My hopefully last PC build. Any advice and critiques are greatly appreciated. What do you guys think?

itsLJ · Aug 1, 2015

I'm going at this for the long haul. like really, really long haul. Not planning on upgrading or buying another pc for the next at least 5-15 years lmao. I've saved up hard for this, and im spending big. My budget is £2000 no more no less and this is what i've come up with:

Processor: Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Case: CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ AIR 540 GAMING CASE

Motherboard: ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z97 MK1: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory: 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB)

Graphics Card: 6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 980 Ti - DVI, HDMI, 3 DP
1st Hard Disk 1TB Samsung 850 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk 4TB 3.5" SEAGATE SSHD, SATA 6Gb/s 5900 RPM (64MB + 8GB SSD CACHE)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Memory Card Reader: EXTERNAL MEMORY CARD READER (READS MS, CF, SD, etc)
Power Supply: CORSAIR 750W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Processor Cooling: Corsair H100i GTX Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

LED Lighting :2x 60cm Green LED Strip - To Compliment The Colours of Your Case
(There wasn't any option to add any more extra fans in here, so i opted for LEDs)

Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking: WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD

USB Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Power Cable: 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Operating System: Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1
Warranty 3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/839085/

DSzymborski · Aug 1, 2015

While that PC is generally very good, though I would upgrade from the Tom's Tier 3 PSU, building a PC for "5-15 years" isn't a realistic building goal. I don't recommend people building if they don't have a real idea of what they're getting.

itsLJ · Aug 1, 2015

DSzymborski :

Pardon me but what did you mean by upgrading from the Tom's Tier 3 PSU? Did you mean for me to get a higher Wattage? Sorry im not that PC savvy yet lol. I understand your point on the building goal and whether or not it's realistic. But i really am, looking to have this last quite a long time. Without the need to upgrade or purchase another build. Sorry if you misunderstood

Karadjgne · Aug 1, 2015

Ok.
1. There are motherboards just as good, if not better than a mk1 sabertooth, the Corsair case is a very good airflow case, so the thermal armour is a total waste of money.
2. 4Tb is totally unnecessary unless you plan on doing huge amounts of video editing, file collecting, network storage etc, a 2Tb 7200 WD Black would me a much more reliable and stronger investment.
3. Unless you plan on playing around or totally messing up the factory applied paste on the 100i pump, the arctic mx-4 and factory stuff are pretty much equal in quality and performance, so it too is unnecessary.
4. Motherboard audio has come a long way, and is generally on part with most sound cards except the really good stuff. Unless you are planning on a 7:1 surround sound with major mind blowing sound effects, you'll not really need a sound card. Mobo is more than good for normal usage/headphones etc.
5. Don't even think about a corsair CS. For a 980ti on a 4790k major OC with all the lighting and fans you could possibly can into the case, you'd be hard pressed to actually need a 650w psu. There are vastly superior quality psus for the same price or less that will be better able to survive 5+ years than a CS.
6. Since you are already topped out on power and quality components (cpu/gpu) save some money, buy the parts yourself, pcpartpicker.com (uk) and get a monitor worthy of being paired with your build. (Asus ROG would be good, or even bump up into the 4k realm). Maxing out your budget on pc, just to drop the last 100 quid on a 1080p 60Hz monitor would be an absolute shame.

Karadjgne · Aug 1, 2015

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£251.41 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£92.52 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Asus Z97 PRO GAMER ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£99.99 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Trident X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory (£106.97 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Crucial MX200 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive (£74.41 @ CCL Computers)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£96.09 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (£559.55 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Case: Corsair Air 540 ATX Mid Tower Case (£117.50 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£69.98 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Asus BW-16D1HT Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer (£67.39 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 OEM (64-bit) (£111.14 @ Ebuyer)
Total: £1646.95
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-02 03:46 BST+0100

Now tailor lighting/fans.

