Advice on Gaming PC build

[AJS]

Hi there,

I am new here so please forgive if I've posted to the wrong place.
As the title suggests, my wife and I are looking to build a gaming PC. My brother came here about a year ago seeking similar advice, subsequently built a gaming monster on a very nice budget and has been singing your praises since!

In a nutshell, we're based in the UK and our budget is max £1500 (~$2300 according to google).

I've been looking at a i7-4790k and Nvidia GTX 970 with DDR3 RAM builds but perhaps the Haswell-E six-core processors and DDR4 RAM is a better choice in the long run?

I'm reasonably clueless as far as this kind of thing goes but as I said before, I have heard great reviews of overclockers.com so I am very eager to get your advice.

Kind regards,
AJS

 

[Theocnoob]

What resolution are you guys planning to play at? What kind of games? Will there be any other uses for this computer?

Does the budget include:

A copy of Windows
Keyboard
Mouse
Monitor
Speakers
Headsets
Crazy accessories (Occulus Rift, etc)
?

If you aren't in a massive rush, Broadwell K CPUs on socket 1151 will be out in a few months. Probably by summer. You won't get a massive performance increase but you might get about 5% IPC improvement and the peace of mind of knowing you have the latest chipset.
If you buy Haswell (socket 1150) now, you have an upgrade path to Broadwell later on if you wish, but you won't get any of the chipset advantages (nobody knows what those will be yet) of the 1151 boards on an 1150 board.

You definitely do not need Haswell-E for gaming, and it is actually a waste of money. You're better off putting that extra cash towards a better GPU, a second GPU, a larger SSD, etc.


If you want to build now, please answer the above questions so we can help you.

 

[rayraysfunhouse]

What kind of budget do you have for your build?

 

[AJS]

Hi Theocnoob and rayraysfunhouse,

Sorry I should have mentioned all that stuff. We have the monitor (which is 1080p), speakers, keyboard, etc - we just need the computer part, including windows! I play pretty much everything from obscure indie games to AAA releases. My wife enjoys games like Minecraft but I think she's thinking of this more as a "netflix machine".

So if we go with a Haswell/1150 setup now, we could swap the processor out for a Broadwell/1151 processor later? Please forgive my ignorance here...

Our budget is a max of £1500 (which is about $2300 or 2000euro).


Thanks guys,
AJS

 

[Theocnoob]

Hi Theocnoob and rayraysfunhouse,

Sorry I should have mentioned all that stuff. We have the monitor (which is 1080p), speakers, keyboard, etc - we just need the computer part, including windows! I play pretty much everything from obscure indie games to AAA releases. My wife enjoys games like Minecraft but I think she's thinking of this more as a "netflix machine".

So if we go with a Haswell/1150 setup now, we could swap the processor out for a Broadwell/1151 processor later? Please forgive my ignorance here...

Our budget is a max of £1500 (which is about $2300 or 2000euro).


Thanks guys,
AJS

You can swap Haswell for Broadwell, yes. There shouldn't be any platform differences besides DDR3/4 though, if that. You're looking at about a 5% IPC (instructions per clock) advantage with Broadwell, which could easily be made up with an overclocked Haswell. Most nerds like to have the latest kit but if you don't want to wait you don't have to.

You haven't mentioned whether you want to overclock, so I'll just assume that you do, given how easy it is.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£260.34 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X61 106.1 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£108.40 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£141.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Team Xtreem 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£134.69 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£176.90 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£58.80 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£296.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Corsair 760T Black ATX Full Tower Case (£141.10 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£97.86 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.50 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£74.43 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1501.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Comes out to 1501 pounds as of posting. Prices fluctuate though. Sorry for going over by 1 pound .

I'm surprised at how high UK prices have gotten. The pound isn't doing super awesome though, so I guess that explains things.
This is a very overclockable build with a great CPU and GPU. Awesome case, great power supply, great SSD. The only thing I cheaped out on to stay in budget was the hard drive. I don't really like Seagate drives all that much. If you only need 1TB I would look at a Western Digital Blue 1TB as I like those better. They aren't as affordable as the Seagates though.

Anyone running Win 7/8/8.1 gets a free upgrade to Win 10 when it comes out, which I suggest you take. AFAIK DX12 is coming with 10 now not 8.1.

BTW 1080P is a piece of cake for a 970. With that card, you might want to consider upgrading to a 1440P screen as it can handle it. Or at least a 144Hz 1080P screen. Either of these will get you more out of your GPU.

