

I am less against it now, particularly because the CPU cooler uses screws and you've just done the compatibility check for me/know current hardware better. Hehe.

Cost is okay, but it is getting close to the absolute limit.

It is a waste of cash? Even if I won't use half the power now? I don't mind playing at reduced capabilities now, but want to play Star Citizen with full settings at a later date (presumably capable cards being cheaper, more powerful and I'd have more money), and then I'd use the old card elsewhere. Is this not a sensible idea?!


I still really appreciate your input, and thanks for everyone else that has contributed.
 
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I'm what, close to £25 over what you wanted to pay?

Had I used a non modular PSU it would be just shy of £20, if you'd been more active on the forum and had free P&P.....£9.85 over.

The Nvidia 630 is useless for gaming, complete and utter waste of money. If you can't see how amazing that spec is for the cash......that's worrying :(
 
Doomedspeed said:
Gonna be honest the C9 RAM will make no noticable differnce...
Click to expand...

Maybe not much difference, but I'd rather have Patriot than TeamGroup for around the same price, the extra speed would be a bonus. Personal preference anyway I guess.


Doomedspeed said:
I'd stick with hono's build. the 7870 LE is a beast of a card and will last year (longer than a secondhand 5***/6***/4**/5**)
Click to expand...

It is a "beast of a card", but hono's build is quite a bit over budget and the OP says he would be happy gaming on medium settings. So in this instance I think the OP would be better off saving around £100 and getting one of those used cards.
 
Potty27 said:
Maybe not much difference, but I'd rather have Patriot than TeamGroup for around the same price, the extra speed would be a bonus. Personal preference anyway I guess.

It is a "beast of a card", but hono's build is quite a bit over budget and the OP says he would be happy gaming on medium settings. So in this instance I think the OP would be better off saving around £100 and getting one of those used cards.
Click to expand...

Teamgroup is still a decent brand..

Its only £25 overbudget, as he budgeted £510 +£45 for the 630..

For the sake of £25 honos build will be much much better than the op's spec..
 
Doomedspeed said:
Its only £25 overbudget, as he budgeted £510 +£45 for the 630..

For the sake of £25 honos build will be much much better than the op's spec..
Click to expand...

It will be much better, but so would hono's spec + a used card and would be well under budget.

A 7870 sounds overkill for this OP, but I do agree the 630 is a waste of money.
 
Potty27 said:
It will be much better, but so would hono's spec + a used card and would be well under budget.

A 7870 sounds overkill for this OP, but I do agree the 630 is a waste of money.
Click to expand...

He said he's wanting to play total war rome time. If that's anything like shogun a lot of power may be needed. Why save £50 to build a gaming rig later (2014 GPU update) when he can have a shiny gaming rig now? He can still upgrade in 2014, his 7870 will still be worth a pretty penny. :)
 
Potty27 said:
It will be much better, but so would hono's spec + a used card and would be well under budget.

A 7870 sounds overkill for this OP, but I do agree the 630 is a waste of money.
Click to expand...

The point was to show what he could achieve if he ignores the bundles. He was looking at £410 for the mobo bundles (THIS was the worst choice) and they were still using 1600Mhz RAM even for Haswell CPUs.

Difference between CAS 9 and 11 in the real world makes little to no odds. Yes technically the lower the better if you have a choice at the same price.

I have a 1GB 460. Come Oct I'll have had it 2 years (1 year warranty still left) and I paid £100 for it. It's done me really well and still has some "legs" today thanks to new drivers and me OC'ing it but I do feel the need to change it. I'm waiting for the new AMD GPUs in Oct. though.

It was such a good choice that now if I was desperate I could sell it off for £50ish then just pay £100 on top for a 7870LE. OC that to match a 7950 and sit pretty for a good while. When it comes to selling it on, the 7870LE will command more respect than the 7850/7870s which currently are also priced ~£150.

If that extra £20ish truly is a step too far I'd rather leave the heatsink out the basket and add one later on. Gaming will thank him more for the better GPU not so much OC'ing the i5K.
 
Doraku said:
I don't mind playing at reduced capabilities now, but want to play Star Citizen with full settings at a later date (presumably capable cards being cheaper, more powerful and I'd have more money
Click to expand...

This is basis for my replies, a 6870 or so should do fine until nearer the release date, at that point he can sell it and get something he knows will do best for his money in that game.
 
By the way, I'm not saying that 7870 is not good "bang for buck", I think it's one of the best at the moment. It makes the lower end ones look overpriced competitively and hard to suggest a cheaper one.
 
I am not up to date in the latest hardware, and that's why I am here. If I knew just how amazing this spec is wouldn't be asking questions!

I want to know if it would be more stragetic as Potty27 is suggesting to spread the cost when I don't need the card, I am spreading the cost with my monitors (I have currently one 24" HDMI monitor) buying another monitor later (I will be using an old DVI monitor as a second monitor until that time).

Right now, as I won't be using the graphics card, so it won't be as easy to justify (since I should be buying the PC to work on). I am thinking purely from a cost basis, and obviously don't have your perspective/insight but I DO want to play Star Citizen on high settings (Radeon HD 7970!).

If considering everything including, depreciation, the cost of the cards I would only make a marginal saving of £50 then it wouldn't be a huge issue. I just want to be efficient.

Thanks again for the input.
 
Id vote for hono's build although your not gaming now its best to have the choice to adding extra cost later and having to open up things again and such when i can have it now for 25 pounds more than what i thought id pay the 25 and save hassle later.
 
To me it seems crazy to buy a 7870 you don't require now, only to change it to a 7970 or better in the near future.

Something like a used 6870 will lose less money when you come to change than the new 7870.

£60 for a used card vs £156 for a new one, is quite a decent saving.

That's what I'd do in your position anyway.
 
Potty27 said:
To me it seems crazy to buy a 7870 you don't require now, only to change it to a 7970 or better in the near future.

Something like a used 6870 will lose less money when you come to change than the new 7870.

£60 for a used card vs £156 for a new one, is quite a decent saving.

That's what I'd do in your position anyway.
Click to expand...

Drives me crazy that you double or triple post in threads rather than edit your posts ;)

It's not a 7870 it's a 7870LE two different GPUs completely. The LE will OC to 7950 performance give or take, why would he need to upgrade it?

I have a hunch there is more than meets the eye here. It could well be his work is funding the rig which is why it's hard to "justify" a gaming GPU in the spec. You can't really justify a 630 either when the CPUs have an IGP to be fair.

He asked why I thought bundles were "bad". I've shown he can build something to more than cover his needs to the budget. He can do a Haswell spec but to do that properly he will spend more on the mobo and RAM. He can then add a GPU to that later, 2nd hand or otherwise that's really down to him.
 
I tend to edit posts if I've made a mistake, if I think of another point to add I tend to use the post quick reply option, usually someone has already posted since my last comment, so would not notice if I just used edit.

That said I'll try and remember to edit more, to keep you happy ;) :D

By 7870 I was of course meaning the LE edition you posted. But the OP says he wants to change to a 7970 or better to play Star Citizen on high.

Doraku said:
but I DO want to play Star Citizen on high settings (Radeon HD 7970!).
Click to expand...

Little point us arguing over the OP's needs, he can make his own mind up now we've highlighted the pro's and con's. :)

Either way it will be an improvement.
 
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