Seeking help with first PC build (£1500/$2400)

[Amo1]

I already posted seeking advice on tom's hardware but the thread kind of died, so I will just copy and paste the thread here with relevant information changed:

____________

Approximate Purchase Date: By the end of this year. Will be buying it in stages, a couple of parts each month, hoping to buy motherboard and cpu next month.


Budget Range: Roughly £1500 ($2400)


System Usage from Most to Least Important: Mainly gaming. Mostly going to be using it to play Planetside 2, dota 2, WoW, BF3


Are you buying a monitor: No


Parts to Upgrade: Everything, however I am hoping that seen as I am going to be buying it in stages I can use my current hardware until I swap everything out.

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: amazon, overclocker, dabs, ebuyer, scan (UK)

Location: West Yorkshire, United Kingdom

Parts Preferences: Intel, Asus

Overclocking: I would like to overclock if I am able but have no knowloedge of how to do so, any help and advice would be appreciated.

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080 is what I currently use but I would also maybe like to be able to upgrade at a later date.

Additional Comments: As stated above it's mainly going to be used for gaming. Mostly WoW, Dota 2 and Planetside 2. I'm going to be buying the parts a few at a time over the next few months and the plan is to use them as i get them in my current machine to sort of slowly upgrade my current one bit by a bit until nothing is left of how it is now. If this won't work I'm happy to wait til I have all the parts together, will just take a little longer.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Atm I'm playing a lot of planetside 2 and it doesn't run aswell as I would like. Also want to be able to play future games comfortably.

Here is a link from a build that I have put together myself. Bear in mind this is my first time building a pc so have no idea what I'm doing. I will buy a second GPU at a later date to add with SLI, so please do not include 2 GPU's in the budget. http://pcpartpicker.com/uk/p/kIOS

Thanks in advance.

[BruceG87]

That's a rather high budget for a first time build. I kept in mind you will be going SLI in the future. Anyways it sounds like you are enthusiastic about spending your budget. Of course you could build something a bit cheaper and still get a great deal of power, just something to think about. I filled in most of your blanks, and corrected a few things.

Notes-
HHD - Seagate is in the middle of one long awful run. It is simply best to avoid it right now. Western Digital Caviar Black is among the best available right now in terms of storage.
SSD - Samsung 830 is probably the most recommended SSD right now.
RAM - Found a cheaper vengeance kit of 2x8GB, which allows expansion later on for another 16GB if you wanted to(Not that you will ever need it.

Honestly, the rest was simple to fill in with that much of a budget.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£237.94 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100 92.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£79.34 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V DELUXE ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£181.97 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£60.02 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£129.99 @ Ebuyer)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 680 4GB Video Card (£474.70 @ CCL Computers)
Case: Fractal Design Define XL Titanium Grey ATX Full Tower Case (£135.42 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional Gold 850W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£141.98 @ Dabs)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£12.23 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1526.58
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

EDIT - Missed the part where you said you have no idea what you are doing.
This kind of beast, at least when you go SLI, is going to generate A LOT of heat at stock speeds. You'll want to be especially careful in regards to a case as well as cooling. You can't just pick any case and fill it with any type of case fan. Some cases are obviously better then others when it comes to cooling.

While fans tend to have two purposes which fall into case fans and radiator fans. Filling every fan slot in your case with a fan doesn't equal the best cooling solution. Too many fans is a bad thing, and incorrectly positioned fans can be even worse.

So there's a bit of info which you will need to take into consideration when picking a case. That is not to say your current pick for a case is bad. It's just to give you info to help you make that decision.

Other popular large scale cases include: Corsair 650D, Corsair 600T(A lot of people like the white model), NZXT Switch 810. All of which would easily fit into your budget. Of course, you can shop around pretty easily on PCPartpicker. You can also look through the thread Post your gaming setup! and see what others have built and what cases they used.(The thread has tons of pictures)

[Amo1]

Thanks very much Bruce, is there anywhere i can read more about cooling?

200+ views and only one reply? Bruce has helped me a lot but I would still appreciate further opinions..

