PC Build Advice

[colbs2411]

Hello,

I am looking to buy a new Gaming/Editing PC and went to CCL to help me build one - as I have never tried building one myself - but have found that by shopping around its a load cheaper to build myself.

Therefore, I have created a list of parts - based on those that CCL used in the build they configured for me - and wanted to ask for advise. My budget is £1500, and I have managed to find the parts below for £1277:

CPU: Intel I7 8700K
GPU: EVGA GTX 1080
M/B: Gigabyte Z370P D3
RAM: Hyper X Fury 16GB
SSD: Adata 24GB SSD
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2GB
POWER: Cooler Master 600
COOLING:Be Quiet! Dark Rock 4
WiFi: Edimax EW-7612PIn

Could anyone please advise me on whether there are any improvements I can make to this without pushing the costs up too much?

I'm happy with the CPU, GPU and RAM - I know new GPUs are coming but I need the PC asap and this looks more than okay - but everything else I have no idea if its good or not as, compared to you lot on here, I have very little idea what I am doing.

I have also not chosen a case - the CCL build used a game master onyx, which looks terrible for cooling - so any advise here would also be great.

Thank you all in advance; I started a thread a couple of days ago and you were really helpful.

 

[profoundnoah]

Overall, a very solid build. A few things though
-What resolution/refresh rate will you be playing at?
-What model of PSU is the coolermaster? They can make some good ones but some pretty bad ones as well.
-How much do you care about overclocking? There's definitely a bit of money to be saved should you not choose to OC the 8700k. Entirely up to you though.

Cases are entirely your preference, but if I had to recommend a few, I would look into the following: The Phanteks P400 TG, The Meshify C from Fractal, and the S340 Elite from NZXT.

 

[Darkbreeze]

This would be better in so many ways I don't even know where to start, but suffice to say just the changes at PSU and motherboard alone make it a far more solid build. Add the fact that the G.Skill memory is higher quality than the Hyper X sticks and you get a 250GB SSD rather than a measly 24GB and you're beginning to get the picture.


It's also still well below your £1500 dollar budget and not terribly higher than what you already had outlined for that build. As far as the case goes, a lot of that is down to personal preference, but I'd recommend sticking to better known manufacturers like NZXT, Fractal Design, Corsair, Cooler Master, BeQuiet, Phanteks or even some of Rosewill's higher end cases are good choices.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor (£311.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock 4 CPU Cooler (£56.35 @ More Computers)
Motherboard: Asus - TUF Z370 Plus Gaming ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£125.79 @ Alza)
Memory: G.Skill - Trident Z 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory (£162.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: SanDisk - Ultra II 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£57.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Superclocked Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card (£495.46 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair - TXM Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£74.99 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus - PCE-N15 PCI-Express x1 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi Adapter (£12.99 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1348.93
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-27 08:52 BST+0100

 

[colbs2411]

@profoundnoah I hoped it was was, pretty pleased to find it at such a good price too.

- I'd most likely be playing at 1080 on a 24inch monitor - im trying to get that within the £1500, but most screens under 200 are only 60hrz.
- I went with the Cooler Master 600 v2 PSU MasterWatt Lite, but only becuase CCL used it so im happy to change it.
- I'd be too worried about damaging anything to overclock it, although I'd like to have that option if I needed it. I'm looking for a solid 100fps on ultra with games and to easily use Photoshop, Blender, 3DS Max ect.

In terms of cases I dont really care that much for looks, just how well it cools and ventilates the system (hence my irritation at CCL using the Onyx)

Thanks so much for your help

 

[Darkbreeze]

There has only EVER been one Cooler Master power supply sold that I would not cringe if I had to recommend it, and that unit was based on the Seasonic G series platform and I do not believe it is available these days. That Masterwatt lite should be avoided in my opinion.

For the most part, Cooler Master and Thermaltake power supplies are junk.

 

[colbs2411]

@darkbreeze thank you so much for your help, I really appreciate it! the SSD being 24gb was a mistyping, really sorry, but still thank you.

the Adata has 240GB and a 3200MB/s Read, 1100MB/s Write speed - would that make a difference over the 550 MB/s Read, 500 MB/s Write speed of the SanDisk?

