My first ever PC build [Intel&Nvidia], need some advice on PSU. Opinions about the build and tips please?

Tama560

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Sep 19, 2014
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Hey folks, I am a long time lurker on tom’s, firs time posting! I’ve been planning on building my own PC for years, and have been putting this build off for about a year now, but now I can proceed with it. I am pretty much a beginner when it comes to custom PC build’s but as an user I am quite above average, most I’ve done with PC’s is upgrade GPU or RAM. I have read multiple guides to building your own PC and most likely will be following one as I am doing it too but any tips you may have are welcome.

As for the PC itself, here is the partpicker link: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/4gwZWZ

And a quick breakdown
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
GPU: EVGA GTX 970 FTW
Mobo: Asus Maximus VI Formula Z87
RAM: Corsair XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
PSU: XFX 850W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular
SSD: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 2TB
Case: Corsair Air 540


I will be getting an EVGA GTX 970 FTW, when it becomes available on SCAN (hence its absence from the list). In the Hexus review it performs just under or on par with the stock GTX 980, and for the price of around £300 it is an amazing buy.

I will be buying all the parts from SCAN, despite not being the best for prices for everything. The reason for that is because I am lucky enough to live locally to them, and hence I can collect it and not pay a penny for delivery and risk stuff being damaged. Secondly they have excellent customer service and also offer a bad installation insurance for £35, so if I do fail and damage anything during installation or because of bad installation they’ll replace it (and this makes me feel a lot safer).

So as far as this goes, do you have any suggestions or opinions? The main use for this rig will be gaming at 1080p at most, don’t really fancy bigger resolution than that. I also do not plan on doing any overclocking to the CPU, perhaps a little overclock to the GPU (it can still be pushed as shown in the Hexus review) but that is not something I actively think about. I will not be doing SLI configurations. I plan on sticking to air cooled systems. And I'd rather keep it a Nvidia & Intel combo, nothing personal but I wanna move on from AMD as that is what all my previous PC's have been based on (prebuilt with upgrades done by me)

As for my choice of i7 4790k, yes it is an overkill but I’d like to get a CPU that will be somewhat future proof so I don’t mind throwing money at it.

The motherboard is an overkill, and to be honest the main reason I’m wasting so much money on it is because… it looks good, yup. Having a massive side window is sorta pointless if you get a motherboard that looks ugly (which is obviously subjective, some may find the Maximus Formula ugly), secondly it has the intel wifi module, which is just very convenient, as much as I prefer having Ethernet cable over wifi, it’s usually more convenient to go with wifi and this will save me from wasting a PCI slot or a usb port, which I’d have to saturate with an ugly antenna, which I broke a few of already owning them. And I do know that I need to update the BIOS on the Z87 for it to be compatible with the refresh series, and this is the best way to go as a Z97 is £50 more expensive, I assume that the BIOS update won’t be so hard to do right?

I am unsure about the power supply though, this is my most noobish area when it comes to PC’s. I am unsure if it is an overkill or if it will be just good with enough headroom for future upgrade, and whether or not it's a good PSU for the price. So any suggestions would be very much appreciated. I do plan on upgrading the PC in a few months’ time, upping the ram to 16GB, adding a GTX 750Ti as a dedicated PhysX card (The Witcher 3 is gonna be pretty heavy on PhysX), possibly another SSD, replacing the DVD drive with a Blu-ray and adding more/different fans, some aesthetic lights and possibly a closed loop liquid cooler for the CPU.

I will be buying some quality thermal paste and a static electricity strap. Is there anything else I would need to buy? Anything I need to know before I proceed? With the SCAN prices, my budget is pretty much maxed out at £1260 including the installation insurance.

Thank you for taking your time to read all this and I will be so grateful for any comments and opinions. :)
 

Tama560

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Sep 19, 2014
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Thanks for the input! Actually I spent most of yesterday thinking about the cooling solution and have decided to buy some extra fans. I will be buying 3x Corsair AF120L for the front and will move the two 140's that come with the case up on the top of the case, this will be 6 fans in total. What I am still debating is in what configuration should I set them up, so far I am leaning towards positive pressure, with 3 front 120s as intake, 2 top 140s as intake and the single rear 140 as exhaust. Though I will most likely experiment between the top and rear one's and switch their purpose around, see what gives better temps. It shouldn't be overly noisy but I don't really mind the noise, my current PC sounds like a jet engine (unfortunately not for good reasons either).

I might actually do some overclocking on the GPU, looking at benchmarks so far the GTX 970 overclock beautifully.
 
If you do that 6-fan config, the single exhaust will spin like crazy and the others will have less than 1000 RPM, trust me, I saw a situation like that, and with only 3-4 intakes. I would suggest something like 3 intake/3 exhaust, 2 intake/4 exhaust or vice versa.
You should OC to maximize GPU performance, but I would more importantly suggest CPU OC as it offers a lot of performance gain.
 

Tama560

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Sep 19, 2014
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Thanks, I'll give the 3 + 3 set up a go. I was also thinking of setting the rear and front as intake + 2 on top as exhaust, since naturally hot air rises so they would have a much easier time removing the hot air than the rear fan.

I am not sure how far I'll be able to push the CPU with air cooling, and I have no experience with CPU overclocking but I guess this is probably the best case if you wanna stick to air cooling while doing OC's.

Well the plan to use 4790k on Z87 just went belly up, so much for the bios flashback on the maximus mobo's when apparently it won't work for Devil's Canyon and you actually need to update the bios with bios updater from windows while having a compatible CPU in the mobo. As I mentioned in OP, the z97 equivalent of maximus formula is almost £50 more expensive, and I already maxed out my budget. So 4770k it is then, I suppose I could look for a mobo up to £200 in Z97 line up that has a mPCIe slot for a wifi card or one that has it built in, but then I love the look of Maximus Formula so this is rather disappointing.
 

How about the 4790K and the Maximus VII Hero? it costs less than the Formula and has almost all of its features. You could give that a try.
 
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£258.20 @ Scan.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler (£65.46 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£159.56 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£75.90 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £559.12
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-21 15:12 BST+0100
The Hero would be about 50 euros cheaper, the SSD gives you 6 GB more for about 22 euros less, and with the money saved, you can get a way better cooler that doesn't have QC issues (sometimes, lots of people on Newegg (an American online retailer) says on the reviews about stuff like the mounting screws not properly threaded and stuff like that.) and which could give a WAY better overclock.
 

Tama560

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Sep 19, 2014
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I could try the Hero instead of the formula. But does it have enough fan connectors on the mobo for a 6 fan set up? It would be nice having some control over the fans with assus software that comes with mobo. Don't fancy a manual fan controller.

Thanks for the input :)
 

You'll have to check (sorry, gotta go) but there are cables who plug into a fan header and then splits into two fan headers so you can plug two fans into one header.
 

Tama560

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Sep 19, 2014
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Thanks for the input again! I am gonna go with the Hero. I am now considering a Corsair H75 closed loop cooler, I was thinking of maybe putting it on the rear in an intake push&pull configuration, while having the top two 140s as exhaust and the 3 front 120s as intake. How does that sound?

Or should I just stick with the air cooling and having both the rear and top fans as exhaust?
 

I would suggest dropping the H75 as CLC kits are pretty dang noisy. Use the extra 80$ for something else. You are better off getting fans until you fill all but the two slots on the top as I would recommend the H100 (which is dubbed the ''King of liquid coolers'' when/if you think the current cooler is insufficient (probably in 3-5 years. Noctua coolers are pretty great).