[BruceG87]

Overclock.net has a large forum dedicated to all aspects of computer hardware and software. Computer Cases and Air Cooling. You will find some crazy enthusiasts in there, especially in the air cooling forum.

Also forgot to point out, with the H100 you may want to replace the stock fans, add 2 more or replace them all together. Lots of folks say they can get significant(everyone has their own opinion on what constitutes significant) increase in overclocking by replacing the fans all together. Something else to think about.

Navigate the forums and look around over there as well. You could even post this suggested build or any other build you come up with over there to get another perspective on it.

[Xuvial]

Instead of doing what Bruce has done to try to "fill" your budget with vastly-overkill components (no offence Bruce, it's a beast build), I'm going to go the other way and "fill" the components into your needs i.e. the games you're playing and the monitor/resolution you're playing them on.

The below build will only cost ~£750-800 and give you 98%+ of the performance in games. Taken from Marest's Sample Builds sticky:

Gaming 1210

MoBo: ASUS P8Z77-V LK – $149.99 CPU: Intel i5 3570k – $229.99 RAM: G.Skill Sniper 1600Mhz 2x4GB – $40.99 GPU: Gigabyte GTX 670 – $399.99 HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB – $109.99 PSU: Corsair TX650M – $89.99 Review Heatsink: Noctua NH-U12P – $72.99 (your choice) Case: Antec P280 – $119.99 (your choice) -------------------------------------------------- Estimated Total Price – $1214 / £755

It will hold BF3 above 60 fps at max settings @ 1080p. Games like WoW/Borderlands/Planeside don't really come into question, the latter two being console ports that could easily run on $150 graphics cards lol.

The heatsink and case are up to you, even a $30-40 heatsink is enough to obtain a solid overclock (albeit it'll run a bit warm), H100 is a bit overkill - and this is coming from an H100 owner. 650w is enough for another GTX670 in the future if you ever decide to go SLI.

Your budget vastly exceeds your needs, that's all. Gaming on a 1080p/60hz monitor, spending anything over $1200-1300 / £750-800 on a build will net you ZERO visible performance gains, because you simply won't be able to see that power.

Let me know when you get a 120hz, or 1400/1600p, or triple-screen setup that would require a £1000+ build.

[Amo1]

Planetside is a console port, wut? I'm pretty sure planetside requirements exceed bf3's by quite a margin. Also i'm hoping spending that much money will make the build more future proof, increasing the amount of time before i need to upgrade again.

[Xuvial]

Planetside 2's requirements exceeding BF3's by a large margin? Alright, lets run with that, but the most crucial point remains - if you have trouble holding smooth fps in it with an i5 3570K + GTX670 build, then the developers might as well shoot their sales in the foot right now because almost will be able to play it.

An i7 3770K + GTX680 4GB won't "futureproof" your build any more than an i5 3570K + GTX670 because the performance difference at 1080p between those two setups is less than 5%.

[Amo1]

Planetside 2's requirements exceeding BF3's by a large margin? Alright, lets run with that, but the most crucial point remains - if you have trouble holding smooth fps in it with an i5 3570K + GTX670 build, then the developers might as well shoot their sales in the foot right now because almost will be able to play it.

An i7 3770K + GTX680 4GB won't "futureproof" your build any more than an i5 3570K + GTX670 because the performance difference at 1080p between those two setups is less than 5%.

Yes but in the future i may decide to get a larger resolution monitor, or even a second one. Would it help then? Sorry, I didn't mean to sound rude.

[inux94]

A second monitor won't be impacting your performance, a higher resolution once is extremely expensive.