Could you explain a bit the difference in motherboard and RAM too? Ii wouldnt know what to look for for the best results so I'd be really grateful for the help.

 

[daerohn]

For what you will be using this computer?

 

[colbs2411]

@daerohn Ii will be using it primarily for gaming, but I do quite a bit of modding, 3D modelling and artwork too so it needs to be good for that as well.

At the moment i feel pretty happy with the build recommended by darkbreeze, as it seems to meet my needs and isn't straining my budget, but I'm open to suggestions especially regarding cooling, the case, motherboards and SSD - as these are the bits that are important that i really don't know much about.

This will be my first build so all advice is greatly appreciated.

 

[daerohn]

If you are in to modding, rendering, video editing and such more cores are better. You may switch to a 2700x with x470 board. If you are also in to texture design you may want to increase the RAM. For the rest I do not think there will be any effect on general tasks. you may want to change to a better SSD however when gaming and editing faster SSD will have minor effect.

Your system is highly capable though. If you are dabbling with high quality textures you may want to increase RAM and also for gaming you can choose a model with more ram like 12GB or so.

 

[colbs2411]

Thanks for your help - I've gone with the 1080 for costs and the 8700k for editing - but what SSD would you recommend? I can't really see much difference apart from space, read speed and write speed.

My main concern, as I am building the rig, is thermals and making it all fit; I've been told building a PC isn't as hard as I imagine, but I'm still worried about getting it wrong.

 

[profoundnoah]

There's a difference between being careful and needlessly worrying. As for your use case, A LOT of CAD software loves high single-threaded performance, something that the 8700k clearly takes the cake in. The 2700X would only be advisable if the OP was doing more rendering than modeling/CAD.

SSD's are a bit tricky, but here's my opinion on them: ANY (as long as it's not hot garbage) standard SSD is SO much better than a standard hard drive. I wouldn't worry too much about R/W speeds, as they are often recorded in scenarios that will rarely occur for your use case. The thermals on any of those cases I mentioned will be more than adequate, especially should you choose to add in more fans/fans of your own. Get away from that Coolermaster PSU and go for something from SeaSonic/EVGA (I recommend the Focus 550W/G3 550W).

 

[colbs2411]

Thanks to all of you for the really helpful advice - @profoundnoah my build has changed based on the list provided by darkbreeze, so im no longer using the coolermaster but a corsair gold. my build currently looks like this:

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 4 CPU
Motherboard: Asus - TUF Z370 Plus Gaming ATX LGA1151
Memory: 16GB, Either the G.Skill - Trident Z or Corsair Vengeance
Storage: undecided
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 8GB Superclocked Gaming ACX 3.0
Power Supply: Corsair TXM Gold 650W 80+
Wireless Network Adapter: Asus - PCE-N15 PCI-Express x1 802.11b/g/n

Case-wise I really like the looks of the Meshify C - I'm not a huge fan of RGB lighting or flashy cases - and It sounds good for cooling, so thank you for your advice. I've also looked at the Coolermaster 5 or Pro 5 (I can't really see too much difference).

Are there any case fans you could recommend for a low price? my desk setup currently has the PC in the desk so its only got a bit of clearance on the sides, so if i can get some good fans on budget It would likely help.

 

[Darkbreeze]

It would be extremely helpful if you could use PC partpicker as I did above, or provide links to the actual hardware you have listed as well as providing the actual pricing from whatever online vendor you are looking at so that we can have an accurate picture of what exact parts and prices you are considering.

For example, in your original parts listing you indicate Hyper X memory, but you offer no part number, no speed, no details regarding what CAS latency and other timings those modules are. Hard to know what we are comparing or looking at without that information. Also, that SSD you are looking at with the very fast simultaneous speeds, that has to be an M.2 NVME PCIe SSD which, of course, we can't know because you don't list that information.

Using PCPP makes comparing costs and specifications very easy to do and in order to post the bb code here all you need to do is click the bbcode button at the top of any part listing page, copy the code in the box that pops up and past the code into your post here.

