Question for PC enthusiasts

[Dark Drakan]

Been talking about this a lot with friends including Steve, @Azer249 and @Gikoku (as well as some companies on Facebook and Twitter but I'm interested to see what others have to say about it. If you had around £800-£1000 to build a PC what sort of PC would you build? Im interested to see if there is any pattern in the specs people pick as im looking to build my own rig in next few months and would love to know what others would build if they could. You can be as detailed as you wish with things like the following:​

Case:
Motherboard:
CPU:
GPU:
RAM:
Power Supply:
Hard Drive:
SSD:
Windows Version:
Monitor:

So what type of PC would you build with around £800-£1000? Can even include links to pictures/websites if you wish.​

 

[Azer249]

Case

Motherboard

CPU

GPU

RAM

Power Supply:

Hard Drive:

SSD

Windows Version

If i'm pushing everything to the absolute limit here, and not including the Heatsink (you could get one of those for an extra £50 and £52 with arctic silver thermal paste , i'd go for a Noctua one) thats around £1009.51.

Some price could be saved on stuff like the Motherboard, Case but everything else that i've selected there is what i believe to be some of the best value for money in terms of both performance and Future proofing. Obviously the SSD will be enough to put the OS and a few other things on, so if you just wanted one for the OS, you could buy a 64GB and save yourself around £20~

(PS: Don't mention Phantom cases or i will eat you. They ugly.)

 

[Dark Drakan]

If i'm pushing everything to the absolute limit here, and not including the Heatsink (you could get one of those for an extra £50 and £52 with arctic silver thermal paste , i'd go for a Noctua one) thats around £1009.51.

Some price could be saved on stuff like the Motherboard, Case but everything else that i've selected there is what i believe to be some of the best value for money in terms of both performance and Future proofing. Obviously the SSD will be enough to put the OS and a few other things on, so if you just wanted one for the OS, you could buy a 64GB and save yourself around £20~

(PS: Don't mention Phantom cases or i will eat you. They ugly.)

Thanks for all those suggestions, if I went for that exact rig you listed I could get it for a little over £900 with Amys staff discount from Amazon (10% off) though Processor and Motherboard arent stocked by Amazon so no discount on them unfortunately. Still have to factor in a monitor too as forgot to include it in original list (now been added to first post).

You would opt for Windows 7 over Windows 8 then? I know your an AMD guy over nVidia for your own rig so can see price wise why you went for the R9280X over a more expensive nVidia card. Going to see some CD Drives too, though I do have a bag of them in my loft from old rigs I have stripped down. Have spare USB Keyboard and mouse at least so can save cash on them for a while before I buy better ones.

(PS: Don't mention Phantom cases or i will eat you. They ugly.)

You mean like this?

 

[Azer249]

Thanks for all those suggestions, if I went for that exact rig you listed I could get it for a little over £900 with Amys staff discount from Amazon (10% off) though Processor and Motherboard arent stocked by Amazon so no discount on them unfortunately. Still have to factor in a monitor too as forgot to include it in original list (now been added to first post).

You would opt for Windows 7 over Windows 8 then? I know your an AMD guy over nVidia for your own rig so can see price wise why you went for the R9280X over a more expensive nVidia card. Going to see some CD Drives too, though I do have a bag of them in my loft from old rigs I have stripped down. Have spare USB Keyboard and mouse at least so can save cash on them for a while before I buy better ones.

Thats a really good price and if you want me to cut something down, i would suggest something like the Ram branding, Motherboard and case, things like Powersupply you want to keep the same because branding in that case, is really everything and you can't do much better than Corsair (for price and reliability terms)

I would opt for Windows 7 over Windows 8, anyday. I just hate 8 so much and even with all of the updates to 8.1, it isn't something i would go for as basically everything is still compatible with Windows 7 and it's generally a lot more reliable. As for going for AMD over Nvidia, i'm not really.. any guy in terms of branding just in all honesty this year, AMD did bring out all of the stocks. Before this card i was completely Nvidia and wouldn't change but with all of the improvements and adjustments AMD did to their new series, little things like Mantle and prices give them the edge over Nvidia. You can get a same spec card or better for around £40 less with AMD these days or even more.

You mean like this?

*Burns eyes out*
IT'S TERRIFYING.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Thats a really good price and if you want me to cut something down, i would suggest something like the Ram branding, Motherboard and case, things like Powersupply you want to keep the same because branding in that case, is really everything and you can't do much better than Corsair (for price and reliability terms)

I would opt for Windows 7 over Windows 8, anyday. I just hate 8 so much and even with all of the updates to 8.1, it isn't something i would go for as basically everything is still compatible with Windows 7 and it's generally a lot more reliable. As for going for AMD over Nvidia, i'm not really.. any guy in terms of branding just in all honesty this year, AMD did bring out all of the stocks. Before this card i was completely Nvidia and wouldn't change but with all of the improvements and adjustments AMD did to their new series, little things like Mantle and prices give them the edge over Nvidia. You can get a same spec card or better for around £40 less with AMD these days or even more.

*Burns eyes out*
IT'S TERRIFYING.

Still not settled on a case yet but leaving that until I have finalised components. Biggest struggle is going to be opting for which GPU to go for I think (besides the case). Really struggling on whether to opt for cheaper AMD or stick with what I know with nVidia (owned Radeon card in past too). Also struggling with models as there are so many & so many brands of that model too.

Undecided on 16gb or 8gb RAM yet just got to find brand & good price & see price difference. Might end up with 8gb to save me some cash & upgrade in future.

