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i NEED A £1200 CUSTOM GAMING PC SPECS LIST!

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  • Tom's Hardware
  • Customization
  • PC gaming
Last response: in Systems
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September 6, 2014 5:45:11 PM

I need a new PC and have been saving up for a LONG TIME to be able to get a custom which is worth the money. I currently have around £1200 so I need someone who would be able to make a perfect specs list for me to suit that price. Please be aware I am from UK so I don't mean $1200, I mean £1200.
Ok, so if there is any website you could use to help me out it would be: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com - it is very easy to use.
Every time I try to make a specs list for myself, I always end up going WAY over my price, nearer to the £2000 slot. If you would be willing to help me out then I thank you very much and a few things to consider are I need this PC to be:

- For Gaming (And Recording).
- For Rendering Videos.
- For Schoolwork.
- Can use Wi-Fi (Strong Internet but not USB Adapters, built in ones).
- Can use Ethernet Cable.

Once again thankyou if you are willing to help me out. :) 

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Currently looking at: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RKsXMp

More about : 1200 custom gaming specs list

September 6, 2014 6:09:24 PM

Here's a list with components that will help what you are trying to do
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/KG8Yf7
Hope it helps.

PS: If you do need to add some cash for peripherals, then you can always reduce the ssd capacity to get some budget for it.
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September 6, 2014 6:29:31 PM

There's three builds in this thread already and all of them are pretty solid for what they are.

Here's my suggestion - http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/8KvnXL
Comes in more or less on budget and with the strongest graphics card you are likely to pack into a £1000 budget.
Nothing is particularly cheap but I did have to go for a slightly cheaper SSD and go for a Wifi adaptor+mobo for the cheapest way to get ac Wifi (it's slightly cheaper than the Asus Pro but not significantly).
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September 7, 2014 1:30:34 AM

Guys I really don't know what to choose. I need some advice. A friend of mine says AMD is better than Nvidia as Nvidia Overheat and cost more money than the performance is worth. Please just give me some tips on what brands to choose. He also says that I should get an AMD CPU, but I'm not too sure. All I know about is Intel and Nvidia. It would be nice if someone was to make a few PC spec lists then under each link say what the good things and bad things are about that specs list, and at the end try to say which one you would personally choose.
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September 7, 2014 4:04:52 AM

Sounds like your fan is an AMD fan boy. It honestly depends on what you're doing but if you have a budget of £1000, it's more than enough to make a powerful PC. If you're comparing GPU, AMD would usually be slightly cheaper and less performance hence the price.
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September 7, 2014 4:09:07 AM

Ok, well I was on another forum and someone gave me this specs list. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/24BZWZ Do you think that would be the best specs to go with? Also do you think I'd need to add fans for the interior to keep airflow?

EDIT: Yes, I can go over the budget, but not too much. I want this PC near abouts Christmas Time. :p 
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September 7, 2014 4:19:05 AM

It is indeed a strong build but it seems to be almost £200 over budget no? But if you can go for the extra 165 quids then I'd say go for it. As for the cooling, you ain't gotta worry about that, you have the Corsair H55. If you want to cut it down to a 1000 quids then you can take the 2x4GB ram instead of 4x4GB because I doubt you'd be using that much. And you could decrease the size of your HDD and SSD.
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September 7, 2014 4:40:29 AM

CrazyCrambo said:
Guys I really don't know what to choose. I need some advice. A friend of mine says AMD is better than Nvidia as Nvidia Overheat and cost more money than the performance is worth. Please just give me some tips on what brands to choose. He also says that I should get an AMD CPU, but I'm not too sure. All I know about is Intel and Nvidia. It would be nice if someone was to make a few PC spec lists then under each link say what the good things and bad things are about that specs list, and at the end try to say which one you would personally choose.

This is all nonsense. Nvidia GPUs generally use less power and therefore generate less heat than competing AMD products. Overall, AMD usually offer slightly better value for money but it does vary across the product lines.
AMD CPUs are often good value too, but they've more or less given up on the high end. If you can afford an i7, it's usually a better bet.

CrazyCrambo said:
Ok, well I was on another forum and someone gave me this specs list. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/24BZWZ Do you think that would be the best specs to go with?


That's not a very good build.
Cooler and motherboard aren't great for overclocking. 16Gb of memory is potentially more than you need (plus you can always upgrade later). 1Tb Caviar Black is pointlessly expensive (as is a Samsung Pro). Case is a bit cheap for a £1000+ build. PSU isn't very good. OS is wrong (it's a refurb copy, not a genuine new license). It's also at least £150 over budget.


