How Long will this build last?

Gabriel Belmont

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Apr 13, 2014
204
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10,680
Processor
1 x 3.5GHz Intel Core i5 4690K 4-Core CPU £199.99
Motherboard
1 x MSI Z97 PC Mate Motherboard £76.99
Graphics Card
1 x Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB Graphics Card £264.99
Memory
1 x 8GB Kingston HyperX Fury 1866MHz DDR3 RAM £51.99
Hard Drive
1 x 1TB (1000GB) Sata III Hard Drive £49.99
Case
1 x NZXT Source S340 Midi-Tower Case - Black £64.99
Optical Drive
1 x 24x DVD-RW Optical Drive £14.99
PSU
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650w Gold PSU £88.99
Cooling
1 x Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo Cooler £29.99
PCI Cards
1 x 150MBs Wireless Network (WiFi) USB Adaptor £12.99
Operating System
1 x Microsoft Windows 8.1 64bit - £99.99

Is everything in the list compatible and how long will it last? I am spending about £1300 so I want to make sure that this build has to last at least 6-7 years. I am sure this will last for more than 3 years because everything has 3 year warranty, and my old brick with no video card and a core 2 cpu lasted 3 years(i even played gta 4 in it) i have a win 7 OEM will that work on my new pc or should i buy a win 8?
 
Solution
If you're looking to overclock and run the 970 in sli (2 gtx 970's) then the 650w psu may or may not be enough. Most recommend around 700-750w for sli. Msi is a brand, it's hard to tell from a website with a few nondescript selections from a pull down menu. Asus, msi, gigabyte, zotac, evga, pny etc all make gtx 970's. Each brand has various versions, the difference might be the type of cooler they put on it at the factory, how much it's been overclocked at the factory. For instance various models come at 1.08ghz, 1.09, 1.11, 1.17, 1.18 etc etc. There are evga, evga superclocked, evga ftw.. Without a better description or more information from the website it's difficult to tell what the differences would be.

Just like trying to figure...

oddaaron00

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Jul 16, 2015
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4,710
If you're getting Windows 10, you could get Win7 or 8 (whichever is cheaper at the time). Regarding your build, it looks pretty 'future-proof'. Your CPU only came out last year so should be good for another few. Although, as games get more advanced, you may need to upgrade your RAM at some point but, apart from that, your computer could last up to five or six years (I can't tell the future so I can't know exactly).
 

Justin Millard

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Nov 22, 2014
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You should be able to eventually update to Windows 10 by using the Windows 7 OEM key, so that would be my recommendation.

The CPU is a good overclocker so it should last at least the next five years just fine, but if you want it to last seven years it might be worth getting the i5 6600K and compatible motherboard instead just to make sure.

I would recommend getting at least a 2TB hard drive as it will fill up, and it seems games are taking up more space every year.

Consider getting a kit of 2x8GB of RAM. 8GB is enough for now, but that might be different in five years.
Buying a kit usually gets better performance than getting miss-matched RAM.

If you like physical copies of games go for a BLU-RAY player.

Get a better Wi-FI adaptor 802.11AC is the current standard and the cheap Wi-Fi will hold you back in online games.

You will probably need to update your graphics card eventually so buying a second GTX 970 in the future is probably the cheapest way to do that. They are incredibly popular so there will be heaps on the second hand market in three years time.

Also consider getting a good back up hard drive to store extra files.

Good luck!

EDIT: Also PSUs slowly lose capacity over time so if you want to keep it for a long time and are considering SLI go for a good quality 700W PSU.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
CPU-wise, at the rate CPUs have been progressing for the past five years, the i5-4690K might still be considered decent 7-10 years from now. If you think you might want to keep your PC anywhere near that long, you will probably want 16GB of RAM somewhere along the way.

For the GPU, that depends on how hard AMD and Nvidia will push new models on 14-16nm over the next two or three years. HBM2 possibly going mainstream in 2017 would likely make everything currently on the market feel obsolete.
 

Gabriel Belmont

Honorable
Apr 13, 2014
204
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10,680


do you mean that the superflower is not that good? and 650w is not enough? And i dont have a key for the OEM, it does not ask for any either, you insert the cd,then it does the job! is this a better psu? - Corsair RM650 650w 80+ Gold Modular PSU
 

Justin Millard

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Nov 22, 2014
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That first PSU you chose is excellent as long as you only want one graphics card. I will need someone else to confirm this, but I am not sure that PSU has the 4 6-pin connectors needed for SLI if you want to try two GPUs one day.
 

