1st gaming build (UK) - is this ok?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
U

Username00

Honorable
Jan 1, 2014
5
0
10,510
I'm a total noob doing my first build - put this together and wonder if anyone has any ideas for how to improve it without spending too much extra?

Any advice greatly appreciated!

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Username00/saved/3jUd

Approximate Purchase Date: this week

Budget Range: c. £800 (GBP) after Rebates and Shipping

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming

Are you buying a monitor: No - will be using 1080p LED TV



Parts to Upgrade: None

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Have put a build together on pcpartpicker, need UK websites!

Location: Stoke-on-Trent, UK

Parts Preferences: Pretty set on an i5 3350p and GTX 760

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: The way the case looks doesn't matter to me. Will be playing SC2, Rome 2, BF4.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Last bought a PC 9 years ago, been console gaming for a while, ready to rejoin the PC world!

Thanks in advance all!

UN00
 
Solution
Rammy


Yeah that's the one I was referring to. Their nomenclature is a little garbled at times, but it's a great PSU, I use it myself. It's usually very well priced and made by Seasonic (who's own PSUs often cost a lot more).


It comes with a single mounting point for a 2.5", which by modern standards is a bit shoddy, but should be...
Sort by date Sort by votes
Computer__GUY

Computer__GUY

Honorable
Dec 15, 2013
654
0
11,160
Cool we live pretty close together. I'm based in Telford. Anyway as for the build, looks great! Don't think it needs improving much if not at all. I suppose you could save a small amount of money if you get cheaper memory. I got my Corsair Vengeance a few weaks back from Ebuyer for about £60. Also, not sure about the keyboard and mouse, I would probably go for something a bit more reputable. Only other thing is that if you stretch your budget you could get a 770 which will give you extra performance but to be honest the 760 is a good card anyway. Good luck with the build!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Rammy

Rammy

Honorable
Sep 3, 2012
2,492
0
12,960


No OS, so working to an entirely different budget.

As for the 430W thing, the system should work fine on that BUT it would require the use of molex adaptors (the CX430 only has a single 6pin PCIe) and that is generally a bad situation to be in, especially with a new build where it's easily avoidable.

I'd go for the XFX Core 550 for £50. It's not modular but as you'll be using a lot of the cables anyway (like the CX430) it doesn't really have to be, and it's quite a lot better in quality.

At ~£50 my case of choice would probably be the Bitfenix Shinobi as I've used one before and really liked it. There is nothing terribly wrong with the 200R though.

Really nice build overall.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
U

Username00

Honorable
Jan 1, 2014
5
0
10,510
Hi guys,

Thanks for the quick and helpful suggestions!

Computer_GUY, I was unsure if it was worth paying the extra for lower latency RAM, but especially as the price of that set has jumped £10 overnight, I'll take your suggestions and get something around the £60 range, and spend the savings on a better PSU (below).
It is tempting to spend an extra £60 on a GTX 770... I want to keep the PC for around 4 years, so the 770 would let me run higher settings for longer. But on the other hand, I'm not sure I could always tell the difference between Ultra and High settings, and don't currently plan on going above 1920x1080. Maybe I could SLI an extra 760 in a few years - would this set up (with 550W PSU) allow me to SLI later?

Rammy, I was a bit concerned about the PSU - the name seems slightly different, but is this the same as the XFX Core 550? Sounds like your idea would be a good improvement!

http://

The Shinobi is a nice looking case, but doesn't seem to have any 2.5" bays and I'm guessing (I am totally new to this!) that I'll need one for my 2.5" SSD? [And I am pretty attached to the idea of an SSD, and need an OS, so thanks for the suggestion Mystery Inc, but not quite what I'm looking for].

Thanks so much for all your help!



 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Computer__GUY

Computer__GUY

Honorable
Dec 15, 2013
654
0
11,160


I suppose if you got a 760 then in a few months you could buy another and crossfire them. This will give you loads more performance than a 770 but some games do have a few issues with crossfired systems and there are some drawbacks. You will also have to check that your motherboard has two PCI-e slots and actually supports SLI.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Rammy

Rammy

Honorable
Sep 3, 2012
2,492
0
12,960


Yeah that's the one I was referring to. Their nomenclature is a little garbled at times, but it's a great PSU, I use it myself. It's usually very well priced and made by Seasonic (who's own PSUs often cost a lot more).


It comes with a single mounting point for a 2.5", which by modern standards is a bit shoddy, but should be sufficient for you. You can always buy drive bay adaptors too.




To be clear, 1600Mhz is perfectly sufficient for most tasks. There are scaling benefits to faster memory, especially in Haswell, but again it's task related so not really something worth spending much money on.
More significantly than that, you are using a motherboard which only supports up to 1600Mhz memory anyway, so it's a pretty irrelevant discussion.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Vic 40

Vic 40

Titan
Ambassador
Oct 22, 2013
20,885
994
87,990
You could stll save some money and already have the haswell series,

PCPartPicker part list

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£132.23 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£60.40 @ Dabs)
Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£54.92 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£54.98 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Video Card (£189.99 @ Ebuyer)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£47.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£49.36 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.98 @ Ebuyer)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) (£78.50 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £723.33
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-01-03 17:09 GMT+0000)

According to the next the hd 7950 would be better for bf4,
http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/battlefield_4_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark,7.html

so you could also opt for the next card,
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/sapphire-video-card-111961920g
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
U

Username00

Honorable
Jan 1, 2014
5
0
10,510
Thanks for all the good advice, Rammy! I went with a Shinobi (and a couple of extra fans) and the XFX 550 you suggested. Hopefully it will all arrive in time to build next weekend - got the rest of the week to figure out what I'm doing! I also went with the Crucial RAM Computer_GUY suggested earlier and the processor and MOBO Vic 40 suggested - thanks Vic! - hadn't noticed the i5 4440 come out, and although it's a little more power hungry than the 3350P I'm more than happy to trade off for the 6% performance boost at the same price.

I'm really grateful for everyone's time and expertise!
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom