~£1700 (~$2830) New build from scratch

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Hrothvitnir

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Feb 25, 2014
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Hello everyone!

I'm looking at building a new pc from the ground up. This is a first time for me so I've spent a lot of time reading through online guides and reviews, both here and elsewhere, in an attempt to come up with a sensible list of components that's all compatible and meets the desired spec. Said spec is geared towards gaming, but without throwing silly amounts of money like it's no object at the build.


Thanks to everyone for their time!

Approximate Purchase Date: Just as soon as, if there’s something coming out worth waiting a few weeks for, I can wait

Budget Range: Something in the region of £1600-1700, around $2800 according to www.xe.com

System Usage: Mainly for gaming, but with potential to be used for video editing

Are you buying a monitor: Intending to buy an Asus VG248QE, but this cost is not included in the above budget.


Parts to Upgrade: Building entire rig from scratch, so nothing is currently purchased and everything is up for critique. Here are all the components I have picked out (if there’s anything else I need, please also let me know)

NZXT Phantom 820 Case £187 (Chosen largely for looks, and for being massive)
Intel Core i7 4770k 3.50GHz Socket LGA1150 £236
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) £150
Corsair Vengeance Pro Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £147 (I wasn't sure whether 1600MHz or 2133MHz - the mobo says up 3000MHz and the CPU says 1600MHz..?)
Seasonic X-750 750W ATX12V PSU - Gold £138 (Recommended on a TH thread) or
Novatech PowerStation Gold Series 750W Silent ATX2.3 Modular Power Supply £100 (I’m perfectly happy to spend the extra for the Seasonic if the overwhelming opinion is that that’s a better choice, but based on customer reviews of both this product and Novatech generally, I thought this could be an easy way to save £30)
Gigabyte GeForce GTX780 Ti Windforce 3X OC 3GB GDDR5 £520 (780 Ti because from what I’ve read, the absolute best single card that can be afforded is worth being chosen for new builds, Gigabyte only because it’s the same brand as mobo - if a different one is better I’m all ears)
Seagate Barracuda 1TB 64MB Cache Hard Drive SATA 6GB/s 8.5ms 7200rpm - OEM £45
Samsung 840 Evo Basic 250GB Solid State Hard Drive 2.5” Basic Kit with Data Migration Magician Software £117
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Zx £103 (From what I can gather on forums etc, a sound card may make little difference. I’m planning on using these speakers if that affects things at all)
Total = £1643

Do you need to buy OS: Yes - Either Windows 7 or 8.1 (If an old game like Skyrim will run fine on 8.1 and new games will have difficulty on 7, I’ll go with 8.1, but recommendations are welcome)

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: www.novatech.co.uk
and www.amazon.co.uk.
www.overclockers.co.uk also possible if something isn't covered by the former two.

Location: London, United Kingdom (very easy drive down to Novatech)

Parts Preferences: Intel CPU, and (based off what I've been reading about GPUs) an Nvidia graphics card (CUDA cores useful for video editing?)

Overclocking: Never done before, but I would like to have the potential for it when I get around to looking into it.

SLI or Crossfire: Potential for SLI (keeping with the Nvidia preference) as an upgrade down the line, though the initial build will have just one GPU.

Your Monitor Resolution: The aforementioned Asus runs at 1920x1080.

Additional Comments: I am very attached to the looks of the NZXT case, and unless there's a great deal of criticism for its actual design from a technical point of view I would like to stick with it. That said, if an extra £100 spent elsewhere would be of great benefit, I'm happy to move down to, for instance, the NZXT 530, as long as it’ll still be roomy enough to make a first build relatively easy going. Games wise, if the system can run Skyrim with a load of mods at full settings, I'd be a very happy man, and to get more with the times, Titanfall looks like it'll be pretty tasty.

Why Are You Upgrading: My current desktop has seen better days, and I quite fancy the idea of a new project. This is a pretty solid opportunity to end up with a great computer, that means I don’t need to fork out for a new xbox or playstation to get back into gaming, and I can learn a load of new stuff in the process. What’s not to like?

Once again, thanks everyone, and sorry if this was a bit wordy.
 
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Don't forget you'll most likely need an aftermarket CPU cooler if you plan on overclocking in the future, so take into consideration the amount of clearance in your case (the phantom 820 is gigantic so you should be fine), and also RAM clearance, especially since your kit is high profile.