Definitely going Intel for CPU so will research one you suggested & alternates like the Intel Core i7 i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz), I can get the 4770k for £209.68 with discount as it's stocked by Amazon & the 4790k is £258 (will search to see if I can find one cheaper). Is it worth price difference? If I can get discount on it then I could get 4790k for £232.80 so around £23.12 difference. On phone at work currently so can't check full spec differences would it be worth the original £48.32 price difference?

Choice of windows version comes down to lifespan, compatibility & price.

 

[Gikoku]

Still not settled on a case yet but leaving that until I have finalised components. Biggest struggle is going to be opting for which GPU to go for I think (besides the case). Really struggling on whether to opt for cheaper AMD or stick with what I know with nVidia (owned Radeon card in past too). Also struggling with models as there are so many & so many brands of that model too.

Undecided on 16gb or 8gb RAM yet just got to find brand & good price & see price difference. Might end up with 8gb to save me some cash & upgrade in future.

Definitely going Intel for CPU so will research one you suggested & alternates like the Intel Core i7 i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz), I can get the 4770k for £209.68 with discount as it's stocked by Amazon & the 4790k is £258 (will search to see if I can find one cheaper). Is it worth price difference? If I can get discount on it then I could get 4790k for £232.80 so around £23.12 difference. On phone at work currently so can't check full spec differences would it be worth the original £48.32 price difference?

Choice of windows version comes down to lifespan, compatibility & price.

When it comes to the varied brands of GPU models I only bother with EVGA & XFX due to their consistency with good quality while managing to not break the bank so much. I also wouldn't bother with pre-overclocked GPUs, save yourself the money and just OC it yourself if it ever becomes necessary.

I'd settle with 8GB for now, there's hardly any games that demand and justify going over the 8GB mark and I don't expect it to get widespread anytime soon just yet. RAM is the cheapest performance part of the rig anyway, so it's not that a big a deal with upgrading. DDR4 memory is on it's way so it'd be worth looking into some boards that will be prepared to support it down the line. I think Asus' Maximus VII line has support for DDR4, I can't remember off the top of my head right now.

I'll do some digging today and get some parts together for you as well, but the one Aaron put together is a nice one worth looking into.

Windows 7 is still heavily supported and many devs prefer it to Windows 8, plus it does have better compatibility with older games than Win8. On the flipside, despite the gimmicks it has Win8 has better performance and optimization than Win7. Windows 7 currently runs for £70 while 8 is just over £80, so it's more a toss up.. better performance, touch gimmick, and 10 extra pounds vs. better compatibility. Microsoft isn't going to go and drop support for 7 anytime soon, hell they still support Vista right now and we know how long it took for them to finally say goodbye to XP.

Like I mentioned on FB, I like Windows 8 better, silly gimmicks aside, it's essentially a faster Windows 7.

 

[Dark Drakan]

When it comes to the varied brands of GPU models I only bother with EVGA & XFX due to their consistency with good quality while managing to not break the bank so much. I also wouldn't bother with pre-overclocked GPUs, save yourself the money and just OC it yourself if it ever becomes necessary.

Duly noted & everyone's suggestions are being logged, considered & researched. Just compiling lists at the moment of potential brands & components while I let my money build up. Would have to research overclocking too as something I've never tried my hand at & from what I have been told nVidia make it easier to overclock their products with tools etc.

I'd settle with 8GB for now, there's hardly any games that demand and justify going over the 8GB mark and I don't expect it to get widespread anytime soon just yet. RAM is the cheapest performance part of the rig anyway, so it's not that a big a deal with upgrading. DDR4 memory is on it's way so it'd be worth looking into some boards that will be prepared to support it down the line. I think Asus' Maximus VII line has support for DDR4, I can't remember off the top of my head right now.

Think I will opt for 8GB to save little bit of cash to put elsewhere as I can upgrade when needed. Heard DDR4 is coming but is expensive from preorder prices I've seen but I would like to consider it down line when prices come down. Also heard that it's the X99 motherboards that support it along with the new Haswell-E CPUs but they are £299.44 average price & that's rather expensive.

I'll do some digging today and get some parts together for you as well, but the one Aaron put together is a nice one worth looking into.

Windows 7 is still heavily supported and many devs prefer it to Windows 8, plus it does have better compatibility with older games than Win8. On the flipside, despite the gimmicks it has Win8 has better performance and optimization than Win7. Windows 7 currently runs for £70 while 8 is just over £80, so it's more a toss up.. better performance, touch gimmick, and 10 extra pounds vs. better compatibility. Microsoft isn't going to go and drop support for 7 anytime soon, hell they still support Vista right now and we know how long it took for them to finally say goodbye to XP.

Like I mentioned on FB, I like Windows 8 better, silly gimmicks aside, it's essentially a faster Windows 7.

I have every part Aaron listed bookmarked & just finalising some things. Also looking into alternates that could have slightly better performance in areas for not much difference in price. Like the 2 Intel processors I listed above & if other is worth getting over the suggested one. Didn't have chance to look into it properly yesterday as I went to the cinema.

Will decide windows version after I have finally taken plunge on parts. Going to weigh up pros & cons of each.

EDIT Found some more parts stocked by Amazon and prices have been varying day by day.

ALL SUGGESTIONS AND THOUGHTS ON FOLLOWING PARTS ARE WELCOME​

Potential rig so far:

Case: CM Storm Scout II (Not fully decided yet)

Motherboard:
Asus Z87-PRO USB 3.0 Motherboard (4x DDR3, ATX, 2x PCI Express 3.0/2.0)
OR
ASUS Z87-PRO Socket 1150 4xDDR3 Max 32GB ATX Intel Z87 PCI-E

CPU:
Intel Core i7 4770K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.50GHz)
OR
Intel Core i7 i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz)

GPU:
Asus R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 1070MHz 3GB GDDR 5 PCI Express Graphics Card OR
EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5

RAM: HyperX Genesis DDR3 1600MHz CL9 8GB DIMM Memory Module (8GB)

Power Supply: Corsair CP-9020056-UK RM Series RM850 80 Plus Gold 850W

Hard Drive: WD 1 TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive

SSD: Crucial CT120M500SSD1 120GB M500 SATA

Windows Version: Windows 7

I keep forgetting about the monitor & CD Drives too so some parts might need to be tweaked a little depending on prices of those. I know decent monitors are pricey, might just have to bite the bullet as say I won't be able to keep it under £1000 for what I want.

 

[Gikoku]

Think I will opt for 8GB to save little bit of cash to put elsewhere as I can upgrade when needed. Heard DDR4 is coming but is expensive from preorder prices I've seen but I would like to consider it down line when prices come down. Also heard that it's the X99 motherboards that support it along with the new Haswell-E CPUs but they are £299.44 average price & that's rather expensive.

Good deal. Yeah, they're not cheap at all, only reason I mention to keep an eye out is so you don't have to bother upgrading your mobo anytime soon just to keep up with DDR4 (as you'll have to reinstall most of your parts all over again, the annoying ones anyway) whenever it catches on (especially if you end up plopping a large sum on a DDR3 mobo). As DDR4's pin set isn't backwards compatible with DDR3 slots unfortunately . Double checked and yeah, the Maximus VII line isn't prepped for DDR4, though whichever you go with you should be just fine regardless until DDR4 becomes more affordable.

Potential rig so far:

Case: CM Storm Scout II (Not fully decided yet)

Motherboard:
Asus Z87-PRO USB 3.0 Motherboard (4x DDR3, ATX, 2x PCI Express 3.0/2.0)
OR
ASUS Z87-PRO Socket 1150 4xDDR3 Max 32GB ATX Intel Z87 PCI-E

CPU:
Intel Core i7 4770K Quad Core Retail CPU (Socket 1150, 3.50GHz)
OR
Intel Core i7 i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz)

GPU:
Asus R9280X-DC2T-3GD5 1070MHz 3GB GDDR 5 PCI Express Graphics Card OR
EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5

RAM: HyperX Genesis DDR3 1600MHz CL9 8GB DIMM Memory Module (8GB)

Power Supply: Corsair CP-9020056-UK RM Series RM850 80 Plus Gold 850W

Hard Drive: WD 1 TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive

SSD: Crucial CT120M500SSD1 120GB M500 SATA

Windows Version: Windows 7

I keep forgetting about the monitor & CD Drives too so some parts might need to be tweaked a little depending on prices of those. I know decent monitors are pricey, might just have to bite the bullet as say I won't be able to keep it under £1000 for what I want.

I'd hold off on SSD for now unless you're adamant about lightning fast OS functions & booting speeds, doesn't do a whole lot from a purely gaming perspective. If you have the cash to burn after everything then I see no harm having an SSD for your OS installation and a HDD for everything else.

That EVGA GTX 780 is so grossly overpriced it's not even funny, considering it only offers around a 20% improvement over the "old" GTX 680 cards. But I blame nVidia more than anyone else, the 780 shouldn't exist in my opinion. 2 GTX 680s would annihilate that 780 and doing SLI with them would be cheaper than a straight upgrade to the 780 to give you an idea. Don't have enough time at the moment to check the benchmarks of that Asus card, but I will later tonight.

HDD is a good choice for it's performance and size, plus WD are always nice.
I like the price and power of that Corsair PSU, but as I've never used Corsair power supplies before I can't really speak on their reliability, I've only used OCZ but haven't seen any good models at the moment on Amazon (maybe it's the just poor search engine -_-). I like the RAM though I'm sure you can go a bit cheaper than that for the same. For the CPU I'd go with the 4770k, it's cheaper, uses less power, and if necessary it can always be overclocked to 4GHz. I wish I could recommend a 6 or 8 core CPU, but their prices are really funky. :/

I like the first Asus motherboard, though it should be noted the 3rd-party sellers are offering some much nicer prices in comparison, does it have to be sold from Amazon directly to get the discount or just through Amazon's site regardless? Because saving on each part will easily add up overall.

I'll have a better opinion later tonight when I come back as well as a rig put together. ^_^

 

[Dark Drakan]

Good deal. Yeah, they're not cheap at all, only reason I mention to keep an eye out is so you don't have to bother upgrading your mobo anytime soon just to keep up with DDR4 (as you'll have to reinstall most of your parts all over again, the annoying ones anyway) whenever it catches on (especially if you end up plopping a large sum on a DDR3 mobo). As DDR4's pin set isn't backwards compatible with DDR3 slots unfortunately . Double checked and yeah, the Maximus VII line isn't prepped for DDR4, though whichever you go with you should be just fine regardless until DDR4 becomes more affordable.

Not a great deal of affordable DDR4 compatible motherboards out there from what I have seen. If you find any I'm all ears however.

I'd hold off on SSD for now unless you're adamant about lightning fast OS functions & booting speeds, doesn't do a whole lot from a purely gaming perspective. If you have the cash to burn after everything then I see no harm having an SSD for your OS installation and a HDD for everything else.

Main reason I was going to get one was because it's a pain reinstalling operating system so was going to opt for that to begin with. So I could install it straight to the SSD from the get go.

