Advice on selecting components for Gaming Rig (€700-900)

Jayd0g

Hi Gang,

I'm looking to put together a new Desktop for Gaming, MS Office Work and General Use. Would very much appreciate your thoughts on selecting parts from Hardwareversand please. It's been about 10 years since I purchased my original machine, so the last few weeks of research have been a steep learning curve!

Building with the aim of upgrading this unit in a few years so I'd like to use components which suit this. I've been reading the advice to others over the last few weeks and hopefully something similar will suit. From the threads I've read, I started a rough outline below and I've some questions on which direction to take with the build.

Case: Black, or Black and Red. Silenced if possible.
CPU Selection: AMD or Intel / Single or Multi Core for gaming performance? Will selecting a motherboard that supports hyperthreading allow me to easily upgrade the CPU in future?
SSD: Is it worth paying for a larger SSD to future proof the build?
Physical HDD – WD Blue 1TB 6Gb/s sounds good to me!
Graphics Card – 7970 based card? I can't tell the difference between the versions on Hardwareversand!
PSU – Gold Rated is a preference for reduced energy bills. Is purchasing a larger PSU than initially needed advised to anticipate future upgrades?


1. What is your budget? [€700 - €900]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming/Internet/ Large MS Excel files] (Games: Legacy strategy titles like Rise of Legends and newer titles such as Skyrim and Battlefield)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [Yes - With the ability to also run games in XP mode]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Mainly peripherals: Keyboard (Microsoft USB), Mouse (Mad Catz RAT 7), Tevion Speakers, Monitor ( LG L194WT)

5. Do you need a monitor? [No]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [n/a]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1440x900] [Not for a while!]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [Yes] [Wireless Card, DVD/r Drive]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [not really]

8. How can you pay? [Bank Transfer/Credit Card/Visa Debit]

9. When are you purchasing? [In 5-15 days]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [Kildare]

Thanks in advance for your time and help!

SterlingArcher

The mobos for the current Haswell CPU , will also be able to house the future Broadwell CPU. So if you can afford it try go Intel.

Jayd0g

SterlingArcher wrote: »

The mobos for the current Haswell CPU , will also be able to house the future Broadwell CPU. So if you can afford it try go Intel.

Thanks, is it worth going for i7? I read a few reviews suggesting performance increase isn't too great compared to latest i5s for the price increase.

justsomebloke

as you are some what on a limited budget I'd try avoid 'future proofing' as it just means that you are going to be paying a premium on things that will probably devalue at a quicker rate and in the long term won't actually offer the best bang for buck especially if you are looking to upgrade in a couple of years.

So I'd probably stick with a 120GB SSD and also get rid of the 7970 as it maybe overkill at your current monitor resolution which you say you aren't upgrading

SterlingArcher

Jayd0g wrote: »

Thanks, is it worth going for i7? I read a few reviews suggesting performance increase isn't too great compared to latest i5s for the price increase.

On your budget I7 is not an option unless you sacrifice for cheaper Gpu which is counter productive.
Xeon e3 1230v3 with hyper treading would be 220 euro is possible if you really needed I7 performance

But like you said gaming wise, increase in games is maybe 5 fps tops and that is a maybe. Stick to I5


In fact jay I'd go with the cheapest I5 you can get. 169 at hwvs.

Jayd0g

Thanks Lads,

For future upgrades I thought with the right motherboard I could buy a better graphics card, CPU and or RAM in a few years time, to extend the life of the PC another bit and play new games in approx 3-6 years at medium range graphics settings.

Cheers for the SSD tip, I'll go for the smaller size then and use for the OS.

When I say "not for a while" on the monitor upgrade, if it would make that much of a difference then I could upgrade in February or March maybe.

What would you guys recommend for the monitor? I could plan towards purchasing that and keep an eye on the sales,maybe get lucky.

justsomebloke

well the monitor upgrade would have a big bearing on the graphics card you would be looking at and thus the budget needed, so it's worth deciding now what you will be actually doing. Something like this would be a good buy

Jayd0g

justsomebloke wrote: »

well the monitor upgrade would have a big bearing on the graphics card you would be looking at and thus the budget needed, so it's worth deciding now what you will be actually doing. Something like this would be a good buy

That's a decent price too! Good shout, thanks. I'll work towards something along those lines for purchase in Feb / March then.

justsomebloke

Given that you have indicated that you are going to be using big spread sheets having 2 monitors (old and new one) will make a BIG difference in productivity so I'd work up to having 2 monitors if you can

SterlingArcher

Jayd0g wrote: »

That's a decent price too! Good shout, thanks. I'll work towards something along those lines for purchase in Feb / March then.

150 will get you a 23 inch LG IPs monitor on amazon delivered. Not to mention amazon easier to deal with.

Jayd0g

justsomebloke wrote: »

Given that you have indicated that you are going to be using big spread sheets having 2 monitors (old and new one) will make a BIG difference in productivity so I'd work up to having 2 monitors if you can

You're preaching to the converted I switch on an old CRT monitor to use with the LG when I need to work on anything that bad.

Jayd0g

Ok, so I've done some browsing after reading your advice and come up with the basket below. The Graphics Card is a placeholder and I'm not sure which type of Motherboard to choose other than ATX LGA 1150 compatible.

