unsure between 2 builds and components

[catsplosion]

Hi guys.

This will be my first ever custom pc build! Really looking forward to having the capability to play all the games i want to! I have done A LOT of research, i have been at theorizing these builds for weeks! I want to check things with you guys to make sure i am doing the best i can, cash isnt highly available to me! Thanks to any help in advance! Okay, here goes.

This build will be used primarily for gaming, it will also be coming to university with me, and so will be used for alot of my daily needs. It will also be used for messing with game design and construction, and whatever else takes my interest. I was aiming for a budget of £600 to £700 pounds, however after looking at what i want, and so i dont have a desire to upgrade straight away i have conceded to go a little over this. Here are the 2 builds i came up with, based on my research:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£155.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£97.28 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory (£64.99 @ Dabs)
Storage: Plextor M5S Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£58.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.50 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 4GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£278.12 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£83.93 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.84 @ Dabs)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.00 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£12.00 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K30 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£34.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £895.58
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-07 23:41 BST+0100)

And:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor (£105.38 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£74.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£64.37 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Plextor M5S Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£58.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.50 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£204.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£83.93 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.84 @ Dabs)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.00 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£12.00 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K30 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£34.99 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Gigabyte GK-FORCE K7 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£31.99 @ Novatech)
Total: £780.27
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-07 23:45 BST+0100)

The first build is the slightly more expensive Intel based build i came up with, and the second the cheaper AMD build. I am looking for general opinions on the parts, price points ect! Also consider the individual parts, like the GPU interchangable between the two builds, so it can be mixed up. As well as this any ideas on good quality, sexy cases would be nice . Last thing i think, what do you guys think of this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-HANNS-G-HL226HPB-22-HD-WIDESCREEN-SLIMLINE-LED-PC-COMPUTER-DESKTOP-MONITOR/141295595802?_trksid=p2050601.c100103.m2451&_trkparms=aid%3D111001%26algo%3DREC.SEED%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20140211150826%26meid%3D7460370758516981537%26pid%3D100103%26prg%3D20140211150826%26rkt%3D4%26clkid%3D7460375873524085485&_qi=RTM1793562
I will be honest, i havent done much research on monitors, and dont really understand the specs, as until my funds are up im planning on using my bedroom TV screen! Oh yeah, what sort of screen do you need to really utilise these graphics cards!

So sorry for the wall of text! i am just really buzzing for this. Thanks for any assistance
ps remember the GTX comes with watchdogs!

 

[catsplosion]

Oh also, i would like to play some multiplayer games, mainly FPS games, especially planetside 2. Which i have read somewhere is very demanding. Will i need a faster CPU for this sort of stuff?

 

[sora]

Oh also, i would like to play some multiplayer games, mainly FPS games, especially planetside 2. Which i have read somewhere is very demanding. Will i need a faster CPU for this sort of stuff?

Both of those CPUs are great for those games. Both builds should be able to handle all the FPS games, Planetside 2 included. I would choose whichever company appeals to you the most; Intel/NVIDIA or AMD.

 

[CTurbo]

This is better than either

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gr7Tzy
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gr7Tzy/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/gr7Tzy/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£137.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£74.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£55.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial M500 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£50.15 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.94 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card (£339.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£64.99 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.84 @ Dabs)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£64.26 @ CCL Computers)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K30 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£34.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £868.68
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-08 05:30 BST+0100)


No case though?

 

[catsplosion]

I understand that that GPU is better, but the rest of the build is very lacking in my opinion. No overclocking ability, the mobo is limited. The mobo i put in my build was wrong, i wanted this one: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-z87g45gaming for its killer Lan? Also with the better mobo i could crossfire or SLI in the future if i felt the need too! Would you recommend cutting all this for the slight upgrade in GPU? Also i couldnt decide on a case so i asked for any suggestions? might upgrade to Windows 8.1 as well. Also, considering the other uses! Would the AMD and its cores maybe not be a better choice than an intel all together?

 

[catsplosion]

And, thanks for the assistance!