[Xuvial]

Alright here I've put together my own little build that includes a 256gb SSD. I've used your budget far more loosely, links are a mix of Amazon UK and Scan UK:

MoBo: ASUS Z77 Sabertooth - £169.00
CPU: Intel i5 3570k – £172.20
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB) - £106.99
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 680 - £384.50
SSD: Samsung 830 Series 256GB - £148.00
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB – £72.99
PSU: Seasonic X-760 Gold - £125.71
Heatsink: Corsair H100 - £79.34
Heatsink fans: Corsair SP120 (Performance) Twin Pack - £17.33
Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D - £142.73 / NZXT Switch 810 - £134.36

Total: ~£1400

I've aimed at the highest-grade components while staying within "sane" price limits, how about that? Parts don't get much higher-quality than the ones in this build

[BruceG87]

Alright here I've put together my own little build that includes a 256gb SSD. I've used your budget far more loosely, links are a mix of Amazon UK and Scan UK:

MoBo: ASUS Z77 Sabertooth - £169.00
CPU: Intel i5 3570k – £172.20
RAM: Corsair Dominator Platinum 16GB (2x8GB) - £106.99
GPU: Gigabyte GTX 680 - £384.50
SSD: Samsung 830 Series 256GB - £148.00
HDD: WD Caviar Black 1TB – £72.99
PSU: Seasonic X-760 Gold - £125.71
Heatsink: Corsair H100 - £79.34
Heatsink fans: Corsair SP120 (Performance) Twin Pack - £17.33
Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D - £142.73 / NZXT Switch 810 - £134.36

Total: ~£1400

I've aimed at the highest-grade components while staying within "sane" price limits, how about that? Parts don't get much higher-quality than the ones in this build

If the OP requesting the build desires to go to a higher resolution in the future, then give him a build that will allow it. He gave a budget and even said he is considering buying a second GPU in the future. More than likely, he's already made up his mind on this. Technically, you can game on a much lower budget just fine even at high resolution. People still build slight enthusiast builds regardless of that fact.

Xuvial, you gave a build that you say uses the OP's budget far more loosely.. So you go for a 3570k but on the other hard, opt for dominator platinum? The OP could save between ~£30-40 and still get ram that performs the same minus the LED's the dominator platinum sports. Then that money could be turned around and put back into a 3770k and a different GPU.

I say different GPU because I'm not a big fan of Gigabyte model cards in higher budget builds. Most people tend to agree from what I see based on other similar budget builds posted here and on other forums I lurk around often. Perhaps it's the awful "whine" noise that the triple fan design cooler often develops despite still performing well.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£243.58 @ CCL Computers)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100 92.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£79.34 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z77 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard (£171.98 @ Dabs)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£72.19 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£72.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£129.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Asus Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (£319.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 650D ATX Mid Tower Case (£142.73 @ Amazon UK)
PSU: Seasonic X-760 Gold - £125.71
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.96 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1370.46
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

The price could be a bit cheaper if you dropped the case down to an NZXT Switch 810, or even a Corsair 600T which are other popular choices for higher budget builds. I dunno if the OP requesting the build is partial to Nvidia or AMD. This build has an AMD HD 7970 and would perform quite well at higher resolution. Adding a 2nd GPU, while would be rather overkill on anything short of a much higher resolution, is still an option if desired.

EDIT - Also, this build stole the PSU Xuvial listed from his last build. It is not shown in pcpartpicker as it is not available in the pcpartpicker menu. It's still a great PSU. I did edit the final price to reflect the PSU being added to it.

Another note, I have a Z77 Sabertooth. While it is a great mobo, if I could go back and do it again.. I would choose a cheaper mobo. So, you can further drop the price if you opted for something like an ASRock Z77 Pro4 @ £84.92

[Xuvial]

Good point about the RAM/CPU, he could very well go for a 3770K if he wanted.

[Deleted]

Another note, I have a Z77 Sabertooth. While it is a great mobo, if I could go back and do it again.. I would choose a cheaper mobo. So, you can further drop the price if you opted for something like an ASRock Z77 Pro4 @ £84.92

The z77 pro4 does not support SLI or Crossfire, well it does crossfire but the second slot will run at 4x speeds. And i think the OP wants the option open for SLI. The z77 extreme 4 would be the better choice in that regards. If he decides he does not want to run SLI, than the pro4 will be fine.

[Xuvial]

By far the most cost-effective option would be i5 3570K + 8GB RAM (cheapest 1600mhz 1.5v kit) + ASRock Z77 Extreme4.
In gaming the 3770K gives zero increases over a 3570K, games simply don't utilize hyperthreading to it's potential.

