Feedback for £1100 gaming build

[UpwindManager18]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/ZNTqLk

This is my first pc build

 

[-Fran-]

This is just personal preference, but instead of the MSI, I'd go for an Asus Z170 with better VRMs for when/if you want to OC. And I'd also go for a 390X instead of the 970, but that again is personal preference. Just like the GTX670 against the 7970, the 670 was left to rot when the 7970 still has life.

Check these two:

Video (~300GBP):
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-strixr9390dc3oc8gd5gaming
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-video-card-r9390x8df6

MoBo (~100GBP):
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z170k

Everything else looks good to me, although I like Antec PSUs better. One like this one would be a good second option:

PSU (~68GBP):
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/antec-power-supply-tp650c

Cheers!

EDIT: Typos.

 

[Gallarian]

Are you using the PC for just gaming and daily use? Or are you planning to create content (video editing, rendering, streaming etc)?

If gaming is your only/main use, then ditch the i7 CPU. They simply do not give you any tangible benefit for gaming - maybe 1 or 2 fps in some games. Swap it out for a 6600k and get the same gaming performance for £100 less, and then use that £100 on a GPU upgrade for much better performance.

Also, is there a reason youve chosen a M-ATX board for an ATX case? Its just going to look silly in that case; like a tiny sofa in a huge living room.

Here's my alternative build that will look great in that white case and will give MUCH better gaming performance for the same money. Ive also doubled your SSD capacity.

PCPartPicker part list /

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£194.28 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£26.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£115.35 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£67.98 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£70.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£74.98 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card (£409.94 @ More Computers)
Case: NZXT S340 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£58.23 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.97 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN725N 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter (£6.78 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1096.49

That will make for a great looking Black and White theme system that'll give an excellent gaming experience.

 

[viktorsg]

I agree with the 390X instead of the 970, i've allways been an nvidia fanboy but AMD have really hit the sweet spot with the 390X.

 

[-Fran-]

Are you using the PC for just gaming and daily use? Or are you planning to create content (video editing, rendering, streaming etc)?

If gaming is your only/main use, then ditch the i7 CPU. They simply do not give you any tangible benefit for gaming - maybe 1 or 2 fps in some games. Swap it out for a 6600k and get the same gaming performance for £100 less, and then use that £100 on a GPU upgrade for much better performance.

Also, is there a reason youve chosen a M-ATX board for an ATX case? Its just going to look silly in that case; like a tiny sofa in a huge living room.

Here's my alternative build that will look great in that white case and will give MUCH better gaming performance for the same money. Ive also doubled your SSD capacity.

PCPartPicker part list /

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£194.28 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£26.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£115.35 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£67.98 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£70.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£74.98 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card (£409.94 @ More Computers)
Case: NZXT S340 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£58.23 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.97 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN725N 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter (£6.78 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1096.49

That will make for a great looking Black and White theme system that'll give an excellent gaming experience.

Good job on that build, I like it a lot, but I don't like using the GTX980 there. I would "sacrifice" a bit of GPU towards a bigger SSD. The 390X instead and a 500GB SSD would be a nice swap.

Cheers!

 

[Gallarian]

Good job on that build, I like it a lot, but I don't like using the GTX980 there. I would "sacrifice" a bit of GPU towards a bigger SSD. The 390X instead and a 500GB SSD would be a nice swap.

Cheers!

The 980 and the 390x trade blows for the top spot in different games, with the 980 coming out on top on average only very slightly. But if you look at other factors, such as power usage, the differences start to show.

For example, the 390x uses over double the power that the 980 uses (424watts vs 190watts). So dropping to a 390x would also mean swapping out for a more powerful PSU, so the prices start to balance out, not to mention money saved on energy bills over time.

When you also factor in the huge list of problems that AMD cards have had with certain games over the last year, plus the fact you dont get access to PhysX (which even if youre not a fan of, can cause problems for AMD cards... looking at you Witcher 3), then there really is no reason to go for 390x over the 980.

You can double the SSD capacity by simply cutting down the HDD capacity. I dont usually go for more than 2TB, but the OP wanted 4TB originally so figured there was a reason.

 

[-Fran-]

The 980 and the 390x trade blows for the top spot in different games, with the 980 coming out on top on average only very slightly. But if you look at other factors, such as power usage, the differences start to show.

