Thinking of building a gaming computer (first time)

[Marc1994]

Rather than buy a new console I'm wanting to build a gaming pc. That will have the capabilities to run games out within the next 2-3 years on max settings with as best frame rate as possible.

As this is my first time building one I'm a little overwhelmed by the amount of options, so I'm asking hear to see if anyone has any builds that would be able to do the job. I'm looking to spend between £1500 and £2000 on it.

Any advice at all is welcome, thank you.

 

[William Longstreet]

Rather than buy a new console I'm wanting to build a gaming pc. That will have the capabilities to run games out within the next 2-3 years on max settings with as best frame rate as possible.

As this is my first time building one I'm a little overwhelmed by the amount of options, so I'm asking hear to see if anyone has any builds that would be able to do the job. I'm looking to spend between £1500 and £2000 on it.

Any advice at all is welcome, thank you.

Most of us will use a nice website, called pcpartpicker.com

Its a very good site to have it all laid out.
PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1D2xj
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1D2xj/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1D2xj/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 240M 86.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI Z87 MPOWER Max ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($244.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 12GB (3 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($109.39 @ TigerDirect)
Storage: Samsung EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($629.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card ($647.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Corsair 650D ATX Mid Tower Case ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: SeaSonic Platinum 1000W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($223.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($45.98 @ Outlet PC)
Keyboard: Ducky DK9008S2-AUSALT Wired Gaming Keyboard ($140.00 @ Mechanical Keyboards)
Mouse: Razer DeathAdder 2013 Wired Optical Mouse ($59.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Other: Windows 8.1 Preveiw ($0.00)
Other: XBox 360 Controller (optional)
Total: $2602.25
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-09-12 19:03 EDT-0400)

I did go slightly over, however, this system will last you 6+ years if you upgrade from a haswell to a sky lake or broadwell when it comes out, and swap you video card when nvidia maxwell 800 series or amd 3-400 series is out.

 

[thdarkshadow]

i think that is a little much. try switching to a 7970 as those can be found for under 350 or sli 760s if you want more of a budget option with still super high power. I would also drop down to an I5 since an I7 performs within one or two fps of an I5. a one TB solid state is kinda crazy IMO (unless you are just spending money on a pc and have done everything else). 250 on a motherboard is about 100 too much and for single gpu you dont need a 1000w psu. one last thing: 140 for a keyboard? really? thats a ton of money
ok after that long rant it is a good system just doesnt have too good bang for your buck.

 

[Pilbo_Baggins]

i think that is a little much. try switching to a 7970 as those can be found for under 350 or sli 760s if you want more of a budget option with still super high power. I would also drop down to an I5 since an I7 performs within one or two fps of an I5. a one TB solid state is kinda crazy IMO (unless you are just spending money on a pc and have done everything else). 250 on a motherboard is about 100 too much and for single gpu you dont need a 1000w psu. one last thing: 140 for a keyboard? really? thats a ton of money
ok after that long rant it is a good system just doesnt have too good bang for your buck.

^This guy knows his shit. Just because you have the money doesnt mean you shouldnt get the most for your money. Get quality parts from reputable companies such as Corsair, Coolmaster, Seasonic, Asus.....etc and you can't go wrong. Do your research. I have learned more about computers in 2 weeks of doing research on my first build then I ever did for 30 years of my life. When you get a solid build and you have extra money, then get the extras. You would be surprised at the value your dollar has these days with pc components. But hey that's just me.

 

[William Longstreet]

i think that is a little much. try switching to a 7970 as those can be found for under 350 or sli 760s if you want more of a budget option with still super high power. I would also drop down to an I5 since an I7 performs within one or two fps of an I5. a one TB solid state is kinda crazy IMO (unless you are just spending money on a pc and have done everything else). 250 on a motherboard is about 100 too much and for single gpu you dont need a 1000w psu. one last thing: 140 for a keyboard? really? thats a ton of money
ok after that long rant it is a good system just doesnt have too good bang for your buck.

^This guy knows his shit. Just because you have the money doesnt mean you shouldnt get the most for your money. Get quality parts from reputable companies such as Corsair, Coolmaster, Seasonic, Asus.....etc and you can't go wrong. Do your research. I have learned more about computers in 2 weeks of doing research on my first build then I ever did for 30 years of my life. When you get a solid build and you have extra money, then get the extras. You would be surprised at the value your dollar has these days with pc components. But hey that's just me.

