Building a gaming rig. Need some advice.

[Greendog]

Hi all I'm going to start buying some PC parts in the next week or 2 but I am not that much of a techy, I don't know what parts are worth really and I could just be getting expensive items that something half of its price could be doing. I've been looking on Ebuyer a lot as I've bought some bits and bobs from the website and it's very quick and satisfactory delivery.

So far I have only bought a GFX Card, AVP tower case (which I'm changing), a power supply which I needed for the graphics card and a QPad gaming mouse. The GFX card I have currently is a XFX HD 7850 Core Edition 2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI Dual DisplayPort PCI-E

Right then, I'll show you guys what I'm looking to order in the next few weeks and I'd like a bit of advice on whether these items are worth their price, or if there are better and cheaper ones that do the job just as well.

Intel Core i5 3350P 3.10GHz Socket 1155 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor - £129.82
ASUS Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 Socket AM3+ 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard - £131.79
Corsair Vengeance K95 Mechanical Gaming Keyboard Cherry Mx Red - £124.98
Corsair 16GB DDR3 1600mhz Vengeance Memory - £131.59
Kingston 240GB HyperX 3K SSD Bundle Kit - £164

All these items are from the Ebuyer website but I'm interested to know whether I can get any more bang for the buck. Peace too all and many thanks. Greendog.

[Toffie]

Your motherboard and CPU don't match, 990X is socket AM3 while the 3350P is socket 1155

I'll have a build for you in a sec.
Also I would order them from the places I provided below, ebuyer is overpriced.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£169.75 @ Scan.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£58.32 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£109.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: GeIL Enhance CORSA 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£40.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Total: £505.04
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-27 09:39 GMT+0000)

[Greendog]

Your motherboard and CPU don't match, 990X is socket AM3 while the 3350P is socket 1155

I'll have a build for you in a sec.
Also I would order them from the places I provided below, ebuyer is overpriced.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£169.75 @ Scan.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£58.32 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£109.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: GeIL Enhance CORSA 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£40.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Total: £505.04
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-27 09:39 GMT+0000)

That shaved nearly 500 quid off what the prices were for mine, thanks for the heads up about the incompatiblity thing there mate, I forgot to say in my post I was going to get a monitor as well, so far I've had no luck finding one that's good for the price. I want one with 120hz refresh rate and anything between 23 and 27 inch screen. Your reply was very helpful to me so thanks again buddy <3

PS. Do i need a water cooling system to use that cpu cooler?

[Toffie]

It's a closed loop system, it's the easiest heatsink I have ever installed.
4670K is a unlocked CPU which can be overclocked once you want the free performance in the future, so a cpu cooler is essential - but mostly since the stock heatsink can be very noisy even at stock settings.

About the faster refresh monitor, you might wanna lower the settings to achieve higher frames in games. A 7850 can output 70-90 fps in BF3 with a mix of high/ultra, just so you're aware. I have this monitor and it's the best thing I ever bought. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/24-as...1-1ms-speakers

[Greendog]

It's a closed loop system, it's the easiest heatsink I have ever installed.
4670K is a unlocked CPU which can be overclocked once you want the free performance in the future, so a cpu cooler is essential - but mostly since the stock heatsink can be very noisy even at stock settings.

About the faster refresh monitor, you might wanna lower the settings to achieve higher frames in games. A 7850 can output 70-90 fps in BF3 with a mix of high/ultra, just so you're aware. I have this monitor and it's the best thing I ever bought. http://www.scan.co.uk/products/24-as...1-1ms-speakers

That's pretty sweet monitor, not too pricey either. I see sometimes people use 2 GFX cards, does this give twice the graphics capability settings? Or does it just make them run cooler? I'm not sure whether to get another 7850 either. Does the CPU liquid cooler replace the thermal paste?

[Toffie]

7850 crossfire scale incredibly well in the games that support it, you can see some graphs here.
It increases performance but increases powerdraw & heat though.

http://www.tweak.dk/review/HIS_Radeo...sFire/1665/4/1

The H60 comes with preapplied thermal paste as seen here : http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=a...n=file&id=1406

What specific power supply do you have? Might be troublesome for crossfire.

[Greendog]

7850 crossfire scale incredibly well in the games that support it, you can see some graphs here.
It increases performance but increases powerdraw & heat though.

http://www.tweak.dk/review/HIS_Radeo...sFire/1665/4/1

The H60 comes with preapplied thermal paste as seen here : http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?ct=a...n=file&id=1406

What specific power supply do you have? Might be troublesome for crossfire.

The power supply I have as of now is the OCZ 500W CoreXStream PSU, would I need a better one if I were to use 2 7850's?

[Toffie]

You would need a better power supply sadly :/ 7850 crossfire consumes almost 500w full system load.

[Deleted]

The power supply I have as of now is the OCZ 500W CoreXStream PSU, would I need a better one if I were to use 2 7850's?

Probably. Try and get something like this Fractal Design Integra R2. The reason I've gone for that particular one is that it's compatible with all currently available GPUs, which aids in future upgradability.

[Greendog]

Really grateful for the help guys, I'd be lost otherwise. So if I were to add the Fractal R2 that will be compatible with using the 2 7850's right?

[Toffie]

Really grateful for the help guys, I'd be lost otherwise. So if I were to add the Fractal R2 that will be compatible with using the 2 7850's right?

Yes it would

[Greendog]

Yes it would

Sweet, ok I think I am good to go. Going to order the parts sometime next week including the kick ass monitor you linked.

Just a question about the CPU cooler, a friend of mine said it'd be more beneficial to go for the H80 or H100 or something. I don't know how much more expensive they are but are they marginally better than the H60 or does the overall performance of the higher ones completely overtake the H60 in terms of cooling efficiency?

[Toffie]

The difference is not that much from the h100i which is one of the best closed loop cooler out there.
Around 3c under load which is not worth the extra cost

Review
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,10.html

[Greendog]

The difference is not that much from the h100i which is one of the best closed loop cooler out there.
Around 3c under load which is not worth the extra cost

Review
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages...review,10.html

Great thankyou! This is very much appreciated Toffie. I'll stick with the H60 then, can't wait to get these upgrades. It's like being 8 years old at christmas lol. I'll likely just wait and get all the bits I need in one order. Thank you for all your informative advice. Be well my friend <3

[Toffie]

No problem at all, be sure to post your setup in the build thread once you're done ^^
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...setup!/page610

[Greendog]

No problem at all, be sure to post your setup in the build thread once you're done ^^

Thanks. I will for sure