Gabriel Belmont

Honorable
Apr 13, 2014
204
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10,680


ya i was compromised about that 650w psu is enough, but i just changed some stuff so i asked if it is good....and i am just trying to make my pc as reliable as possible. this is what i have made and now iam happy with it:
Processor
1 x 4.4GHz Intel Core i5 4690K 4-Core CPU *Overclocked* £219.99
Motherboard
1 x MSI Z97 PC Mate Motherboard £76.99
Graphics Card
1 x Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB Graphics Card £264.99
Memory
1 x 8GB Kingston HyperX Fury 1866MHz DDR3 RAM £51.99
Hard Drive
1 x 120GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD £69.99
1 x 1TB (1000GB) Sata III Hard Drive £49.99
Case
1 x NZXT Source S340 Midi-Tower Case - Black £64.99
Optical Drive
1 x 24x DVD-RW Optical Drive £14.99
PSU
1 x SuperFlower Golden Green HX 650w Gold PSU £88.99
Cooling
1 x Coolermaster Seidon 120V Liquid Cooling System £39.99
PCI Cards
1 x 150MBs Wireless Network (WiFi) USB Adaptor £12.99

The only problem is the os. some say the OEM is enough but some say it is not. And what is the difference between a regular gtx 970 and a msi gtx 970?
 
If you're looking to overclock and run the 970 in sli (2 gtx 970's) then the 650w psu may or may not be enough. Most recommend around 700-750w for sli. Msi is a brand, it's hard to tell from a website with a few nondescript selections from a pull down menu. Asus, msi, gigabyte, zotac, evga, pny etc all make gtx 970's. Each brand has various versions, the difference might be the type of cooler they put on it at the factory, how much it's been overclocked at the factory. For instance various models come at 1.08ghz, 1.09, 1.11, 1.17, 1.18 etc etc. There are evga, evga superclocked, evga ftw.. Without a better description or more information from the website it's difficult to tell what the differences would be.

Just like trying to figure out what power cables are needed. The superflower golden green has 2 6pin pcie connectors and 2 6+2 pcie connectors. (6+2 can be used as an additional 6 pin or as an 8pin). Some gtx 970's need 1 8pin, others need 2 6pin, some need a 6pin and an 8pin - again it depends on which model. While the golden green appears to have just enough pcie power cables to conform to most mixes of gtx 970 in sli, it still may not have quite enough power. Pushing a power supply to its maximum load rating can put a lot of stress on it and as it ages and weakens how much power it can deliver, there may be power problems down the road. Though it wouldn't be the end of the world if you had to get a new stronger power supply if/when you decided to sli 2 cards. For the time being 1 970 along with the i5 is plenty for 1080/1440p gaming.

Here is the spec sheet for that superflower psu.
http://www.super-flower.com.tw/products_detail.php?class=2&sn=8&ID=4&lang=

An oem license generally means windows can only be installed on one pc. If you change motherboards (which the os license is tied to) then there's a potential you might have to buy another copy of windows. If you used a retail copy of windows, then if you switched the motherboard you can reinstall as many times as you like provided it's only registered on one machine at a time. This was an issue with win7 however I don't believe it's an issue with windows 8. Oem copies are a bit cheaper, but the idea is that those licenses are intended for system builders to install on a machine to sell to a customer. They weren't really intended for people to purchase to install on their own machine, which is what retail copies are for.

Again this is a matter of licensing, legality and support. If you had an oem copy of windows and for some reason had to change the motherboard (say yours died), even switching for another z97 motherboard - you may have to call m.s. and see if they will allow you to reuse it and they would have to reissue you an authentic license to be legit. It would be up to their discretion.

This isn't to say what's physically possible, but going by the legal uses of windows according to microsoft. For a home built personal pc, windows 8 (not 8.1) home/pro can use an oem windows copy. For windows 7 home/pro or win8.1 home/pro a full retail copy of windows should be purchased.

http://www.microsoft.com/oem/en/licensing/sblicensing/Pages/windows-licensing-for-personal-use.aspx#fbid=rPiIHdfiKm8
 
Solution

Justin Millard

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Nov 22, 2014
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I forgot to mention one advantage of getting a SKylake CPU next month is that they come with PCIE4.0 lanes. It gives you a bit more future proofing if the graphics cards of the future are much more powerful and PCIE 3.0 becomes a bottleneck in SLI.
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator

Skylake-EX might have PCIe 4.0. Regular desktop Skylake is still PCIe 3.0.

The bigest platform difference with Skylake is that the chipset's PCIe lanes get upgraded from 2.0 to 3.0, a bunch of them are configurable between SATA, PCIe and USB3, and the DMI bus gets buffed up to accommodate the upgraded downstream connectivity a little better.