PC Refresh / Build
 

Hello,

Just spec'ing up a PC refresh and so far I've got this:


System Board: ASUS X99-A Intel X99 (Socket 2011-3) Motherboard ASU-X99A Novatech £199.99

CPU: Intel Core i7-5820K 3.30GHz (Haswell-E) Socket LGA2011-V3 Processor - Retail IL-I75820K Novatech £290.00

Graphics: MSI Radeon R9 270X TWIN FROZR GAMING OC 4GB GDDR5 MSI-270X4 Novatech £159.98

RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX Black 16GB (4x4GB) DDR4 PC4-21300 2666MHz Quad Channel Kit CSR-V2616B Novatech £262.81

Total is around £900 - didn't really want to go that far - I was looking around £500 - £600.

Main aim is for photo editing hence lots of RAM and I want to go and get Alien Isolation. My current PC would just about run it but the graphics lets it down at the moment.

Any suggestions for getting the price to a reasonable level?

---------- Post added at 16:46 ---------- Previous post was at 16:45 ----------

Forgot to say - may need to replace the PSU as well...

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

why don't you buy from chill blast or mesh computers ?

building your own computer cost even more. plus you get headache and worried if things go wrong.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

I can build it myself - not a problem.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

You wont get closer to your budget without compromise on the hardware

Obvious place to cut costs a little is an i5 rather than i7 CPU, or at least go down to a quad rather than 6 core i7 CPU?. Depending on your software that might perhaps hurt the photo editing, but very very few games are that multi threading.

Also seems to be quite a high priced motherboard. You might not actually see a difference if you looked at something a bit less?

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

IMO the Haswell-E platform (X99/i7 5xxx) is poor, overpriced and poor value for money.

For anything that uses up to 5 cores or less (read: all games and almost all photo editing functions) you will get better performance out of an i7 4xxx for half the price. If you really need the extra cores, buy a Haswell-EP Xeon, it has the same core with more features, runs faster, uses less power, and is cheaper. Plus you could double the RAM for less money on a DDR3 Haswell, which will make a much bigger difference than a measly 15% more CPU power if your workload is memory bound.

Either way an i7 5xxx is a complete waste of money, especially when you consider the excessive mainboard and RAM costs on top.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

I can compromise on the board - how about this:

ASUS Z97-PRO Intel Z97 (socket 1150) Motherboard (£145)

and

4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 4790K 4.0GHz Socket LGA1150 (£262)

Not sure what RAM yet...

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Much better value for money, and a good processor too. RAM and mainboard choice depends on if you're overclocking or not. I personally wouldn't bother, as modern Haswells don't overclock that well and suck a lot more power while doing it.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

OK - that'll probably be what I go for - what about the graphics I spec'd - will that work with that board?

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

The card will work fine, yes. Although it seems rather mid-range compared to your other components, then again, it'll play most games like Alien at 1080p and maximum graphics quality, so it's a decent choice if you're not an uber-hardcore gamer.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

I don't play games but the Alien Isolation game takes my fancy as I love the Alien films.

The potential board - ASUS Z97-PRO - has built in graphics but I assume they will just be very basic and not capable of running modern games?

Also - I see the board has M.2 support - I'd be silly not to buy a M.2 SSD for the OS at the time of build - any tips or pitfalls to lookout for?

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Yes, the built-in graphics is just about incapable of modern games except at the lowest resolutions and minimum settings. In that respect, a lower-midrange card is probably a good choice for you then, as it's not worth a higher-end card if you'll only be maybe playing one game.

I wouldn't bother with M.2 in a desktop, you have plenty of SATA slots and space as it is, and M.2 SSDs are generally smaller and/or more expensive. A standard 128-256GB SATA SSD is the best value for money right now.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Mesh are shocking. I know this from experience as I had one of their PC's years back before I changed to a Mac

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

What RAM would I need for a "ASUS Z97-PRO Intel Z97 (socket 1150) Motherboard"?

Not really up on RAM technology at the moment - I've seen cheap RAM and expensive RAM - the more expensive is faster I guess so need something middle ground.

Any recommendations?

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Just go for some 1600Mhz 8-8-8-24 or 9-9-9-24 not really much difference.

The only time you will see the need for faster ram is benchmarks and possibly photo editing, but not 100% sure about the last part.

If you can get some 1866Mhz or 2133Mhz for the same price as the 1600Mhz then grab some of that.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

9 times out of 10 it is cheaper to build than buy - what do you think the manufacturers do? they build a system and add their mark up to it

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

you can get a R9 280 for that price
link

would think this will be a better card
might be a bit more power hungry though

btw what case you using?
might want to check
as the newer high end video cards are quite long
and wont fit in a lot of old cases

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Novatech currently have this graphics adapter on offer for £209

My current build spec has this graphics adapter as a potential upgrade.

I see Overclockers have it listed as £299 but Amazon have it also listed at £209 - I'm not sure what the saving /offer is from Novatech, but is it worth the extra £50?

