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Threepwood1

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Nov 24, 2013
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Hello everyone. First time poster here and looking for some advice.
Looking at building myself a gaming machine over the next month or so. Built a PC 5 years ago and out of touch with the latest tech. Pretty much starting from scratch.
Looking to spend about £800 (monitor and speakers not included). I probably wouldn't overclock but I'd like a machine that could last for a good few years with the latest games (not necessarily at the highest resolution). It would also be a bonus if the PC was quiet and the case wasn't huge (current system bad for both of these things)
Could anyone advise me of a build to get me going? I've read a little online about Black Friday. Not really sure how this factors into things; nor where to buy all the gear from. What's the dealio with this?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

Oh: My monitor is a Samsung 226cw. Is this okay or would you advise a new one?
 
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Rammy
I'm probably not monitor guy, but 1080P monitors start at around £100 and somewhere between that and £150 is probably a sensible amount to spend.

Performance/Silence/Size are slightly conflicting goals, but if we adjust your budget down to £650-700, I can put a few things together. I've kept a lot of the components the same for consistency, but in some cases the PSU could be downgraded to a 550W without any issues.

Build1 - Focus on quiet.
New 1150 CPU, means CPU upgrades will be available if needed somewhere down the line. Case is supposed to be very quiet (as is the graphics card) but it's perhaps a bit bulkier than you had in mind.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU:...
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Rammy

Rammy

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Sep 3, 2012
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Firstly, good name.

You are probably going to want to upgrade your display to 1080P, your current monitor is probably a bit outdated in that aspect. This is going to have a pretty significant bearing on the PC you build, as it's a fairly significant block on how much money is actually useful.

It'd also be good to know if you need to include an OS in the budget.

Black Friday is an American thing, but it does bleed into our retailers in the form of Amazon.co.uk. Other places will also aggressively market stuff as it is such a busy time of year. Pcpartpicker is what most people use to link builds here, and it works pretty well for the UK, but it won't always include the very specialised daily deals that you'll see as part of this period. It also tends to ignore shipping costs from a lot of retailers (probably by design) so you need to watch out for that, something like a case can be very heavy and cost a lot to ship, so picking a retailer who offers free delivery can save you a load.

You said that you want a small/quiet build. Both of these things are realistic, but quite how small you want to go is something you should consider. ITX motherboards/cases can give you very compact systems, but can be limiting for some people. mATX motherboards on the other hand, are much the same as a standard ATX with the bottom section removed, so afford some measure of practicality while reducing the size. If you have a specific case you like the look of, this will help to make recommendations, as cases are pretty subjective.
As for acoustics, this is again a matter of how much you want to spend and how significant a factor sound is. You can buy fanless PSUs, and passive/semi passive cooling systems for graphics and cpus, but these tend to exist at the lower end of the performance spectrum and cost more. Alternatively, some cases come with built in sound proofing panels to help.
 
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Threepwood1

Honorable
Nov 24, 2013
6
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10,510
Thanks for taking the time to reply Rammy.
Was hoping I wouldn't have to upgrade my monitor due to my budget. How much could I pick up a decent 1080P monitor for?
No OS is needed in my budget
In terms of small case - it doesn;t have to be that small. Average size I guess. I have a coolermaster (not sure on the model - maybe cm60) and it is huge. So anything a bit smaller than that really.
Same sitaution with the sound really - doesn't have to super quiet. Just reasonable. My current machine has an awfully loud fan on the CPU (it's a cheap one after my last one failed) and the power supply is cheap and loud as well.
Really - I just want an average sound / size machine that will be future proof for a few years.If you could advise me of nay parts that would be great. I know it comes down to your personal preference then but it would give me something to work with!
Thanks again
 
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Rammy

Rammy

Honorable
Sep 3, 2012
2,492
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12,960
I'm probably not monitor guy, but 1080P monitors start at around £100 and somewhere between that and £150 is probably a sensible amount to spend.

Performance/Silence/Size are slightly conflicting goals, but if we adjust your budget down to £650-700, I can put a few things together. I've kept a lot of the components the same for consistency, but in some cases the PSU could be downgraded to a 550W without any issues.

Build1 - Focus on quiet.
New 1150 CPU, means CPU upgrades will be available if needed somewhere down the line. Case is supposed to be very quiet (as is the graphics card) but it's perhaps a bit bulkier than you had in mind.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£144.62 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£63.73 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£46.42 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£195.60 @ Aria PC)
Case: BitFenix Ghost (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£77.95 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.39 @ Aria PC)
Total: £652.70
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-25 20:59 GMT+0000)

Build2-Performance and Future thinking
Gave the nod to the FX8350 in this one. Out of the box performance is similar to the i5 in most games, but if at some point down the line you want to overclock to get some more performance, AMD is probably the way to go. This motherboard also supports SLI and Xfire, without spending too much on something you might never use, so that gives you options for multiple graphics cards too (though you'd have to change the PSU). The case is a bit smaller than the Ghost too, but is still full size.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor (£141.99 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme3 ATX AM3+/AM3 Motherboard (£75.33 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£46.42 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card (£228.43 @ Aria PC)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£46.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.39 @ Aria PC)
Total: £663.53
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-25 21:04 GMT+0000)

Build 3. mATX
If you want to go small, Intel is basically the way to go. Similar to build 1, the Arc Mini is pretty compact without really losing much. Fully vented front is great for airflow, but not so great for noise levels.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£144.62 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI H87M-G43 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£66.38 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£46.42 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card (£228.43 @ Aria PC)
Case: Fractal Design Arc Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£58.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.39 @ Aria PC)
Total: £669.21
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-25 21:14 GMT+0000)

Build 4 - ITX
Not a lot of potential in terms of expansion, but if you want something compact, ITX is the way to go. If you need Wifi, you'll need to pick a motherboard with it built in, and they can cost a bit which eats into the budget. I've included a Wifi board for this reason.
I also used a "blower" centrifugal fan cooler as in a compact case they can be very effective. It's a bit cheaper because the case is very well priced. Alternative cases like the Bitfenix Prodigy (which isn't all that small, I own two), Silverstone Sugo range, or Silverstone Fortress FT-03 Mini would bump the price up but look pretty cool.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4570 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£144.62 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H87N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (£91.99 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Intel Extreme Master, Limited Ed 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£53.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£46.42 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£199.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Cooler Master Elite 130 Mini ITX Tower Case (£35.41 @ CCL Computers)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£70.39 @ Aria PC)
Total: £642.81
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-11-25 21:30 GMT+0000)

Hopefully one of those is nearish to what you are after. All offer good performance for the price, though obviously the ones with R9 280X over a GTX760 will be superior performers. If none of the cases I listed are quite what you fancy, then obviously there are a lot of other choices
 
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