That EVGA GTX 780 is so grossly overpriced it's not even funny, considering it only offers around a 20% improvement over the "old" GTX 680 cards. But I blame nVidia more than anyone else, the 780 shouldn't exist in my opinion. 2 GTX 680s would annihilate that 780 and doing SLI with them would be cheaper than a straight upgrade to the 780 to give you an idea. Don't have enough time at the moment to check the benchmarks of that Asus card, but I will later tonight.

I will have to take a look at prices of the GTX 680 & what benchmarks they get during SLI & see differences to see if it's worth going that route.

HDD is a good choice for it's performance and size, plus WD are always nice.

I like the price and power of that Corsair PSU, but as I've never used Corsair power supplies before I can't really speak on their reliability, I've only used OCZ but haven't seen any good models at the moment on Amazon (maybe it's the just poor search engine -_-).

I will keep the HD bookmarked as seems most think its decent so far.

Heard loads of good things about Corsair from people so will keep that on the list too currently.

I like the RAM though I'm sure you can go a bit cheaper than that for the same. For the CPU I'd go with the 4770k, it's cheaper, uses less power, and if necessary it can always be overclocked to 4GHz. I wish I could recommend a 6 or 8 core CPU, but their prices are really funky. :/

I like the first Asus motherboard, though it should be noted the 3rd-party sellers are offering some much nicer prices in comparison, does it have to be sold from Amazon directly to get the discount or just through Amazon's site regardless? Because saving on each part will easily add up overall.

I'll have a better opinion later tonight when I come back as well as a rig put together. ^_^

RAM I'm still researching brands etc but it's one of cheaper components so not likely to be that much in it.

The 4770k isn't that much cheaper overall & could likely get higher benchmarks with 4790k overclocked too & price isn't much different.

To get Amazon discount it has to be stocked by Amazon themselves & sold by them rather than 3rd party seller.

Thanks again for all your advice man I really appreciate it.

 

[Gikoku]

Not a great deal of affordable DDR4 compatible motherboards out there from what I have seen. If you find any I'm all ears however.

I'll keep an eye out if I spot anything.

Main reason I was going to get one was because it's a pain reinstalling operating system so was going to opt for that to begin with. So I could install it straight to the SSD from the get go.

That's fine and a good plan, but you can definitely go cheaper than that with SSD, like I said on FB an older SSD model from 3 years ago will still offer a serious improvement over a HDD, no need to pay more when you don't need to.

I will have to take a look at prices of the GTX 680 & what benchmarks they get during SLI & see differences to see if it's worth going that route.

Problem with 680 is that nVidia and fellow manufacturers no longer officially sell it, you'll only find used copies of it on Amazon and for over $300 (more in pounds) at that, with the 780 being the successor. On top of that nVidia is releasing the new GTX 800 series this year, so plopping down over $500-600 on a 780 only for the GTX 880 to come out at the rumored $400-450 would be kicking yourself in the nuts. Don't do it.

I will keep the HD bookmarked as seems most think its decent so far.

Heard loads of good things about Corsair from people so will keep that on the list too currently.

Oh they're great in general, I'm just more used to them when it comes to RAM. :lol:

RAM I'm still researching brands etc but it's one of cheaper components so not likely to be that much in it.

The 4770k isn't that much cheaper overall & could likely get higher benchmarks with 4790k overclocked too & price isn't much different.

To get Amazon discount it has to be stocked by Amazon themselves & sold by them rather than 3rd party seller.

Thanks again for all your advice man I really appreciate it.

Yeah, there won't be much difference when it comes to RAM prices of the same performance other than brand name (and the store you buy from). Corsair is more popular with RAM, but I don't see anything wrong with the HyperX you have listed.

True, I guess if you're going to be throwing around over £200 per piece, a 20 or 30 pound difference isn't going to really matter, but differences like that per piece can again add up to or over 100 pounds in the end. Just don't want you going overkill on the specs and prices when you're probably going to upgrade stuff 3, 4, or 5 years from now. :lol:

Damn, was hoping that wasn't the case. No worries though, I'm always glad to help. ^_^

Here's what I managed to come up with some of the parts:

Trying Newegg first at the moment as they have better deals and stock on some parts right now, plus they do global also.

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 1600 (£49)

PSU: Corsair CP-9020056-UK RM Series RM850 80 Plus Gold 850W (£99)

CPU: Intel i7-4790K Haswell Quad-Core 4.0GHz (£209)

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII HERO ATX Intel (£131)

HDD: WD Black Series 1TB (£59)

That's £547 so far.

Still looking for a good case, but the one Aaron recommended has excellent functionality which at the end of the day is far more important than looks. I'm going to dig around more on the case anyway, SSD, and GPU, but I would say not to jump on the GPU just yet and to wait and see what nVidia has planned for the prices of their new GTX 800s, that way you can skip the 700s.

 

[Dark Drakan]

That's fine and a good plan, but you can definitely go cheaper than that with SSD, like I said on FB an older SSD model from 3 years ago will still offer a serious improvement over a HDD, no need to pay more when you don't need to.

Still looking into brands and cheaper ones than placeholder I have listed as like you said there are cheaper out there.

Problem with 680 is that nVidia and fellow manufacturers no longer officially sell it, you'll only find used copies of it on Amazon and for over $300 (more in pounds) at that, with the 780 being the successor. On top of that nVidia is releasing the new GTX 800 series this year, so plopping down over $500-600 on a 780 only for the GTX 880 to come out at the rumored $400-450 would be kicking yourself in the nuts. Don't do it.