synphul · Aug 1, 2015

Karadjgne made some good suggestions. In terms of a pc lasting say even 10yrs much less 15, today a person using a 10 year old pc would be using a pentium 4 similar to a northwood at 3ghz (single core with hyperthreading) on a socket 478 motherboard with ddr400 ram (max 4gb) likely an ata or first gen sata hard drive in an 80-250gb range with a geforce 6800 or similar video card. In terms of tech hardware, that's borderline ancient. Most games today wouldn't even load on something like that. I can't even find a benchmark to try and show the difference between a modern video card (mid range) vs something like the geforce 6800 they're that far apart in relevance. Back then ati was still nvidia's direct competitor, amd hadn't bought them out yet.

It's good for a bit of a laugh but in all honesty it shows just how 10yrs is worlds apart and a very unreasonable goal to consider in terms of 'future proofing' a pc system. 5yrs would be considered long term and even then a gpu may or may not need to be upgraded in the meantime even if the cpu/mobo/ram were still viable.

Karadjgne · Aug 1, 2015

My p2 350MHz, with 512Mb pc100 ram, Voodoo3 2000 16Mb gpu still runs great on Windows 98SE. The problem I have with such an old pc is not so much the software capabilities, but the capabilities of the hardware. The cheap gpus use 1Tb ddr3, that's a huge leap from 16Mb of sdram. A 350MHz cpu vrs my current 3.5GHz OC to 4.2GHz.

What this all means is that pc is stuck running only what is currently loaded, be it OS or game or app. The hardware itself cannot be upgraded, you'll not find any recently modern gpu designed around AGP slot.

Granted, this was brand new and cutting edge when bought back in '98 (?) and that was 17 years ago, but the point remains. In @5 years, plan on upgrade, in 10 years, it'll need an upgrade, period.

itsLJ · Aug 2, 2015

Karadjgne :

Ok.
1. There are motherboards just as good, if not better than a mk1 sabertooth, the Corsair case is a very good airflow case, so the thermal armour is a total waste of money.
2. 4Tb is totally unnecessary unless you plan on doing huge amounts of video editing, file collecting, network storage etc, a 2Tb 7200 WD Black would me a much more reliable and stronger investment.
3. Unless you plan on playing around or totally messing up the factory applied paste on the 100i pump, the arctic mx-4 and factory stuff are pretty much equal in quality and performance, so it too is unnecessary.
4. Motherboard audio has come a long way, and is generally on part with most sound cards except the really good stuff. Unless you are planning on a 7:1 surround sound with major mind blowing sound effects, you'll not really need a sound card. Mobo is more than good for normal usage/headphones etc.
5. Don't even think about a corsair CS. For a 980ti on a 4790k major OC with all the lighting and fans you could possibly can into the case, you'd be hard pressed to actually need a 650w psu. There are vastly superior quality psus for the same price or less that will be better able to survive 5+ years than a CS.
6. Since you are already topped out on power and quality components (cpu/gpu) save some money, buy the parts yourself, pcpartpicker.com (uk) and get a monitor worthy of being paired with your build. (Asus ROG would be good, or even bump up into the 4k realm). Maxing out your budget on pc, just to drop the last 100 quid on a 1080p 60Hz monitor would be an absolute shame.

DUUUUUDE. You are the man! you not only gave me so much useful info, you also went out of your way to recommend a cheaper and more reliable build! I can't thank you enough, now i have money and leeway to buy a better monitor and shizz.

RESPECT G.

Karadjgne · Aug 2, 2015

You are very welcome. It's basically your build, but with some tweaks, you didn't do too bad of a job picking parts yourself. Now just have some fun building it. Take your time, do some research on building tips particular to your choices in cooler and case, and that monster is gonna scream

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My hopefully last PC build. Any advice and critiques are greatly appreciated. What do you guys think?

itsLJ

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DSzymborski

Curmudgeon Pursuivant

itsLJ

Honorable

Karadjgne

Titan

Karadjgne

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synphul

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Karadjgne

Titan

itsLJ

Honorable

Karadjgne

Titan

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