Which one should I go for?

[atomjack]

Hi all,

I'm looking for a budget gaming PC. I'll only be doing 1080p max, I rarely play the latest titles, and I have a limited budget, so I'm sticking to the low end. Looking forward, I want to allow some upgradeability in the future, so that's arguing for a low-end Skylake platform rather than a legacy Haswell.

I've ended up with two options from Overclockers: details below. I'd like to keep the total budget below £900 if possible, including build costs etc. The PC will be used for some software development as well, hence a decent sized SSD and 16GB of memory are needed. I don't mind overclocking a bit, but I'm not into (and don't have the budget for) squeezing every last MHz out of the system.

OcUK Kinetic Z1 - Gaming PC - £848.84*
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Case Aerocool Aero 800 Midi Tower Gaming Case - Black
Motherboard MSI Z170A PC Mate (probably)
Processor Intel Core i5-6600K 3.9GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - Retail
Memory Team Group Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD416GM2400HC16D
Graphics Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N960OC-4GD)
Operating System Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
CPU Cooler Alpenföhn Brocken ECO CPU Cooler - 120 mm
Primary Solid State Drive / Hard Drive Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E500B/EU)

OcUK Tech Labs Skylake Z170 Midi Tower Gaming PC - £913.91
========================================
Case Cooler Master K280 Midi Tower Case - Black (RC-K280-KKN1)
Motherboard Asus Z170-P Intel Z170 (Socket 1151) DDR4 ATX Motherboard
Processor Intel Core i5-6600K 3.9GHz (Skylake) Socket LGA1151 Processor - OEM
Memory Team Group Elite 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C16 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (TPKD416GM2400HC16D
Graphics Card Asus GeForce GTX 960 TURBO OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Operating System Microsoft Windows 10 64-Bit DVD - OEM (MS-KW9-00139)
CPU Cooler Akasa AK-CC4009EP01 Venom Pico Compact CPU Cooler
Solid State Drive 1 Samsung 500GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive (MZ-75E500B/EU)
Power Supply Super Flower Golden Green HX 550W "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply - Black

Both systems have an i5-6600K, 16GB of memory, a 500GB SSD and a GTX960. The Kinetic Z1 has (I think) a nicer case, more memory on the GPU, but (probably) a worse power supply (it's just listed as "80+ bronze") and motherboard: neither the PSU or the motherboard is changable (they are part of the Z1 package). It's also 50 quid cheaper.

So, which one is the better deal, or is there an even better configuration that I've missed?

 

[atomjack]

Thanks for the advice so far. I'm afraid the 16gb isn't optional as the software I work on requires that much, so there's no cost savings to be had there. I could reduce the bill by going for a smaller SSD, but the dev environment I use will eat most of a 250gb one leaving no room on it for games, which would have to sit on an auxiliary HDD (which I already have).

Is moving up to a 970 or 390 worth it? I was under the impression that you only needed these if you wanted to go above 1080p.

 

[atomjack]

Ok, thanks for the advice. Thanks also for pointing out the i5 6400 bundle - I hadn't known that you could overclock the non-k processors. That makes it significantly easier to get the features I want in the budget I have!

 

[atomjack]

Ooh, good point. I've done some reading up, and it sounds like this bundle won't be suitable for me. The BCLK overclock BIOSes disable power management, and (more importantly from my point of view) also disable AVX. Some of the (non-gaming) software I use utilises AVX, so that's a big minus.

OTOH, I think I might be able to borrow a HD-7970, so that eases the pressure on the budget. I can use that and put the savings into an i5-6600K.