The reason I reccomended a empower max and a i7 was it'd highly overclockable pair. He wants to play for a LNG time on this machine. A 1tb ssd isn't that crazy, why get a small ssd and a 1 tb wd c black for 300$ when you could get a super high performance 1tb ssd for 500? It doesn't make sense. The PSU is a 80+ platinum 1000 watt. If he wants to go sli he ca, he will not have a issue with oc, he has lots of headroom. No reason to go super low end to save money.

 

[thdarkshadow]

i think that is a little much. try switching to a 7970 as those can be found for under 350 or sli 760s if you want more of a budget option with still super high power. I would also drop down to an I5 since an I7 performs within one or two fps of an I5. a one TB solid state is kinda crazy IMO (unless you are just spending money on a pc and have done everything else). 250 on a motherboard is about 100 too much and for single gpu you dont need a 1000w psu. one last thing: 140 for a keyboard? really? thats a ton of money
ok after that long rant it is a good system just doesnt have too good bang for your buck.

^This guy knows his shit. Just because you have the money doesnt mean you shouldnt get the most for your money. Get quality parts from reputable companies such as Corsair, Coolmaster, Seasonic, Asus.....etc and you can't go wrong. Do your research. I have learned more about computers in 2 weeks of doing research on my first build then I ever did for 30 years of my life. When you get a solid build and you have extra money, then get the extras. You would be surprised at the value your dollar has these days with pc components. But hey that's just me.

The reason I reccomended a empower max and a i7 was it'd highly overclockable pair. He wants to play for a LNG time on this machine. A 1tb ssd isn't that crazy, why get a small ssd and a 1 tb wd c black for 300$ when you could get a super high performance 1tb ssd for 500? It doesn't make sense. The PSU is a 80+ platinum 1000 watt. If he wants to go sli he ca, he will not have a issue with oc, he has lots of headroom. No reason to go super low end to save money.

Our job is to give him choices. Thats what im doing. Make sure when you do that to give correct data because if you find a 1tb ssd for $500 I will be amazed. 650 or maybe 600 is where they are at right now. My suggestion would be to get a 120 gb ssd and a 7200 rpm 1tb drive which would cost $150-200. As nice as full solid state storage is spending $600-650 just seems like too much to me. I would love to go full ssd for my pc but spending 600 for that little bit more speed? I just cant justify it when I could put that money to a new tv, phone or tablet. Even just pocketing the extra 400 would get me more satisfaction I think.
So youre saying to get a silver or gold power supply is super low end? What? I was just trying to say you can get a good sli psu for about two thirds of that price.

Now for the I7 it performs so close to an i5 strictly for gaming and overclocks the same I see no reason to get the i7. Now if he does other things with his pc that will take advantage of hyperthreading more power to ya. But for only gaming I have seen only a couple times where there is any difference and ya have to ask yourself is that worth $110? Yeah its cool to say you have an i7 but it is (as Mr Spock would say) illogical

Like I said before its a beautiful build just doesnt seem too good unless you really just have nothing else to do with money

 

[teddymines]

If OP goes with a socket 1155 i5 now (like a 3570k) and pairs it with a motherboard that supports overclocking, then he can OC if/when the times comes, or upgrade it to an i7 1155 unlocked CPU. Likewise, a good GPU like the GTX 760 SC (I like EVGA) will give good performance now, and like mentioned above, can be SLI'd if/when necessary.

At least this way, you have a solid machine that can play most modern games on high/ultra today, and give you a very low cost option to squeeze out more power (OC, which requires a better cooler), then 2 medium cost options...both the i7 and the 760 should be much cheaper in 2 years.

Plus, this all has to be balanced with the "need" to run everything on ultra. Does it really add to the game play that much that you need to spend the money, or are you ok running some on medium?

 

[HEXiT]

a basic i5 3570k will be more than enough cpu for the gpu i would go with a pair of 770's but 1 now another in 6-12 months. 8-16gigs of ddr3 1600 running off a 650w psu for a single gfx card or an 850w for a dual card setup. all in your looking at between 1200-1500.
a 250gig ssd is plenty and you can always raid 0 it if you decide to add another down the road. seriously to max out pc games for the next 2 years you dont need to spend more than 1500 in fact 1200 should be more than enough as games are gonna be limited by what the consoles can do for the most part.

