Prebuilt computer help

[Krothar]

I posted a while ago asking for advice about buying/building a computer with XXX amount of money for playing mostly WoW, but also several games on Steam.

I decided at the time to wait until after Christmas, and due to some surprise financial issues, the amount of money I can throw at the machine has dropped.

I realistically want to replace -everything- on my current machine. It was just a cheap general purpose machine when I bought it (Almost 10 years ago) and did what I needed it to - It played WoW. Never at high graphics or anything, but I could raid. I've upgraded it's RAM over time but thats as far as I could go with my limited knowledge of computers.

I have however noticed extreme FPS drops in WoW these days, even when playing at the lowest settings and has made raiding impossible. So I've been looking around for a gaming PC. Something I can buy now (Or in 12 months. Finance plans!) and I can slowly buy upgrades for as and when I need to.

As I know nothing of building PC's, I'm currently looking at these two:

http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast...-Claymore.html
Or
http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast...S-CARBINE.html

Two reasons. It's a UK based company, so I could have my hands on it within a few days, and their financial plan would be very easy for me to repay without other aspects of my life that require money suffering.

I want a machine that can easily run WoW on high to ultra settings with FPS to spare, but can also handle a variety of games on Steam, as I'm finding myself attempting to play games on Steam far more these days than I am on the Xbox. I don't even have any real interest in the "Next Gen" consoles.

So realistically I'm looking to find out from some more tech savvy people than myself which of those two machines is a better offer. The i5 system is overclocked, but I wouldn't know if that makes up for the fact the other machine is i7.

The same website also carries:
http://www.chillblast.com/Chillblast-Fusion-Uzi.html

Though I know nothing of mini machines.

Any advice of which machine would better suit my needs would be appreciated, Thanks in advance!

[Eroginous]

At this point you won't benefit much from an i7 if you're only gaming. You also don't need much ram.

You could build your own machine for much cheaper than any of those are being sold for and just get exactly what you need.

[Krothar]

As said I've never built one personally, plus the financial plan they offer allows me to "spend" more than I actually have to hand as of right now. Unless I applied for a credit card, lol.

[Deleted]

No, I wouldn't really use Chillblast systems - their GPUs are much weaker unless you're paying way over the odds.

Much as I dislike OCUK's prices, this customised with the R9-290 after-market cooler and a much bigger SSD come to only £110 more than your Chillblast Carbide.

[Krothar]

That looks alright but as I said I could do with replacing everything if at all possible. My current monitor is (about) 19" and runs at 1366x768, which just doesn't seem enough, when looking at similar threads.

[Eroginous]

No, I wouldn't really use Chillblast systems - their GPUs are much weaker unless you're paying way over the odds.

Much as I dislike OCUK's prices, this customised with the R9-290 after-market cooler and a much bigger SSD come to only £110 more than your Chillblast Carbide.

The build you linked shows the 280, not the 290.

If you're going with a 290 I'd recommend the 780 instead. You'll get better performance at lower temps, even when overclocking.

[As said I've never built one personally, plus the financial plan they offer allows me to "spend" more than I actually have to hand as of right now. Unless I applied for a credit card, lol.

The reason why you shouldn't buy one pre built is because they aren't going to give you exactly what you need. You'll end up paying for extras and labor to put it together, often times getting generic parts instead of good ones. Building your own computer isn't difficult, especially when you have thousands of tutorials on everything from basic installation to advanced customization available on Youtube.

You'll save money buying parts and doing it yourself, money you can spend on better parts.

[Krothar]

Could you recommend parts to build one, Eroginous? I've tried using PartsPicker myself but as I don't really understand the parts I'm looking at, I don't really know what I'm putting together haha.

I'll need an OS, and monitor if possible, and the price to be no more than £1000

[Orbitus]

Could you recommend parts to build one, Eroginous? I've tried using PartsPicker myself but as I don't really understand the parts I'm looking at, I don't really know what I'm putting together haha.

I'll need an OS, and monitor if possible, and the price to be no more than £1000

Ok from what I get from the Google currency converter you have 1000 euros? Or is that pounds? And what do you need? Everything including monitor, keyboard and mouse?

