[Purchased] New PC for a buddy (suggestions needed)

[Ishan]

Hey guys,

So i have a buddy who lives in UK and has a budget of 700-750 £. He was going to buy a laptop in this budget and i convinced him to buy a desktop instead because he already has a laptop and what he needs is a gaming machine so a desktop can't be beaten in that field especially when the person can find some time to game in his apartment and isn't constantly moving around ifrom here to there due to ones job etc.

And instead of going for some expensive pre-built crap i convinced him to assemble one since that's cheaper and much better. So i need your help to assemble the best machine under this budget with monitor. I haven't researched in this field for about a year now so that's why i need your help to pick something decent. I have no idea where he can purchase good parts in UK but i found these 2 websites and let me know which is better:
1) http://www.overclockers.co.uk/
2) http://www.scan.co.uk/

I haven't compared the prices but the first one looks much better from first glance.

So in motherboards i'm going for Intel and chipset Z87.
1) MSI Z87-G43 Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard (96 £)
2) Then CPU Intel Haswell: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0 gig (149 £)
3) RAM: Corsair Vengeance Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B) (60 £)
4) G.Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3x OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N770OC-2GD) (330 £) This punches the budget quite hard.
5) HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (WD1002FAEX) (77 £) (In India it's 60 pounds so either UK is expensive or this website is sucking my blood)
6) Optical Drive: LiteOn IHAS124-04 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (21 £)
7) SMPS: Cooler Master GX 650W '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (70 £)
8) Monitor: BenQ G2250 22" Widescreen LCD Monitor - Black (96 £)
9) Case: Aerocool Strike-X ONE Midi Tower Case - Black (32 £)

So it comes to 931 pounds. So i'm over 181 pounds. So i'm going to step down on to a lower end G.Card, preferably AMD 7950.

Sapphire HD 7950 Boost 3072MB PCI-Express Graphics Card (11196-19-20G) (240 £)
Or AMD 7870:
Gigabyte ATI Radeon HD 7870 OC Windforce 3X 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (200 £)

And scratch this i found MSI GeForce GTX 760 OC 2GB GDDR5 for (200 £) it's better than 7870\7950 if i'm not mistaken.

So if going for 7870\760 i save around 130 pounds. So where to save 51 more to get it under our budget? Z77 MOBO?
MSI Z77A-G43 Intel Z77 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard (75 £)

So 51-21 = 30.
New CPU since the LGA socket changed with this MOBO:
Intel Core i5-3330 3.00GHz (Ivybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor (77W) - Retail (150 £)

So it's still 30 bucks above budget. And on novatech i found G.Skill RAM which is cheaper 5 pounds, i never liked corsair anyways except their SMPS. Same HDD for 72 rather than 77 there on OC website. Another 5 bucks saved lol.

Changed the Optical drive again to this one. It's for 13 bucks and then saved 8 more bucks. Changed the case also to this one (26 £) 32-26 = 6. PSU changed to a cheaper, better modular one from OCZ, this (62£) 70-62=8. And same monitor for 83 bucks on novatech (96-83=13). So obviously OC one is ripping me off in comparison to novatech. Motherers.

And i found another website called Aria.co.uk, this is slightly more cheaper from the looks of it. Actually i found this cool article on techpowerup which lists all the UK online PC selling websites. So aria provides the same monitor for 82+free delivery. Anyways a final roundup of stuff is:

• MOBO: MSI G-43 Z87 +Cooler Master Watercooler seidon for 110+free delivery so this is much better deal i think.
• CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.00GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 for 145.
• RAM: G.Skill RipjawsX 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit for 55
• G.Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 OC 2GB GDDR5 for 200.
• HDD: WD 1TB Black Desktop Drive for 65 on ebuyer, seagate one is for 50.
• Optical Drive: LiteOn IHAS120-04 DVD+/-RW Super AllWrite 20x SATA Internal Drive - Black for 13 £.
• SMPS: OCZ ZT Series 650 Watt 80PLUS Bronze Performance Fully Modular Power Supply - OCZ-ZT650W-UK for 62
• Monitor: 21.5" BenQ G2250 Widescreen LCD DVI Monitor for 82.
• Case: Novatech Commander Mid Tower Case - Black - No PSU for 26 £

Total: 758 pounds. The best i could muster right now and i haven't checked most of the things right now but that's the rough estimate. Card i choose is i think pretty good, i mean on crysis 3 it's giving:
(even on extreme it gives above 30+fps and this is crysis we're talking about)
And it totally clobbers cool games like sleeping dogs:


Skyrim gives around an average of 100 fps and minimum 78fps with high resolution texture packs.

