[£800 Budget] Deciding between prebuilt or homebuilt

MacHooper

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Hey guys, I am looking to spec a PC for the same specs or better, but still under £800 as this Chillblast Fusion Zed which I have customized a bit. Specs below.

Total Price: £796.99 inc VAT

Sharkoon T28 Black case with green fans
Intel Core i5 4670K Haswell Processor Overclocked to up to 4.2GHz
Xigmatek Gaia Quiet CPU Cooler
Generic thermal paste
Gigabyte Z87-HD3 Motherboard - Haswell CPU only
8GB PC3-10666 1333MHz DDR3 Memory (2 x 4GB sticks)
Chillblast NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Graphics Card
1000GB 7200RPM Hard Disk - 6Gbps
24x SATA DVD-RW Drive
Xigmatek Premium Grade 600W PSU
Onboard High Definition Audio
300Mbps 802.11n Wireless PCIe Adaptor (for Wireless networks)
No Operating System Required
Standard Chillblast Cable Management
2 Year Standard Collect and Return Warranty



Would someone be able to spec me a PC that is under £800 and has similar but hopefully better specs than the Chillblast prebuilt? If this is possible then I will almost certainly go for homebuilt over the Chillblast PC!


I will be playing video games mainly (at mid to high specs at 1280x720)
£800 Maximum budget
This month is when I will be building
I need all of the components, including a wireless card peripherals are not needed
I will be purchasing in the UK
I am reusing a monitor and that's it
I will be overclocking into the future
A case window would be awesome but other than that no specifics
I already have a copy of Windows 7 Pro



Any help is greatly appreciated!:)
 

Flightsimluke

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I can do one for £776 including delivery, which includes better RAM, a better model GPU, better CPU cooler and better Case and PSU.

BitFenix Shinobi Windowed Case
Corsair 600w Modular CX PSU
MSI Z87 G43 Gaming Series motherboard
Intel i5-4670k OEM CPU
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler
MSI Gaming Series GTX760 OC GPU
TeamGroup Elite 8GB 1600MHz RAM (4GBx2)
Western Digital 1000GB SATA 6GBPS HDD
OCUK 24x DVD+/_RW Drive
TP Link 300mbps Wireless PCI card

Total: £775.96 inc. Next Day Courier.

You can use mesh strips and replacement badges to colour scheme your case as yo like it.

Regards
Luke
 

MacHooper

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I am planning on getting a new monitor, the month after I purchase the PC
 

mapesdhs

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With respect to a home-built system, are you looking to buy all-new, or is 2nd-hand/used
an option for you? If the latter is ok, you can get some very good deals atm, with a total
cost well under 800, and a lot quicker than the Chillblast config. Used 2500K (or even
2600K, benefit from HT), 8GB 1600 or 1833, decent Z68 board (or even P67 is fine), TRUE
cooler, two GTX 580 3GB (faster than a GTX 780, about 40% cheaper!), Thermaltake
Toughpower 750W, used 128GB SSD (eg. I just bagged a Samsung 830 for less than 55,
which is ideal), whatever case (I tend to go for Antec 300 as I prefer a minimalist look,
but there are plenty others), etc.

Probably the only items I normally buy new are the DVDRW (dirt cheap these days) and
a wifi card if the mbd doesn't have it (also cheap new). Aria offers clean system pulls
of 1TB SATA on the cheap, or get one used from novatech's auctions. I went sideways,
bagged some more reliable Enterprise 750GB/2GB SATA.

A typical 2500K/2600K will oc no problem to a much higher level, less heat, no need for
uber cooling to reach a good clock (took only 3 mins to get my used 2500K to 4.7 with a
simple used TRUE and basic fans, on a used Gigabyte Z68 UD4 that only cost 35; it'll
run at 5.0 no problem once sorted).

Actually, this kind of spec would happily handle HD gaming, never mind 720, though I
agree with the other poster, personally I'd replace the monitor aswell, eg. Dell U2412M
is good & well-priced.