One of last things im going to buy as I had heard the rumoured price point for the new 800 series so I was going to wait and see when they were officially unveiled.

Yeah, there won't be much difference when it comes to RAM prices of the same performance other than brand name (and the store you buy from). Corsair is more popular with RAM, but I don't see anything wrong with the HyperX you have listed.

I could get 16GB RAM for £100 on brand you listed which is less than £11 more than the 8GB of HyperX RAM.

True, I guess if you're going to be throwing around over £200 per piece, a 20 or 30 pound difference isn't going to really matter, but differences like that per piece can again add up to or over 100 pounds in the end. Just don't want you going overkill on the specs and prices when you're probably going to upgrade stuff 3, 4, or 5 years from now. :lol:

Well from the different suggestions on RAM and Processor alone if I went with Newegg I would save around £94 (without postage and discount taken into account). However discount and postage still wouldnt bridge the gap so would definitely think about going for Newegg on that front if I went for those parts.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII HERO ATX Intel (£131)

HDD: WD Black Series 1TB (£59)

What are the differences between these and the ones in my original list above?

True, I guess if you're going to be throwing around over £200 per piece, a 20 or 30 pound difference isn't going to really matter, but differences like that per piece can again add up to or over 100 pounds in the end. Just don't want you going overkill on the specs and prices when you're probably going to upgrade stuff 3, 4, or 5 years from now. :lol:

Still looking for a good case, but the one Aaron recommended has excellent functionality which at the end of the day is far more important than looks. I'm going to dig around more on the case anyway, SSD, and GPU, but I would say not to jump on the GPU just yet and to wait and see what nVidia has planned for the prices of their new GTX 800s, that way you can skip the 700s.

If I can save money on the overall build but not have to compromise on performance too much then im happy to do so. I dont want to have to be spending hundreds of pounds in next year to upgrade so want to get something thats going to at least tide me over for a while. Thats the reason I made this thread for these very discussions and to see what is best value for money and what gives me the best bang for my buck.

 

[Gikoku]

I could get 16GB RAM for £100 on brand you listed which is less than £11 more than the 8GB of HyperX RAM.

Could do if you want, I see no harm once everything else is sorted and totaled and you have enough cash left to spare. Aside from Crysis 3, not much will make use of it though so it'll just end up sitting there mostly, Skyrim certainly won't do anything with it. :lol:

Well from the different suggestions on RAM and Processor alone if I went with Newegg I would save around £94 (without postage and discount taken into account). However discount and postage still wouldnt bridge the gap so would definitely think about going for Newegg on that front if I went for those parts.

No harm in it, got all my parts from Newegg and Newegg is typically cheaper than Amazon. Though their search engine could do with an overhaul, was a pain searching for PSUs on Newegg last night. -_-

What are the differences between these and the ones in my original list above?

For the HDD, nothing, but the reviews on Amazon were very concerning as many people were getting botched packaging with damaged drives (from as recently as last month). For the motherboard it has the Z97 chipset which is a bit more future-proof, plus doing everything the other ones do at a lower price (minus built-in wifi, but you can get a USB one for dirt cheap). The Z87-PRO is more in line with the Maximus VI Hero which even then the VI was the better board as it provided better audio and power delivery. VII Hero is the successor.

Also, the z87 chipset boards aren't even compatible with the i7-4790K by default, which uses a z97 chip. You'd have to do a BIOS update to make them play along together. Better to save the money and hassle and get the more up to date VII Hero which is considered a great combo anyway.

If I can save money on the overall build but not have to compromise on performance too much then im happy to do so. I dont want to have to be spending hundreds of pounds in next year to upgrade so want to get something thats going to at least tide me over for a while. Thats the reason I made this thread for these very discussions and to see what is best value for money and what gives me the best bang for my buck.

No worries there, the parts so far will keep you fine for plenty of years, until you get the itch to upgrade, by then DDR4 and 6-8 core processors might be more widespread and more affordable, if not, you'll still be fine (DDR4 is only necessary for extremely high-end rigs, 8+ cores and whatnot). I've only had to upgrade my GPU after about 4 years with my rig and I can max out Watch Dogs, NFS Rivals, Thief, heavily modded Skyrim, etc. And my rig is considered mid to upper-mid range, game specs aren't accelerating on a yearly basis like everyone seems to like to exaggerate lol.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Could do if you want, I see no harm once everything else is sorted and totaled and you have enough cash left to spare. Aside from Crysis 3, not much will make use of it though so it'll just end up sitting there mostly, Skyrim certainly won't do anything with it. :lol:

Yeah depending on overall spend I will make a decision on final RAM.

No harm in it, got all my parts from Newegg and Newegg is typically cheaper than Amazon. Though their search engine could do with an overhaul, was a pain searching for PSUs on Newegg last night. -_-

I will definitely check them out as heard good things, I get free next day delivery on Amazon with Amazon Prime (perks of Amys job). However if after the discount Newegg are still cheaper then I would definitely go for them.

For the HDD, nothing, but the reviews on Amazon were very concerning as many people were getting botched packaging with damaged drives (from as recently as last month). For the motherboard it has the Z97 chipset which is a bit more future-proof, plus doing everything the other ones do at a lower price (minus built-in wifi, but you can get a USB one for dirt cheap). The Z87-PRO is more in line with the Maximus VI Hero which even then the VI was the better board as it provided better audio and power delivery. VII Hero is the successor.

Also, the z87 chipset boards aren't even compatible with the i7-4790K by default, which uses a z97 chip. You'd have to do a BIOS update to make them play along together. Better to save the money and hassle and get the more up to date VII Hero which is considered a great combo anyway.

