Considering building a gaming PC. Advice on this build

I wouldn't run the vm's when gaming.

Originally Posted by Damien

I wouldn't run the vm's when gaming.

no but my point is you could if you configured the system to allow for it

[damien c]

I would avoid the R9 290 and 290X cards as they have issues with the VRM temps and the ram on them and also the throttling issues that they, suffer due to poor cooling on the cards.

There are pages of people of having issues on various different forums about them.


If I was building someone a gaming pc today it would have a AMD R9 280X in it or a Nvidia GTX780(ti) dependent on budget.

I would put a 4670k in it if they were not doing anything other than gaming, but if they were other stuff then I would put in a 4770k.

I would always use a aftermarket cooler on any of the Ivy Bridge or Haswell cpus because of the, thermal issues that they have due to Intel choosing to use cheap TIM under the heat spreader rather than the fluxless solder they normally use.

A air cooler will be quiet as long as you get a decent one but a AIO Watercooler will get the temperatures down, quite abit further and prolong the life of the cpu and if you change the fans out for some quieter ones than what, comes with it the performance will be just as good but quieter.

With the cases you want one that, has high airflow and try to avoid a silence optimized case as they normally, have foam around them and actually harm the components because they increase the heat in the case.

The 780 looks overpriced relative to the performance difference from that I can see. I might as well wait and either get dual 770s or upgrade to the 780 when they fall in price.

OK I will keep the cooler.

This is my first build so I am a bit unsure on a lot of this stuff.

[damien c]

The R9 280X is the card I would recommend, though as it performs generally abit better than the GTX770 and also has, support for AMD's Mantle API so it performs in some games close to the same level as a GTX780.

I have got to go on a 300 mile round trip drive in a minute, but when I get back I will go on Scans website and put 3 builds together than will do very well in terms of games, and video/photo work for the next 2 to 3 years quite easily and maybe longer.

[peanut]

Is this a good deal, I'm thinking of maybe ....

FRACTAL DEFINE R4 BLACK PEARL QUIET MID-TOWER CASE
Intel Core i7-4770k
Titan Super Quiet 22dBA Cooler
ASUS Z87M-PLUS Mobo
16gb HYPER-X BEAST 2400MHz
3GB GeForce GTX 780 Ti
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD
2TB 3.5" SATA-III HHD
Corsair 850w Gold Ultra Quiet PSU

No OS
(I already have a few 3.5 hard drives, sound card and other bits and pieces)
I'm looking for something to last about 5 years or so if I'm lucky.

Comes to £1491

[Hom3r]

Can you get Octo-core CPUs?

Originally Posted by Hom3r

Can you get Octo-core CPUs?

yes

[qasdfdsaq]

Pfft... You can get CPUs with more than 15 cores.

GPU - I suppose it comes down to what price you can get it for. I was lucky to get my R9 290 for less than the price of a 770. The stock card, like I said, gets hot and noisy but is incredible value for the performance, but third-party ones have tweaked cooling that deals with both the noise and temperature/throttling.

I would strongly recommend against the R9 280x. That's an older generation and far inferior card.

CPU coolers and stuff - it's obviously up to you and the extra cost of an aftermarket cooler isn't that much, but that's also one of the things you don't need to buy right now, if you go with stock and don't like it then you can always upgrade later. RAM, similarly, is something you can add incrementally later without any loss, as is additional SSD capacity - there's no need to worry so much about getting it all "perfect" now

---------- Post added at 00:36 ---------- Previous post was at 00:31 ----------

Originally Posted by tizmeinnit

yes

You can get 15+ core CPUs too

[MovedGoalPosts]

Very few people will appreciate any benefit of running two graphics cards. If you do want to go that route, even if that is a remote possibility for the future, look closely at your motherboard specs for bandwidth of the PCIe slots when both are in use. What was a 16x slot may well be limited to only 8x or worse 4x depending on the board's configuration.

There were lots of issues with the R290 AMD cards at launch as they got the drivers wrong. That is effectively sorted now. Even so, don't get stock cards and get ones that the manufacturer's have added their own dual / triple fan coolers and they will do for most people.

Put it this way , you aren't building a cutting edge super PC, but keeping sensible with your budget. That has to dictate your components and there will always be arguments why you should get something better, but you have to stop somewhere. Again you can wait for something else that will be released in a few months, but by then something else will be coming soon. When you make the decision to buy you have to work with what is available now for the budget you have and it seems that a grand is more than enough. Everyone posting here has different viewpoints on what makes a good PC. They would all work of course, but are they as good value and balanced or is the advice coming from the enthusiast who considers performance the priority and money secondary?

It is worth looking at some of the bundles and prebuilt systems available from the likes of scan, overclockers etc. Not because you have to buy one, but because they can give a good guide of a balanced machine at your price point.

[peanut]

Originally Posted by Rob

Very few people will appreciate any benefit of running two graphics cards. If you do want to go that route, even if that is a remote possibility for the future, look closely at your motherboard specs for bandwidth of the PCIe slots when both are in use. What was a 16x slot may well be limited to only 8x or worse 4x depending on the board's configuration.

There were lots of issues with the R290 AMD cards at launch as they got the drivers wrong. That is effectively sorted now. Even so, don't get stock cards and get ones that the manufacturer's have added their own dual / triple fan coolers and they will do for most people.

Put it this way , you aren't building a cutting edge super PC, but keeping sensible with your budget. That has to dictate your components and there will always be arguments why you should get something better, but you have to stop somewhere. Again you can wait for something else that will be released in a few months, but by then something else will be coming soon. When you make the decision to buy you have to work with what is available now for the budget you have and it seems that a grand is more than enough. Everyone posting here has different viewpoints on what makes a good PC. They would all work of course, but are they as good value and balanced or is the advice coming from the enthusiast who considers performance the priority and money secondary?

It is worth looking at some of the bundles and prebuilt systems available from the likes of scan, overclockers etc. Not because you have to buy one, but because they can give a good guide of a balanced machine at your price point.

Very good advice, I agree with all of it. I think I'll bite the bullet and go for the PC spec'd above as I don't need the hassle of building myself.

[techguyone]

It's a good spec Peanut, where is it from?

[peanut]

Originally Posted by techguyone

It's a good spec Peanut, where is it from?

From PCS, but same spec £40 more from Scan. And simular priced elsewhere too, just need to decide on which company to go with which ain't easy after being stung by MESH a good few years ago.

[techguyone]

I've just got a PC from PCS strangely enough, similar spec to yours, slightly higher end, though your graphics card is a bit better, no problems there at all, far cry from the likes of Mesh.

It did take about 3 weeks to come through though, as they're incredibly busy (unless you're paying extra for fast track)

[peanut]

Originally Posted by techguyone

I've just got a PC from PCS strangely enough, similar spec to yours, slightly higher end, though your graphics card is a bit better, no problems there at all, far cry from the likes of Mesh.

It did take about 3 weeks to come through though, as they're incredibly busy (unless you're paying extra for fast track)

I'm glad to hear that, so thanks.

My limit is £1.5k max, so tried to configure and squeeze what I could out of it. So went from a better chip to the 4770k which reviews still say it's good and went for the higher GPU in the end.

It'll need to last about 4+ years hopefully.