 

[William Longstreet]

i think that is a little much. try switching to a 7970 as those can be found for under 350 or sli 760s if you want more of a budget option with still super high power. I would also drop down to an I5 since an I7 performs within one or two fps of an I5. a one TB solid state is kinda crazy IMO (unless you are just spending money on a pc and have done everything else). 250 on a motherboard is about 100 too much and for single gpu you dont need a 1000w psu. one last thing: 140 for a keyboard? really? thats a ton of money
ok after that long rant it is a good system just doesnt have too good bang for your buck.

^This guy knows his shit. Just because you have the money doesnt mean you shouldnt get the most for your money. Get quality parts from reputable companies such as Corsair, Coolmaster, Seasonic, Asus.....etc and you can't go wrong. Do your research. I have learned more about computers in 2 weeks of doing research on my first build then I ever did for 30 years of my life. When you get a solid build and you have extra money, then get the extras. You would be surprised at the value your dollar has these days with pc components. But hey that's just me.

The reason I reccomended a empower max and a i7 was it'd highly overclockable pair. He wants to play for a LNG time on this machine. A 1tb ssd isn't that crazy, why get a small ssd and a 1 tb wd c black for 300$ when you could get a super high performance 1tb ssd for 500? It doesn't make sense. The PSU is a 80+ platinum 1000 watt. If he wants to go sli he ca, he will not have a issue with oc, he has lots of headroom. No reason to go super low end to save money.

Our job is to give him choices. Thats what im doing. Make sure when you do that to give correct data because if you find a 1tb ssd for $500 I will be amazed. 650 or maybe 600 is where they are at right now. My suggestion would be to get a 120 gb ssd and a 7200 rpm 1tb drive which would cost $150-200. As nice as full solid state storage is spending $600-650 just seems like too much to me. I would love to go full ssd for my pc but spending 600 for that little bit more speed? I just cant justify it when I could put that money to a new tv, phone or tablet. Even just pocketing the extra 400 would get me more satisfaction I think.
So youre saying to get a silver or gold power supply is super low end? What? I was just trying to say you can get a good sli psu for about two thirds of that price.

Now for the I7 it performs so close to an i5 strictly for gaming and overclocks the same I see no reason to get the i7. Now if he does other things with his pc that will take advantage of hyperthreading more power to ya. But for only gaming I have seen only a couple times where there is any difference and ya have to ask yourself is that worth $110? Yeah its cool to say you have an i7 but it is (as Mr Spock would say) illogical

Like I said before its a beautiful build just doesnt seem too good unless you really just have nothing else to do with money

...

A 120 gig ssd will have ~40 GB after a windows 8 install.

Ssd's r/w is about 600/650 megabytes per seconds.

Hdd's run near 120/25 megabytes per second. Not just a little speed. A shitton of speed.

 

[DSzymborski]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£257.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Seidon 120M 86.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£41.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£148.07 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£100.61 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£168.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£48.54 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (£499.99 @ Dabs)
Case: NZXT Phantom (White) ATX Full Tower Case (£100.36 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 850W 80 PLUS Silver Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£99.98 @ Dabs)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£12.78 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£68.39 @ Aria PC)
Monitor: Asus VE248H 24.0" Monitor (£149.04 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1696.72
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-09-14 20:39 BST+0100)

A couple notes here

- Given your desired budget, this is about as high as I'd recommend before you really start hitting the point of diminished returns - every dollar/pound you spend more than around this area (unless you have specialized needs/desire such as a multi-screen setup or high-end graphics work) you'll get a fairly small percentage back in real-world improvement.

- You can, in fact, cut down some of these parts based on your needs. A 770 is a wonderfully performing GPU as well and the 4770k and 16 GB RAM are there mainly because I do not know what your other non-gaming needs are (and at your budget, a 4770k and 16 GB RAM instead of a 4670k and 8 GB RAM is hardly going to hurt). Don't feel the need to spend every dollar you can! At the very least, some extra budget will leave you room for excellent mouse, keyboard, headset, etc.

- I did not know if you required a monitor or an operating system, so I included them as well.

- I tried to pick parts that aren't tricky to install. The case has a lot of room, I don't usually recommend SLI/crossfire to new builders (2 x 770 will outperform a 780), and while closed loop coolers only perform about as well as good air coolers, I tend to find new builders sometimes have an awkward time with the large heat sink.

- I assumed you were in the UK. If you were referring to another pound (Egypt, Lebanon, etc), the links and choices would be very different.

 

[Marc1994]

Thank you for all the feed back, I think for me DSzymborski's build is the best since its cheap and will do what I need it to do.

Thank you for all the help and sorry for taking so long to reply haven't been on the computer.