First time PC build feedback and help

[Scubalock]

Hey guys. I’m looking to put together my first PC build and would like some feedback on the final draft.

I’ve been reading through the threads on this forum for a while and have absorbed a lot of helpful information. I believe I’ve put together a pretty nice build but would like some feedback and/or suggestions for improvements before I go ahead and start ordering the parts.

I’m currently on a Macbook Pro, but will be selling it to bring the price of this system down a bit.

Budget - £1300 - £1600 INCLUDING a monitor (rough Google conversion: $2100 - $2700)
Resolution – 1920x1080
Games / Settings Desired – WoW on ultra, Skyrim and random games etc. on max settings
Any other intensive software or special things you do - Music mixing/mastering, production/design
Country – UK (Scotland)
Parts that can be reused – None, currently on a Macbook Pro
Do you need an OS? - Yes
Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)? – Yes; monitor, mouse, keyboard. I do have a Firewire Audio Interface.

For games, I mostly play WoW (being a Mac user), and would like to play on ultra settings in 20/25 man with nice FPS. Also some other random games, Skyrim etc. on max would be nice.

I do mixing/mastering and a bit of production currently using Logic on my Macbook Pro, but will most likely be using Ableton or Reason on this system. Doing this I think the extra £60 ($100) for the i7 might be worth it given how CPU intensive large file projects can get, giving me extra room for more channels, plugins etc. without affecting performance – but I’m not sure.

This is the build I’ve come up with (prices are in UK GBP):

CPU - Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Desktop Processor £175.00
CPU Cooler - Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler £87.99
Motherboard - ASRock Z87 PRO3 Motherboard £70.00
RAM - Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz £65.00
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive £62.00
SSD - Samsung 840 Series Pro 256GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Drive £163.00
GPU - Asus GTX 770 Nvidia GeForce £242.00
Case - Corsair Carbide Series 300R £65.00
PSU - Corsair TX650M £88.00
OS - Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) £74.00
Monitor - Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0" Monitor £267.00

Sub Total - £1,358.99

Roughly converted that’s $2,267 INCLUDING the monitor and OS. After selling my laptop it would bring me down to somewhere around £1000 ($1600) total – so pretty good I think.

My first question is - would swapping the i5-4670K for an i7-4770K and the Asus GTX 770 for an Asus GTX 780 give me any notable performance increase doing the above on this system? Spending the extra £200 ($335) for the better parts isn’t a major concern, but id rather not pay more for extra performance I’d likely never benefit from.

Secondly, I think I’m OK with the RAM/HDD/SSD/MoBo - but I don’t have any experience with building PCs. Are the case, PSU and cooler fit for purpose here? Am I overkilling with the cooler, PSU? Any tweaks or suggestions to case / PSU / cooler would be very welcome.

As a side note, I was originally looking at a 27” iMac:

3.5GHz Quad-core Intel Core i7, Turbo Boost up to 3.9GHz
8GB 1600MHz DDR3 SDRAM - 2X4GB
1TB Serial ATA Drive 7200 rpm
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780M 4GB GDDR5
27" monitor

I can get the above, after student discount and selling my laptop, for around £1350 ($2,250) total. Thoughts?

Thanks for your time and help.

[Deleted]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£161.99 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H75 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£59.23 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G55 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£91.00 @ Aria PC)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£59.64 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£104.90 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.72 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (£369.95 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£57.84 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£64.96 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£79.81 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Asus PA238Q 23.0" Monitor (£213.88 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1306.92
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-26 13:58 GMT+0000)

Similar price but includes a GTX 780.

Different option for monitor, both the above and this one is IPS:

Dell U2414H || Review

Review of the Asus PA238Q

[Scubalock]

Thanks a lot! I'll go read up on some of the parts you listed. Very nice you got the GTX 780 in there for the same price.

In particular is there anything to avoid with certain cases for size restrictions etc? Or in general is it safe to assume everthing will fit? This is new ground for me so I'm not sure.

Thanks in particular for the monitor link!

[Lapetos]

The case should have information as to what size graphics card it will let you fit... to which the graphics card should tell you how long it is. Also the case details should let you know what type of motherboard you can fit in it. If in doubt though link the case you fancy and i'm sure someone can let you know if things will fit.

[Deleted]

Here is a review of the case I picked:

http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/583...ew/index8.html

It comes in different colors and slightly different looking side panels/LED. Ample room for long GPU's as you can see. I pick it over the 300R mainly because of the price and you're getting 3 fans included, pretty good at that price point.