For example, the 390x uses over double the power that the 980 uses (424watts vs 190watts). So dropping to a 390x would also mean swapping out for a more powerful PSU, so the prices start to balance out, not to mention money saved on energy bills over time.

When you also factor in the huge list of problems that AMD cards have had with certain games over the last year, plus the fact you dont get access to PhysX (which even if youre not a fan of, can cause problems for AMD cards... looking at you Witcher 3), then there really is no reason to go for 390x over the 980.

You can double the SSD capacity by simply cutting down the HDD capacity. I dont usually go for more than 2TB, but the OP wanted 4TB originally so figured there was a reason.

240W of difference in a 12V rail is 20 Amps difference for the rail consumption. But I haven't found a single review where the 390X uses more than 300W unless *heavily* OCed. In fact, the average use is 275W. Under those numbers, most 550W-600W PSUs don't have any issues putting up with a 390X. OCed 980s can go all the way up to 250W as well.

In regards to software, that is debatable and fully depends on what the OP plans on playing. I won't go to either camp yet based on assumptions there. Performance wise, both are solid options to me, where the 390X comes in cheaper and given history, AMD has a better long run.

And you never want to downgrade HDD for SSD space, the money doesn't add up in terms of GB/$. I have to disagree on that front.

Cheers!

 

[Gallarian]

240W of difference in a 12V rail is 20 Amps difference for the rail consumption. But I haven't found a single review where the 390X uses more than 300W unless *heavily* OCed. In fact, the average use is 275W. Under those numbers, most 550W-600W PSUs don't have any issues putting up with a 390X. OCed 980s can go all the way up to 250W as well.

In regards to software, that is debatable and fully depends on what the OP plans on playing. I won't go to either camp yet based on assumptions there. Performance wise, both are solid options to me, where the 390X comes in cheaper and given history, AMD has a better long run.

And you never want to downgrade HDD for SSD space, the money doesn't add up in terms of GB/$. I have to disagree on that front.

Cheers!

Those figures are from TechPowerUp, and show max power draw. Though not applicable for most people, max figures should be taken into account when buying a PSU to show 'worst case scenario'. I would not recommend running a 390x from a 500-550watt PSU to anyone, but for its fine for a 980. There is absolutely no denying that the 390x is an absolutely power hog compared to anything in the Nvidia line up.

Debatable depending on use case, yes. But overall, AMD has a much harder time with software releases. Why? Becuase its market share is tiny compared to Nvidia (bare in mind that a lot of AMDs revenue comes from console chips). As such, many companies put more time/money/effort into testing for Nvidia products. For example, many VR titles are badly optimized on AMD hardware because they are mostly made by small developers.

Were seeing more and more developers hardcoding Nvidia Gameworks into their games, which usually results in bad performance for AMD cards. Just look at the most celebrated game of 2015; The Witcher 3. Terrible AMD performance for months until patches addressed a lot of the issues. The most recent one I can think of is Gears of War Ultimate - which launched with such bad AMD performance that it made headlines. Even Forbes were showing videos of a FuryX running at 12fps.

There are some instances of Nvidia suffering issues, but the list is no where near as long, no where near as dramatic and they took no where near as much time to correct.

So what do we have;

A GPU with slightly less performance, almost double the power consumption, a worse history of optimization in some of the biggest game launches over the last year, slower driver releases and less software support. Is that really worth £40? Not if you ask me.

As for SSD space, of course it doesnt equal HDD space for GB/£. That's not why people buy SSDs. People buy them for there comparatively colossal speed. If the OP wants to swap out 1TB of HDD space to double his SSD capacity, then he should go for it unless he needs over 2TB of storage.

 

[-Fran-]

You mean this article? https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/R9_390X_Gaming/

It's funny how they are able to draw 420W peak out of a piece of hardware that as 1 6pin (75W) and 1 8pin (150W) connector, totaling a theoretical 300W peak: 75W PCIe + the rest. I could believe a dual 8pin (never seen it), but not a 6+8 config. Or maybe the PSU they were using was very crappy. I don't fully trust their measurements.

In any case, you put out a lot of words with no statistical backup towards the software side; let me remind you Gameworks is something "new" and out of the 100% of games out there, I really do believe only new titles and not many of them either use it. Let the OP do his own research if the games he wants to play will contain Gameworks or if AMD does poorly in them. I don't want to turn this into another AMD vs nVidia thread; no need for that.

Cheers!