Thoughts on basket for Java/Python/occasional gaming.

[implosiveturnip]

Hi all

I've just put together a basket for a friend who wants to move to a new system, to replace his ageing OEM dell system from the lands that time forgot...

He will be using the system for Java and Python dev, probably a couple of VM's knowing him and he also hopes to start gaming again in the not too distant future.

So after a little research, and given a maximum budget of £400 I have put this together for him:

YOUR BASKET
1 x Intel Core i5-4460 3.20GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail £145.99
1 x MSI Z97-G43 Intel Z97 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard £69.95
1 x TeamGroup Elite Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C11 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (TPKD38G1600HC11DC01) £59.99
1 x Corsair CS450M 450W Semi-Modular 80+ GOLD Certified Power Supply (CP-9020075-UK) £49.99
1 x BitFenix Neos ATX Tower Black/Silver £29.99
Total : £370.01 (includes shipping : £11.75).



Points to note and reasoning for parts selection:

• No optical, HDD or SSD required as he's bringing those from an old system.
• No peripherals required as will be using existing kit.
• He plan to drop a GPU in later on down the line, won't be top tier so no silly high wattage PSU required. I've only gone for the corsair as it's a decent offer for an 80+ gold semi-modular, and will handle any single GPU in the future.
• I would like to keep as far from the £400 budget ceiling as possible, so he can grab a 1920x1080 monitor, as his current one is only 1600x900, but it's not essential.
• H97 or Z97 chipset is non-negotiable!

With all that in mind, am I thinking along the right lines here? Or could I do a little better?

Thanks

 

[implosiveturnip]

Also quite surprised to see how much the price of CPUs bumped up recently!

 

[implosiveturnip]

And monitors too :/ I'm pushing it a bit really aren't I?

 

[implosiveturnip]

Any comments/amendments before I get him to pull the trigger?

 

[implosiveturnip]

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=MY-078-AR&groupid=701&catid=8&subcat=1517

I would take this instead of the teamgroup black because it matches the motherboard's colour and it has leds. Led is nice.

Thanks, but we're going for function over form here, and I'd rather have the lifetime warranty handled by OCUK with the TeamGroup memory over the bling of the Avexir.

That's not to say the Avexir itself isn't a good choice - I have one of their 16gb quad channel kits and it's been rock solid.

 

[implosiveturnip]

Thanks David

Well there's still a little bit a wriggle room in the budget so could probably squeeze to 16gb and still keep the i5 by shaving elsewhere, or dropping to an i3 like you suggested. I wanted to try and keep him on a true quad-core for the gaming side of things later on down the line though.

I did offer him my secondary rig (the i5 rig in my sig) for not much more than the basket up there but he wants new

I suppose to really save a few quid, we could drop to the anniversary ed. Pentium and plonk the multi at x40ish on the stock cooler. But then that would mean buying another CPU later on down the line anyway, as from what I can tell games are dropping support for dual cores in favor of multiple threads (battlefield, far cry 4 and some other newer games from what I've read. correct me if I'm wrong though.)

 

[implosiveturnip]

I would personally go for a 1155 motherboard and a Xeon E3 1230 v2 over a 1150 motherboard and a limited i5.

You can pick up the E3 1230 v2 for less than £140 on that well known auction site. It is essentially a locked i7 3770k - 4 cores 8 threads.

Interesting. Doesn't leave much of an upgrade path though, dead socket. At least on z97 he'll have the option of 4770k, 4790k and Broadwell too.

That and a decent z77 board is hard to come by cheap, he'd be paying the same for older tech that he couldn't upgrade from without forking out for another platform.

 

[implosiveturnip]

By the time anyone needs to upgrade from 1155, the 1150 platform will be long gone.

Yeah this is very true, especially if looking to take on one of those Xeons. Are there any 1155 Xeons that aren't hyperthreaded that would be cheaper?

 

[implosiveturnip]

These two are pretty close to the 3570k. Slightly lower clock speed but 4 cores / 4 threads:

http://ark.intel.com/products/65734/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1220-v2-8M-Cache-3_10-GHz

http://ark.intel.com/products/65733/Intel-Xeon-Processor-E3-1225-v2-8M-Cache-3_20-GHz

Not sure about price though. The 1230 v2 was quite popular so chances are you'll get the best deal on that model.

Thanks for that, I'll have a look at pricing. Will see if OCUK have any decent 1155 boards in b-grade/clearance too. Shame I don't have MM access yet ;_;

I'd use http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-003-SF&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=2057 as a PSU.

450 is a bit tight for the fairly conservative 970 GTX. Most midrange cards will actually use more, as AMD still has to catch up on the efficiency, and nvidia's midrange are older gen.

The Corsair CS don't get any Gibbo/8Pack love... You'll loose modular, but you quickly end up using most id not all leads anyway, especially on a low power PSU.

a 450w gold is going to be more than enough for a non-overclocked system with just about any GPU. TTL did an article and video here with an overclocked 4670k and an Asus 780ti DCII and it was fine:

http://www.overclock3d.net/articles/power_supply/how_many_watts_do_you_actually_need/1

And who said anything about dropping a £300+ GPU in here? We're probably looking at a second hand 670/770 at most, or maybe the 960 if it comes in at a good price. Will see what's on the 2nd hand market when the 960 drops; I see a lot of people picking one up if they get the launch pricing right, and that *could* mean an influx of cheap 2nd hand 660/660ti 270x/280 if the performance is there on the 960. But I digress.