Please, help me improve on these builds!

[Wanderkrowe]

Hello!

A few months ago I asked for help to build a gaming PC with a budget of £1300.
The closest reccomendations to my price range were these:
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/QvQ499 #1
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/b9YxVn #2

They look nice but neither one of them reaches the price tag I'm going for especially when we remove the; Case/Monitor/Mouse/Keyboard and Headphones

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gF7cjX #1 Non-hardwares removed
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/TchnK8 #2 Non-hardwares removed

I personally prefer #1 but I'm interested in what way could we improve both builds.
Of course, I will need help with the case later on but only after the Hardwares are decided.
The monitor is an entirely different question and the keyboard/mouse/headphones are irrelevant.
I'd like to go up to at the very least £1200 and it's ok if it goes a bit above £1300

Thank you very much in advance if you could help me!

 

[Entomber]

#1 overspends on PSU, you could step it down to 500W minimum, pick a reputable PSU manufacturer though
#1 probably overspends on motherboard too, if you don't plan on SLI you could try looking for a mATX board which will be a little cheaper

 

[Bossyfins]

#1
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£260.34 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£25.50 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£115.15 @ Aria PC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£54.98 @ Novatech)
Storage: Seagate 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive (£80.97 @ Dabs)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB ACX 2.0 Video Card (£275.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case (£89.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£65.94 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: BenQ GL2460HM 60Hz 24.0" Monitor (£112.98 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Razer Deathstalker Expert Wired Gaming Keyboard (£67.99 @ Aria PC)
Mouse: Corsair Vengeance M65 Wired Laser Mouse (£56.38 @ CCL Computers)
Headphones: Corsair Vengeance 1500 v2 7.1 Channel Headset (£85.66 @ More Computers)
Total: £1291.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-23 18:20 GMT+0000

#2
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£181.00 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£97.16 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£69.91 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£88.97 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.35 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB SSC ACX 2.0 Video Card (£287.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case (£39.59 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£61.62 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Asus VE247H 23.6" Monitor (£124.97 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £992.53
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-23 18:23 GMT+0000

 

[geofelt]

For gaming, the two builds are equivalent.
Same capability cpu and graphics card.

I would pick #2 for lower cost, if no other reason.
Games will not need more than 8gb, or 4 threads, and I really like a build to have a ssd for the "C" drive.

250gb will hold a fair number of games, so why not defer on the hard drive until you need to expand. Hybrid HDD's are no good, the ssd cache is not large enough .
I do think a cooler is appropriate for either build to run at 4.0.

On the GTX970, look at the evga superclock. It costs less and has a higher boost clock than the msi.
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-video-card-04gp42974kr

The Seasonic 550w is excellent and will do the job.

 

[JackNaylorPE]

I'm not sure the £1200 - £1300 is just for the parts listed in the 2nd batch (hardware only) or the 1st batch

Easiest way to reduce the cost in 1st build is to go with a 4690k as gaming benefits very little from Hyperthreading

The Blue is slow, the black is slow compared to the SSHD

This is quite a bit better and is just £70 over the cost of Build #1

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Xr3Vgs
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/Xr3Vgs/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£181.00 @ Amazon UK)

CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler (£66.98 @ Amazon UK)
Gives you 7 - 10C cooling better than Hyper 212, shud take the 2690k to 4.5 GHz

Motherboard: MSI Z97-GD65 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£123.48 @ Amazon UK)
Substantial upgrade to both motherboards listed....functional equivalent of £165.56 Asus Hero

Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£131.92 @ Amazon UK)
Substantial Upgrade to 1866 for just £5

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£95.98 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Seagate 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Hybrid Internal Hard Drive (£80.97 @ Dabs)
You had either or, this gives you both ... Blue is 4.01 MBps in Gaming / SSHD is 9.78 MBps
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (£279.98 @ Novatech)
Step up in quality for the GFX Card

Total: £960.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-23 18:25 GMT+0000

 

[Wanderkrowe]

Thanks guys but you grossly misunderstood me.
I want to spend more on the PC not less than the builds I proposed.
I need a build that costs roughly £1200-£1300 WITHOUT the case/monitor/mouse/keyboard/headphones

 

[qwerty987123]

Although i would recommend the z97-a and 1300w version of this psu to give you headroom
PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/B7DpMp
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/B7DpMp/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£181.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler (£74.72 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£165.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£52.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£79.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£41.35 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 290X 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) (£320.75 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 290X 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) (£320.75 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000G2 1000W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£121.97 @ Dabs)
Total: £1359.06
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-02-23 19:06 GMT+0000

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Games will not need more than 8gb, or 4 threads, and I really like a build to have a ssd for the "C" drive.

