The PC Building Thread

Thanks again, very helpful :).

I will continue in the search for that ideal build tomorrow afternoon - it's starting to take shape though now I feel and after a week or so I should be ready to start placing orders on the components.

It is very tempting to go for a more powerful GPU... Not sure I can justify such a leap in price though - would be lovely to have... Maybe after more shopping around and possible savings I can manage to somehow get it in there.

I found a 4GB 770 here for £289.99:
http://www.dabs.com/products/zotac-geforce-gtx-770-1059mhz-4gb-pci-e-3-0-hdmi-8QVM.html
That's less than £50 more than the original GPU I had planned on.
 
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I would change the motherboard the H81 chipset is only really designed for absolute budget PC's. Make sure you purchase a Z87 from preferably ASUS or MSI as these are the two companies in my experience produce the best motherboards. Gigabyte are normally pretty good, but I have always had bad experiences with their boards and they seem to die a lot.

With DVD drives you don't really need them except to install Windows, but I always do this now using USB as you can install Windows 8.1 via USB in less than 10 minutes. Also you can get Bluray drives now for around £20, so if you get a DVD drive I would consider spending the extra couple of quid and get a Bluray.

In regards to GFX cards AMD 280 gives better performance than the 770, but this is down to personal preference but I always prefer Nvidia cards as I think the drivers and user system is better than AMD's you also get Physics.
You also probably wont need a 4GB card as the resolutions you will be playing games at wont require it, you only need a 3GB card if you use multiple displays all playing at stupid resolutions.

With the case make sure it has enough clearance space to install a high end card, the amount of machines I have built in the past with so called 'Gaming Cases' which don't have enough clearance to insert a high end card.

I would also shop around at finding the best prices, Amazon and Aria always seem to be the cheapest at the moment as Ebuyer I find are always pretty expensive these days. If you shop around and prepared to have your order shipped from multiple retailers(most do free delivery after £50) you could also potentially save yourself an additional £50.
 
bsmaff said:
In regards to GFX cards AMD 280 gives better performance than the 770, but this is down to personal preference but I always prefer Nvidia cards as I think the drivers and user system is better than AMD's you also get Physics.
You also probably wont need a 4GB card as the resolutions you will be playing games at wont require it, you only need a 3GB card if you use multiple displays all playing at stupid resolutions.
Click to expand...

The two cards trade blows in benchmarks. I don't think there is one clear winner. Personally I think I would go with a 2gb GTX770. You get lower power draw and very good drivers which are easy to use.

I can highly recommend this model:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-evga-gtx-770-sc-acx-28nm-pcie-30-7010mhz-gddr5-gpu-1111mhz-boost-1163mhz-cores-1536-dport-hdmi-d?utm_source=google+shopping&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CMLwioL90rsCFfHMtAodSWkAiw

I've got the 780 Superclocked with ACX cooler and it's brilliant. The cooler is very effective and impressively quiet. Plus the card looks the nuts.
 
bsmaff said:
The below machine is a top spec machine with the best components available at this moment.

There are certain parts you can change to cut the cost down to £800.
Obviously being a gaming machine I wouldn't swap the GFX card or the CPU, but every other component can be changed for cheaper alternatives, the case could be £30, the motherboard could be downgraded to one that is £80 and so on.

If you want any suggestions on alternatives just ask.

Click to expand...


Would that play games like BF4 with no issues?
 
Thanks again.

@bsmaff - A Z87 seems quite pricey... The Gigabyte one Jamez linked seems decent value although it's never good to hear someone have their mobo die from the same manufacturer so I will bear that in mind.

@Jamez - That model seems real nice, given the choice would you go for that or the 4GB variant I posted previously? Also, I see you mentioned that a modded Skyrim can top 2GB... This is something I'm fairly interested in doing if possible, the visuals when modded look superb.
Having been away from PC for so long, I am interested in and looking forward to heavily modding some games...

I'm at around £920 now with the GPU/Mobo Jamez linked to, but thinking I should change the case for one with USB 3.0...
 
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I'm using a Gigabyte Z77 board and it's been fine. Actually I think I have the predecessor model to the one I linked. ASUS and MSI make good boards as bsmaff said. ASRock are supposedly good as well. But the Gigabyte is a good board for less than £70.

What resolution will you be playing at Rob? If it's 1920x1080 then you should be fine with 2gb. If it's something that bothers you then perhaps the 280X is a better bet? I think Nvidia should have given the 770 3gb like the 780. Perhaps go for the Zotac 770 4gb you mentioned earlier? That's a good price for a 4gb card, even though I'm very confident you will rarely top 2gb.
 
bsmaff said:
The below machine is a top spec machine with the best components available at this moment.

There are certain parts you can change to cut the cost down to £800.
Obviously being a gaming machine I wouldn't swap the GFX card or the CPU, but every other component can be changed for cheaper alternatives, the case could be £30, the motherboard could be downgraded to one that is £80 and so on.

If you want any suggestions on alternatives just ask.

