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DotDotBoom

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Mar 23, 2015
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Hi guys, I'm looking for a new build around the Fractal Design R4 or R5 case (black) and would like your advice if possible.

Approximate Purchase Date: This week

Budget Range: up-to £800 including the OS.

System Usage from Most to Least Important: surfing the internet, gaming and web design.

Are you buying a monitor: Yes (separate budget to the tower build)

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: No preference just wherever is the cheapest!

Location: City, State/Region, Country - Newcastle, England.

Parts Preferences: No preference just whatever is best for the price.

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: Probably 1920 x 1080

Additional Comments: I would like a quiet, efficient PC which is great at multi-tasking but can also run games great aswell and as stated above built around the Fractal Design R4 or R5 case. The color scheme (I know it's a bit of a nightmare!) is black/white.

Thanks a lot. :)
 
Solution
logainofhades
The 4690 is not worth the extra cost, over a 4460 or even a 4590. Waste of money. A 120gb SSD is going to fill up quickly. Go with a 4460, and use the savings towards at least a 240gb SSD. Your build came out to 750 for me. Probably due to mail in rebates, that I turn off.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£143.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI H97 GAMING 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£76.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£50.77 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£80.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage:...
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The motherboard we gave you is a good one, the only reason to switch would be to lower the price by about 10-15, but that would also lower quality and/or reduce upgrade options.
 
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You need to copy the permalink, the link you gave just takes us to our pcpartpicker page.
 
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It looks pretty good, although if it was me i'd cut a bit off of the CPU ( get something like an i5 4460 ) and cut about 20-30 off the motherboard ( maybe an ASRock H97 anniversary ) , also get a bronze 80+ 550 PSU and cut another 20 ish, and try to fit in a GTX 970. But either build is a good build.
 
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The 4690 is not worth the price premium, over the 4460. The MSI Z97S SLI Krait Edition is cheaper, than that H97 board, and gives you more upgrade options. The 970, in my build is far superior to a 960. An SSD is nice, but it does 0 for FPS. Overspending at the cost of graphics performance, is a bad idea, for a gaming rig, where the GPU is what matters more.
 
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I was thinking of getting the SSD to install the OS on, so would I be best off not doing that?
So the 4460 will work fine with a Z97 board even though I'm not overclocking?

Sorry for the questions, I'm clueless when it comes to this as it is all new to me. As long as I've got a quiet and efficient PC i'll be a happy man.

 
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The SSD can always be bought later. It is great for boot and load times, but offers nothing for FPS. The 4460 will still work fine in a Z97 board, despite you not overclocking. I have an i5 2400, which is a locked CPU, running in a P67 extreme4, which is an overclocking board. The CPU was free, and I needed a proper SLI/CF capable board, for the dual HD 5850's I was buying, at the time. Never any issue with the combo.
 
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Ok, so I've broke it down to this - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/wPYtBm

At this moment in time as much as I'd want a 970, I could never justify simply because I don't play games that require it. I've kept the power supply I had from the last build because i'd prefer a fully modular one for my first build, just for cable management really. I've dropped the SSD for now, but will probably end up buying one. So best possible GPU to fit into that? I've had a few suggestions shot at me from mates aswell but I just don't know what will go well with that build.

I appreciated all the help by the way guys and I'm sorry if I'm being a pain in the butt!
 
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£143.99 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: MSI H97 GAMING 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£76.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£50.77 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£47.94 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (£274.98 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£57.41 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£61.62 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.95 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £819.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-21 17:06 BST+0100

If you really want to not get teh GTX 970, you could go with a r9 280x/290, but this fits your budget or close to it and has an SSD. Also put in a Semi modular PSU ( all you really need for wire management) But once again this is a red/black build... Trying to go black/white is going to up the cost and in some cases lower the quality.
 
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My opinion is the other way round: HDD can always be bought later. It's surprising people storing so much crap they won't need like never. With fast connections these days it's useless to store something - just download it again.

You would install OS on SSD anyways so why bother later? Buy now and then if you really, really need those 1TB+ of storage - go buy some. Most people don't, they just think they do. I lived with 250GB HDD in my Macbook for 2 years, then 2.5 years with 500GB HDD. Do you know how much I store on it now? 15 Gigs of lossless music and a 40 GB virtual machine (that I don't need anymore now that I have a PC in addition).

With a lot of storage it's "meh, why delete it". With a little storage it's "meh, why keep it, it's always available online"
 
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GTX 960 would be a good fit, if you do not want to spend that kind of money, on a GTX 970. Going to an even more expensive Z97 board, makes absolutely no sense. For a locked CPU, you need nothing more than a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI or the MSI board I recommended earlier, if you want SLI support. Since this appears to be a red and black theme now, the Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI makes more sense.
 
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A game alone can take 20gb+, easily, anymore.. You would need at least a 500gb SSD if you want to install multiple games. Those are quite expensive still. Had an old 200gb HDD that was getting full with just Windows, WoW, D3, and GW2. I think Hearthstone might have also been there, but it is a far smaller game. I also have 4x2tb drives, in raid 5, in a file server. :lol: For an everyday rig, the storage is not probably not as needed. For a gaming rig, yes you need more.
 
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The 4690 is not worth the extra cost, over a 4460 or even a 4590. Waste of money. A 120gb SSD is going to fill up quickly. Go with a 4460, and use the savings towards at least a 240gb SSD. Your build came out to 750 for me. Probably due to mail in rebates, that I turn off.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£143.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI H97 GAMING 3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£76.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£50.77 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£80.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.34 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card (£164.35 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£57.41 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£68.99 @ Novatech)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£67.95 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £749.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-22 20:20 BST+0100
 
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Solution


Thanks! I think i'll go with that build and build upon it over the years.
 
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