 

[cyan1de_]

Best bang-for-buck for around £1500.
EDIT: I removed the 1TB WD Blue HDD and instead got a SeaGate Barracuda 2TB which makes the build £50 over-budget instead of £33 over-budget.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor (£311.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (£54.97 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG STRIX Z370-E GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£189.60 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Kingston - FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£139.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: SanDisk - SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£49.97 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GAMING X Video Card (£621.23 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT - S340 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£53.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA - B3 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£76.96 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1549.08
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-27 17:59 BST+0100

 

[colbs2411]

@darkbreeze really sorry for that, I have a recommended build from CCL online here:

https://www.cclonline.com/pc/gaming-pcs/omega-pro/ccl-omega-pro-gt-gaming-pc/010102020202000003/

In terms of Building myself I have literally gone with your build so It's the same set as here:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/HVKF4q

@cyan1de_ thanks for the suggestion, I will certainly look at it - I would preferably like my budget to cover the monitor too though, so this is a bit pricey at £1550.

 

[cyan1de_]

@darkbreeze really sorry for that, I have a recommended build from CCL online here:

https://www.cclonline.com/pc/gaming-pcs/omega-pro/ccl-omega-pro-gt-gaming-pc/010102020202000003/

In terms of Building myself I have literally gone with your build so It's the same set as here:

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/HVKF4q

@cyan1de_ thanks for the suggestion, I will certainly look at it - I would preferably like my budget to cover the monitor too though, so this is a bit pricey at £1550.

Oh, my bad. Then you might want to swap out the GTX 1080 Ti for the GTX 1080 as good monitors are always above £100. And so I may ask, what do you want the refresh rate of monitor to be? If it is 60 Hz, you can only see a maximum of 60 FPS which I wouldn't recommend for this type of build as it is very powerful and can certainly push out more than that. So you would be better off with a 144 Hz monitor which allows you to see a maximum of 144 FPS which is usually recommended for this type of build so I'd assume you would like that better.

 

[daerohn]

if you switch to a ryzen 2700x you will have nearly identical performance in games, better performance in multithread applications including rendering, video editing etc. and would possibily cost a little bir lesser than your current setup. ofcourse in games 8700k has an edge however the difference would not bother you too much. and extra cores will benefit greatly when it comes to multithreaded applications

 

[Darkbreeze]

Monitors can easily be swapped out later if that is desired. The rest of the core system, not so much. So, that too is a personal decision much as a case. While there is truth to your resolution argument, it's equally true that if you think you will want or need to have the performance of higher tiered core components, it's better to get them at the beginning rather than to be second guessing yourself later and wishing you'd spend fifty or a hundred bucks more overall but didn't and now would need to spend hundreds to make the change.

As far as your storage goes, the NVME PCI drive is a good thing for content creators and such, or a good many other enthusiast angles, but if gaming is your primary objective you won't see a lot of performance gains by using one and they are generally about twice the price of a similar capacity SATA SSD, so you might be able to shave some costs there. That being said, I like the idea of using an NVME PCIe SSD, but you might want to read up on them and understand what you are getting before doing so. They are not the same as normal drives and do not connect via SATA header. Also, not all boards support PCIe NVME M.2 drives even if they have an M.2 header. The specs MUST state that they support PCI M.2 and I think pretty much all of them that do support them as boot drives these days so that shouldn't be a concern if you go that route.

 

[cyan1de_]

Here's the build with a spectacular monitor that doesn't cut corners too much, the Asus VG248QE 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor.
I've swapped out the motherboard from the previous build with the Asus Prime Z370-A motherboard. I've also swapped out the GTX 1080 Ti for a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1080 8GB WINDFORCE OC 8G.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor (£311.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (£54.97 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£140.39 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston - FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£139.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: SanDisk - SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£49.97 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB WINDFORCE OC 8G Video Card (£446.26 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT - S340 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£53.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA - 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£62.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Monitor: Asus - VG248QE 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor (£199.97 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1510.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-27 18:33 BST+0100

 

[colbs2411]

@daerohn I had looked at the ryzen 2700x, but I wasn’t sure what equivalency there was with the 8700k – as reviews online kept giving different answers - and I felt more confident sticking to what I know in Intel.