I'm biased of course, but the strongest build in the thread is mine. The reason for this is it hits all of the goals without going over budget. It's got the strongest graphics card, and the best motherboard+cooler combo for the best CPU performance too, so it'll benchmark the best. The trade off of course is that some of my drives are cheaper/smaller than others.

CrazyCrambo said:

Also do you think I'd need to add fans for the interior to keep airflow?


It depends on which case you pick. Cheaper cases will come with 1-2 poor quality fans which will likely work fine but you will see benefits to upgrading these or adding additional fans. The Arc Midi which I suggested has three decent 140mm stock fans and an integrated fan controller to control them. In that scenario, it's highly likely you'll never need to add any more.
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September 7, 2014 5:02:41 AM

So are you saying the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card is better than the GTX 780?
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September 7, 2014 5:05:26 AM

CrazyCrambo said:
So are you saying the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card is better than the GTX 780?


Nope, it's about equal. Which is better will depend on the game really.
The difference is that nobody has fitted a GTX780 into your £1000 budget.
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September 7, 2014 5:10:48 AM

Rammy said:
Nope, it's about equal. Which is better will depend on the game really.
The difference is that nobody has fitted a GTX780 into your £1000 budget.

So you would say it's better to get the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card rather than the GTX 780?
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September 7, 2014 5:17:34 AM

Certainly better value. The GTX780 is going to beat it in some games, but it costs nearly £100 more.
The R9 290 is around GTX780 performance for around GTX770 pricing.
The Nvidia cards use less power, have better reference coolers (if you are stacking them this is useful) and have some propriety Nvidia stuff like Physx and Gsync which can add value if you want to use them.
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September 7, 2014 5:18:51 AM

Rammy, I just checked my bank and I have £1200. So do you think you could upgrade the list to that price? Also I was wondering if you would be able to tell me where I can get my PC built at a cheap cost?
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September 7, 2014 5:24:19 AM

I think you are possibly getting to the point where spending more isn't necessarily worth it.
What monitor resolution are you running? This will have an effect on how much it makes sense to spend on graphics.

I am in the UK but I build my own systems so I don't have any experience of companies that do that type of thing.
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September 7, 2014 5:50:10 AM

Monitor resolution? 1080p
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September 7, 2014 6:09:24 AM

Yeah then you are definitely getting to the point where spending more on graphics is a total waste of money. A £150 card is pretty competent at 1080P gaming so by the time you get much past £250 it's really just money down the drain.

You have a few options really.
For a £1000 build, my original suggestion is about as good as you'll get. If you want to spend a little more than I'd suggest going for your Wifi integrated motherboard (it's a bit neater) and perhaps a slightly nicer/bigger SSD.
From there I'd consider spending more on a CPU cooler, and potentially extra spending on a case or PSU if you see something you like. It's predominantly aesthetic though.
I'd be inclined to stick with air coolers for better value for money, but there's a decent selection of 240mm closed loop coolers which are incredibly popular and look nice.
If you do have a preference towards Nvidia then at £1200 a GTX780 is much more viable (as is an R9 290X). The 780 still isn't going to be as good value but if you have the money to spend then it's by no means a bad card.

My final suggestion - wait a couple of weeks at least. New Nvidia cards are coming very soon and they will likely mess up the prices a bit. I'd imagine there will be 700-series cards available at discount, AMD will probably do a price cut on their cards (if they can) in the short-medium term, and the new 900-series Nvidia cards are likely to offer better performance at lower power usage.
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September 7, 2014 6:42:38 AM

The one thing you didn't add was an optical drive for discs. What would you suggest?
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September 7, 2014 6:45:06 AM

Do you think I would need a Sound Card or would the sound on the motherboard be better?
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September 7, 2014 6:48:35 AM

And one more thing would these specs be good for streaming?
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September 7, 2014 6:49:21 AM

Yeah I didn't include an optical drive because it's such an optional component these days and they aren't really changing significantly. It's the type of thing you can comfortably reuse if you have a SATA one lying around.
It's a cheap component, if you just want a DVD-RW you don't need to spend much more than a tenner. Blu-Rays start at £50 if you want one.

As for sound, I'd try out onboard sound first. These days onboard sound is excellent and is plenty sufficient for the average person. It's the type of thing you can add later, but remember that most cheaper soundcards are going to be comparable to onboard anyway.
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September 7, 2014 7:02:33 AM

I'd just go with the cheapest Samsung one because I hardly ever use an optical drive and it would be a total waste of money for me to spend more. I actually don't have an optical drive at all in my main system.