Have you considered the phantom 410 to save some money? Is there really need for your case to be that big? Just finished building a new comp in that case; it's brilliant. Plenty of room, especially since you're going with a single SSD and HDD. You can mount them both on the bottom 2 drive cages, take out the middle drive rack to improve airflow.

I'd say go with Windows 8.1. The metro interface can be easily avoided with start8 etc, and tweaking a few options like booting straight to the desktop. It really is a lot quicker than windows 7.
 
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4930K 3.4GHz 6-Core Processor (£418.79 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X60 98.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£114.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI X79A-GD45 Plus ATX LGA2011 Motherboard (£134.99 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£134.98 @ Dabs)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£47.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.72 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Video Card (£629.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: NZXT Phantom 530 (White) ATX Full Tower Case (£97.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£86.10 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1708.72
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-26 01:13 GMT+0000)

-Awesome CPU and GPU
-Awesome CPU cooling
-Sacrificed your preferred case for the 4930K, but looks v a massive performance boost...
-Still has the Gigabyte 780 Ti
-No Sound card, but onboard audio is fine (unless you are an audiophile), and you can pick one up later.
 
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Lol? In my opinion, having used both, Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 perform at the same speed, at least to me.
 
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I had remembered needing the aftermarket cooling yeah, hence why going for such a mammoth case, I was just trying to cover bases so that I didn't need to worry about fitting anything in at any time. If the 410 suffices for this just fine as well, then I'll definitely take a look at that. Or the 530 as a happy medium..?





As above I'm more than happy to sacrifice the 820, that's no problem, but what's the benefit of the 6-core processor over the 4-core? I thought it was roughly the case that after a certain point, you pay a lot more money for not a lot more performance, and that cpu is nearly a full £200 more than the 4770k. I'm not meaning to say you're wrong at all, just what's the added benefit of the 4930k? Thanks for the note about the soundcard, that's a £100 I don't need to spend right away...

Also just to check with everyone, is there anything in the build I linked originally that should be avoided because of it being incompatible or known to be awful kind of thing? Just to see if I was on the right lines with it. That way I can try to find a load of reviews comparing new suggestions to what I had found before to come up with something most appropriate :) Thanks everyone!
 
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I was just rereading your usage for this machine, and saw that is is only for gaming and some photoshop.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£161.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: NZXT Kraken X60 98.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£114.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£131.77 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill TridentX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£149.43 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£89.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£89.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital WD SE 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£95.05 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Video Card (£629.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: NZXT H440 (Red/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£104.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£81.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1648.94
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-26 17:53 GMT+0000)

The 2 SSDs can be run in RAID, or you can simply have 480gb of super-fast storage. The i5-4670K is a great gaming CPU, and paired with a 780Ti... you can expect some crazy performance. The PSU has enough headroom for future SLI.
 
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Okay so bearing in mind the advice given so far, I've reinvested some of the savings to upgrade the mobo, as I keep reading that it's wise to spend as much on that as on the cpu for best performance. With that in mind, ignoring the need to link for things like storage seeing as that all seems mostly fine anyway, I'm considering:

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Formula Z87
GPU: GTX 780 Ti, either the Gigabyte version or the Asus version if this is worth the extra little bit
CPU: Intel i5 4670K or Intel i7 4770K if reigning opinion is that this will help safeguard a bit more in case games start using more cores.

Does this build sound like a good plan? I'm not interested at the minute in investing in any liquid cooling, I want a cpu that I am able to overclock in future, but for now I'll leave it stock. I'll buy cooling when I want to boost it later on (gives me more money to play with on components in the here and now), I'm just making sure I get a case with plenty of room for that kind of upgrade (NZXT 530 probably, only £20 more than the 410). Thanks for everyone's time :)
 
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You really need a 4930K for the OP's purposes? A 4770K with 2 x 8GB RAM will be perfectly sufficient and allow for future expansion should the OP decide to use CS5/6 more than gaming.

Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Formula Z87
GPU: GTX 780 Ti, either the Gigabyte version or the Asus version if this is worth the extra little bit
CPU: Intel i5 4670K or Intel i7 4770K if reigning opinion is that this will help safeguard a bit more in case games start using more cores.
Click to expand...

The Maximus is kind of overrated in my opinion, you don't need to spend that much on a motherboard to get solid performance. On my AMD rig I'm still using a 3 year old 990FX motherboard that overclocks unbelievably easy.

