New family PC build with some gaming ability

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Fat Tony

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Mar 15, 2014
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Hello,
I am looking to build a family PC with my son (partly for educational reasons too so he can see what makes up a computer). It will be used for general internet, MS Office (for homework, etc, as well working from home which I do a few days a week), some Steam games and also Minecraft, etc. Please can you suggest a list of parts I should consider.

  • I think I have a preference for Intel i5 and this PC would be used for several years, if not forever, so I would like to get Haswell (unless you think this pointless).
    I would also like to get a 240/250gb SSD for OS and programs as well as a 1TB or more HDD for data.
    I will be running windows 8.1
    If at all possible, a nice small attractive case would be nice, but space is not really an issue.
    I don't like noisy machines, so please take take that into consideration.
    I am in the UK and my budget is around £500 ($800) for the PC, plus I will but screen/keyboard/mouse/speakers on top.
By the way - I came across the Intel i5 NUC and that looks interesting - will that meet my needs or do I need a separate GPU and is that a bad idea?
Thanks
 
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woltej1

woltej1

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Nov 15, 2010
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PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3acQZ
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3acQZ/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3acQZ/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: MSI B85M-G43 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£49.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£57.96 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£84.56 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£109.80 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master K280 ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£36.73 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £538.01

Here is something near the price, I don't know if you need the OS included or not.
 
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Ahmadjon

Ahmadjon

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Oct 16, 2013
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4440 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor (£125.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-D2V Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£42.02 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£61.85 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£84.56 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Zotac GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£105.58 @ Dabs)
Case: Fractal Design Core 1000 MicroATX Mini Tower Case (£29.97 @ Ebuyer)
Power Supply: XFX 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£20.00 @ Maplin Electronics)
Total: £512.96
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-15 13:50 GMT+0000)
 
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woltej1

woltej1

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I don't believe the NUC would work as your gaming demands are higher than what integrated graphics does. And if you raise your budget I would do this:

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3agvu
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3agvu/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/3agvu/benchmarks/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£149.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£54.37 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£57.96 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£84.56 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£109.80 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master K280 ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£36.73 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £566.39

Upgraded the CPU and MOBO. The 750ti is all the GPU you'll need and is extremely quiet, cool and efficient compared to other cards.
 
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nexus007

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Mar 14, 2014
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WOOA! I just found out what NUC is! It is great! I mean i5 4th gen with Intel HD 5000 a whole PC in your palm! But its a new product, I would ask you to refrain from buying it right now because we don't know about the reliability and performance much. Though it looks promising.
 
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RazerZ

RazerZ

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Aug 18, 2013
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I would go with this build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£149.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: Asus B85-PLUS ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£64.74 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£57.96 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£84.56 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£112.49 @ Ebuyer)
Case: BitFenix Comrade ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£20.00 @ Maplin Electronics)
Total: £562.72
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-15 18:08 GMT+0000)
 
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Fat Tony

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Mar 15, 2014
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Thanks again.

RazerZ - the Asus B85 Plus MB you suggested has "Memory Type DDR3-1066/1333/1600" listed on the specs. The Kingston Beast memory is DDR3-2400. Will that work together? Sorry if that's a dumber question!

I have no real idea how to choose between the builds suggested by Woltej1 and RazorZ ... they both seem similar. Or should I just go by price?
 
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RazerZ

RazerZ

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I would go with this build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£149.99 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock H87 Pro4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£54.37 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£57.96 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£84.56 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£42.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Video Card (£112.49 @ Ebuyer)
Case: BitFenix Comrade ATX Mid Tower Case (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX 450W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply (£20.00 @ Maplin Electronics)
Total: £552.35
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-03-15 18:10 GMT+0000)

Mixed mine and woltje1's builds.
 
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woltej1

woltej1

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That's a fine build, and ours are very similar and in reality you won't notice a difference between them most likely, only recommendation is I would take the corsair 430W psu for its semi modular build, helps keeps your case clean.
 
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RazerZ

RazerZ

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Well that's true but corsair cx series aren't that reliable and have cheap capacitors.
 
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woltej1

woltej1

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His case would be more quiet as it is pretty much a closed case while the coolermaster would have better airflow but be a bit more loud because of the side intake. You aren't running anything high performance though so the bitfenix should get the job done, plus it does look pretty nice.
 
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woltej1

woltej1

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Have you read any reviews on the cx 430 or are you just going off of what you hear a bunch of people repeat on here? it is highly reviewed and offers great voltage regulation, which the XFX is actually bad at. A lot of reviews the XFX will actually fluctuate out of tolerance. The cx does use 85c rated capacitors, but normal operating temps of a psu are 40C, so it doesn't mean much when overall the unit performs well and has been tested to operate extremely well at high temps.
 
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RazerZ

RazerZ

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Well I'm going according to this site's list:
http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-1804779/power-supply-unit-tier-list.html

Anyway he did say he wanted it to last for a long time and I feel it would be better to be safe than sorry.
 
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Fat Tony

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Mar 15, 2014
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Hello all, thanks for all the debate so far.
I have slept on it and have decided that I think I want something smaller than full ATX. I was thinking mini ITX and the the Corsair Obsidian 250D seems to be well reviewed. It is around £70, so a lot more than the ITX cases suggested here, but still within my budget.

Are there any alternative mini ITX cases you recommend I look at?

I'd appreciate a revision of the components I would need - the mobo would have to change, but can everything else stay the same?

Thanks
 
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RazerZ

RazerZ

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Actually that list is getting dated now as it seems the CX 430 is just as good as the XFX
 
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