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Beginners first build - help and opinions please

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August 19, 2014 3:17:13 PM

Hi guys, I'm very much so a beginner at all this stuff, my current pc is 7 years old and getting to be very slow and I'm desperate for a new quality rig on which I can finally game. So I thought I would take on the challenge of building my own pc. I've researched for about a week and I think I have a basic understanding of the components and what's needed and what's necessary but before I go ahead and start building I'd like some opinions on this system. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I'd be using it for gaming mostly, the occasional mess about in photoshop and then general everyday stuff like browsing the internet and downloading torrents.

Reason for a 1000W PSU is because I'd like to add a 2nd GPU in the future and also 2 or 3 more Hard Drives.
£1700 is really my maximum

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/Calum1995/saved/Z3jBD3

More about : beginners build opinions

August 19, 2014 3:56:52 PM

The build looks interesting to me, but I am a bit perplexed by the two small SSDs (120GB and 128GB) in the system. If you want to put the OS and some files on a drive, your best SSD for cost per GB is currently the Crucial MX100. For 72 pounds you can get a 256GB one.

The Crucial is not the fastest, but it is still good and the most cost effective one available.

Also, as far as the power supply goes - if you plan on having two Geforce 780 Ti cards, it is very common to use a 1200 watt or higher power supply. The 1300 watt version of the EVGA one is only 7 pounds more expensive than the one that you have selected, so I think that would be a good upgrade choice (model 120-G2-1300-XR).

The system is an excellent start, however. Good luck!
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August 19, 2014 3:58:15 PM

Quote:
Also, as far as the power supply goes - if you plan on having two Geforce 780 Ti cards, it is very common to use a 1200 watt or higher power supply. The 1300 watt version of the EVGA one is only 7 pounds more expensive than the one that you have selected, so I think that would be a good upgrade choice (model 120-G2-1300-XR).


It may be cheaper but (1) the extra 300W is not necessary for any rig unless you're running 4-way SLI or some other crazy setup, and (2) you're downgrading from a Platinum rated PSU to a Gold rated PSU. I'd prefer efficiency over extra wattage, wouldn't you agree?

Hard drives use the least amount of power in any given build. Seriously you can get up to 6 hard drives powered with a Corsair CX430.

For your budget here's what I would suggest - drop the sound card and the cheap SSD (not sure why that's even necessary), the BD-R burner (you don't really need one except for backups), and the i7 and 16GB of RAM. With the money saved do this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£164.34 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme 99.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£99.70 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£121.68 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£67.68 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£104.76 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.94 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£459.98 @ Novatech)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£459.98 @ Novatech)
Case: NZXT H440 (Blue/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 1000W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£142.51 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1746.56
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-19 23:58 BST+0100

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August 20, 2014 3:32:48 AM

g-unit1111 said:
Quote:
Also, as far as the power supply goes - if you plan on having two Geforce 780 Ti cards, it is very common to use a 1200 watt or higher power supply. The 1300 watt version of the EVGA one is only 7 pounds more expensive than the one that you have selected, so I think that would be a good upgrade choice (model 120-G2-1300-XR).


It may be cheaper but (1) the extra 300W is not necessary for any rig unless you're running 4-way SLI or some other crazy setup, and (2) you're downgrading from a Platinum rated PSU to a Gold rated PSU. I'd prefer efficiency over extra wattage, wouldn't you agree?

Hard drives use the least amount of power in any given build. Seriously you can get up to 6 hard drives powered with a Corsair CX430.

For your budget here's what I would suggest - drop the sound card and the cheap SSD (not sure why that's even necessary), the BD-R burner (you don't really need one except for backups), and the i7 and 16GB of RAM. With the money saved do this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£164.34 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Water 3.0 Extreme 99.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£99.70 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME6 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£121.68 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£67.68 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£104.76 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£35.94 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£459.98 @ Novatech)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB WINDFORCE Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£459.98 @ Novatech)
Case: NZXT H440 (Blue/Black) ATX Mid Tower Case (£89.99 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 P2 1000W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£142.51 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1746.56
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-19 23:58 BST+0100



You have a valid point on the power supply. As far as hard drives go, they normally max out at 5 watts each, so one high end video card can draw more power than 24 drives :) 
Starting off with SLI is interesting, but I still favor the i7 series for future proofing (not much difference in current games and even some CAD/CAM, though).
No optical drive at all?
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August 20, 2014 3:41:50 AM

Maybe get a better 780 ti, not sure if it's the ghz Edition or the normal edition, go evga instead imo
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August 20, 2014 3:42:42 AM

^cause gigabyte 780 tis have some stability issues I've heard
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August 20, 2014 4:57:41 AM

Ah, there is also a problem that I've seen before (aside from the brand of video cards).

Those multiple fan coolers don't exhaust the heat out the back of the case, so the top card gets much more heat as a result in SLI or Crossfire configurations. If you have a motherboard that lets you put the cards farther apart you can add exhaust fans that take up a slot each to help out. I would opt to put one above each video card, but everyone has their own thoughts on airflow. Some of the slot fans can even be set to intake mode.

Keep that in mind when shopping for multiple video card systems. It may not cause a problem, but it doesn't help either.
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August 21, 2014 10:33:28 AM

calum1995 said:

You have a valid point on the power supply. As far as hard drives go, they normally max out at 5 watts each, so one high end video card can draw more power than 24 drives :) 
Starting off with SLI is interesting, but I still favor the i7 series for future proofing (not much difference in current games and even some CAD/CAM, though).
No optical drive at all?


You don't really need them anymore - streaming is the wave of the future. Everything is moving that way - Kindle, Steam, Origin, iTunes, Netflix, Hulu, etc etc. Pretty much all you need an optical drive for is operating system installation - but even then most motherboards will let you use an external. I did that with Windows 8 after upgrading the primary SSD and it worked flawlessly.
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