Critique my potential new computer

[Fascinate]

Not terribly. You definitely want an aftermarket one, but you dont need to spend much money. Here is example of all you need:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835103065

[Deleted]

my 2 cents

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4340 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£117.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£85.36 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.25 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£61.86 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (£173.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master Storm Enforcer ATX Mid Tower Case (£74.87 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£41.00 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £694.22
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-08 22:40 BST+0100)

gpu is a placeholder for the new amd cards beeing released soon. i3 will be enough for mmo´s and most of the new games. went with a z87 board so u will be able to add an 4670k and overclock that later on if ure not satisfied anymore with the i3 (which should take a while).

[Fluorescent0]

i5 >>> i3+SSD also in my opinion. Also you can later on add the SSD, they are much easier to install(plug in Power+SATA cable and done) than a CPU, not to mention weird incompatibilities that might happen for some weird reason.

Pretty much all properly ported Triple AAA titles do utilize more than 2 cores and also, since XBone and PS4 are just around the corner, and they have 8-core CPUs, we will for 100% sure start seeing ports being able to utilize up to 8 cores.

XBox 360 was a 6 core (3+3) and PS3 was an 8 core. Nothing really changed though, why should it now? It's programming tecniques, paradigms and needs being the limit here, not technology or laziness.

Wasn't talking about the 4570, there is basically one CPU people talk about when they talk about overclocking, the 4670k. But if you really need it specified, I was comparing it to the 4670K as someone was saying an i5 would be worse for gaming due to lower clock frequencies.

When I was talking about the 96%, it is the measurable performance in syntethic tests/benchmarks I was talking about. To keep it simple. It's kind of the reason a 4670K can compete with a 4770K despite the 4770K having a higher clock frequency. I agree, I might have formulated it a bit "general" but that is to not overcomplicate and give a real life comparison instead of a technical comparison, which 99/1000 people is not gonna understand nor care about anyway.

L3 cache is actually more important than you think, not specifically for gaming but for alot of other tasks which you will use if you do have a computer. Not gonna write anything about it as it's really irrelevant for this discussion. My point was: an i3 will do the job just fine, but the i5 (4670k) is not only more powerfull out of the box, but it's potential power due to overclocking far surpasses the i3.

Yes, I said that, and it was specifically in response to potis' post. Of course, an i5-4670k will be better provided you can overclock it decently, but seeing as it requires a Z87 motherboard, a ooler and the processor (~150-200$ extra?) I can see that money spent much better elsewhere.

And no, hyperthreading will always be a 20% increase in performance at max and that's what benchmarks show as well. Unless you try and explain your 96% number better, it's just flat out wrong.

And no, that amount of cache is actually only really needed on very heavy workloads which you wouldn't be expecting to do properly with a 700£ computer anyways: video editing, number crunching and so on.

The point to discuss isn't whether the 4670k is better than the 4340, or comparable i3s, because it OBIOUSLY is, but rather if the money saved could be better spent elsewhere, and that can only be decided on OP's needs.

And flens, replace that PSU. It's manufactured by HEC, which is horrible.

[Deleted]

And flens, replace that PSU. It's manufactured by HEC, which is horrible.

yeah, took potis build and switched parts around and forgot to change the psu to the xfx, my bad and thx for noticing.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4340 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£117.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£85.36 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.25 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£61.86 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (£173.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master Storm Enforcer ATX Mid Tower Case (£74.87 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.24 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £702.46
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-08 23:26 BST+0100)

[anyaka21]

Basic thoughts, what is your main usage? Just WoW? Do you play other games? Because depending on your usage, a 256gb ssd might be a better option. Add that if you are planning on doing some rendering or anything like that? If so, a different chip will be better.

Also, overclocking is easy, do you think you might want that as an option? If so, a different cpu and a better cpu fan is a good idea.

Are you hooked up directly to a router or are you wifi? If wifi, you'll need a card to connect.

1st build? Or have you done it before? If not, look up some building guides on youtube, the newegg ones are pretty comprehensive and easy to understand.

[Deleted]

yeah, took potis build and switched parts around and forgot to change the psu to the xfx, my bad and thx for noticing.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-4340 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor (£117.76 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£85.36 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.25 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£61.86 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card (£173.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master Storm Enforcer ATX Mid Tower Case (£74.87 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.24 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £702.46
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-08 23:26 BST+0100)

Awful build - take out the GPU, the ie with a Z87 board and the SSD. Replace those with the 4670k+cooler and the R9-270X WF3(£165 from Aria) and get a medium-end case, like this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£167.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£57.73 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£85.36 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.25 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£61.86 @ Aria PC)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£46.55 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£49.24 @ CCL Computers)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer (£13.15 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £535.13
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-09 08:17 BST+0100)

With something like ASUS DirectCU II 270X, which comes to the same price-point as your build. You lose the SSD, but gain future-proofing potential out of the box.

