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ryan davren

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Sep 7, 2013
7
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10,510
Fractal Design Define R4 PC Case - Black/Pearl - £69.90
Intel Core i5 4670K Quad Core - £183.39
Western Digital Black - 3.5 inch 1TB - £64.80
Corsair Builder Series CX 430 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply Unit - £35.18
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO (120mm) - £23
GTX 760 - £200
Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600mhz - £55

£631.27

The only thing I'm missing is the motherboard. I'm not really sure what one would be best; I have pretty much zero experience. I'm assuming most of you guys are an old hand to this kind of this so I'd greatly appreciate some help. Also, if you have any other recommendations for my other hardware I'd also appreciate that too. Also, looking at screens I'm lost so if you guys can know any decent cost effective monitors that'd be a large help too.
 
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I know I need to buy Windows I just left it out.
I can't afford an SSD, well I could but I'm trying to save money where I can but still have a decent build. I realise the case is a bit pricy but I've fallen in love with it. I plan on using the build for Uni wok and to play games as I won't be buying a console this year. If you know better builds that are cost effective I'd love to know. Thanks for taking the time to help man

 
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This is the kind of thing I'm coming here for haha. Thank you, I'll buy a lower psu and that'll save me some money. I'm trying to save money where I can really. I'm really only looking for all the right ports for a wifi card, to connect a hard drive then in future maybe another and an SSD when I can acquire one. I'm also looking for around 4 USB 3.0 ports. Motherboards and Psu's are the two things I'm least knowledgable on. Thanks, I'll update my build accordingly
 
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Does this look about right:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£183.00 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£22.85 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£115.04 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: GeIL Enhance CORSA 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£40.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£37.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£198.96 @ Dabs)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case (£69.90 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.86 @ Scan.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£68.39 @ Aria PC)
Total: £786.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-09-12 13:01 BST+0100)

No point in a WD Black drive.
 
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Thank you, I wasn't familiar with is website, now I know how to get the psu. Do I need a 550w? Would 450w not suffice or am I better getting the bigger one just in case? Also, the only reason I was getting the WD Black was because I heard it was very reliable. The one you recommended is nearly half the price which is amazing but is it a good product? Thank you for showing me that website

 
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If you are getting a bronze rated unit I wouldn't get a 450W. You want a 500W+ if going bronze. The 450W Gold units have as much if not more 12V power then the 500W bronze units which is why you can use a 450W gold. For example I picked up the 450W Gold Capstone. It has 37A on the 12V rail. My old Antec 500W unit only had 34A. This is why just judging on wattage doesn't work.

Overall it looks good. I'm not totally familiar with that board but you can safely go lower, more so if you aren't into OCing. Though there is nothing wrong with getting the D3H.
 
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Motherboards are often just a matter of personal preference and don't have much if any impact on performance in a simple setup. The thing you will need to keep in mind is whether or not you will want to "upgrade" your system in the future.

For example, say two years down the road, you're playing a game but your graphics card just isn't cutting it. Well, if you have enough power (from buying up a beefed up power supply now when you first build it) and a mobo capable of SLI, you can purchase a second GTX 760 and double your graphics capabilities without buying an entirely new card, plus, the GTX 760 will likely be cheaper at that time, negating the "investment" of the fancy mobo and more expensive PSU right now.

Motherboard manufacturers will build different boards around the same chipset in a range of prices and the ones at the top of the range tend to support SLI, Crossfire, and are more tolerant of aggressive overclocking while the ones at the bottom of the range do not. For example, if you do want to go SLI in the future, you will want to buy a motherboard now that is capable of supporting PCI Express x8/x8 simultaneously rather than a cheaper one that drops down to x4/x4 when you drop in a second card.
 
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That depends greatly on whether it's a group regulated design or uses VRMs. Cheap Gold PSUs are often group, so the loads have to be relatively balanced - e.g. 5% @3.3V, 5% @5V, 90% @12V. VRM-based PSUs can have all load on the 12V line, but if you draw load on the minor rails (which you will) you can't pull the whole rated 12V.
 
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The only aurum review I read was the hardwaresecrets review of the 700W unit as that was the one I was looking at getting. And they don't use crossload tests for some reason.

http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/FSP-Aurum-Gold-700-Power-Supply-Review/1228/7

Interesting, but putting no load on the 3.3 and 5V rails is pretty hard to do. If you have a couple of drives in your PC, you will be using an amp or two on both minor rails. I still stand by what I wrote. You can't buy just based on wattage. And it's very possible to buy a lower wattage gold unit and get more usable power then a higher wattage lower rated unit. Group or otherwise.
 
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You just proved my point, though. It's very hard to use no power on 3V3 or 5V, and on a VRM one that comes off your 12V rating (because the total power rating is basically the same as the 12V one, excluding non-issues like -12V and 5VSB).

In a group-regulated PSU, you can load up the minor rails without reducing the 12V limit - to take your 450W Capstone as an example, if you used about ~30W on the minor rails (very easy to do; SSDs, controllers, USB etc.), you've dropped the available 12V current to ~34A.
 
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But you'd still "lose power" on the 500W bronze unit though. It starts at 34A and loses power as you plug in other devices. You might be done to 32 or 30A, same as the gold unit. And worse, you are still only at 82% efficiency rather then 88+. You would have to dig rather far back to find totally separate rails where the 3.3 and 5V don't take away from the 12V rail, and most of those weren't 80+ certified.

Price remains the only reason to get a bronze these days. The Antec 380 Green and the Corsair CX430 are still usually around $30-$35 depending on rebates and sales. The Capstone 450 like I bought is around $60. And the modular version costs around $10 more. This will take awhile to make up and I freely admit the lower costs units are better for most. But when looking at a $45-$50 500W bronze unit the Capstone starts to make a lot more sense.
 
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No, because the power for the other rails does no come out of the 12V. You just subtract it from the total power rating - and group-regulated designs have a large buffer between the total and 12V ratings. Sure, if you take ~60W+, but that's hard to do.

For most uses a group-regulated one will have just as much power available.
 
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I'm missing something somewhere. Really can't see the point you are trying to make. So with a VRM based PSU you won't ever get the full 12V output because of the bit that's needed to power the 3.3 and 5V rails. But with a group based PSU they aren't designed to provide full 12V output anyways. No of this helps the OP much, and because they both work the same way I'm not sure how this matters.

The group regulated Aurum isn't even the PSU I suggest. The Capstone is. And usually because I see the XFX core 550W being suggested all the time. Problem is it's a bronze rated unit, and while it has 7A more on the 12V rail, it doesn't provide any extra plugs to help you use it. So it just has more of a buffer if you will. What's the point? I'd rather get the more efficient Capstone and give up that 7A (have have two 6+2 plugs rather then one 6+2 and one 6pin.) then get the other.
 
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