New PC Build for Elite. Budget £700.What would you change?

bAdbUd · Mar 21, 2015

Ok So I'm going to take the plunge and get a Desktop. I needed a laptop four months ago and couldn't really afford both at the same time. Four months later, with the problems I have lets build a machine.

So here goes with my first selection and only some basic general research. Budget is £700. What would you change and why?

I don't need internal storage as I've already got an SSD and HDD.

Also, do I need extra internal fans?

I'll be running the game on a AOC 24" 2460 144 hz Monitor, playing in 1960*1080 at 120hrz. For sound I use headphones so I don't really need a sound card. Wifi not required as I'll connect it via LAN. I don't think I really need more than 8 Gig memory as it's only for playing games, well GAME, Elite.

Any suggestions appreciated.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£174.00 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Nepton 140XL 122.5 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler (£49.99 @ CCL Computers)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-GAMING 5 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£106.99 @ Novatech)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport XT 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory (£54.50 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card (£169.14 @ Aria PC)
Case: Corsair SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case (£37.91 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£41.00 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £633.53
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-03-21 22:33 GMT+0000

Cody · Mar 21, 2015

I'd up the PSU - some power in reserve is often handy.

Dominico · Mar 21, 2015

The vid card is a bit poop no? I would put more in the card dude, motherboard n psu could be cheaper insfeadinstead

Derath · Mar 21, 2015

PSU is slightly too low, 960 is fine on a budget but i'd really get a 970 its worth the extra investment rest all looks ok to me.

bAdbUd · Mar 21, 2015

Cody said:
I'd up the PSU - some power in reserve is often handy.

I'm well under, also the Wattage of power supplies is meaningless, it's the efficiency rating that matters. Well that's what I've read, I've no experience. There's alot of misunderstanding about them, mainly because manufacturers belive that higher wattage numbers sell.

Sandmann · Mar 21, 2015

Cody said:
I'd up the PSU - some power in reserve is often handy.

I'd second that. Every time I do an upgrade recently I've had to buy a new psu coz I cheaped out on it. I'm up to a 700W one now. You can't go too big on a psu, but you can easily go too small.

bAdbUd · Mar 21, 2015

Sandmann said:
I'd second that. Every time I do an upgrade recently I've had to buy a new psu coz I cheaped out on it. I'm up to a 700W one now. You can't go too big on a psu, but you can easily go too small.

This is what I know about PSU'S [video]https://youtu.be/zKcRDbsWoP8[/video]

mattyboy1509 · Mar 21, 2015

I have pretty much the same setup with a gtx 660 and it runs it on full fine in fact in recent releases the stuttering on planets is a rarity. So looks good to me. I will wait for maxwell and a die shrink before taking the plunge for a better graphics card hopefully to drive a vr display.

bAdbUd · Mar 21, 2015

mattyboy1509 said:
I have pretty much the same setup with a gtx 660 and it runs it on full fine in fact in recent releases the stuttering on planets is a rarity. So looks good to me. I will wait for maxwell and a die shrink before taking the plunge for a better graphics card hopefully to drive a vr display.

I'm waiting for nothing, buying my kit tomorrow to get it delivered ASAP and built.

I've got Elite DT's already.

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Dominico said:
The vid card is a bit poop no? I would put more in the card dude, motherboard n psu could be cheaper insfeadinstead

Why is it poo? What would you get instead? To stay in budget? What cheaper mobo and PSU? And why?

KillingTime · Mar 21, 2015

bAdbUd said:
I'm well under with, also the Wattage of power supplies is meaningless, it's the efficiency rating that matters. Well that's what I've read, I've no experience.

er, well both matter actually since you can't get an efficiency greater than 100% so if you need 400W then no matter how efficient a 300W PSU is it ain't going to cut it!

Highly recommend EVGA gear, their warranty and customer service is second to none.

I also recommend going for the GTX970 - although beware that the last 0.5GB of VRAM is slower than the rest due to the architecture of the card. It's still useful but nVidia came under some stick for not letting people know this from the start.

If you don't plan to overclock your processor then 430W would be fine but since you've gone for an unlocked processor and a better cooler I'm guessing you do. A beefier PSU would definitely help here. Have a read of this thread. Look for the PSUs that are efficient when not drawing full load as you then really have nothing to lose by upping the wattage aside from the initial outlay but it's a lot cheaper to spend an extra £10 now than buy a new PSU when you upgrade your GPU etc.

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Sandmann said:
I'd second that. Every time I do an upgrade recently I've had to buy a new psu coz I cheaped out on it. I'm up to a 700W one now. You can't go too big on a psu, but you can easily go too small.

Haha, I can beat that.... 1300W (but I do have 3x 780Ti's)

Chris M Fortune · Mar 21, 2015

I was Looking at pricing an upgrade myself recently and although I prefer AMD to Intel for CPU (more bang for the buck) the rest was very similar. I would absolutely not try to run that system on 430W PSU, even though it is sufficient according to the numbers it is always better to have a bit of scope for degradation over time, personally I would bump it to a 550 at least if not a 600W.