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

I would say yes
but i play games a lot on my PC

the 290 is a huge improvement over the 270X

but i think the 290 needs a lot of power
so you might need to get a more expensive PSU for it as well

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Any standard DRR3. Speed is a relative non-issue, and if you're not overclocking the maximum speed supported by any Intel processor is DDR3-1600. There's no real cost advantage to go below this and no real performance advantage to go above this so just get what's cheapest. Even the cheapest RAM will easily overclock to one or two speed grades above what they're rated at.

---------- Post added at 12:39 ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 ----------

Makes very little difference in photo editing, actually RAM bandwidth has the biggest impact in "RL scenarios" on file compression.

---------- Post added at 12:42 ---------- Previous post was at 12:39 ----------

The R9 290 is excellent performance for the price and it always has been, but is a serious compromise on power efficiency and noise. Aftermarket coolers are a lot quieter but it's still a card that sucks 30% more power than a GTX 970 while being 10% slower. But it's the fastest card you can get for the money. £299 is definitely overpriced for that card, I bought one for £260 six months ago.

---------- Post added at 12:43 ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 ----------

It does use a lot of power, yes, but a 500w PSU will be fine (again, excluding ridiculous overclocks, but hardcore overclockers should really know enough to not have to ask)

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

The 4790k as well as the 4690k have very good overclocking capabilities, so on air he should see at least an extra 20% out of his chosen CPU assuming cooling is adequate.
The devils canyon processors are designed to be clocked. Which is why they are not locked.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Both of them have pathetically poor overclocking capabilities compared to previous generations though. They're not designed to be overclocked any more than any previous K processor, they're really Intel's desperate attempt to undo the reputation damage they did by switching to pathetically cheap and poor thermal compound on the original Haswells. The underlying architecture (and overclockability) hasn't changed one bit.

Most sites have found getting a 10% overclock over it's maximum stock speed is the practical limit on air, and it'll use up double the power doing it. None of them have been able to get 5Ghz or over without unconventional cooling, and that's not even 14%. Less than 20% more performance for 200% power isn't a decent payback IMO.

As a reminder the 1st generation i7s which actually 'very good overclocking capabilities' would easily overclock by 40% at stock voltage, and nearly 60% on good air cooling.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

What i like about MSI motherboards is the Overclock Genie that will do some overclocking for u safely.

I have the AMD FX8320 Eight Core 3.5Ghz which is running at 4.1Ghz.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Whilst it would be quite easy to get into a discussion about the virtues of the refresh chips and their predecessors I can only really comment on my own experiences.
25c @ 4.5 idle and mid'ish 50's under load on air, 4.6 and low 30's with a little tweaking and mid 60's underload and finally 4.7 with the same idle and mid 60's low 70's either I have a peach or these crappy CPU's ain't as bad as some say they are.
Either way I'm happy, even tho my 4.7 oc failed on prime after 2 hours but is stable at 4.6 after 9+ hours
I guess if I went liquid I may get a bit more out of, but hey ho. Not to shabby for just over 160 quid.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

An overclock to 4.6 on a processor with a max stock speed of 4.4 is hardly meaningful by any standards. Unless you're referring to the i5, at which point going from 3.9 to 4.6 is slightly better but still poor compared to going from 2.8 to 4.6 on previous generation Core CPUs.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Going back to my RAM question -would this would be perfectly fine for the system board?

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

I wouldnt like to say, if i were u i would do research on how overclockable it is as when u overclock sometimes it may require a different voltage on ram.

I went for Corsair Red 1600mhz as i read it was good overclockable ram, supported XMP profiles and also had the cooling fins....

This is the ram i have except i have 16gb....
http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/c...2a1600c9r.html

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Not really fussed about overclocking - the stock speeds will be ample for me at the moment.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Yea, that's fine, I use corsair vengeance 2x 8gb 1600mhz but the low profile version due to limitations with my heatsink.
If you set XMP in the BIOS it uses different timings which reads the DIMM's spd chip (I think) which does make a difference to memory speed, not read up much on it but in windows experience my memory went from 7.6 to 7.7 when enabled.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Thanks for that. Looks like I may need a dummies guide to overclocking soon!

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

It's not that hard anymore to be honest, but if you want to see a video look for the one on Youtube by OC3D.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

Yeah, the RAM is fine. I would be tempted to say overkill/overpriced but given RAM prices these days it's barely more than Kingston ValueRAM.

Might just be personal luck but I've always just bought the cheapest, 'Tesco Value' RAM available and it's always been completely reliable and overclocks just fine - every cheapo RAM stick I've had will easily run at one full speed grade higher at stock voltage, e.g. PC-100 ran at PC-133, DDR-200 ran at DDR-266, DDR2-533 ran at DDR2-800, and currently my cheapo DDR3-1333 RAM is sitting at a comfortable DDR3-1680 without heatsinks or even heatspreaders.

IMO all this 'overclocking' RAM is complete snake oil.

Re: PC Refresh / Build
 

That's why I don't run my ram overclocked, even though my Corsair 1600Mhz ram will run at 2133Mhz but slightly different timings, for stock speed it runs at 8-8-8-24 1T, but for 2133Mhz it needs them to be at 10-10-9-24 1T.

Doesn't make much difference though in what I use my pc for on a day to day basis, and I only clock it up if I know a benchmark gives better results for faster ram.