£550 Budget PC Build - need help

[Deleted]

Hi, I am looking for a computer for gaming (Ultra not needed but reasonable performance), and office work / programming. No high demanding programs such as video editing or 3D modelling needed! I have a build list but no clue what I'm doing! Thanks in advance!

Budget: £550

Do NOT need:
Monitor, Peripherals, OS, or any storage drives!

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£163.90 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£83.60 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£34.92 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GB Video Card (£127.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£80.28 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£39.99 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £530.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-23 22:24 GMT+0000

[Denpepe]

The PSU you chose is known to be bad (the whole corsair CX series is) something like this should do better
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/seas...s12ii620bronze
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/evga...ly-100b10600kr

I went with some higher wattage so if in future you want to upgrade your GPU you have some spare power. Depending how long you intend to use your graphics card you may want to look into getting a slightly better one and maybe get a cheaper case to offset some of the cost, AMD cards atm are the go to ones due to better performance and better dx12 support for upcoming games.
Also the i5-6600 is a tad better but also somewhat more expensive but either should do well enough.

[Soisoisoi]

The PSU you chose is known to be bad (the whole corsair CX series is)

AFAIK the CX series is fine, but it's just cheaper parts. You get what you pay for, basically. Excluding the CX750, which is built differently.

[the boar]

shop around. a lot. pc partpicker's uk vendor prices are always.. weird. like it'll say £70 + £5 postage but then you'll go to the site and it'll be £73 with free postage? just weird things.
be wary of amazon too, the prices are usually way off for whatever reason. also again with amazon marketplace, be prepared for one person to take 3 weeks to post that vital item you need to even begin building ~.~

i try to stick to the proper computer part vendor sites, ebuyer and aria are usually the cheapest and offer either free postage or very low postage that is still quick. overclockers aka overpriced sometimes have some great bundle offers, not always but worth a look. novatech are nice people, they gave me a free upgrade worth £50 when an item was out of stock!

STAY AWAY FROM "MORE COMPUTERS" they are.. oh jeez. i don't even know how to explain their business. just google for reviews and you'll see a lot of very unhappy people.

[Deleted]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£186.99 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£69.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£30.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£158.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£50.03 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£46.07 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £543.06
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-24 10:35 GMT+0000

[Deleted]

The PSU you chose is known to be bad (the whole corsair CX series is) something like this should do better
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/seas...s12ii620bronze
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/evga...ly-100b10600kr

I went with some higher wattage so if in future you want to upgrade your GPU you have some spare power. Depending how long you intend to use your graphics card you may want to look into getting a slightly better one and maybe get a cheaper case to offset some of the cost, AMD cards atm are the go to ones due to better performance and better dx12 support for upcoming games.
Also the i5-6600 is a tad better but also somewhat more expensive but either should do well enough.

Thanks, I mainly picked that PSU because it's semi-modular and non-modular ones I tend to hate using. But guess I'll have to then.

- - - Updated - - -

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£186.99 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£69.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£30.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£158.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£50.03 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX ProSeries 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£46.07 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £543.06
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-03-24 10:35 GMT+0000

Would you say it's worth spending roughly £30 more on that choice of graphics card compared to the cheap one I found? I know it's superclocked but will tht make much of a difference? I'd rather have a nicer case I think but will still consider it.

[ravealert]

if you drop the £30 off of the case (not like you looking @ it all the time) that £30 buy another 8GB ram taking you to 16GB

[Lathais]

AFAIK the CX series is fine, but it's just cheaper parts. You get what you pay for, basically. Excluding the CX750, which is built differently.

You know wrong then. The entire CX line, except for the CX750, is known to be poorly built. Here:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1431436/w...y-a-corsair-cx

I mean seriously, it doesn't even meet ATX Hold-up time specs and is only rated to output full power at under 30c. The inside of any PC is going to be hotter than 30c, so it's never going to put out it's full power. Plus, low temp rated main capacitor and the rest are cheap Chinese crap? Just stay away from the CX line OP, it's not complete garbage but you can do better.

[Deleted]

Would you say it's worth spending roughly £30 more on that choice of graphics card compared to the cheap one I found? I know it's superclocked but will tht make much of a difference? I'd rather have a nicer case I think but will still consider it.

I'd say its 30pounds more performance and you should get the best you can afford. The gtx950 is like the min "gaming" card atm, this is one step above that which means it will last you a little longer. An R9 380 is also a good option.

As for the case, the micro one i linked, is fully modular on orientation. An awesome little case for the money.

Additionally you get a better cpu in the budget, this one has turbo to 3.9Ghz instead of 3.6Ghz of 6500. In a cpu heavy game like wow this is definately worth it.

I also looked at the 16gb ram option but you'd gain no performance out of it for you want to do. You would just have more ram if you needed it, when you don't need you gain nothing. For everyday use and gaming 8gb is enough and hey if you need more down the road you could just add more. You could grab 1x8gb of ram if you want to, will have no difference in performance.

[Soisoisoi]

You know wrong then. The entire CX line, except for the CX750, is known to be poorly built. Here:
http://www.overclock.net/t/1431436/w...y-a-corsair-cx

I mean seriously, it doesn't even meet ATX Hold-up time specs and is only rated to output full power at under 30c. The inside of any PC is going to be hotter than 30c, so it's never going to put out it's full power. Plus, low temp rated main capacitor and the rest are cheap Chinese crap? Just stay away from the CX line OP, it's not complete garbage but you can do better.

That, and reading the link, is pretty much what I said. "Does this mean that the CX is crap / trash / junk / garbage or any other such things NO! they are NOT! that bad they are just mediocre, but you should buy something better if you building a gaming and/overclocking rig" -- So, they are "fine" as long as you're not doing anything major on them, which OP seemingly isn't. Though I'd probably still get something a bit better for future upgrades anyway, so eh.

[Lathais]

That, and reading the link, is pretty much what I said. "Does this mean that the CX is crap / trash / junk / garbage or any other such things NO! they are NOT! that bad they are just mediocre, but you should buy something better if you building a gaming and/overclocking rig" -- So, they are "fine" as long as you're not doing anything major on them, which OP seemingly isn't. Though I'd probably still get something a bit better for future upgrades anyway, so eh.

I know what they said, but I also looked at the stuff. They say it is not crap then go on to say that it is only rated to provide full power at 30c. Sorry, that's crap/trash/junk/garbage. Also, he chose a 430W. Knowing that it will be over 30c we know that it will not put out 430W, which is already pretty low. It's crap.

They also mention that it DOES NOT EVEN MEET THE ATX MIN STANDARD for hold-up time. How is something that DOES NOT MEET THE STANDARD it is sold as not a pile of garbage??

Next time maybe actually read the info provided and analyze it yourself rather than blindly believing what they said.