I see well the VII Hero is pretty well priced at around £25 more than original draft one that Aaron recommended.

No worries there, the parts so far will keep you fine for plenty of years, until you get the itch to upgrade, by then DDR4 and 6-8 core processors might be more widespread and more affordable, if not, you'll still be fine (DDR4 is only necessary for extremely high-end rigs, 8+ cores and whatnot). I've only had to upgrade my GPU after about 4 years with my rig and I can max out Watch Dogs, NFS Rivals, Thief, heavily modded Skyrim, etc. And my rig is considered mid to upper-mid range, game specs aren't accelerating on a yearly basis like everyone seems to like to exaggerate lol.

Yeah specs havent skyrocketed just wanted to make sure my starting range was closer to the higher end than the mid range as didnt want to be overhauling system again anytime soon.

Anyone have any monitor recommendations? Saw some nice 26 inch ones for decent prices.

 

[Dark Drakan]

Little update as I have had 3 drafts of components that I have been mixing and matching but next draft of parts looks like this, so any opinions would be most welcome...

Case: Corsair Carbide 300R (undecided on windowed or not) (£44.99)

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII HERO ATX Intel (£132.70)
OR
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H (£137.93)

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz) (£205.08)

CPU Cooler - NH-U14S - £60.90 (if I were to research overclocking & purchase somewhere down the line)

GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB - £395.90
OR
Nvidia GeForce GTX 800 series (unannounced and depending on price)

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 1600 (£48.25)

Power Supply: Corsair CP-9020056-UK RM Series RM850 80 Plus Gold 850W (£99.99)
OR
EVGA Super NOVA 850W PC Power Supply - Gold (£94.99)

Hard Drive: WD 1 TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive (£48.25)
OR
Toshiba 3TB 7200RPM (£86.98)

SSD: Crucial CT120M500SSD1 120GB M500 SATA (£50.99)

Optical Drive: LG 24x DVD Burner - £15.40

Windows Version: Windows 8 (£83.99)

Price overall is hovering around the £1100-£1200 mark currently so need a monitor on top of that too.

EDIT What is the difference between these? Struggling to get my head around some of the differences when things look the same besides one letter in the name. Amazon doesnt give you enough details to determine the differences. For £112.90 there doesnt look to be much in it judging by this.

Sapphire AMD R9 290X TRI-X OC Graphics Card (£395.90)
Sapphire AMD R9 290 TRI-X OC Graphics Card (£283.00)

 

[Azer249]

Case: Corsair Carbide 300R (undecided on windowed or not) (£44.99)
Id just go for the windowless, when you've had a window for like a year it kinda gets a bit annoying seeing all of the flashing lights and stuff inside the case. Im glad i have a windowless one now and there are still red LED's that make it look all fancy. Cases come down to personal preference really though, just get a mid tower at least and you'll be set.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII HERO ATX Intel (£132.70)
Personally i would be going for this one, overall ASUS boards have a lot more features than GIGA usually and are more reliable. Both of them are very good boards but speaking from experience, and from the two ASUS boards that i've had, they offer nice feature like easy CMOS clearing buttons and very nice BIOS layouts.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz) (£205.08)
Yep, great choice.

CPU Cooler - NH-U14S - £60.90 (if I were to research overclocking & purchase somewhere down the line)
Yep, also great choice, fans can be changed too i believe if you hate the nasty brown ones, but if you go for the windowless case it wont really matter. Noctua are an amazing company for fans though, my go to.

GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB - £395.90
On this point, i'd like to say i really don't like Saphire as they don't actually do much with the cards. As previously mentioned if you want a good card i'd go for something like an ASUS or a MSI. One for power (not a tonne more) and one for cooling. My personal preference on such a high end card would be the extra cooling, as the power wouldn't make that much of a difference that it was noticable on any games anyway. I'd go for something like this. MSI. My 280x is an MSI and has been working smoothly and cool playing everything at maximum settings for a long time now.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 800 series (unannounced and depending on price)
Can't really say anything on this but no clue when this is going to be announced, ill keep an eye out.

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 1600 (£48.25)
Not a fan of Ripjaws, i know plenty of people use it but it has the tendency to get quite hot and can be a bit pesky and unreliable. Personally i'd go for something like Corsair/Kingston, and i found this which would be a good, kinda the same price alternative. Looks pretty sexy too... (thinking of actually getting me some of that to upgrade all of my old HyperX ram.. )

Power Supply: Corsair CP-9020056-UK RM Series RM850 80 Plus Gold 850W (£99.99)
Corsair, without a doubt. They make amazing, reliable, and stable power supplys that never actually underput any of the voltage like a lot of other PSU's do. Personally Corsair has always been my PSU brand choice and the Gold certified proves that it's going to be a decent and reliable piece of kit. The alternative you said has the same rating, but c'mon? gotta whore one company right? (Gold certified basically means it has a better efficiency rating than normal power supplies, i think it's something like 85%-90% for gold, which is fantastic. A normal power supply without these certifications can have such crappy efficiency it's unreal. Never buy a PSU without an 80+ certification, a broken power supply could mean a broken rig sometimes)


Hard Drive: WD 1 TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive (£48.25)
I'd go for the WD, once a HD gets over 1TB in capacity and only has a 7200rpm speed, things will load considerably slower due to having to search the whole hard drive for specific files. If you're looking at it just for storage, do something like have your main SSD for the boot drive. A 1TB for games so that it do sent decrement the speed of texture loading and then if you need storage, a bigger HD for music and random files.