[AtheistDane]

Looks good. That GFX is going to complement that 21.5'' monitor very well.
The mobo bundle with closed watercooling kit is not going to matter much with that CPU, not being a K-model means it's not going to overclock very far/at all.
Make sure the RAM is LP (low-profile), or else you might come up against incompatibility issues with the CPU cooling, due to RAM heatsink height.

Those benchmarks are undoubtedly with a much higher-end CPU, so performance from the system you have come up with is going to be different.

This is what I would suggest:
ASUS Z87 PLUS Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
Thermalright Macho 120 Performance CPU Cooler
PALIT JetStream GeForce GTX 760 OC 2048MB GDDR5 Graphics Card
8GB (2x4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Dual Channel Kit [BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU]
600W Corsair Builder Series CX600M 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive - HDD
Samsung 224DB 24x DVD Re-Writer - SATA - Black - OEM
21.5" BenQ G2250 Widescreen LCD DVI Monitor
BitFenix Merc Alpha Black Midi Tower Gaming Case
Approx. Delivery £10.87
Total £878.38

Its over budget, but that machine will do gaming for 3-4 years to come.

[Totalheadache]

Looks good. That GFX is going to complement that 21.5'' monitor very well.
The mobo bundle with closed watercooling kit is not going to matter much with that CPU, not being a K-model means it's not going to overclock very far/at all.
Make sure the RAM is LP (low-profile), or else you might come up against incompatibility issues with the CPU cooling, due to RAM heatsink height.

Those benchmarks are undoubtedly with a much higher-end CPU, so performance from the system you have come up with is going to be different.

This is what is would suggest:
ASUS Z87 PLUS Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard
Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
Thermalright Macho 120 Performance CPU Cooler
PALIT JetStream GeForce GTX 760 OC 2048MB GDDR5 Graphics Card
8GB (2x4GB) Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Dual Channel Kit [BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU]
600W Corsair Builder Series CX600M 80PLUS Bronze Modular Power Supply
1TB Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive - HDD
Samsung 224DB 24x DVD Re-Writer - SATA - Black - OEM
21.5" BenQ G2250 Widescreen LCD DVI Monitor
BitFenix Merc Alpha Black Midi Tower Gaming Case
Approx. Delivery £10.87
Total £878.38

Its over budget, but that machine will do gaming for 3-4 years to come.

yep i second this build.

have only ever used overclockers and ebuyer and scan...i use these because have had to rma in the past and can get someone on the phone. not saying aria is bad perhaps...

if u want i can contact a few people with their opinions on aria for you..

i'd perhaps want to spend a bit more on the case...but it looks ok.

[Ishan]

Looks good. That GFX is going to complement that 21.5'' monitor very well.
The mobo bundle with closed watercooling kit is not going to matter much with that CPU, not being a K-model means it's not going to overclock very far/at all.
Make sure the RAM is LP (low-profile), or else you might come up against incompatibility issues with the CPU cooling, due to RAM heatsink height.

Those benchmarks are undoubtedly with a much higher-end CPU, so performance from the system you have come up with is going to be different.

Thanks and yeah GPU is something i'm not willing to compromise with.
And you're right & i know about the K series, with 30 more pounds one can take advantage (which is actually a great advantage in gaming) of that as well but budget is really the issue and thus i was actually thinking of getting a MOBO in Intel H87 chipset. Something like this:
MSI H87M-E33 Intel H87 (Socket 1150) Motherboard
Same processor can fit in there but the downside is obviously no OCing of CPU at all. This actually saves 31 from the grand total i made last and now i get 758-31 = 727 £. Which is something i'm aiming for.
And RAM is fine height wise, i checked that.
And you're right they were using i7-3770K on stock @3.5Ghz. RAM was @1600Mhz so i doubt there will be a vast difference in 0.5 Ghz, unless i'm seriously underestimating this. It gave a rough estimate to me, so we can minus 10-15 fps.

yep i second this build.

have only ever used overclockers and ebuyer and scan...i use these because have had to rma in the past and can get someone on the phone. not saying aria is bad perhaps...

if u want i can contact a few people with their opinions on aria for you..

i'd perhaps want to spend a bit more on the case...but it looks ok.