Click to expand...

You don't need 16gb for gaming....save yourself some money and just get 8gb.
 
Yeah I will be playing at 1920x1080 on a single monitor.

I've just been reading up on it a bit more, and most of the evidence does point towards 2GB being perfectly fine and that the extra wouldn't make a huge difference... I'm just overthinking it probably, I have hardly seen any negative impressions of the 2GB 770.
 
Really looking forward to building this and getting back into PC gaming! :) It will be a massive step-up from the 360 I've had for nearly 6 years and to be honest, I've had more fun playing the few indie/strategy games that I play on my laptop than most of the 360 games I've owned. Especially looking forward to having Civ 5 run well!

Both of the supposed "next gen" consoles are very underpowered and simply don't appeal to me at all. In performance, features and even financially it makes no sense to me to go for a console this time around...

I'll have the funds available this time next week, so will have to wait until then to start ordering stuff... Getting pretty impatient :P.
 
The machine above is very high spec and will play any game without any problems.

The only parts which I would consider changing is the GFX to a different one of preference, but due to the 280x being considerably cheaper than the 770GTX I find it difficult to recommend that instead.

Obviously the case in the build is shit, again cases are personal preference and would highly recommend getting either the Corsair 300R or the Factual Design R4 case, but these are in the £60 - £90 bracket but if you get a decent case your build will be a lot simpler to do and you won't have so much of an eye sore.

I just added the power supply as a reference - I would highly recommend getting a 650W+ modular power supply for building a machine. I added the Powercool PSU as it was the cheapest option on Amazon and 80% of Power Suppliers are all rebadged Seasonic's anyway.

I would 'NOT' recommend changing the motherboard the ASRock scores very highly in the best for your money. DO NOT SKIMP ON MOTHERBOARD - IT IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT COMPONENT IN THE SYSTEM. - I also noticed I added the Micro-ATX version (CORRECT VERSION) - http://www.amazon.co.uk/ASRock-Z87-...88330071&sr=8-1&keywords=asrock+Z87+extreme+4
 
Yeah, there will always be the occasional console exclusive I'll wish I could get my hands on, but on the whole, the PC experience is miles ahead...

Steam is fantastic, the Humble Bundles can be absolute steals and the majority of new big releases can be had for £25-30... I have a pretty big library of Steam games already.

The "wow factor" of the graphics and framerates is something I think is probably going to take a pretty long time to wear off... I saw BF3 played on high/ultra a couple of years ago at a smooth 50+fps, and my jaw was on the floor the entire time, and that was on a machine with lower specs than the one I plan to build...
 
@bsmaff - Is that PSU in your £800 build reliable? It's nearly £20 cheaper than the one I have in my prospective build at the minute. The most common advice seems to be to not skimp on the PSU but if I can get a quality component for that much cheaper then it would make sense.
 
Contemplating an upgrade myself, at the moment I have:

- Intel Core i3 2100 @ 3.10GHz
- Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti (1GB)
- Corsair XMS3 8GB Ram & 120GB SSD + Storage HDDs.

Problem I'm having is with my budget, I definitely don't want to spend more than £200, I would have liked to have bought a new mobo/cpu combo, but with my budget that's not really an option.

Thinking i'll either upgrade the CPU to a 3570k or upgrade my old Geforce to something like a 270X. Honestly not sure if either will feel like a significant enough upgrade at the moment.
 
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Wilko22 said:
Contemplating an upgrade myself, at the moment I have:

- Intel Core i3 2100 @ 3.10GHz
- Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti (1GB)
- Corsair XMS3 8GB Ram & 120GB SSD + Storage HDDs.

Problem I'm having is with my budget, I definitely don't want to spend more than £200, I would have liked to have bought a new mobo/cpu combo, but with my budget that's not really an option.

Thinking i'll either upgrade the CPU to a 3570k or upgrade my old Geforce to something like a 270X. Honestly not sure if either will feel like a significant enough upgrade at the moment.
Click to expand...

Tbh neither would be much of an upgrade, your best upgrade would be saving a few extra £'s and getting a 280x as they are appearing for the £220 mark sometimes. But also depends what sort of games you play though as Total War - football Manager would show a massive performance increase with a new CPU.

You could get a 3470 non K version of ebay for £100 that would give a significant performance increase as you prob don't need to overclock.
 
bsmaff said:
The below machine is a top spec machine with the best components available at this moment.

There are certain parts you can change to cut the cost down to £800.
Obviously being a gaming machine I wouldn't swap the GFX card or the CPU, but every other component can be changed for cheaper alternatives, the case could be £30, the motherboard could be downgraded to one that is £80 and so on.

If you want any suggestions on alternatives just ask.

Click to expand...

In this one mate, you've chosen a 550W power supply, yet you say you wouldn't go for anything less than 650W?

Just debating whether to bite the bullet and order something like this? Excuse my complete n00bness, but am I right in thinking I could just plug this into my Panasonic P50GT50 TV and run it in my lounge?