 

[CTurbo]

Overclocking Intel is not necessary and is not cost efficient. That locked i5 is stronger than that FX will ever be no matter now much you overclock it. Overclocking and SLI support are the only features missing from the H97 chipset. It will support Intel's next gen cpu so it's "future proof" to an extent. Do you really see yourself running SLI/Xfire in the future? You would need a lot more than a 650w psu. The 290 will outlast the GTX770 or 280x by a good margin, by the time it's not strong enough, you could just add whatever the new hotness is at the time instead of trying to find a 2nd 290.

I have no opinion on which windows to get. That's a personal choice.

No the AMD is not the better option, and I can no longer recommend any FX cpu. They are 2 years old now and really can't compete with the newest Intel chips. The AM3+ platform is also outdated.

The 4590 + R9 290 would be a WAY better gaming machine than an overclocked 4670k + 280x or GTX770 for the same price. It's the best bang for buck for sure.


What about a case? If you're going to be transporting this thing, you may want to think about getting a microATX case or even a miniITX case. You would have to select a different motherboard, but the rest can stay the same.

 

[Vic 40]

I do agree to a certain point with CTurbo,he know's i disagree too.The r9 290 is the better card so in that case is his build the better one.
I however do like overclocking and see a point in it,maybe not for now,but in time can there be a moment when the speeds added will be a bonus and could you imo do longer with a system.

My build for overclocking,

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£155.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Scythe SCMG-4000 79.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£31.84 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£103.43 @ Dabs)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£59.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£53.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.94 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280X 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£204.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: NZXT Phantom 240 ATX Mid Tower Case (£50.69 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£84.70 @ Dabs)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.84 @ Dabs)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£59.00 @ Amazon UK)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN881ND 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£12.00 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K30 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£34.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £897.74
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-08 16:35 BST+0100)
Got a nice cooler in and a motherboard good for crossfire.The psu should be good enough for that too.
The case,i like the looks.Pick something you like.

 

[catsplosion]

Wow, i am really undecided now haha. Well i am only moving it to and from uni, so i dont think a big build will be that much of a problem! Plus wont a smaller build have some cooling problems maybe? As to the overclocking cpu and stuff, i found they were reccomended on the toms hardware roundups recently, so i based a lot of my research on that! Also i have read somewhere, someone who SLI's two lower end GPU's and got far superior performance to the top end, very expensive GPU's of today, and it cost him like, half as much! Its weird, the page for the Asrock Z97 on partpicker say it handles those RAM speeds, the page on the retailer site says it doesnt :s. So, final evaluation, Better GPU, or better everything else? what do you guys think? And what sort of fps and detail do you reckon both these build could handle stuff like bf4 and planetside 2 at?

Thanks for the excellent help!

 

[catsplosion]

Also, how about the performance differenced between the GTX and the R9? see the GTX's come with watchdoges, which is like £40 in itself, but the price difference can be as low as like, £20?

Thanks guys.

 

[CTurbo]

Overclocking certainly doesn't hurt. It's just not cost effective. You'll find your self spending an extra $125-150 at least for a performance gain you don't even need. Take a look at any of the Intel builds on this page. Processing power is the absolute LAST thing those builds need. The performance gain is negligible. Like I said above. It's better to spend that extra money elsewhere like in the video card, or even an ssd would make a bigger impact.

It's always better to have one really strong video card than to have two weaker cards despite the performance. Two cards draw way more power, put off way too much extra heat, and are usually not without complications in games.

Good microAtx cases do not have any cooling issues at all even with overclocking and SLI/xfire.
A good miniITX case will not have any cooling issues with the setup I recommend which is a locked i5 and strong single video card.


This is what I recommend in a micoATX build. I have this exact case and it's great. Awesome airflow and plenty of room.

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

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£137.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus H97M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£63.24 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£55.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial M500 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£52.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£40.63 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card (£339.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£31.44 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£64.99 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.84 @ Dabs)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£64.26 @ CCL Computers)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K30 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£34.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £896.25
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-09 01:48 BST+0100)


And this would be an awesome mini build

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/49y4Bm
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/49y4Bm/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/49y4Bm/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£137.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£90.29 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£55.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial M500 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£52.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£40.63 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card (£339.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master HAF Stacker 915R Mini ITX Tower Case (£57.85 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£64.99 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£10.84 @ Dabs)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£64.26 @ CCL Computers)
Keyboard: Corsair Raptor K30 Wired Gaming Keyboard (£34.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £949.71
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-06-09 01:53 BST+0100)

 

[sora]

Also, how about the performance differenced between the GTX and the R9? see the GTX's come with watchdoges, which is like £40 in itself, but the price difference can be as low as like, £20?

