First rebuild in years - Spending £800-1,000

Quwyn232

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Mar 17, 2016
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Hi all, was hoping for some advise or suggestions on current builds.

Up until about 4 years I had always been a happy little camper building my own machines at home and tweeking upgrades every few years, then had that fateful turn we have had all had of blowing a PSU during the build (still dont know if it was me or just faulty) having a really stressful few days getting new parts and swearing that I am never going to home build again........

Fast forward 4 years and my i5-2500 rig is giving me a wonderful combo of both blue and red screens of death and a cpu temp I am baffling at and she is finally on deaths door.

So my first question is, how is the prebuilt market looking these days, 5-10 years ago I would never had considered doing it, but is the market more balanced in terms of price and quality these days? If it helps I am in the UK from a buying point of view, so it used to be Scan, Dabs, Overclockers, but again there might be other places that offer better value now.

In terms of what I can use from my current build, I doubt anything but my case, a new EVO 212 heatsink (I tried to save the i5), and a GS700 PSU, and a still boxed old corsair h80 water cooler but in reality I think it might be easier to start from scratch.

Happy to spend between £800-1,000 for a decent rig that is going to last a good few years. - Update seems I am going way over this

Currently thinking along these lines


First attempt
CPU: Intel Core i7 6700
CPU Cooler: Cool Master Hyper 212x
RAM: 32GB Corsair 3000mhz Vengeance LPX DDR4 (4x8GB)
Graphics card: AMD Radeon R9 390 8GB
Motherboard: Gigabyte Z170X-Gaming 7
SSD: Samsung SM951 128GB NVMe
Hard Drive: 4TB S-ATAIII 6.0Gb/s
Corsair Carbide 100R Silent Edition
PSU: 750W Corsair CS Modular

Second attempt
Intel Core i7 6700K,
Cool Master Hyper 212
Gigabyte GA-Z170X
32GB (4x8GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, PC4-24000 (3000)
8GB Sapphire Radeon R9 390X NITRO
256GB SanDisk Z400S, 2.5" Business SSD,
4TB Seagate ST4000DM000 SATA III - 6Gb/s, 5900rpm, 64MB Cache,
Corsair Obsidian 750D Airflow Edition Black Full Tower Chassis
24" Asus VG248QE LED


Still open to suggestions on PSU, I havnt had any problems with my current Corsair GS700, but if anyone wants to advise more than happy to hear it.
Equally is 32gb over the top for RAM and will 16 be enough?

Sorry if this is all abit vague, but open to suggestions on parts or complete solutions.

Thanks,



 
Solution
Fair enough, can see the logic. Assuming you're looking around 200quid for the 6600K and 290 for the 6700K?
(god I hate not having a UK keyboard anymore, I just wrote the pound sign for probably the first time in 3 years & it felt weird too! aaah!..........anyway, back on topic)

The 6700K is a great performer and will be relevant a long time.......but if you're open to options, I'll just through this out there: What about an i7-5820K? 6core + hyper threading (vs the 6700K at 4+HT) and the X99 chipset.....

A little bit more cash initially, but is pretty comparable with the 6700K, at lower clock speeds. Can be OC'd too and generally outperforms the 6700K (between a little bit & a decent margin) when Oc'd by the same margin...
Ok, starting with a CS PSU, you're heading in the same direction you had about 4 years ago. That PSU is not good quality.

Pre-builts have their place, in the low range. Anything above that, it's still beneficial to build your own.

Are you sure you i5 was at fault? Sounds like the motherboard to me.....false temps etc.

Anyway, gives you a great chance to upgrade.

Some comments:
1. If you're still looking at a gaming rig, the i5-6600K is a great option. No need for the i7 (yet), although if you do decide to go the i7 route, pick up the 6700K, not the 6700.

2. Z170 for unlocked CPUs and H170 for locked (you can get BCLK OC's on locked CPUs too, but if you plan to OC then buy an appropriate CPU)

3. 128GB is a bit small for an SSD, especially considering the price difference. 250GB should be the minimum these days

4. PSU, I've already covered.
 
Could well be the mobo, but I feel replacing that at this point I would be totally gutting the system anyways. Few updates added, happy to take any more comments or changes
 
As far as RAM goes, it totally depends on your useage.

Again, the i5 is more than sufficient for gaming, but if you're into rendering/editing etc, then it makes sense.
In the same breath, if you're just gaming, technically 8GB is enough 99% of the time, so I wouldn't recommend higher than 16GB - rendering/editting though, the more the better. 32GB may or may not be overkill in some situations, but I bet you'd rather have it and not need it than not have it & need it...

For the PSU, a good quality, relatively cheap PSU tends to be the EVGA SuperNOVA B2 750W.....if you're in the US or Canada.
 
Thanks mate, have pulled out the second lot of RAM so down to 16, was only planning to take the i7 as for the amount I am spending overall the difference didnt seem that much....
 
Fair enough, can see the logic. Assuming you're looking around 200quid for the 6600K and 290 for the 6700K?
(god I hate not having a UK keyboard anymore, I just wrote the pound sign for probably the first time in 3 years & it felt weird too! aaah!..........anyway, back on topic)

The 6700K is a great performer and will be relevant a long time.......but if you're open to options, I'll just through this out there: What about an i7-5820K? 6core + hyper threading (vs the 6700K at 4+HT) and the X99 chipset.....

A little bit more cash initially, but is pretty comparable with the 6700K, at lower clock speeds. Can be OC'd too and generally outperforms the 6700K (between a little bit & a decent margin) when Oc'd by the same margin.

And back to your PSU question the SuperNOVA B2 doesn't appear very cheap in the UK. The most reputable 750W I could find for a decent price (ie under 100quid) was the XFX Pro XXX 750W, Semi-modular at 81.

Here would be the CPU + Mobo + PSU revisions...
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (£320.28 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme3 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£164.39 @ More Computers)
Power Supply: XFX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£81.29 @ Aria PC)
Total: £565.96
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-18 21:29 GMT+0000
 
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