Considering building a gaming PC. Advice on this build

What do you think of this build? Anything I could cut costs on with little performance difference or where a small upgrade will improve performance considerably?

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£157.98 @ Scan.co.uk)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£67.35 @ Ebuyer)

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£110.59 @ Scan.co.uk)

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£59.87 @ Scan.co.uk)

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (£244.99 @ Amazon UK)

Case: Corsair 350D MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£69.00 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£84.78 @ Scan.co.uk)

Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer (£41.12 @ Scan.co.uk)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£80.10 @ Amazon UK)

Total: £915.78

I would suggest adding a SSD disk for your boot/programmes disk.

Yes SSD is a must specially now they are cheap

I might also up the wattage of the psu to 800w imo although the 650w is most likely plenty

[Kabaal]

Maybe think about going with 8GB RAM. Prices are sky high right now and unless you specifically need 16GB for certain programs you'll get little use out of it.

[MovedGoalPosts]

Think about a SSD drive rather than just a standard HDD. Load times for a lot of stuff will be a lot faster. If you are playing online, you will really notice a difference when some are already playing as a map changes and yet others are still twiddling thumbs.

You haven't picked a CPU cooler or are you hoping the standard retail cooler is enough?

You are already looking at a lot of options from scan. Consider sticking with one supplier for everything. You may get better overall value and a balanced system if you look at Scans bundles (you don't have to have the overclocking) for CPU, motherboard, RAM and cooler. It may also work out cheaper on delivery to get it all at once? Scan also offer a piece of mind insurance that covers you if you screw up during your build and damage something expensive.

can also recommend the corsair carbide cases very quiet. Also the Artic cooling freezer 7 cooler as I would not stick with stock

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/arcti...p-to-130-watts

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/corsa...usb-30-w-o-psu

Originally Posted by Hugh

I would suggest adding a SSD disk for your boot/programmes disk.

Originally Posted by tizmeinnit

Yes SSD is a must specially now they are cheap

I might also up the wattage of the psu to 800w imo although the 650w is most likely plenty

Originally Posted by Kabaal

Maybe think about going with 8GB RAM. Prices are sky high right now and unless you specifically need 16GB for certain programs you'll get little use out of it.

Cheers. Was going to add a SSD I think but was more concentrated on the rest of the build.

Done

Originally Posted by Rob

You haven't picked a CPU cooler or are you hoping the standard retail cooler is enough?

Wasn't going to overclock so wasn't sure I needed one. Add Tiz's recommendation however.


New build taking your recommendations on board:

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (£158.00 @ Amazon UK)

CPU Cooler: Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 45.0 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler (£14.62 @ Amazon UK)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£70.64 @ Scan.co.uk)

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£60.96 @ Scan.co.uk)

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (£99.95 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£59.87 @ Scan.co.uk)

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card (£244.99 @ Amazon UK)

Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£45.90 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: Corsair RM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£84.78 @ Scan.co.uk)

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.98 @ Scan.co.uk)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£80.10 @ Amazon UK)

Total: £931.79

Anything else? Should I go for i7 or i5 you think?

[MovedGoalPosts]

i5 CPU is sufficient for good general purpose gaming. i7 give a bit of headroom with more cores but unless you are doing other stuff like a lot of video encoding, it's unlikely you'd have that much benefit. You aren't going for cutting edge, based around your choice of GPU so the i5 is fine.

The better CPU coolers, even if you stick at stock, will be more effective and thus less noisy. Standard, if you are at stock speeds can be OK, but you will often know about the fan when the CPU is under load.

Think carefully about the SSD capacity, relative to the lifetime of the PC. Is 250GB realistic? You will want to install your OS and your main games. Things like Battlefield 4, with all current and future planned expansions will eat around 50GB of space (one of the reasons why the SSD is so beneficial for gaming load times). In many respects the standard HDD is relegated to less accessed stuff like photos.

[Kabaal]

I just copy my games over from HDD's to the SSD when i want to play them, don't really need more than a few of your currently most played on it unless you're someone who swaps games constantly.

Originally Posted by Rob

i5 CPU is sufficient for good general purpose gaming. i7 give a bit of headroom with more cores but unless you are doing other stuff like a lot of video encoding, it's unlikely you'd have that much benefit. You aren't going for cutting edge, based around your choice of GPU so the i5 is fine.

I will use it for programming and maybe kicking some virtual machines around too.

The better CPU coolers, even if you stick at stock, will be more effective and thus less noisy. Standard, if you are at stock speeds can be OK, but you will often know about the fan when the CPU is under load.

Ta.

Think carefully about the SSD capacity, relative to the lifetime of the PC. Is 250GB realistic? You will want to install your OS and your main games. Things like Battlefield 4, with all current and future planned expansions will eat around 50GB of space (one of the reasons why the SSD is so beneficial for gaming load times). In many respects the standard HDD is relegated to less accessed stuff like photos.

Can upgrade later. My main intention is to use the SSD for the OS, for start-up items and constantly on programs.

[damien c]

Swap out the GTX770 for either a 4Gb 770 or a AMD R9 280X.

Games like Battlefield 4 are now starting fully use 2Gb of Vram so adding the extra 1Gb or 2Gb will help.

A SSD is a must these days when considering gaming since the maps are getting bigger and bigger.

Get the K version of the cpu as it won't be much more in cost but will give room to overclock in the future to, prolong the time between upgrades.

Swap the motherboard for something like the MSI M-ATX board.

Power supply is fine.

Cooler might be abit tall but I cannot remember fully what the height can be for the cooler.

As for the I7 Vs I5 bit, games will be coming out over the next 2 years that will use the hyperthreading available on the I7's, the I7 will give better performance in programs that can use it such as video editing and photo editing etc but, in most games at the moment there is no benefit.

If you want to prolong the upgrade time then grab the 4770K and possibly a Corsair H100i or H80i, and that will see you right for quite a while.

That might escalate the price a lot more . Don't mind paying a bit more but don't want to drastically alter the build.

I would say that set up would be "adequate". The price is "good enough" and the specs are "good enough".

Personally, SSD and up the graphics card. The most important piece of information missing is how long would you like this rig to last, or "future proofed".

Realistically for a high end gaming rig, you're at least going to be doubling the price.

Well I will likely play FPS's on my consoles. RPG and Strategy games on this.

Originally Posted by Bogof

I would say that set up would be "adequate". The price is "good enough" and the specs are "good enough".

Personally, SSD and up the graphics card. The most important piece of information missing is how long would you like this rig to last, or "future proofed".

Realistically for a high end gaming rig, you're at least going to be doubling the price.

there is no such thing as a future proof computer and a high end computer twice the price is not going to be touched by games we have nowadays

My computer is modest has a modest GPU and is still more powerful than both the next gen consoles so seeing as most games are console ports and you are lucky to get them better than the consoles why spend twice as much on a machine that you may get 1 or 2 games for that push it?

If my prediction comes true with X86 being next gen that may change but it has not yet

I do not get people that are obsessed with frame rates and some even have them constantly on the screen when they play. Games look awesome on my rig they play smoothly maybe on a couple I do not have ll the bells and whistles but it imo it certainly is not worth £1000 just to say oh I have everything as high as I can and still get 100 frames yadda yadda