@cyan1de_ no worries, I’m just grateful for the help – I’m looking at getting a 1080p 1440hz screen with preferably an IPS display; If I go a bit over-budget to get this I’m not too worried, I just don’t want to spend too much.

EDIT: Sorry I can't keep up with all the comments - thank you! I very much agree with the argument of swapping out the monitor at a later date and having the PC ready now. Also thanks for all of the builds, I can now make a really good comparison.

From the sound of it I would prefer to run an NVME PCI, to ensure that I'm not limited to gaming. Would NVME still connect to the motherboard in a similar way to a SATA or will this make the build more complicated?

 

[cyan1de_]

if you switch to a ryzen 2700x you will have nearly identical performance in games, better performance in multithread applications including rendering, video editing etc. and would possibily cost a little bir lesser than your current setup. ofcourse in games 8700k has an edge however the difference would not bother you too much. and extra cores will benefit greatly when it comes to multithreaded applications

He is going to be primarily gaming with a bit of editing. The Ryzen 7 2700x falls behind the i7-8700k, but certainly is better in editing which is a fact. But the thing is that i7-8700k will be better for what he does for the majority of his time as gaming and the Ryzen 7 2700x will be better for what he does for the minority of his time as editing.
Getting something better for what he does less? Not worth it on my watch.

 

[cyan1de_]

@daerohn I had looked at the ryzen 2700x, but I wasn’t sure what equivalency there was with the 8700k – as reviews online kept giving different answers - and I felt more confident sticking to what I know in Intel.

@cyan1de_ no worries, I’m just grateful for the help – I’m looking at getting a 1080p 1440hz screen with preferably an IPS display; If I go a bit over-budget to get this I’m not too worried, I just don’t want to spend too much.

An IPS display that fits within this budget? Sure no worries I'll get the list as fast as possible.

 

[colbs2411]

Thanks again cyan1de_ - I really like the look of the screen you recommended actually, may be a bit pricey for now on my budget but for the future it would be ideal.

 

[cyan1de_]

There are no IPS displays that are 1080p 144Hz that go wayyy over-budget (£400 minimum) unfortunately...
So if you really want to go for an IPS display with 1080p, it has to be 60Hz.
Or you could go this way (imo better) and get the LED display with 1080p 144Hz (listed in the build) as it fits in the budget and will get the job done.
BTW IPS displays have a higher response time if you didn't know!

 

[cyan1de_]

@daerohn I had looked at the ryzen 2700x, but I wasn’t sure what equivalency there was with the 8700k – as reviews online kept giving different answers - and I felt more confident sticking to what I know in Intel.

@cyan1de_ no worries, I’m just grateful for the help – I’m looking at getting a 1080p 1440hz screen with preferably an IPS display; If I go a bit over-budget to get this I’m not too worried, I just don’t want to spend too much.

EDIT: Sorry I can't keep up with all the comments - thank you! I very much agree with the argument of swapping out the monitor at a later date and having the PC ready now. Also thanks for all of the builds, I can now make a really good comparison.

From the sound of it I would prefer to run an NVME PCI, to ensure that I'm not limited to gaming. Would NVME still connect to the motherboard in a similar way to a SATA or will this make the build more complicated?

Here's a build without the monitor and with PCIe NVME M.2 Drives. You can google how M.2 drives connect to the motherboard. It's very simple and are easier to connect than SATA drives. And as said by darkbreeze, you certainly should swap the monitor later as it is not as important as the build itself. This is the best for £1500 no doubt.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor (£303.60 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! - Dark Rock 3 67.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (£54.97 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus - Prime Z370-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£140.39 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Kingston - FURY 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£139.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: ADATA - XPG SX6000 256GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£58.03 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£50.39 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB GAMING X Video Card (£621.23 @ Amazon UK)
Case: NZXT - S340 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case (£53.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£86.99 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1509.57
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-07-27 19:22 BST+0100