Thanks guys.

The AMD has better price to performance but they both pretty much perform well in both games. The R9 has Mantle support for Battlefield 4 though.

 

[Vic 40]

Both games mentioned should run on ultra with any build posted above.

 

[catsplosion]

Flipping awesome! Thanks for the brilliant help guys, just one last thing, any reccomendation on screens. I will be using my rooms tv screen for now, but when my student loan comes in haha. I cant thank you guys enough!

Cheers Matt.

 

[catsplosion]

Ah, what about the GTX 780, isnt that comparative to the R9 290, apparently it performs better according to some?

 

[Vic 40]

A budget for that screen?

the gtx 780 and r9 290 are about equal,but the r9 290 has a better price/performance ratio.

 

[catsplosion]

Okay cool. I would anywhere up to £200 maybe? Could you suggest at different price ranges what i can get thanks!

 

[catsplosion]

can i also ask why this:http: //uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-112270050g
is better than this: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-912v308002
and this: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-video-card-r92904gd5

Thanks a lot!

 

[Vic 40]

For a nice ips monitor,
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/dell-monitor-4691253 (1920x180)
or
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/dell-monitor-u2414h (1920x1080)
or
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/lg-monitor-24eb23pmb (1920x1200)

for a tn model,
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-monitor-vx238h (1920x1080)
for 144hrz,
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/aoc-monitor-g2460pqu
A gamer choice,not the best colors,but fast.(check reviews)

Haven't looked at 27" but those are to be found as well in that budget.If you're interested do tell.

These are some that i think are good.Look at reviews if you want to know more.The first dell is one i would pick,i have the 24" 1920x1200 version,really nice colors but a little backlight bleeding (are they known for).You really see that when the screen is dark.

 

[catsplosion]

Thanks man, do you know the differenece between the GPU's above ^^. Hunting for a sexy case atm that goes with the colour scheme! haha

 

[Vic 40]

One of the msi's has the standard cooler which should be avoided.(link 3)

Between the others not much,you could imo go for the cheapest with those twoYou really should see them compared in reviews to see how they perform with their temps and sound wise for a good comparison.

For the performance is there probably to little to get exited about.They're both clocked about the same so ...

To get back at the monitors,the next is for ips probably the one to go for by now,
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/dell-monitor-u2414h

 

[CTurbo]

The Sapphire Tri-X 290 is the best one IMO

 

[catsplosion]

Hey guys, sorry to bring this one up again. Okay, i have bought the HDD, the optical drive, and the sapphire R9 260 tri x! I am just trying to decide on the rest of the build, i am really not good at these decisions! Which is better, the crucial M500, or the samsung 840 evo? The majority of the full cases say i hace to remove the drive cages to fit the large GPU, how much will this cut down on my hard drive and SSD space? What do you guys think of an overclock build, without a new fan? What if i replaced the stock later? Also, i was thinking about the micro, but its really hard to find mobos for it, i was looking for one without overclock by xfire capable. This is a lot harder than i thought it would be haha.

 

[CTurbo]

Dude just forget about overclocking and crossfire and get a 4590 and H97 motherboard. You're never going to need TWO 290s unless you go for a 1600p or 4k screen. It's not hard to find good Intel microATX boards. There are just as many of them as ATX boards. The Samsung Evo has faster write speeds than the Crucial M500 but unless you copy large files all the time you'll never notice. They are both two of the most reliable ssds on the market. I recommend the M500 because it's cheaper.


Yes you could go for an overclocking build and add a fan later. The stock fan is perfectly fine AT STOCK SPEEDS.

 

[catsplosion]

okay thanks man, also, how would having to remove drive caged for this massive card i have already bought affect me ability to fit the HDD and SSD? and possinly another HDD in the future? im not sure if doing it removes all of the cages or?

Thanks for the help!