[Krothar]

Thats pounds. £ is GBP. I could live with keeping my keyboard and mouse if its out of budget, and replace them at a later date, but my monitor needs to go realistically.

I mainly need it for WoW, but I'd like to be able to play newer games at a decent graphical level. I'll also be heading back into 25man raiding, so I'd like a system that'll be able to handle that at high to ultra settings (Shadows can/will be off though.). Obviously, FPS needs to be high enough for me to be able to play, too.

[Deleted]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£173.94 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G43 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£89.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: GeIL EVO CORSA Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£60.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£43.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (£254.99 @ Novatech)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.98 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£69.50 @ Ebuyer)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.98 @ Ebuyer)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - OEM (64-bit) (£85.25 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: Asus VN248H 23.8" Monitor (£169.48 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1008.09
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-29 15:24 GMT+0000)

Doesn't have an after-market CPU cooler, but you can buy that later when you have better funds. There's a monitor included, as well as an OS.

[Eroginous]

Here's the closest thing I could put together on Partpicker that matches the PC he linked from that site

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2s75l

Ofc the ram, cooler, and optical drive are different, but that machine is more than $100 pounds less if you build it yourself.

Neither come with a monitor, mouse, or keyboard, and the entire thing is overkill for Wow or general gaming. Overclocking is never a guaranteed thing, and unless you really want to overclock, you can get a non overclocked CPU for cheaper, use the stock cooler, get a less expensive mobo, and spend that money towards a monitor.

Also, you don't need an optical drive these days, you can just download Win 7/8 iso from Microsoft, load it to a USB drive, and then buy a key if you really want to be legit.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2s7v9

[Krothar]

Thanks for the replies so far! If these systems would be overkill for WoW, would it be possible to build a system cheaper, say, £500-600 that would be able to run WoW well, that I could upgrade at a later date. If so I could up my overdraft and get it now.

[Eroginous]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2sefs

Dual core instead of a quad core, 650 ti instead of a 770, 1 TB HDD instead of a 2TB, different case, basically just swapping out for less expensive parts.

Mobo is a mATX instead of a full sized ATX. You won't be able to SLI later on if you want a second video card, but this build will run Wow on 1080p and give you good FPS even in raids.

Basically, it's tough to sift through all the possible builds to give you exactly what you want. There's money to be saved, but the question becomes what do you want to sacrifice now for savings you might be more willing to buy later on.

Motherboard is a big one you can save money on. CPU is too. Video card. Second hard drive. Everything else, you're shaving just a few dollars off.

[Krothar]

So a friend of mine put this together for me. The price for it (After staff discount) was £1092.95.

Corsair Carbide Series Air 540 High Airflow ATX Cube Case: http://www.dabs.com/products/corsair...%20Case&src=16

Corsair 750 Watt Builder Series CX 750 Modular Power Supply: http://www.dabs.com/products/corsair...0Supply&src=16

Samsung 24x SH-224DB DVD-RW SATA OEM (Probably only ever used to install the OS): http://www.dabs.com/products/samsung...A%20OEM&src=16

Kingston 60GB SSDNow V300 SATA3 2.5" 7MM solid state drive (For Caching. I believe this is the right one, but it does not seem to match up pricewise.): http://www.dabs.com/products/kingsto...00-50543&src=3

Seagate 2TB Barracuda SATA 6Gb/s 64MB 7200RPM Hard Drive: http://www.dabs.com/products/seagate...20Drive&src=16

GeForce GTX 770 1111MHz 2GB PCI-E 3.0 HDMI SuperClocked: http://www.dabs.com/products/evga-ge...Clocked&src=16

Viseo243DAbid 24" LED VGA DVI HDMI Black: http://www.dabs.com/products/packard...276.html?src=3

CNPS10X Performa Ultra-Quiet CPU Cooler: http://www.dabs.com/products/zalman-...0Cooler&src=16

Windows 8.1 - 64bit - 1pk - OEM - DVD: http://www.dabs.com/products/microso...-%20DVD&src=16

AS5 Premium, 3.5g tube: http://www.dabs.com/products/arctic-...0Silver&src=16

Z87-K, Intel Core i5-4670K & 8GB Vengeance Pro Black Bundle: http://www.dabs.com/products/asus-4t...0Bundle&src=16

So I ended up spending as much as a lot of you suggested, though it would have been more without my friends discount.
His cousin actually lives close to me and can put it together for me when the parts arrive. I am however warming to the idea of putting it together myself.