I have used scan for another buddy about a year ago or so. And we bought 460ti and stuff and he was quite satisfied with the built at the time. Prices there now are higher in comparison to the one i'm seeing at novatech, aria, ebuyer. And the techpower artcile says that these are also reliable but i have no idea about RMA so if you have contacts then please confirm this from your buddies.

And yeah case...trust me i wanted to go for something far better but, as again, budge is the issue. It's spacious:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And has an intake\exhaust fan in the front\rear as well.

Edit:
Oh you're online crazy, lemme read your posts.

Edit2:
@Jom
I saw far cry as well and that's why i chose this card:

So excluding the CPU factor and with a little compromise here and there in game settings. Far cry can easily give you 60+ fps with GTX760.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

Ill take a look in a few see what I can come up with.

Is this primarily a Total War system or ?????

[Jom]

Ill take a look in a few see what I can come up with.

Is this primarily a Total War system or ?????

I won't be playing Total War exclusively; I would also like to be able to play relatively new shooters like Spec Ops: The Line and Far Cry 3 with medium-high settings and no FPS drop.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

This is what I would recommend since overclocking wasnt mentioned a Z87 board is not necessary. This will max every game out there except Skyrim with a large amount of mods and thats entirely due to Vram buffer.

Selling the free game that comes with the GPU should allow you to pocket another £15 dropping the price £790. Sticking with the stock cooler would also drop prices however I have played with haswell and tested some 15 coolers with it already. The stock cooling is inadequate for daily use.

Changing ram and cooler while not as pretty can save a few more bucks.

Optimal:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£148.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC12DX_RD 68.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£39.74 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£71.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£60.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.32 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£206.11 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£39.58 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£52.20 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.91 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: ViewSonic VG2236wm-LED 22.0" Monitor (£122.66 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £805.18

Budget:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£148.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.62 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£71.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£60.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£49.32 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£206.11 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£39.58 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V Power Supply (£52.20 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.91 @ Scan.co.uk)
Monitor: ViewSonic VG2236wm-LED 22.0" Monitor (£122.66 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £789.06

Sell the game for £15 drops the price to £775

[Blau&Gruen]

Crazyeyesreaper's looks good,

for about £155

Intel Core i5-4570

[Crazyeyesreaper]

In gaming the 4430 will be fine the only games where CPU overclocking on the new arch delievers tangible benefits is Shogun 2 / Skyrim with mods / and a select few others. Otherwise in most of todays newer games theres little benefit. This why AMD can still somewhat compete in the CPU market place because while they are slower games dont really need as much processing power certain games are exceptions to the rule but are not the rule themselves. As such your choice was actually fairly balanced you just picked out a higher end mobo than you actually needed to pull off the build.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/201...l-cpu-review/5

Going with a higher end CPU granted increasing the clock speed by 1.2 GHz = min fps gain of 3 from 28 to 31 in Shogun 2
In Skyrim it was a 10-11 fps gain on minimum frame rates. The increase in performance doesnt justifty the cost for most users. Myself yes it does for a budget build so someone can get there game on? not so much.

[Ishan]

Yeah exactly crazy and in my previous post i picked another MOBO from H87 series, instead of Z87, since we can't take benefit of OCing in that processor anyways, that saves another 31 bucks for us. Any drawbacks of H87 that i might not be aware of?

You're right about these games since it has many calculations to put as number of variables are too much on 3D terrain. Skyrim on the on other hand can cope with a 2GB G.Card and with lesser cells loaded where one doesn't push the machine to see far far areas.

[Jom]

I doubt I'll ever play Skyrim so you don't have to worry about getting good performance with it.

The Witcher 3 on the other hand...

[Ishan]

My PC is 4-5 years old now and even i could max witcher 2, with ubersampling off of course. Processor was OCed at 4.0Ghz, RAM@2002Mhz and XfireX HD5870s. And considering that you're buying the latest line right now this will easily kick Witcher 3, perhaps not on the extreme settings but definitely high. 2GB of VRAM will also help in open world games where terrain and their HR textures and stuff consume a lot of VRAM.

And it will run GTA5 pretty good as well. Considering Max Payne 3 was also released by rockstar. Not open world like GTA but i could run it at max settings and your current build here is definitely superior to mine.