Anyway that said this is what I would suggest:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£227.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme 99.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£103.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£125.24 @ Dabs)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£158.05 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: OCZ Vector 150 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£92.52 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.72 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Video Card (£519.50 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case (£88.68 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: NZXT HALE 90 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£118.50 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.83 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£79.81 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1569.30
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-27 19:30 GMT+0000)

- One of the best closed loop coolers on the market (alternately try a Cooler Master Seidon for a closed CPU - GPU loop)
- Super Flower quality PSU which is one of the best on the market
- 3 fan Gigabyte Windforce is the best air GPU cooler on the market
- Went with DDR3-2133 which will be better for overclocking
- One of the fastest SSDs on the market
 
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Why not a pair of 780s in SLI? lol

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£238.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£66.98 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£133.06 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston Beast 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£112.96 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£89.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£379.99 @ Novatech)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£379.99 @ Novatech)
Case: Corsair 750D ATX Full Tower Case (£142.00 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 900W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£107.54 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£11.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1706.48
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-27 20:14 GMT+0000)
 
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Dual 780s is a good idea but I'm not too keen on that PSU or SSD.
 
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Antec's HCG is a tier 2a brand, perfectly fine for this setup, with plenty of amperage and watts for overclocking as well.

I put that SSD in my uncles computer, and it works perfectly fine. Isn't the fastest out there, but is still much faster than a regular HDD. Either way, going to the 840 EVO series would only be a very small additional cost.
 
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To g-unit1111:
Thanks for the advice there, definitely helps clear up a few confusions! Just had a couple questions in relation to what you said though, you've linked a liquid cooler, am I to take it that you think it a good idea to set up a liquid cooler just as a matter of course, or is that a recommended liquid cooler for when I overclock the cpu? And secondly about the PSU - someone else (on a novatech forum, I thought I'd post there and see if I couldn't cheekily draw in more help from people who use there and not here) recommended on the build I'd offered (exactly same as here with the Asus Formula etc, not you guys' suggestions) that for gaming I shouldn't be drawing more than 380W when gaming, and suggested a Seasonic G series 550W. I'm more than happy with an NZXT Hale 90, I like a lot of what they do, but do you think I'm much better off with a 750W model rather than 550W (like the other suggestion) or even a 650W (as a middle ground?)

To HiTechObsessed:
Thanks for your input, I thought though that it's better to go with a single better card rather than two in SLI from the get go? Particularly when the single 780 Ti is £200 less than the 2x 780 SLI solution
 
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Well it's always easier to build one into your rig than to add one onto an existing rig. I would get it now and then overclock once you're ready to do so. As far as the cooler goes - some are definitely better than others. A lot of people recommend the H100i but the radiator itself is a generic Asetek design that only allows connection to the CPU, and Corsair is generally known for including sub par fans with its' liquid units. NZXT, Cooler Master, and Thermaltake all make better liquid units than Corsair does. The Cooler Master Seidon 240L gets particularly high marks because it's based off a Swiftech design that allows you to loop through the GPU with an add on water block like the Arctic Cooling Accelero.

And secondly about the PSU - someone else (on a novatech forum, I thought I'd post there and see if I couldn't cheekily draw in more help from people who use there and not here) recommended on the build I'd offered (exactly same as here with the Asus Formula etc, not you guys' suggestions) that for gaming I shouldn't be drawing more than 380W when gaming, and suggested a Seasonic G series 550W. I'm more than happy with an NZXT Hale 90, I like a lot of what they do, but do you think I'm much better off with a 750W model rather than 550W (like the other suggestion) or even a 650W (as a middle ground?)
Click to expand...

Power draw all depends on how many graphics cards you ultimately plan to run. If you're running a single GTX 7XX or Radeon R9-2XX series than you don't need more than 600W, a solid one will do just fine. If you plan on adding a second or a third at any time that's when you need the extra power draw. Pretty much anything manufactured by Seasonic (Seasonic, Cooler Master V Series, XFX Pro Series, Antec Earthwatts and HCG series, Corsair HX and AX) and Super Flower (NZXT Hale 90, EVGA Super Nova 1KW+, PC Power & Cooling Silencer MKIII, etc) are generally regarded as among the highest quality units you can buy.
 
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I've used 64-bit versions of both too. Maybe it's a hardware difference between you and me, but Windows 8.1 on a decent SSD is pretty quick. So is Windows 7 on the same SSD, but Windows 8.1 just feels snappier.
 
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