My only real question is, if I put it together myself, are most tutorials generic or with enough digging will I find one at least somewhat relevant to some of the parts I've bought?

[Deleted]

Drop the PSU and the Barracuda and get This one for £10 more on the SSD, and this PSU is better than the 750CX from Corsair.

[Eroginous]

My only real question is, if I put it together myself, are most tutorials generic or with enough digging will I find one at least somewhat relevant to some of the parts I've bought?

PC builds are pretty much universal. They all use the same basic parts, to the point where you won't see a lot of difference until you start getting into custom parts or water cooling.

The downside is that you spent more on a CPU designed to be overclocked as well as a better cooler, which wasn't necessary for a PC user such as yourself. Overclocking is something that shortens the life of your components and can outright damage them if done improperly. Overclocking doesn't have universal rules where everything overclocks the same with the same results. What a particular part will overclock to is unique to that part, even between identical parts. Overclocking enthusiasts spend a lot of time tweaking their builds and settings to get the most out of their system, often time resorting to more advanced custom build techniques (water cooling, DIY mods, ect) to get their parts overclocked in the right way.

I don't suggest you try to overclock yourself (especially if putting together your own system is a new thing) as it is not guaranteed to produce the results you may have seen in some videos. Standard clock speeds are fine, especially if all you're doing is playing a couple games or browsing the internet.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFb3TNePIg

[Deleted]

PC builds are pretty much universal. They all use the same basic parts, to the point where you won't see a lot of difference until you start getting into custom parts or water cooling.

The downside is that you spent more on a CPU designed to be overclocked as well as a better cooler, which wasn't necessary for a PC user such as yourself. Overclocking is something that shortens the life of your components and can outright damage them if done improperly. Overclocking doesn't have universal rules where everything overclocks the same with the same results. What a particular part will overclock to is unique to that part, even between identical parts. Overclocking enthusiasts spend a lot of time tweaking their builds and settings to get the most out of their system, often time resorting to more advanced custom build techniques (water cooling, DIY mods, ect) to get their parts overclocked in the right way.

I don't suggest you try to overclock yourself (especially if putting together your own system is a new thing) as it is not guaranteed to produce the results you may have seen in some videos. Standard clock speeds are fine, especially if all you're doing is playing a couple games or browsing the internet.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=roFb3TNePIg

Overclocking can reduce the life of the component. It can do this if done incorrectly. There are many, many guide to overclocking tailored to each board that has that capability. It can vary, depending on what's known as 'the silicon lottery'.

[Eroginous]

Overclocking can reduce the life of the component. It can do this if done incorrectly. There are many, many guide to overclocking tailored to each board that has that capability. It can vary, depending on what's known as 'the silicon lottery'.

So wouldn't you advise against overclocking when it's someone who doesn't have any experience doing it? The guy is already going to be stepping out of his comfort zone just putting the PC together on his own.

[Deleted]

So wouldn't you advise against overclocking when it's someone who doesn't have any experience doing it? The guy is already going to be stepping out of his comfort zone just putting the PC together on his own.

I would still recommend it for the overall performance improvement, with an after-market cooler. The simplest guides are probably going to be on Youtube - watch them multiple times for the particular motherboard, and enjoy the improvements.

[Eroginous]

I would still recommend it for the overall performance improvement, with an after-market cooler. The simplest guides are probably going to be on Youtube - watch them multiple times for the particular motherboard, and enjoy the improvements.

Overclocking isn't necessary though. It's only for those people who are so OCD about performance they have to get every last bit of it out of their machine for slightly better benchmarks.

Like I said before, even if he watches every youtube video on the internet about overclocking, that still won't tell him exactly what his hardware can be overclocked to safely. The ONLY way to find that out is by playing with the numbers yourself, which takes experience in overclocking to get it right without damaging anything.

Again, he's barely comfortable with putting his own PC together. I would advise against OCing at this point in time. Just get the non OC parts and save some cash.