I doubt I'll ever play Skyrim

Noooo! You must play it. Witcher 2 and Skyrim are one of the best games i have played in a very long time.

[Totalheadache]

i'll ask a few british guys over @guru. reason being they are always ordering new stuff so will let you know. i cant foresee a problem but for me having a company that u can ring and has good rma dept is quite important.

re the cpu i'd really recommend getting one you can overclock. it really does add a nice fps boost...ok maybe not so drastic in some games but that's limited due to the engine. (i tend to think that cpu overclock + gpu overclock can be a good 20fps...but you need the right case/coolers etc).

and i prefer crazyeyes case choice

but if ocing i'd feel safer with a 550w. and if you can squeeze out more then a more beefier psu gives u the options to sli/xfire. that said i am a single gpu man so far...and yeah nvidia for total wars so far.

scan has been fine for me.

p.s ok if budget is a real issue than ok stick to limits but in my experience it is better now to spend that bit more on a cpu/case/psu etc then find out x months down the line you think damm why didnt i? but the beauty with building your own is you can rebuild/change and you learn more.

took me several rebuilds/new coolers/diff gpus to get to where i was satisfied.

[Ishan]

i'll ask a few british guys over @guru. reason being they are always ordering new stuff so will let you know.

Thanks mate.

p.s ok if budget is a real issue than ok stick to limits but in my experience it is better now to spend that bit more on a cpu/case/psu etc then find out x months down the line you think damm why didnt i? but the beauty with building your own is you can rebuild/change and you learn more.

took me several rebuilds/new coolers/diff gpus to get to where i was satisfied.

All your points are sound and i agree but unlike you and me, my friend here isn't a PC enthusiast. Not that he's shy and can't OC his machine, he can easily grasp all of this but with his current budget and his limited interest in games i doubt he would want to dive into this field.

That's why i chose a 650W PSU first of all along with a Z87 MOBO as i was keeping future upgrade in mind. We need to make a final list with all the possible options and then perhaps he can rethink about all of this. There's no rush for this right now.

well so far three responses and they all say aria is fine. some have brought stuff recently so i think that solves an initial question of the op.

Great! Thanks, i would rep you more but have to wait to give it again.

[Totalheadache]

well so far three responses and they all say aria is fine. some have brought stuff recently so i think that solves an initial question of the op.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

the system as i configured it wont use over 335w at load

165w for the TDP at maximum load under Furmark
Peak game load is 161w with the average being in the 140 range

CPU is 84w max it will draw in an FPU intensive situation aka if you did overclock and used an AVX extention app to test with it raises the voltage higher than normal the chip will hit 104-110w power draw WORST case senario

thats 110w + 165w = 275w when both CPU and GPU are stressed to the limit. No software today actually does that as such more typical game load will be around 240-250w

Guru3D with a power hungry SB-E rig hit 280W maximum with game stress testing.

1 HDD will peak at 25w a few case fans and cpu fans will use another 10w-15w maximum Optical 10w total system power consumption at maximum possible load = 325w worst case senario. out of 500w. the CX 500 can output 465w on the 12v rails so its a non issue if you feel worried just grab the CX 600.
http://www.scan.co.uk/products/600w-...et-fan-atx-psu
The CX600 can output 522w which puts the systems power consumption at the magical 50% point where its at maximum efficiency.

[Jom]

I know you guys are working hard to find me a nice build, but I would quite like to stick closer to the £700 budget, as I will need an operating system and peripherals (keyboard, headset).

[Crazyeyesreaper]

closest your gonna get to what your looking for without sacrificing quality is what I have picked out going any lower requires dropping to AMD CPUs which will require overclocking to hit there stride performance wise and need a beefier PSU that or drop the GPU down another level which compromises long term usefulness. Ive gotten it as cheap as I can without getting into super budget territory. Managed to keep a 1080p screen a GPU that can push it properly a CPU that will last a few years enough memory to be consistant going forward.

Dropping down now will compromise performance in one way or another either CPU or GPU and of course that impacts games and software differently.

[Ishan]

Crazy is right dude. And read my PM and i will post a new refined list again tomorrow and then we will see if we really have to downgrade it or not.

Going to bed now, goodnight!

[Heinz Guderian]

if Jom gets a desktop build that you guys suggest, i'll probably get it as well. Then he and I will make a "lets make" video building it.