Thanks for all your help once again.
 
Scutch said:
Excuse my complete n00bness, but am I right in thinking I could just plug this into my Panasonic P50GT50 TV and run it in my lounge?
Click to expand...

Almost all modern graphics cards will come with a HDMI slot now, so it's very very simple to setup with a TV.
 
Wilko22 said:
Contemplating an upgrade myself, at the moment I have:

- Intel Core i3 2100 @ 3.10GHz
- Gigabyte GA-Z68AP-D3
- Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 Ti (1GB)
- Corsair XMS3 8GB Ram & 120GB SSD + Storage HDDs.

Problem I'm having is with my budget, I definitely don't want to spend more than £200, I would have liked to have bought a new mobo/cpu combo, but with my budget that's not really an option.

Thinking i'll either upgrade the CPU to a 3570k or upgrade my old Geforce to something like a 270X. Honestly not sure if either will feel like a significant enough upgrade at the moment.
Click to expand...

You'll get a more noticeable increase from the GPU. As bsmaff said, try and find a little extra in the budget for a 280X or a GTX770.

Maybe try and get an i5 at a later date.
 
The game that was leading me towards upgrading CPU was Battlefield 4, I think that's pretty CPU intensive in multiplayer - At least it was when I played it in BETA.

But i'm definitely more excited for the Witcher 3, which was very GPU intensive, so perhaps I will search for a good 280X deal.

Thanks for the advice :)
 
Scutch said:
In this one mate, you've chosen a 550W power supply, yet you say you wouldn't go for anything less than 650W?

Just debating whether to bite the bullet and order something like this? Excuse my complete n00bness, but am I right in thinking I could just plug this into my Panasonic P50GT50 TV and run it in my lounge?

Thanks for all your help once again.
Click to expand...

Go with the amazon build not the that one.
 
Wilko22 said:
The game that was leading me towards upgrading CPU was Battlefield 4, I think that's pretty CPU intensive in multiplayer - At least it was when I played it in BETA.

But i'm definitely more excited for the Witcher 3, which was very GPU intensive, so perhaps I will search for a good 280X deal.

Thanks for the advice :)
Click to expand...

It's tough call as some games are more CPU dependent than others. I would say most would benefit from a better GPU but if Battlefield 4 is going to dominate your gaming time then a CPU is worth considering.

Scutch said:
Is something like this http://www.ebuyer.com/521081-asus-g...-dvi-hdmi-displayport-pci-e-gtx780-dc2oc-3gd5 a far better option than http://www.scan.co.uk/products/2gb-..._medium=cpc&gclid=CMLwioL90rsCFfHMtAodSWkAiw?

It's £100 more but some I've seen are £500+.

Will I even notice a difference for games like BF4 and RPG's?
Click to expand...

Those ASUS cards are fucking monsters. The cooler is huge. Not a problem as such, unless you want to go SLI at some point.

If you've got the budget for a 780 then get one as it should last longer than a 770 and that £100 won't seem like such a bad investment.
 
Thanks again.

What more would I need here aside from operating system?

Could you recommend a PSU?

Motherboard
ASUS Z87 PLUS Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard

Storage
120GB Samsung 840 EVO Series 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive SSD
2TB Toshiba DT01ACA200 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive - HDD

Case
Fractal Design Define R4 Arctic White Midi Tower Soundproof Case

Memory
Patriot PVL38G160C0KR 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Viper 3 Red Memory

Processor
Intel Core i5 4670K 3.40GHz Socket 1150 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor

GPU
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Superclocked with ACX Cooler Nvidia PCI Express Graphics Card

Is this a decent setup? Any opinions positive or negative recommended.
 
Scutch said:
Thanks again.

What more would I need here aside from operating system?

Could you recommend a PSU?

Motherboard
ASUS Z87 PLUS Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) ATX Motherboard

Storage
120GB Samsung 840 EVO Series 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Drive SSD
2TB Toshiba DT01ACA200 3.5" SATA III Hard Drive - HDD

Case
Fractal Design Define R4 Arctic White Midi Tower Soundproof Case

Memory
Patriot PVL38G160C0KR 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz Dual Channel Viper 3 Red Memory

Processor
Intel Core i5 4670K 3.40GHz Socket 1150 6MB Cache Retail Boxed Processor

GPU
EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Superclocked with ACX Cooler Nvidia PCI Express Graphics Card

Is this a decent setup? Any opinions positive or negative recommended.
Click to expand...

Looks like a great build. Only thing you may want to consider is an aftermarket CPU cooler. These are essential if you plan to overclock the CPU, and recommended even if you don't. Also an optical drive of some sort but they are not strictly necessary these days.

As for PSUs, I use a 650W Corsair hybrid modular unit. Good PSU manufacturers are the likes of Seasonic, Corsair, Enermax, XFX, OCZ or Antec. There are probably others I've forgotten.

Basically, modular PSUs are the most expensive, non-modular the cheapest and hybrid modular somewhere in between.
 
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