£800-£900 gaming and music editing PC

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antobag

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Feb 27, 2013
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I'd like to buy a PC for gaming and music editing. I'm going to buy the OS, display, keyboard and mouse separately, so for your information I'll be using a 24-inch 1080p screen and running Windows 7 Professional (perhaps upgrading to 10).

In terms of my priorities:

  • ■I'd like to keep costs to a minimum - but I'm aware that I may have to compromise in order to allow for overclocking capability
    ■I'd like to overclock in the future (in 2 years, say). The way I see it, putting some money into the overclocking capability now will mean savings down the line (ie. overclocking instead of upgrading)
    ■I'd like the PC to be relatively quiet as I'll be editing music and sometimes even recording in the same room.
I've played around a bit with the customisation on PC Specialist and I've come up with the following, but I've put my queries in red.

Case
PCS ALPHA TRION 7622B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690K (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache - I've been considering the plain old 4690 instead. As far as I'm aware, the 4690K overclocks better? Any other advantages?
Motherboard
ASUS® Z97-P: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs - The H81M-PLUS is cheaper. What benefits are there for paying more for the Z97-P?
Memory (RAM)
8GB HyperX FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) - How about the standard Kingston RAM - would this seriously curb my RAM overclocking? I've also considered 16GB for music editing, but would that be overkill?
Graphics Card
8GB AMD RADEON™ R9 390 - DVI, HDMI, DP - DX® 12, Eyefinity
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 850 2.5" EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£69)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19) - Would a CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO (120mm) be more appropriate, especially if overclocking? Would it be equally quiet?
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Depending on whether I go for the bare minimum or go for the best parts, the price ranges from around £820 to £900. What cuts or upgrades would you advise?

Please don't hesitate to let me know if I've missed out any necessary information. Your help is much appreciated.
 
Solution
Pat Flynn
Right off the start, you need to decide if you will be overclocking or not. If you will be, you'll need the 'K' CPU, and the Z97 motherboard. The non-K CPU can't increase it's multiplier above the maximum turbo frequency of the CPU. Also, the 'H81' chipset boards have next to no overclocking options and will not be able to deliver enough power to the CPU when you are shooting for higher clock rates.

As for the Ram, overclocking is affected by the ram frequency. The higher speed you want to run your ram, the less you can overclock your CPU (typically, but not always). My suggestion would be to use two sticks of ram instead of one and go for the value ram if money is tight. This will give you more memory bandwidth (Dual-Channel capable...
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Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn

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Right off the start, you need to decide if you will be overclocking or not. If you will be, you'll need the 'K' CPU, and the Z97 motherboard. The non-K CPU can't increase it's multiplier above the maximum turbo frequency of the CPU. Also, the 'H81' chipset boards have next to no overclocking options and will not be able to deliver enough power to the CPU when you are shooting for higher clock rates.

As for the Ram, overclocking is affected by the ram frequency. The higher speed you want to run your ram, the less you can overclock your CPU (typically, but not always). My suggestion would be to use two sticks of ram instead of one and go for the value ram if money is tight. This will give you more memory bandwidth (Dual-Channel capable CPU) with about the same speed as the higher performance ram.

CPU Cooler- I've installed hundreds of Hyper212's, they are bulletproof, but not very good for overclocking. You can expect to get about 300-400Mhz over, but don't expect to keep it under 80 degrees.
 
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Solution
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antobag

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Feb 27, 2013
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Thanks for your informative answer Pat.


So if I DIDN'T overclock then would it be necessary to buy the K CPU and the Z97 motherboard, or could I go for the non-K CPU and H81 motherboard? In other words, is there any benefit from using the more expensive versions other than overclocking capabilities?


Thanks for the info, I was unaware of that. Unfortunately PC Specialist only offers 8GB RAM as one stick. I'd have to go for 16GB to get two separate sticks.


As you seem to have a good amount of experience with this - for sufficient cooling when overclocking, would you recommend the Noctua NH-D15S Ultra Quiet Cooler or the Corsair H80i GT (they're the same price on PC Specialist)? I'd ideally like to go for a quieter one, but I'm willing to compromise if the cooling is much better on another.

EDIT: Just had a quick check online and the general consensus seems to be that the Noctua outperforms the Corsair
 
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Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn

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If you didn't overclock, the non-K CPU is a better bang for the buck for sure. Also, you can certainly use the H81 chipset, as long as it gives you enough PCI/PCIe slots as well as USB connections (they tend to have a reduced port/slot count on the 'H' series chipsets), go for the H81.

Yeah, the Noctua's are killer coolers. You pretty much have to go custom watercooling or 120mm+ radiator size to beat their performance.

 
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