Looking to build new £1800 PC

jc69913

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Oct 31, 2014
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Hey all! I'm looking to build a new PC after giving my old one away. I'm going to be using it for some moderate gaming, but mostly business and university work. Business work involves use of Photoshop, DW, etc..so I will need it to be fairly powerful. I also want it to be future proof and last at least 7 years. The one I built 5 years ago is still running great; I just wanted something new. I also love listening to music as well. My budget includes a monitor BUT not peripherals. I also already have the OS.

Anyway, I was hoping you guys could help me. I have some questions which I can't find the answer to clearly enough.

1) What is the difference between a £200 motherboard and a £300 one? Is it worth the extra money? I noticed some motherboards include built in Wifi and supposedly better sound too. This leads me to my second question.

2) Do I need a discrete wifi card or sound card? Is it worth the extra spend? Or is it much better I get an ethernet cable stretching around?

With those questions out of the way, let me outline what I have in mind so far.

Processor: Intel 5820K

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX Black

Motherboard: Not sure yet. Need some insight on this. My previous motherboard was the ASUS P6T Deluxe which was a great experience.

CPU Cooler: Dark Rock 3 Cooler

Storage: I do want to get one 120 GB SSD and one standard 1TB hard disk. Not sure what to get, because I would imagine with a PC of this budget, the hard disk speed would be the limiting factor and my old build never had one as SSD's were too expensive then.

GPU: I'm still undecided between NVIDIA and AMD.

Case: I used to have the Antec 900, but I now want something with less noise and lights, but without compromising on optimising airflow. If anything, I'm okay to sacrifice and have noise to get better airflow and performance if it comes to it and I don't want to have a cable mess on the inside :p

PSU: I know PSU is one thing that I can't sacrifice on, so once again, am open to your guys ideas.

Monitors: I'm going to start with one, but I do want a 22 inch at the very minimum, but I want something that is really good and rich in colours. I also want it to be as thin as possible as my table isn't the biggest. Or alternatively, I can have it hanged on the wall if can be.

Speakers: I'm okay with buying second hand but I do want to have some good sound quality. :) I'm willing to spend up to £40-50 for speakers, but I am okay with waiting and finding the right ones.

Finally, just wanted to say thanks in advance to everyone who decides to help me! Thanks so much everyone! :)

Approximate Purchase Date: ASAP

Budget Range: £1800 including montior

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Business involving Photoshop and editing work, Gaming, casual browsing.

Are you buying a monitor: Yes

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: No preference

Location: London

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: Maybe

Your Monitor Resolution: At least 1920x1080

Additional Comments: Want it to be quiet, fit for purpose, future proof- last me 7 years or so.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: Gave old PC away.
 
Solution
For accurate coloring, it's more useful to go with a professional GPU like the W7000, since those are designed with more VRAM and better color bits. But you can always softmod a card.

But as one of my rules, you ask it, I deliver it. Here it goes...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (£282.00 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£78.88 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme3 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£163.10 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£232.81 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Crucial M500 M.2 120GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£50.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB Video Card (£459.59 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case (£74.88 @ Scan.co.uk)
Power Supply: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£138.99 @ Ebuyer)
Monitor: Dell UZ2315H 60Hz 23.0" Monitor (£205.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1726.72
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-01 01:34 GMT+0000
 

Thaisnang

Honorable
Since it is for moderate gaming you won't need much GPU power although 970 is a beast neither overclock really high for you to require a water cooler. Water coolers are pretty noisy.
The answer to difference between motherboards depend on which motherboards you're referring to
Wifi cards are pretty useful if you don't like ethernet cables hanging around although the same cannot be said about sound cards, unless you have a really bad/broken onboard audio the sound cards won't make any difference.
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (£282.00 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 113.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (£45.59 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£173.04 @ More Computers)
Memory: Kingston 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£222.34 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£71.51 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£55.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£298.74 @ Aria PC)
Case: Corsair 500R Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£92.00 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£118.00 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDR-208DBK Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£65.63 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: AOC G2460PQU 144Hz 24.0" Monitor (£181.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1605.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-01 01:50 GMT+0000
 


+1; This build is probably the strongest you can get for 1600 quids.
 

jc69913

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Oct 31, 2014
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Hey guys! Thanks for the input. I've worked around it a bit and made some changes based on what you guys have given me. What do you think of the below? :) I figured that upgrade to 240GB wasn't actually that much so I went for it. I'm still undecided on the case though. As for GPU, I wanted to ask, what does that extra £150 get me between the GTX980 and GTX970?


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (£282.00 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£78.88 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£173.04 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£232.81 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£115.33 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card (£298.74 @ Aria PC)
Case: Corsair 500R Black ATX Mid Tower Case (£92.00 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£118.00 @ Aria PC)
Monitor: Dell UZ2315H 60Hz 23.0" Monitor (£205.49 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1636.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-01 04:27 GMT+0000
 

Thaisnang

Honorable


For £200 and that monitor is too expensive. if you want a 60hz slim monitor you can get it for around £100.
GTX 980 is merely 15% faster than 970 and you pay almost twice the price. So that 15% extra power is what you get for £150 which is just not worth it.
Water coolers are pretty loud compared to air coolers.So it won't be much quite and if you've made up your mind to get water cooler then I'll recommend going for the H105 instead of h100i. And everything else is fine.
 

jc69913

Reputable
Oct 31, 2014
9
0
4,520
Hey guys! Thanks for the input once again. Monitor wise, I REALLY want a top quality screen. At the moment, I have a £100 screen and a £200 screen, and this one looks MUCH better than the other so I don't want to sacrifice on the screen. Also, I was fishing around and I found a 3GB Gigabyte GTX 780 lying around at family's place so I'm going to be using that (unless you strongly advice against it for some reason or the other). Otherwise, in the near future, I'm hoping to use SLI, so taking into account all of the suggestions you guys have given me, I've made some changes.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.3GHz 6-Core Processor (£289.57 @ Ebuyer)
CPU Cooler: Thermalright SILVER ARROW IB-E 73.6 CFM CPU Cooler (£66.14 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock X99 Extreme4 ATX LGA2011-3 Motherboard (£173.04 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£232.81 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£114.45 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.99 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£432.65 @ Scan.co.uk)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (2-Way SLI) (£432.65 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Cooler Master Storm Stryker (White) ATX Full Tower Case (£124.07 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic X Series 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£140.65 @ CCL Computers)
Monitor: Dell U2412M 60Hz 24.0" Monitor (£200.39 @ Aria PC)
Total: £2246.41
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-02 21:46 GMT+0000

 

Thaisnang

Honorable


If the 780 is functioning properly then you can definitely use that. And everything else looks fine.
 
Solution

jc69913

Reputable
Oct 31, 2014
9
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4,520
Sorry to bother everyone once again. I made a rookie error and realised the cooler I want also has a £12 delivery charge. So I figured I might as well look for another similar priced cooler that has next day delivery so just need suggestions once more on that.

Also, I chose the Arctic Cooling MX4 thermal paste. Is that a good choice?

Finally, do I need any extra fans for the build?
 

Thaisnang

Honorable


You should get this one--> http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/part/noctua-cpu-cooler-nhc14