First time PC build?

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JPWells123

JPWells123

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Nov 19, 2013
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Hi, going to be building a gaming PC - first time ever!

I've put together these parts, is this build compatible/any good?
I'd like to play the newest games for about the next year (if possible) and basically all previous games that have been released on ultra.

The build:
- Windows 7
- Microsoft Office 2010
- i5 4670k
- Seagate 1tb HDD/8gb SSD
- Zalman Z9 Plus
- Cooler Master Hyper EVO 212 CPU cooler
- Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) RAM
- Corsair CS650M PSU 80 Plus Gold
- LiteOn DVD drive
- MSI Z87-G45
- MSI GTX 770 2GB

I have an £800-£900 budget by the way!
Thanks for any help/answers 😀
 
Solution
V
With a 8GB SSD you're not going to make anything...at that rate you might take a 32GB USB Flash, spend less and make it your SSD lol...
If you're wanting such a low option, you're probably wanting to get just the OS on it, so 64 GB is a minimum for installation, updates and eventually some softwares you want to load fast.

I too would go for z97 now that it's out, and between 1TB and 2TB there's really not much difference in price, so it's up to you. Also, 650W is a bit too much, especially if gold. It's a good future-proof PSU, but you could save quite a lot of money with a bronze for literally the same performance. And even if you're going SLI in the future, you're going to need more power anyway...
I'd do something like this...
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Looks good but why not go with the 4690k and a z97 board? Should be about the same price.
 
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Here's one to consider. With your budget, you can get an r9 290, which is stronger than the GTX 770 by quite a bit and has more vRAM also. I included an SSD into the build if you want to buy the SSD as a boot drive you can. The xfx psu is a better unit and it fits within your budget. I feel like i'm missing something.

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/KM86qs
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/KM86qs/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£172.73 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.25 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£106.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£56.09 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: A-Data Premier Pro SP600 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£47.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.70 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card (£269.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£44.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£60.06 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHDS118-04 DVD/CD Drive (£9.58 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£35.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £867.13
 
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A GTX 770 will allow you to play all games on ultra settings.
 
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Well I thought corsair psu's were more reliable but to each their own. The sapphire r9 290 runs very hot so it has its trade offs. It is faster but that is something Jp needs to weigh if he wants the more efficient gtx 770 or the faster hotter 290. A ssd is a good idea though if it can fit in his budget.
 
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With a 8GB SSD you're not going to make anything...at that rate you might take a 32GB USB Flash, spend less and make it your SSD lol...
If you're wanting such a low option, you're probably wanting to get just the OS on it, so 64 GB is a minimum for installation, updates and eventually some softwares you want to load fast.

I too would go for z97 now that it's out, and between 1TB and 2TB there's really not much difference in price, so it's up to you. Also, 650W is a bit too much, especially if gold. It's a good future-proof PSU, but you could save quite a lot of money with a bronze for literally the same performance. And even if you're going SLI in the future, you're going to need more power anyway...
I'd do something like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£167.94 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.25 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£82.88 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£65.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Sandisk Solid State Drive 64GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£35.57 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£52.79 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 770 2GB DirectCU II Video Card (£239.72 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case (£59.15 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.93 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer (£11.09 @ Aria PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.65 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £858.73
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

That should leave enough for you to get office. I don't see why you should get Microsoft Office anyway...LibreOffice is free and works wonderfully, with literally low to no compatibility issues with Microsoft right now 😛


@hunterj
As far as I knew, the Tri-X cooler was actually considered the best at cooling 290/290x, with the ASUS being a tradeoff between cooling performance and silent operation (capping at 50% fan speed unless manually raised and still being almost unheard, but letting VRMs up to 100°c...) and the rest eventually following...
 
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Solution
Thank you so much guys for your input, Vynavill I shall take your advice! To be honest I did go for that hybrid drive just to get a bit faster performance, so yeh. Will try to get an SSD in there.

Also, are MSI a good brand for motherboards and graphics cards? Just wonderin' :)

Needed some sort of option to Office (as I need it for school work) so that would be great!

Cheers again everyone who answered!!
 
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Yea MSI is a great brand. Best of luck
 
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Unless some incredible unannounced masterpiece makes out to us, a 770 will probably breeze through anything @1080p, provided some games might need a tweak or two due to simply not being optimized for PC.

You can take day-one Watch_Dogs as an example, where maxed out settings were consuming at least 3GB of VRAM and at least 4 of system RAM, with even SLI/XFire systems struggling to keep 60Fps 😀
 
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Watch dogs isn't a good example of a game to run on ultra. Even the best systems struggle with that game on ultra.

As for psu @hunterj, corsairs are more of budget psus from my understanding. With the budget specified, you can get a much better quality one, and more options of upgrades as they come.

As for the graphics card, yeah the tri-x is one of the better ones, the price is better than the gtx 770. My thought was that it would be a better buy and more cost efficient in the end anyways.
 
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You misunderstood my post. I took Watch Dogs as an example of where he would need to tweak settings, not a game he could run maxed out. I think Castlevania - Lords of Shadow 2 would be a good "maxed out" example, since it doesn't seem to go too far away from its former episode, although I don't own the game so I can't know for sure...
 
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Corsair psu's are not "budget". Especially since the power supply he stated is 80+ gold which you cant go wrong.
 
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Oh then nevermind I didn't know XFX was a seasonic.
 
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Oh then nevermind I didn't know XFX was a seasonic.
 
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