[BruceG87]

The z77 pro4 does not support SLI or Crossfire, well it does crossfire but the second slot will run at 4x speeds. And i think the OP wants the option open for SLI. The z77 extreme 4 would be the better choice in that regards. If he decides he does not want to run SLI, than the pro4 will be fine.

Whoops, I meant the extreme4. Def not the pro4. My bad on that :x

Anyways, just trying to give the OP options.

[Amo1]

Sorry for not replying, I forgot to check on the thread. Thanks a lot for all your help guys! I've been doing some reading around and the consensus seems to be, like you guys have already stated, that the i7 is not worth it for gaming purposes. Also I definetly do want to go SLI a few months down the road however I've read that the games I play are more geared towards Nvidia cards so I'd prefer to stick to those. Another thing i read was that the GTX 680 has minimal performance gain over the 670 for it's price difference. I'm all for spending more money but I don't want it to be on getting an extra 1% performance.

With that been said I'm gonna be ordering my first round of parts come friday. Do you think this is ok?

CPU: Intel 3rd Generation Core i5-3570K CPU (£172.18 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z77 Motherboard (£169.10 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9 LP Vengeance 8GB (£31.50 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Corsair CWCH100 Hydro Series H100 Extreme Performance CPU Cooler (£79.34 @ Amazon)

One last thing, is that case i linked originally no good? I just really liked the way it looked.

[Xuvial]

CPU and RAM choice is perfect, Sabertooth is not recommended because there are cheaper boards which offer the exact same SLI capability - PCIe 3.0 8x/8x.
With Sabertooth you're basically paying a premium for the "thermal armor" look (which looks AWESOME by the way) along with the higher-quality caps offering slightly more robust overclocking/voltage regulation. That's pretty much been the point of Sabertooth boards, looks and durability (5 year warranty!!).
But for some reason I think the Z77 Sabertooth came in at a higher price point that previous versions e.g. my P67 Sabertooth came at a great price. It's up to you whether that premium is worth it for you in the case of the Z77.

Here are some alternatives which offer the same SLI capability:
Asus P8Z77-V LK (£96.97 @ Amazon)
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 (£109.99 @ Amazon)
Asus P8Z77-V (£122.70 @ Amazon)

There are also others from Gigabyte and MSI.

The most common recommendation you'll see on these forums is the ASRock Extreme4.

The CPU cooler (H100) - this cooler comes with a few things to keep in mind. Firstly the case must be able to accommodate a 200mm radiator on top (most current mid tower/full towers will do it) and the stock Corsair fans which come with cooler will drive you INSANE because of the noise. They literally rev up to 2000 rpm on startup and even on the quietest setting they're quite audible unless you have a fan controller...which you don't. The most common recommendation is to get a pair of quiet fans to replace the stock fans, say...Cougar 120mm's, Corsair SP120's or any other decent fan which runs at low rpm's. So the total cost of the cooler can cross £90-100 including new fans. People are ready to pay that much because paired with such fans (especially in push-pull), the H100 becomes arguably the best cooler one can get short of going for a custom waterloop. I own one so my opinion may be a tad biased, but your budget allows it so I say why not get the best to keep that chip cool for years to come :P

Case - this one's reeeeally up to you. Define XL is a solid case with decent reviews, what more do you want right? The rest comes down to whether you like the aesthetics. Fractal cases have always aimed for silence and simplicity while having plenty of features/room....and I sure the Define XL can fit an H100 easily.

Check out this thread: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...Catalog-Reboot
It was made a while ago but still has most of the latest and most relevant cases. One case it doesn't have listed (and one which I could recommend) is this:

CoolerMaster HAF XM (£94.99 @ Amazon)

Great case.

[Amo1]

Thanks for the quick reply. I think I will stick with the saver tooth because it looks so god damn awesome. Will stick with the original case aswell if you think it will be ok. WhAt fans would you recommend for the cooler then? I still have a couple of areas I need help with aswell.