[yurano]

Replace with R9-270X WF3(£165 from Aria)

The R9-270X is a 7870 Ghz rebrand and significantly slower than a 7950.

[Deleted]

The R9-270X is a 7870 Ghz rebrand and significantly slower than a 7950.

The Windforce 3 GPU from Gigabyte is the cheapest R9 series card available in the UK at the moment. IT also fits within the budget guaranteed, and with guaranteed Mantle compatibility I would recommend it for a ~£700 build. IT should be fine for 1080p gaming on Good/High settings for most games.

[Deleted]

Okay so now im looking at this set up:

CPU: Intel Core i5 4670K, S 1150, Haswell, Quad Core, 3.4GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo, 1200MHz GPU, 34x Ratio
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler for All Intel/AMD CPU's
Motherboard: Asus Z87-K, Intel Z87, S 1150, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub (VGA) DVI-D HDMI, ATX
GPU: R7950 TF 3GD5/OC BE - 3GB MSI Radeon HD 7950 Twin Frozr OC BE, 28nm, 5000MHz GDDR5, GPU 880MHz, 1792 Cores, DVI/ HDMI/ 2x mini DP
Memory: Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz CL9 XMP
PSU: OCZ OCZ-ZS550W-UK 550W ZS Series 550W 80+ Bronze PSU with 135mm Fan & single +12V Rail

And ill deal with storage and case seperately, the above parts are what i need the most advice on

- - - Updated - - -

Although that PSU isnt modular...

- - - Updated - - -

Also i should have added this earlier but no i dont just want a PC for playing wow (In fact currently my sub is frozen) I play a tonne of other games of pretty much every genre. Currently very into SC2 and ill be getting BF4 no doubt. I dont do any rendering and i use ethernet not wireless

[Fascinate]

Looks good to me. Only thing id change is PSU. Here is a decent modular unit for reasonable price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139050

It even has all black cables which is pretty crazy for the price range, not sure how much they go for in the UK tho. This PC will do amazing in all variety of games, its the same specs i would use if i were to build a PC today (7950, 4670k, 8gb 1600 ram).

[Deleted]

Looks good to me. Only thing id change is PSU. Here is a decent modular unit for reasonable price:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139050

It even has all black cables which is pretty crazy for the price range, not sure how much they go for in the UK tho. This PC will do amazing in all variety of games, its the same specs i would use if i were to build a PC today (7950, 4670k, 8gb 1600 ram).

I'm actually surprised, as the CX500M is going for the same price, give or take some change, as the XFX 550W Pro series non-modular.

[Deleted]

Awful build -

fit in a ssd + abetter gpu and the possibility to upgrade later on to a 4670k... sure u can skip the ssd but i´ll promise he will get one sooner or later anyways.. and the 7950 probably will be superior to the 270... anyhow, sure drop the ssd and upgrade to a 4670k and a cooler on my build, calling it awful though is uncalled for as the i3 will still play all modern games at high the next 1,5 years....and he probably will or should add an ssd later on + the lower gpu is, i dont know, in the end it will be the same +- 20pounds... but you could definitely go for tenangrys build which is not that awful :P

[Fluorescent0]

I'm actually surprised, as the CX500M is going for the same price, give or take some change, as the XFX 550W Pro series non-modular.

That's because the CX is a worse quality unit.

[Fascinate]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/C...CX600M/11.html

Sure they probably dont use top of the line components but they are still good PSU's for a ridiculously low price. 8.3 is a solid number from techpowerup.

[Deleted]

Could I fit this build into a micro ATX case? I know I would need a matx mobo. I just really don't fancy another huge tower I'd rather a smaller neater case but don't wanna compromise on my components or cooling.

[Deleted]

Could I fit this build into a micro ATX case? I know I would need a matx mobo. I just really don't fancy another huge tower I'd rather a smaller neater case but don't wanna compromise on my components or cooling.

You'll need to change the motherboard to something like this. This also allows you to shrink the case a little, though airflow won't typically be as good.

[Deleted]

I was thinking of the carbide air 540 which I *think* supports normal ATX motherboards.