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.
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.