1. In terms of graphics cards what would you advise, I'm definitely willing to pay more provided the extra performance is there. I'd even be willing to get 690 if it makes as big a difference as these benchmarks suggest http://www.techpowerup.com/mobile/re...ormance/5.html

2. Overclocking, I really haven't given this much thought. I also have no experience doing it. What sort of append do you think I will be able to of that CPU to? Do you have any articles I could reward to get a better idea of over clocking? I had a go at ocing my q6660 the other day and it didn't work too well. I got it up to 2.7 ghz by changing the multiplier to9 and something else to 1200. However it was running all 4 cores at 90c so I put it back. Although it does run at 60 even when it's at 1.6ghz

3. Do you think I'd be best waiting till I have all the parts before I use them or can I switch them in, in place of my current components to use them straight away.

---------- Post added 2012-10-23 at 07:50 PM ----------

Also do i need to buy thermal paste or will it come with the cpu?

[Xuvial]

For H100 fans I already recommended 2 options, Corsair SP120's (twin pack) or Cougar 120mm's. There are plenty of other options as well like Noctua 120mm fans (big variety, almost all are quiet), Scythe Gentle Typhoons (do NOT get anything faster than 1100-1400rpm), Scythe Kama Flows, etc.

1. Nice link. Here's the thing about the 690 - if you're not running a triple-monitor setup or at least a 120hz/1600p panel, the power of that will be completely and utterly wasted. It pushes 56 fps @ 5760x1080p (3 x 1080p screens) with 4x AA. It breaks 82 fps at 1600p when 1600p monitors can only push 60hz, so you can't even see that extra fps. Think about that for a second.
I would much rather get a HD7970 Ghz edition or GTX670 DCII and sink the cash for an Asus VG278HE (144hz, 27", 1080p TN panel, ~£385 @ Amazon) or Dell U2711 (60hz, 27", 2560x1440 IPS panel, ~£490 @ Amazon) and then LATER add another card for SLI/Xfire when the games demand it.

2. Haha yeah not a good idea trying to OC a 1.6ghz chip to 2.7ghz if you're new to overclocking, those older chips needed a lot more work, patience and most importantly COOLING to get them anywhere...plus a mobo with decent VRM. However with these newer chips it's easy as pie, Sabertooth is an OC beast and you're already set for cooling with H100.

Here's the guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards

As usual overclocking is a tad reliant on luck, your own chip may have a "soft barrier" at anywhere between 4.4ghz - 4.7ghz beyond which it'll need a large jump in voltage to push it any further forward. Just go through the guide it'll explain everything :P

3. Well when you've got a brand new build on a new platform it's difficult to build it in "stages". The build won't even be operational without the case, PSU, mobo, CPU, RAM and SSD (OS)...and unless you're happy using onboard graphics you'll need the GPU as well. : /

[Amo1]

2. Haha yeah not a good idea trying to OC a 1.6ghz chip to 2.7ghz if you're new to overclocking, those older chips needed a lot more work, patience and most importantly COOLING to get them anywhere...plus a mobo with decent VRM. However with these newer chips it's easy as pie, Sabertooth is an OC beast and you're already set for cooling with H100.


Here's the guide: http://www.overclock.net/t/1291703/ivy-bridge-overclocking-guide-asus-motherboards

As usual overclocking is a tad reliant on luck, your own chip may have a "soft barrier" at anywhere between 4.4ghz - 4.7ghz beyond which it'll need a large jump in voltage to push it any further forward. Just go through the guide it'll explain everything :P

3. Well when you've got a brand new build on a new platform it's difficult to build it in "stages". The build won't even be operational without the case, PSU, mobo, CPU, RAM and SSD (OS)...and unless you're happy using onboard graphics you'll need the GPU as well. : /

It's a 2.4ghz chip, seems to run at 1.6 when i'm only doing something like browsing though however(runs at 2.4 in games)

Sorry point 3 i meant i would use components from current pc till i have everything. So i would use my current GTX 260 untill i buy the new GPU. I currently have an Antec 900 case, a Q6600 2.4ghz CPU, 4gb ddr2 ram and a "high power" 750w 80 plus psu.

So next week would I be able to use the I5, sabertooth, Corsair 8gb memory, current gtx 260, current cpu. Don't think current case will be compatable with cooler.