If you want a bit extra kick from the graphics card there is a 4Gb version of that card that comes in at just over £200 from Ebuyer

Bad Nooz · Mar 21, 2015

I've got that processor and believe me you do NOT need water cooling. My stock fan cooler never struggles even when I've tried overclocking.So save £50 there. If you can stretch the budget you definitely want A GTX 970 for around £280. The Asus GTX 970 STRIX (mine arrives on Monday) is hard to beat. Lastly, I've been building PC's for around 20 years and believe me, you can never have too much power.

bAdbUd · Mar 21, 2015

KillingTime said:
er, well both matter actually since you can't get an efficiency greater than 100% so if you need 400W then no matter how efficient a 300W PSU is it ain't going to cut it!

Highly recommend EVGA gear, their warranty and customer service is second to none.

I also recommend going for the GTX970 - although beware that the last 0.5GB of VRAM is slower than the rest due to the architecture of the card. It's still useful but nVidia came under some stick for not letting people know this from the start.

If you don't plan to overclock your processor then 430W would be fine but since you've gone for an unlocked processor and a better cooler I'm guessing you do. A beefier PSU would definitely help here. Have a read of this thread. Look for the PSUs that are efficient when not drawing full load as you then really have nothing to lose by upping the wattage aside from the initial outlay but it's a lot cheaper to spend an extra £10 now than buy a new PSU when you upgrade your GPU etc.

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Haha, I can beat that.... 1300W (but I do have 3x 780Ti's)

Cheers for the link. MY max wattage with this system is 303., I understand the upgrade point though so I'll read that article and plump for a 500'ish Gold.

Kiblams · Mar 21, 2015

It looks fine to me, though I can never encourage the purchase of an Nvidia GPU.

PSUs are an interesting beast, many people recommend and use far too big a PSU, but then having to much is always better than too little in that respect.

I have an old 2nd gen i5 which will undoubtedly draw more power than the new i5s and the 960 draws pretty much the same as my R7 260x. I will do some quick tests and let you know how much power draw you should see for the system you are building. Will take a few minutes.

bAdbUd · Mar 21, 2015

Bad Nooz said:
I've got that processor and believe me you do NOT need water cooling. My stock fan cooler never struggles even when I've tried overclocking.So save £50 there. If you can stretch the budget you definitely want A GTX 970 for around £280. The Asus GTX 970 STRIX (mine arrives on Monday) is hard to beat. Lastly, I've been building PC's for around 20 years and believe me, you can never have too much power.

Really, that's interesting to know, thanks.

Kiblams · Mar 21, 2015

Ok, so running prime95 and a GPU stress test called furmark, my system uses 183watts.

That's a much older i5 (should be much less efficient) and an R7 260x which is 3-4watts less than the Nvidia 960.

You have lots of overhead :]

Hilight · Mar 21, 2015

+1 for a bigger PSU...although the brand you've chosen is quite good. As for video, some of the AMD stuff is going for very good prices at the moment. For example: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...048MB+GDDR5+PCI+Express+Card+?productId=62454

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...t+3072MB+GDDR5+Graphics+Card+?productId=57789

'...both the Radeon 285 and 280X should be a bit faster than a GTX 960 and in the same class as a GTX 970, if I recall correctly

bAdbUd · Mar 21, 2015

Kiblams said:
Ok, so running prime95 and a GPU stress test called furmark, my system uses 183watts.

That's a much older i5 (should be much less efficient) and an R7 260x which is 3-4watts less than the Nvidia 960.

You have lots of overhead :]

There is definitely alot of hype, I belive for having high wattage PSU's. People seemed to be concerned about future upgrades, I'm not this'll be my Elite machine for a long time.

Thanks alot for the confirmation.

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Hilight said:
+1 for a bigger PSU...although the brand you've chosen is quite good. As for video, some of the AMD stuff is going for very good prices at the moment. For example: http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...048MB+GDDR5+PCI+Express+Card+?productId=62454

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Comp...t+3072MB+GDDR5+Graphics+Card+?productId=57789

'...both the Radeon 285 and 280X should be a bit faster than a GTX 960 and in the same class as a GTX 970, if I recall correctly

Unfortunately I'm a Nvidia snob. Oh and an Intel snob.

The rest is open for debate.

Sandmann · Mar 21, 2015

KillingTime said:
er, well both matter actually since you can't get an efficiency greater than 100% so if you need 400W then no matter how efficient a 300W PSU is it ain't going to cut it!

Yeah, 'zactly.this. I'm running an R9-280x and they recommend minimum 600W. I got a 700W one for a bit of extra breathing room. Running a PSU at 100% for long periods just creates a bunch of extra heat to get rid of... and since I'm in a part of Australia where it's regularly over 30C indoors that becomes crucial.

KillingTime said:
Haha, I can beat that.... 1300W (but I do have 3x 780Ti's)

Damn that's huge! I want your frame rate.

Kiblams · Mar 21, 2015

bAdbUd said:
There is definitely alot of hype, I belive for having high wattage PSU's. People seemed to be concerned about future upgrades, I'm not this'll be my Elite machine for a long time.

Indeed, and plus, upgrading only uses more power if you buy a more powerful card from the same generation, each subsequent generation of CPU and GPU should use less power if not every other generation (the old tick-tock)

That system will draw 200w at a push.

(can you tell I used to run a computer efficiency website?)