[Scubalock]

Thanks a lot for the replies. I've tweaked it a bit based on the suggestions so it looks like this:

CPU - Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Desktop Processor £161
CPU Cooler - Corsair H80i £68.99
Motherboard - ASRock Z87 PRO3 Motherboard £70.00
RAM - Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9 Vengeance 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600 Mhz £65.00
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive £43
SSD - Samsung 840 Series Pro 256GB 2.5 inch SATA Solid State Drive £109
GPU - MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card £369
Case - Corsair Carbide Series 300R £65.00 - just prefer the look of this one
PSU - EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply £64
OS - Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) £74.00
Monitor - Asus PA238Q 23.0" Monitor £209

Sub Total - £1,297

Much cheaper than my original build and with the GTX 780. I could also throw in an i7 and be at the same price as the original build!

A question on coolers - Is there any tangible difference between a Corsair H80i, H75, H60 for this build? Is there any clear performance advantage using these over say an Evo 212?

For the PSU, I decided to go with the EVGA SuperNOVA 650W. I was also looking at spending the money I've shaved off the build and getting the Seasonic X-650 Full module 650W ATX12V for £120, but is it worth it?

Thanks a lot for the help!

[Deleted]

Where are you able to buy the Samsung 840 Pro and WD Black for almost the same price? If the pricing is right then sure go for that instead. I just don't see those prices anywhere. If they're not as cheap then there is little reason to buy those over the WD Blue and 840 EVO.

Better spend that money save on say a better motherboard like the one I linked you.

There is no reason to pay extra for the RAM, Mushkin is a really good RAM brand as is.

If you just wanna overclock slightly and have quieter and better performance over stock cooling and you're fine with air then I would go for this:

Enermax ETS-T40-TB

If you want to push things to average or above average I'd go with something like this, also looks nice if you care about that:

NZXT HAVIK 140 quieter operations as well

H60 is fine, though for only a few extra £ the H75 seem to best the best pick (to me) out of the 3 (H-series).

£120 is just way too much to pay for the PSU, if I were to change it to something better, the EVGA can be slightly loud and not quite the same quality lvl as other slightly more expensive options:

Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular
SeaSonic M12II 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular
Be Quiet POWER ZONE 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular

[Lapetos]

Only can state an opinion on a couple of things.
i7 won't be any advantage on gaming so would be money wasted for you.
The Corsair coolers do indeed cool your cpu better than the evo... the evo tends to get used on a tight budget. Plus they look nicer.
PSU if you want fully modular then there's cheaper... not really worth the price bump.

[Scubalock]

Where are you able to buy the Samsung 840 Pro and WD Black for almost the same price? If the pricing is right then sure go for that instead. I just don't see those prices anywhere. If they're not as cheap then there is little reason to buy those over the WD Blue and 840 EVO.

Yep those were typos sorry, copy-pasted from my original. It is indeed the WD Blue and EVO in the new build - my bad.

Reason I didn't pick the Mushkin is because its actually more expensive on Amazon than the Vengeance. I'll be buying most these parts on Amazon due to having a few discounts on hand.

£120 is just way too much to pay for the PSU, if I were to change it to something better, the EVGA can be slightly loud and not quite the same quality lvl as other slightly more expensive options:

Hm ok thanks. I think I might go for the Corsair RM 650W then, i'd rather pay the small difference if its a better quality PSU.

The Corsair coolers do indeed cool your cpu better than the evo... the evo tends to get used on a tight budget. Plus they look nicer.

I think I'll go with one of the Corsair coolers then! I'll read up on them a bit more before I decide which one seeing as there's so little price difference between them.

i7 won't be any advantage on gaming so would be money wasted for you.

Well it's not just gaming I'll be doing but yeah I get you

Near enough ready to start ordering. Thanks a lot guys you've been very helpful

Just hope I don't break everything putting it together

[Deleted]

Yep those were typos sorry, copy-pasted from my original. It is indeed the WD Blue and EVO in the new build - my bad.

Reason I didn't pick the Mushkin is because its actually more expensive on Amazon than the Vengeance. I'll be buying most these parts on Amazon due to having a few discounts on hand.

RAM prices in the UK is all over the place, so yeah just get whichever is the cheapest. If you can find any 1.5v, 1866MHz for around the same price or a little extra it might be worth picking up, 1866 seem to be the sweet spot for Haswell assuming it's not overly expensive.

Yeah, you're not going to really notice any differences in your gaming and daily use with the 840 Pro or WD Black. Better warranty on the WD Black I guess but that's about it. The 840 EVO will suit you just fine.