 

[AJS]

Wow. That is incredible work, thank you Theocnoob!
I have one, possibly stupid question left: Is there a disadvantage to using an ATX case (eg. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-ISK-G...id=1424566070&sr=8-13&keywords=micro+atx+case). More a general knowledge question than anything else.

Once again, my thanks.

AJS

 

[ATMINSIDE]

If you want to save some cash:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/CGjtRB

I see zero need of a full tower, they're huge. A mid tower is more reasonable. Honestly, you could go mITX for this if you want a small computer.
PSU was massive overkill, went for one that's less overkill.
And with a window that big, might as well get memory that matches the motherboard, right?

 

[Theocnoob]

Why do you always steer people away from my 2400Mhz CAS 10 RAM to your 2133Mhz RAM, ATM? Same price. Might as well take the faster shizz.
My build had a much cooler case. I picked an overkill PSU incase the OP ever upgraded to a monster card with high TDP down the road. Only over yours by 100W. Same family.
I agree with your HDD choice, of course.

Wow. That is incredible work, thank you Theocnoob!
I have one, possibly stupid question left: Is there a disadvantage to using an ATX case (eg. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-ISK-G...id=1424566070&sr=8-13&keywords=micro+atx+case). More a general knowledge question than anything else.

Once again, my thanks.

AJS

That is an ITX case. ITX has limitations for RAM capacity as well as expandability. If you want it though, we can do an ITX build for you. Keep in mind that many an ITX case is more constrictive and harder to build in, particularly for beginners.

If you want to go ITX I suggest you look at the Corsair 250D. You can fit a 240mm AIO cooler like an H100i in it but you can't fit the X61 which is 280mm.

 

[ATMINSIDE]

Why do you always steer people away from my 2400Mhz CAS 10 RAM to your 2133Mhz RAM, ATM? Same price. Might as well take the faster shizz.
My build had a much cooler case. I picked an overkill PSU incase the OP ever upgraded to a monster card with high TDP down the road. Only over yours by 100W. Same family.
I agree with your HDD choice, of course.


That is an ITX case. ITX has limitations for RAM capacity as well as expandability. If you want it though, we can do an ITX build for you. Keep in mind that many an ITX case is more constrictive and harder to build in, particularly for beginners.

If you want to go ITX I suggest you look at the Corsair 250D. You can fit a 240mm AIO cooler like an H100i in it but you can't fit the X61 which is 280mm.

Because for most usage 2133 CL9 is faster than 2400 CL10.
I was benchmarking just last night. My RAM was faster at 2666 9-12-12 than 2800 10-12-12 for the memory benchmark I was running.

Plenty of "cooler" cases that are still mid tower though

550W is enough for any single GPU system, even OC'd.

 

[Theocnoob]

Because for most usage 2133 CL9 is faster than 2400 CL10.
I was benchmarking just last night. My RAM was faster at 2666 9-12-12 than 2800 10-12-12 for the memory benchmark I was running.

 

[AJS]

Why do you always steer people away from my 2400Mhz CAS 10 RAM to your 2133Mhz RAM, ATM? Same price. Might as well take the faster shizz.
My build had a much cooler case. I picked an overkill PSU incase the OP ever upgraded to a monster card with high TDP down the road. Only over yours by 100W. Same family.
I agree with your HDD choice, of course.


That is an ITX case. ITX has limitations for RAM capacity as well as expandability. If you want it though, we can do an ITX build for you. Keep in mind that many an ITX case is more constrictive and harder to build in, particularly for beginners.

If you want to go ITX I suggest you look at the Corsair 250D. You can fit a 240mm AIO cooler like an H100i in it but you can't fit the X61 which is 280mm.

No no, I was just curious! I've come here because I've not kept up with this stuff for the last 5 years and would've probably been useless before that anyway.

Thank you for your list too ATMINSIDE. I'm not even going to pretend I understand what 2666 9-12-12 etc means but you've definitely given me food for thought (and something to read up on later).

My poor wife is on nights at the moment so we'll need to discuss this when she's back to the world of the living.

Once again, thank you so much for the advice - I'll keep updates coming as we progress on this end!


AJS

 

[ATMINSIDE]

The 2666 9-12-12 is just RAM speed/timings. That statement was more toward TheOCNoob than you.
Just know that plain speed isn't everything for RAM, and that timings should be considered as well. That's why I like that 2133 CL9 kit in the link I gave.

I feel sorry for her being on nights