If you want to buy all-new though, that restricts things somewhat.

Mind you, Flightsimluke's system is pretty reasonable if you want to avoid the hassle
of doing it all yourself.

Ian.

PS. I definitely recommend having an SSD for the system drive. Get a used unit if
buying new would blow your budget. Helps a lot for level loading in games, prevents
stuttering, etc.

 

Flightsimluke

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The PC I recommended is just parts from Overclockers UK, probably should have said that beforehand! The idea of getting used is not a bad one, although the 580 uses old shaders and dual 580s will probably match a 770, but with double the power usage and more noise.

Also, a good friend of mine bagged a FX8350 for £75 a few weeks ago, only to find out that it had 7 bent pins that took ages to fix with a pair of tweezers and a magnifying glass.

Just be cautios, that's all. Also, I believe ebuyer are doing a VGA 1080P LG 22" monitor for £85 new at the moment, worth a look methinks.
 

mapesdhs

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Flightsimluke writes:
> The PC I recommended is just parts from Overclockers UK, probably should have
> said that beforehand! ...

Oh! :D


> ... although the 580 uses old shaders ...

Funny thing about the 580 though is the shaders run at twice the clock as
those used in later cards, so it runs a lot better than one might assume. Plus,
the memory bandwidth per core is very high, which helps a lot. This is why,
even today, a 580 is better for CUDA than a 780 (only a Titan can consistently
beat a 580 for CUDA, or of course the Teslas). For 3D, a 3GB 580 is about half
of a 780, give or take (reference 580s will be a bit less, good 580s like the
MSI 832MHz model spot on half, oc 580s more than half).


> and dual 580s will probably match a 770, ...

Two 580s easily beats a 770. Two good 580s matches a 780. Two oc'd 580s
will beat a 780 (one of the oc SLI tests I did was faster than a Titan). I've bought
a dozen 580 cards so far (multiple CUDA builds), done lots of gaming tests aswell;
here's a sample:

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/639925
http://www.3dmark.com/fs/639911
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6851222
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6851286

Compare to:

http://www.legitreviews.com/evga-geforce-gtx-780-superclocked-acx-cooling-video-card-review_2206/11

Not done proper 3-way/4-way tests yet, not had time; those'll just be for the hell of it
though as the setups are more for CUDA anyway, and as I'm sure anyone would be
quick to point out, 3-way/4-way performance is highly variable per game, not something
I'd recommend (power/noise definitely an issue, certainly the noise with some models).

Nevertheless, I did have a quick go with three 580s, which was amusing (a reasonable
oc for Firestrike here, but only a small oc for 3DMark11):

http://www.3dmark.com/fs/588883
http://www.3dmark.com/3dm11/6685226

:D:D

> but with double the power usage and more noise.

When the cost is so much less though, does it really matter? And the noise depends
very much on the model selected, and if they're oc'd (if not, then they'd be fine, though
it does help if the mbd has triple-slot spacing - one reason why my X58 board is an
Asrock X58 Extreme6, one of the best for slot spacing with 2-slot GPUs, and why my
gaming PC has an Asrock P55 Deluxe, triple spacing means the two 580s run peachy).

I'm very happy with the 580s I've bought. A single 780 costs about 480 UKP, whereas
the most recent two 3GB 580s I won cost 280. That's a heck of a saving, enough to
cover any additional power usage for a long time. And of course, if he does indeed not
want to game beyond 720 or HD, then even 1.5GB 580s (much cheaper) would do
pretty well in most cases (game dependent though), but I'm sure you'd say a degree
of future proofing would be sensible here, and I'd agree.

You're 100% correct in literal terms of course, but then this is what buying 2nd-hand is
all about, ie. the tradeoff between upfront cost and long term use. All depends on
one's priorities.


> Also, a good friend of mine bagged a FX8350 for £75 a few weeks ago, only to
> find out that it had 7 bent pins that took ages to fix with a pair of tweezers and a
> magnifying glass.

