Been out of the game for quite some time now but my friend finally wants an upgrade for the machine that I gave him all the way back in 2009:
Q9650
Asus Maximus Formula (what a bad boy back in the day!)
4GB RAM
Sandisk SSD and pair of Samsung SpinPoint F3 drives
R9 280 3GB
OCZ PSU of some kind
Antec 900 case
As you probably noticed there are some new upgrades in this that I did over a year ago, chiefly the graphics card and the SSD drive. I also bought extra 4GB of RAM to beef it up but that's when I discovered that the motherboard has two completely dead RAM slots. He's a Total War fan and likes to play other strategy games as well which will be done on a 1080p screen for the foreseeable future but he also started playing with Photoshop recently and would like to start dabbling in little video work too.
My basket at Overclockers UK:
Total: £392.43
(includes shipping: £10.50)
Now I've already managed to pick up the top two for just a few quid over £200 elsewhere which is quite bargaintastic I think (so those three will be around £310 actually) and since he wants to do photo and video work on top of the gaming, a quad core and 16GB of RAM would more than suffice for a beginner. I don't believe there's much point touching the graphics card at the moment for his needs but Skylake is probably a lot more future proof than Haswell, particularly with the M.2 SSD slot which is a simple upgrade once they come down in price.
Area where I am stuck is the motherboard really, since he wants to change from Antec 900 to something smaller, quieter, and less dust magnet like I'm thinking that a mATX format would suit him best. One I picked just seems a good value for money with the Z170 chip and even a new USB Type C but would it actually offer anything over a solid H170 board which hover around £80 or should I stretch the budget and get something a little more expensive?
For the case I think I've settled on Cooler Master Silencio 352 (which OCUK don't seem to stock) for a good value smaller case with a DVD drive (one awkward requirement) and dust filters, only concern I have is how it performs temperatures wise with all the silencing material inside of it. Only other thing of note is the PSU which has frankly performed without hiccup all these years and will actually have a lower TDP to deal with on a Skylake CPU. Ideally he wants to keep the whole things under £400 so please feel free to nitpick!
Q9650
Asus Maximus Formula (what a bad boy back in the day!)
4GB RAM
Sandisk SSD and pair of Samsung SpinPoint F3 drives
R9 280 3GB
OCZ PSU of some kind
Antec 900 case
As you probably noticed there are some new upgrades in this that I did over a year ago, chiefly the graphics card and the SSD drive. I also bought extra 4GB of RAM to beef it up but that's when I discovered that the motherboard has two completely dead RAM slots. He's a Total War fan and likes to play other strategy games as well which will be done on a 1080p screen for the foreseeable future but he also started playing with Photoshop recently and would like to start dabbling in little video work too.
My basket at Overclockers UK:
- 1 x Intel Core i5-6600 3.30GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail= £179.99
- 1 x Corsair Vengeance 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C14 2400MHz Quad Channel Kit - Red (CMK16GX4M4A2400C14R= £98.99
- 1 x Asus Z170M-Plus Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 Micro ATX Motherboard= £102.95
Total: £392.43
(includes shipping: £10.50)
Now I've already managed to pick up the top two for just a few quid over £200 elsewhere which is quite bargaintastic I think (so those three will be around £310 actually) and since he wants to do photo and video work on top of the gaming, a quad core and 16GB of RAM would more than suffice for a beginner. I don't believe there's much point touching the graphics card at the moment for his needs but Skylake is probably a lot more future proof than Haswell, particularly with the M.2 SSD slot which is a simple upgrade once they come down in price.
Area where I am stuck is the motherboard really, since he wants to change from Antec 900 to something smaller, quieter, and less dust magnet like I'm thinking that a mATX format would suit him best. One I picked just seems a good value for money with the Z170 chip and even a new USB Type C but would it actually offer anything over a solid H170 board which hover around £80 or should I stretch the budget and get something a little more expensive?
For the case I think I've settled on Cooler Master Silencio 352 (which OCUK don't seem to stock) for a good value smaller case with a DVD drive (one awkward requirement) and dust filters, only concern I have is how it performs temperatures wise with all the silencing material inside of it. Only other thing of note is the PSU which has frankly performed without hiccup all these years and will actually have a lower TDP to deal with on a Skylake CPU. Ideally he wants to keep the whole things under £400 so please feel free to nitpick!