250gb will hold a fair number of games, so why not defer on the hard drive until you need to expand. Hybrid HDD's are no good, the ssd cache is not large enough .

The conclusion is based upon a false assumption.

Test Box has:

-Twin 780s w/ 4770k all water cooled and overclocked
(2) Samsung 256 GB Pros
(2) Seagate 2 TD SSDs
(1) 2 TB 7200 rpm HD

I can boot of either SSD or SSHD and play games of either the SSD, SSHD or HD. Originally I could also boot of HD but have since taken OS off

Boot of SSD takes 15.6 seconds
Boot of SSHD takes 16.5 seconds
Boot of HD takes 21.2 seconds

If you just go about your business, loading the game off the HD certainly doesn't drag. By the time one gets their "comfortable in the chair" so to speak .... adjusting headphones, mic, speaker volume, mouse pad to ones liking, game is loaded. However if you do all that first and then load the game, on some games you can notice a difference, on other no....... online games no difference at all as server handshaking is the bottleneck. The MMO I play took 45 seconds for all 3

Playing a new game off SSHD the 1st time was similar to the HD tho it seemed slightly faster. However, loading the game the 3rd time was indistinguishable from the SSD. The reason is the functioning of the SSD portion is not static. If you get your new box and start playing Far Cry 3 .... after your third session or so, the SSD and SSHD are virtually an identical experience.... at least so far. This is because the firmware moves the most frequently used files to the SSD in the background. So when you are playing Far Cry 3 for example, all the frequently used files are on the SSD portion .... you complete FC3 and now wanna start playing FC4, then after the first couple of plays, all of FC3's files are moved off to the mechanical portion and FC4 files have taken it's place.

I haven't tested this yet with any of the new 30 - 40GB games but will as soon as my son finished FC4 and gives me a shot. On FC3 when I set it to boot off the SSD or SSHD, no one noticed the difference. We also have two identical laptops.... one with SSD + HD which we use for field engineers in the office running CAD programs.... no one as yet has been able to tell which is which.

A situation like this left most power users using an SSD for their operating system, while still running a secondary mechanical drive for storage and games. A typical setup such as this would allow the OS to load very quickly, while leaving you stunned at how long it took to load a game. With the introduction of the Desktop SSHD, Seagate has again switched up the game, offering a substantial performance boost to those of you in this situation.

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/5748/seagate-desktop-2tb-sshd-st2000dx001-review/index9.html

Now, if you are one that chooses to use a single drive for your operating system, and have held onto your standard desktop HDD for the benefit of capacity, the Desktop SSHD is calling your name. The 8GB of NAND cache in conjunction with Seagate's application optimized algorithms should offer a tremendous performance boost, and again the more you use, it the faster the drive will get, as it learns how you use your system

With today's games hitting 30 - 40 GB, putting all your games on SSDs is not as yet feasible for most users

A 250 GB SSD has 233 GB of actual capacity; setting aside the req'd 15% free space, leaves you with 197 GB ... subtract 80GB for the OS and "common files" , that leaves only 117 GB for games .... not a lot of room for today's 30 - 40 GB titles.

If budget allows, I always recommend and SSD / SSHD combo which can be had for under $150 (120 GB SSD / 1 TB HD).... 2 TB SSD and 250 GB SSD is a bit more at $200ish. If budget is limiting you to an SSD or a HD or a small SSD and a slow HD .... I'd say get the 2 TB HD (and put OS on 128 GB partition) now and get the SSD when budget allows.... Moving the OS to the SSD is a simple procedure. You gaming will benefit more from the SSHD than you will saving 0.9 seconds of boot time.

 

[sora]

#1 overspends on PSU, you could step it down to 500W minimum, pick a reputable PSU manufacturer though
#1 probably overspends on motherboard too, if you don't plan on SLI you could try looking for a mATX board which will be a little cheaper

+1; I would choose build number one with an XFX 550W or Seasonic 520W power supply.