SSD: Crucial CT120M500SSD1 120GB M500 SATA (£50.99)
Yup, guessing this will be your boot drive, seems fine to me.

Optical Drive: LG 24x DVD Burner - £15.40
Does it read discs? it's fine!

As for the two different GPUS, even i have no damn idea why the price difference is so huge. My guess is they are the same card, named slightly different on different sites so the prices show up as different.

Could do if you want, I see no harm once everything else is sorted and totaled and you have enough cash left to spare. Aside from Crysis 3, not much will make use of it though so it'll just end up sitting there mostly, Skyrim certainly won't do anything with it. :lol:

But Giki, think of all the Ram he could dedicate to Minecraft! he might be able to run it at a whole 60fps with that much! Oh java.

I'm kidding, but i agree with Giki over here, you don't really need more than eight unless you plan to do video/graphics editing, in which case get 12-16.

 

[Gikoku]

Case: Corsair Carbide 300R (undecided on windowed or not) (£44.99)
Id just go for the windowless, when you've had a window for like a year it kinda gets a bit annoying seeing all of the flashing lights and stuff inside the case. Im glad i have a windowless one now and there are still red LED's that make it look all fancy. Cases come down to personal preference really though, just get a mid tower at least and you'll be set.

Couldn't agree more, as pretty as a window can be sometimes. If it doesn't come with a sliding door/cover, those bright ass LEDs are going to drive you nuts. I'll take extra vents any day, besides, the way my blue LEDs shine through the vents onto the walls makes it feel like I'm in a damn spaceship. I'm okay with that.

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 1600 (£48.25)
Not a fan of Ripjaws, i know plenty of people use it but it has the tendency to get quite hot and can be a bit pesky and unreliable. Personally i'd go for something like Corsair/Kingston, and i found this which would be a good, kinda the same price alternative. Looks pretty sexy too... (thinking of actually getting me some of that to upgrade all of my old HyperX ram.. )

Hmm, didn't know about that with the Ripjaws, saw their low price but overwhelming positive reviews and looked good enough. I always go for Corsair for RAM but their prices were a bit much compared to the US store, but the one you linked looks really nice. And if he decided to truly go for the VII Hero board those sticks will blend beautifully with it. ^_^

Power Supply: Corsair CP-9020056-UK RM Series RM850 80 Plus Gold 850W (£99.99)
Corsair, without a doubt. They make amazing, reliable, and stable power supplys that never actually underput any of the voltage like a lot of other PSU's do. Personally Corsair has always been my PSU brand choice and the Gold certified proves that it's going to be a decent and reliable piece of kit. The alternative you said has the same rating, but c'mon? gotta whore one company right? (Gold certified basically means it has a better efficiency rating than normal power supplies, i think it's something like 85%-90% for gold, which is fantastic. A normal power supply without these certifications can have such crappy efficiency it's unreal. Never buy a PSU without an 80+ certification, a broken power supply could mean a broken rig sometimes)

But the EVGA one is also 80+ Gold certified, is cheaper and comes with a 10 year warranty.

Hard Drive: WD 1 TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive (£48.25)
I'd go for the WD, once a HD gets over 1TB in capacity and only has a 7200rpm speed, things will load considerably slower due to having to search the whole hard drive for specific files. If you're looking at it just for storage, do something like have your main SSD for the boot drive. A 1TB for games so that it do sent decrement the speed of texture loading and then if you need storage, a bigger HD for music and random files.

Agreed with this, and if it ever becomes necessary long down the road you can easily just stick in an additional HDD.

As for the two different GPUS, even i have no damn idea why the price difference is so huge. My guess is they are the same card, named slightly different on different sites so the prices show up as different.

It's faster than the original 290, but only by a 100Mhz, has 1,000 more gflops and a slightly higher texture rate, other than that I personally can't justify the price gap. :/

But Giki, think of all the Ram he could dedicate to Minecraft! he might be able to run it at a whole 60fps with that much! Oh java.

I'm kidding, but i agree with Giki over here, you don't really need more than eight unless you plan to do video/graphics editing, in which case get 12-16.

Pssh, $2,000 rig, still dies from playing Minecraft. We tried, Andy.

 

[Azer249]

But the EVGA one is also 80+ Gold certified, is cheaper and comes with a 10 year warranty.

But , Corsair.

But seriously, if you compare the Corsair and the EVGA, the Corsair has better efficiency and output on the -12v Rail, +3.3v AND +5v, has a higher frequency and lower temperature by 10*c. Both of them are really good power supplys no doubt, but i love Corsair and they always have the best efficiency/cost/reliability ratio in my opinion.

Pssh, $2,000 rig, still dies from playing Minecraft. We tried, Andy.

BETTER CALL NASA~

 

[Dark Drakan]

Case: Corsair Carbide 300R (undecided on windowed or not) (£44.99)
Id just go for the windowless, when you've had a window for like a year it kinda gets a bit annoying seeing all of the flashing lights and stuff inside the case. Im glad i have a windowless one now and there are still red LED's that make it look all fancy. Cases come down to personal preference really though, just get a mid tower at least and you'll be set.

Couldn't agree more, as pretty as a window can be sometimes. If it doesn't come with a sliding door/cover, those bright ass LEDs are going to drive you nuts. I'll take extra vents any day, besides, the way my blue LEDs shine through the vents onto the walls makes it feel like I'm in a damn spaceship. I'm okay with that.