You're absolutely right that there are potential pitfalls to buying used (indeed, pins on
AMD chips are pain), which is why I follow some strict personal rules, such as taking
careful note of a seller's feedback before bidding, only ever buying certain items when
the listing is marked as, "Returns Accepted" (especially critical for motherboards), and
if a problem occurs, I follow eBay's recommended procedures exactly. I've bought well
over a thousand items on eBay over the years (check my feedback, user mapesdhs),
really overall it's been pretty good, not that many problems, barely 1% (which is better
than my experiences buying from normal companies! :D).

And to help out sellers (because so many of them genuinely have no clue), I always
add a message with my payment referring to a page I wrote with shipping/packing
advice (probably mentioned here & there in my feedback I expect):

http://www.sgidepot.co.uk/postingadvice.html


> Just be cautios, that's all. ...

Definitely! Always check a seller's feedback, go more for sellers that have a higher
feedback rating (especially as a seller, doubly so those who seem to be selling
the same kind of relevant items multiple times and getting +ves every time), and
something I often do is ask the seller a question of some kind - doesn't really matter
what, it's more to get some idea of what kind of person they are, ie. how they reply,
tone, etc. If the reply is in very broken English or in any way rude or strange, I avoid
them (typcial question is to ask for confirmation of an item's model number, which is
actually quite useful for SSDs & GPUs, or ask for the SPEC code of an Intel CPU, etc.)

For Intel, the most problematic area is motherboards, because of the pin damage
issue. Only bid on Returns Accepted auctions, ask to see a close-up pic of the
CPU socket, make sure the board comes with the socket cover fitted, etc.

For AMD as you say, it's kinda the opposite problem, namely pin damage on the
CPU (mbd less likely to be damaged), though honestly, for performance systems,
I wouldn't be buying AMD anyway, certainly not given the low IPC and power
issues involved.


> ... Also, I believe ebuyer are doing a VGA 1080P LG 22" monitor for £85 new at
> the moment, worth a look methinks.

Not bad, though personally I'm not keen on 1080 displays (I prefer the extra screen
height of 1200 models), and I've become utterly enamoured of IPS screens. :D

Btw, the last 2700K I won only cost 155 total. Running at 5GHz on a used ASUS M4E:

http://valid.canardpc.com/a64s8p


Anyway, it's all a balance of cost, risk, time, effort, etc. All I'll say is, putting
something powerful together on the cheap is kinda fun. :D


Good luck MacHooper! Let us know how you get on with whatever you
decide to do. :)

Ian.

 

MacHooper

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Okay I have changed a lot! Decided to go for AMD instead, got a better GPU more HDD space and just overall better (IMO) What do you guys think? Anything I should change

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£143.80 @ Scan.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£23.98 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: MSI 990FXA-GD65 ATX AM3+ Motherboard (£87.59 @ Scan.co.uk)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£64.99 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£67.44 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (£227.59 @ Scan.co.uk)
Wireless Network Adapter: Edimax EW-7612PIn 802.11b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter (£13.18 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Zalman Z11 Plus ATX Mid Tower Case (£49.33 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply (£69.30 @ Scan.co.uk)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHDS118-04 DVD/CD Drive (£11.10 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £758.30
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-10-02 09:34 BST+0100)
 

Flightsimluke

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At that price, I'd recommend a Z87 motherboard, an i5-4670k and a GTX680 if you can push, GTX670 if not.
 

Flightsimluke

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What you've got to be careful not to do is go for too much. The 760 and i5 has proved to be good value in games at 1080P, so don't do what I almost did and end up over buying. With the money I saved by getting a FX6300 and a 7870LE instead of an i5 and a 760 I bought a couple of humble bundles and Fifa 14. Your call, but unless you're looking to go for triple monitor gaming at max settings, an i5/8320 and a 760/7950 may be all you need, for much less money.