At £10, if it does go wrong or you do decide to upgrade to Blue-Ray or whatever, it's not exactly a big amount to write off.
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September 7, 2014 7:05:18 AM

I can't seem to find blu-ray...
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September 7, 2014 7:12:02 AM

PCpartpicker link
If it's not immediately obvious, the cheapest two are Blu-Ray readers only, the rest are writers too.
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September 7, 2014 7:28:39 AM

Does BD mean Blu Ray?
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September 7, 2014 7:32:55 AM

Yeah the official abbreviation for Blu-Ray is BD, in the way that Compact Disc is CD.
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September 7, 2014 3:09:38 PM

Looks fine. If you want to go for your motherboard with integrated Wifi it's not much more expensive than the mobo+adaptor combo you have (because AC Wifi adaptors aren't cheap).

My first choice SSD would probably be the Samsung 840 Evo. The only reason I didn't include it originally was to get the price to £1000. If you have a few extra £ to burn, you could do a lot worse.

The PSU is fine, it's a nice unit, but it's probably not sufficient for Crossfire if you wanted to consider that at some point. On 1080P it's likely you'll be fine on a single 290 until you replace the whole machine, but if you decided to run multiple monitors or to upgrade to a higher resolution then Crossfire might be an option.
750W is technically enough, but given the slightly power hungry nature of those cards I'd be inclined to go with an 850W if you are in that spending bracket anyway.
The XFX you picked is absolutely fine (you could just go for the 850W version of it) but it'd probably be my 3rd choice PSU of that wattage behind the EVGA Supernova 850 G2 and the Superflower Leadex Gold 850. Your call of course.
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September 7, 2014 3:30:03 PM

When you say the Samsung 840 Evo there are loads. Which one is best?
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September 7, 2014 3:45:09 PM

As I'm looking at 2 different forums, someone has made a new specs list so do you think this one would be better? And how would I be able to improve it? He said a load of stuff I didn't really understand too well. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/g8gJBm
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September 7, 2014 3:45:15 PM

It's just a reference to what the box contains, the SSD remains identical at any given capacity.
There's models which end in BW, those which end in KW and those which end in LW.
BW is just the SSD on its own.
KW is a "desktop kit" so mounting elements and a SATA cable.
LW is a "laptop kit".

Obviously you'll be shopping amongst the first two. It probably doesn't matter which you pick, but if the price difference is close I guess you get more for your money with the KW versions.


CrazyCrambo said:
As I'm looking at 2 different forums, someone has made a new specs list so do you think this one would be better? And how would I be able to improve it? He said a load of stuff I didn't really understand too well. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/g8gJBm


Not great. The cooler is excellent, but that's basically the only thing it has going for it.
4770K is worse than a 4790K, don't know why anyone would be the former any more (basically the same price).
Poor quality motherboard, not suitable for overclocking really. Missing lots of Z97 features.
16Gb of memory is fine if you can use it. For gaming it's generally not needed.
Zalman Z3 is a very cheap case for a build of this price.
PSU isn't very good.
OS is again, not a genuine Windows copy.
Wifi adaptor isn't AC Wifi, the newest version.
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September 7, 2014 3:47:07 PM

As I'm looking at 2 different forums, someone has made a new specs list so do you think this one would be better? And how would I be able to improve it? He said a load of stuff I didn't really understand too well. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/g8gJBm
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September 7, 2014 3:53:42 PM

Edited stuff into the previous post. If you need anything explained just copy+paste it in (spoiler tag it if it's a wall of text).
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September 7, 2014 4:12:47 PM

Perhaps something like this? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/H4YgZL
It's got a monster (kinda overkill) cooler on it, integrated Wifi which should be a bit tidier, and a PSU capable of Xfire if you want to do that at some point.
Other than fiddling with the case (half of this is going to be aesthetics anyway) if you want, or doubling up on memory if you feel you need it, there's not much else you can add to that.
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September 7, 2014 4:23:59 PM

Compatibility Notes
The Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 ATX Mid Tower Case supports video cards up to 430mm long, but video cards over 290mm may block drive bays. Since the Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card is 305mm long, some drive bays may not be usable.
(Flag compatibility notes as incorrect.)

Will this be much of a problem?? If so won't i need to find a bigger case?

I have added more RAM for rendering videos and stuff, thought it'd be useful for quick rendering.

Does this seem ok? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/RKsXMp
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