Yeah I think I will go windowless as would bug me if everything wasnt colour coordinated & perfectly tidy and I could see that all the time.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VII HERO ATX Intel (£132.70)
Personally i would be going for this one, overall ASUS boards have a lot more features than GIGA usually and are more reliable. Both of them are very good boards but speaking from experience, and from the two ASUS boards that i've had, they offer nice feature like easy CMOS clearing buttons and very nice BIOS layouts.

Ok then that one will be the one I mark down in my list too.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz) (£205.08)
Yep, great choice.

Decided on that one for sure then.

CPU Cooler - NH-U14S - £60.90 (if I were to research overclocking & purchase somewhere down the line)
Yep, also great choice, fans can be changed too i believe if you hate the nasty brown ones, but if you go for the windowless case it wont really matter. Noctua are an amazing company for fans though, my go to.

I will put this on another note just in case I need it somewhere down the road but wont be something I purchase any point soon.

GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 290X 4GB - £395.90
On this point, i'd like to say i really don't like Saphire as they don't actually do much with the cards. As previously mentioned if you want a good card i'd go for something like an ASUS or a MSI. One for power (not a tonne more) and one for cooling. My personal preference on such a high end card would be the extra cooling, as the power wouldn't make that much of a difference that it was noticable on any games anyway. I'd go for something like this. MSI. My 280x is an MSI and has been working smoothly and cool playing everything at maximum settings for a long time now.

Nvidia GeForce GTX 800 series (unannounced and depending on price)
Can't really say anything on this but no clue when this is going to be announced, ill keep an eye out.

Still open to suggestions on these and will be one part I really take my time on as opinions vary and seem to be recommended different ones on a daily basis.

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB DDR3 1600 (£48.25)
Not a fan of Ripjaws, i know plenty of people use it but it has the tendency to get quite hot and can be a bit pesky and unreliable. Personally i'd go for something like Corsair/Kingston, and i found this which would be a good, kinda the same price alternative. Looks pretty sexy too... (thinking of actually getting me some of that to upgrade all of my old HyperX ram.. )

I have switched the Ripjaw for the one you recommended as I have used Kingston in the past and had good experiences with them.

Power Supply: Corsair CP-9020056-UK RM Series RM850 80 Plus Gold 850W (£99.99)
Corsair, without a doubt. They make amazing, reliable, and stable power supplys that never actually underput any of the voltage like a lot of other PSU's do. Personally Corsair has always been my PSU brand choice and the Gold certified proves that it's going to be a decent and reliable piece of kit. The alternative you said has the same rating, but c'mon? gotta whore one company right? (Gold certified basically means it has a better efficiency rating than normal power supplies, i think it's something like 85%-90% for gold, which is fantastic. A normal power supply without these certifications can have such crappy efficiency it's unreal. Never buy a PSU without an 80+ certification, a broken power supply could mean a broken rig sometimes)

Always heard good things about Corsair and not much difference between this and Scotts suggestion so will likely go with Corsair due to sheer amount of recommendations I have had for their PSU's.

Hard Drive: WD 1 TB 3.5-inch Internal Hard Drive (£48.25)
I'd go for the WD, once a HD gets over 1TB in capacity and only has a 7200rpm speed, things will load considerably slower due to having to search the whole hard drive for specific files. If you're looking at it just for storage, do something like have your main SSD for the boot drive. A 1TB for games so that it do sent decrement the speed of texture loading and then if you need storage, a bigger HD for music and random files.

Agreed with this, and if it ever becomes necessary long down the road you can easily just stick in an additional HDD.

Might just go for 1TB then if I need more storage at a later date I can always buy a 3TB one for music/videos etc anyway. Im quite a tidy freak so always make sure my rigs are as clean as they can be and always delete/uninstall unneeded or unused programs/files etc.

SSD: Crucial CT120M500SSD1 120GB M500 SATA (£50.99)
Yup, guessing this will be your boot drive, seems fine to me.

Optical Drive: LG 24x DVD Burner - £15.40
Does it read discs? it's fine!

But Giki, think of all the Ram he could dedicate to Minecraft! he might be able to run it at a whole 60fps with that much! Oh java.

I'm kidding, but i agree with Giki over here, you don't really need more than eight unless you plan to do video/graphics editing, in which case get 12-16.

Yeah the SSD will be the boot drive and not much in it for DVD burners these days and that one was recommended by a website so just opted for it. I dont plan on doing any video/graphics editing, just gaming and can always buy another 8GB down the road if needed at a later date.

 

[Dark Drakan]

I have sent some messages to some tech pages & asked for their recommendations on GPU & the suggestion they came back with was the Radeon R9 290 as only about 7% performance difference between that & the R9 290x but around £100 difference. They also recommended the EVGA's Supernova G2 850W (£94.99) over Corsair's RM850. As according to them in their tests the Corsair runs quietly but at very high temperatures.

 

[Gikoku]

I have sent some messages to some tech pages & asked for their recommendations on GPU & the suggestion they came back with was the Radeon R9 290 as only about 7% performance difference between that & the R9 290x but around £100 difference.

Yeah, the 290x is a waste of time and doing some more research I see that the 290 is very good for its price, it managed to beat the GTX 780 in a few benchmarks (such as Bioshock Infinite) on its own, kills it with SLI. The drawback of the card however is that the 290 is a really loud card and can get pretty warm. Which isn't all that surprising since AMD tends to value price/performance over cooling efficiency with many of their cards (even mine is really loud). So it comes down to: How much do you care about noise level?

They also recommended the EVGA's Supernova G2 850W (£94.99) over Corsair's RM850. As according to them in their tests the Corsair runs quietly but at very high temperatures.