I'd like to go for a Haswell series i5, is there any point in going for the 4670k over the non "k" 4670 version?

The 22" monitor in the basket is the spec. that I'm aiming to buy, but probably not from HWVS. The monitor is not included in the €900 budget.

Taking on board the earlier advice, to keep within the budget I'm probably looking at downgrading the Graphics Card, which is ok. I'd like to keep the case, i5 Haswell CPU. SSD and 1TB HDD though.

Can you guys give a steer to help me come in under budget please?

Apologies for the image, I don't know where to start to use Fluffy's javascript!

justsomebloke

the k just means it can be over clocked but also require a motherboard capable of over clocking.

so the cpu , case and graphics card are where you will save money. for the budget the case will have to be changed

Jayd0g

justsomebloke wrote: »

the k just means it can be over clocked but also require a motherboard capable of over clocking.

so the cpu , case and graphics card are where you will save money. for the budget the case will have to be changed

Ah ok, so I can drop the "k" on the CPU then.

The case looks really well though! Oh well, I'll go looking for another ATX, silenced tower then!

Jayd0g

Bit of a eejit realisation, the LG M2780D 27" TV Monitor downstairs for the xbox will become the monitor for the new gaming build. Supports 1920 x 1080 resolution.

Really should of thought of this sooner! Will just move the xbox to the office and change inputs if required.

Jayd0g

Hi Guys,

Spent the day looking at Motherboards and GPUs to come up with the below order, what do ye think?

Reviews suggest the Sapphire R9 270x is good power for the money, but I'm open to suggestions.

The Motherboard is out of stock at moment, so I'll order from Amazon instead. I've included here to keep all the info in one place.

Pretty happy with the days work over all, but worried I'm missing something on compatibility such as graphic card fitting the case; insufficent power supply or needing some extra fans. There's still a little room in the budget as I haven't but the basket through the discount site yet.

Item|Price
Sapphire Toxic R9 270X Boost, AMD Radeon R9 270X, 2GB DDR5|€215.73
Intel Core i5-4570 Box, LGA1150|€164.99
ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX|€87.14
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€16.74
8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1333, CL9|€67.08
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€84.43
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.98
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€81.14
ASUS PCE-N15|€14.90
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl Window side panel|€98.30
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€905.44

Jayd0g

And after putting the parts through geizhals.de:

Item|Price
Sapphire Toxic R9 270X Boost, AMD Radeon R9 270X, 2GB DDR5|€215.73
Intel Core i5-4570 Box, LGA1150|€164.07
ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX|€87.14
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€15.82
8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1333, CL9|€61.77
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€84.43
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.76
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€877.19
ASUS PCE-N15|€14.90
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl Window side panel|€94.77
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€884.57[/QUOTE]

Difference of about €20

marco_polo

Seems like alot of cash to be spending on an R9 270X, no matter how good it is. Would you not go with something cheaper like this instead?

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=123693&agid=2446&apop=3

Jayd0g

marco_polo wrote: »

Seems like alot of cash to be spending on an R9 270X, no matter how good it is. Would you not go with something cheaper like this instead?

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=123693&agid=2446&apop=3

Thanks for the feedback, it was mainly this review that convinced me:

http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews

I haven't heard of HIS before so tend to lean towards what I've seen mentioned on other build threads here. I'm under budget at the moment, so would you recommend a better value card at that price point?

Jayd0g

marco_polo wrote: »

Seems like alot of cash to be spending on an R9 270X, no matter how good it is. Would you not go with something cheaper like this instead?

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?adp=0&aid=123693&agid=2446&apop=3

Jayd0g wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, it was mainly this review that convinced me:

http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews

I haven't heard of HIS before so tend to lean towards what I've seen mentioned on other build threads here. I'm under budget at the moment, so would you recommend a better value card at that price point?

How about something along these lines?

MSI N760 TwinFrozr 2GD5/OC, 2GB DDR5 €219

marco_polo

Jayd0g wrote: »

Thanks for the feedback, it was mainly this review that convinced me:

http://www.hitechlegion.com/reviews

I haven't heard of HIS before so tend to lean towards what I've seen mentioned on other build threads here. I'm under budget at the moment, so would you recommend a better value card at that price point?

You can get a pretty good GTX760 for the same price, even a reference version would be better on average than any overclocked r9 270X, although Sapphire have squeeze some nice numbers out of the 270X toxic edition.

http://lanoc.org/review/video-cards/6716-sapphire-toxic-r9-270x?showall=&start=6

EDIT:

Jayd0g wrote: »

How about something along these lines?

MSI N760 TwinFrozr 2GD5/OC, 2GB DDR5 €219

Yeah I was thinking along the lines of that MSI, or the Windforce or EVGA

Jayd0g

marco_polo wrote: »

You can get a pretty good GTX760 for the same price, even a reference version would be better on average than any overclocked r9 270X, although Sapphire have squeeze some nice numbers out of the 270X toxic edition.

http://lanoc.org/review/video-cards/6716-sapphire-toxic-r9-270x?showall=&start=6

It does show up well in gaming reviews too, I'm looking around at over clocked GTX760's at the moment, hoping to find an equivalent boost in performance to what Sapphire did with the 270X.

Jayd0g

marco_polo wrote: »

You can get a pretty good GTX760 for the same price, even a reference version would be better on average than any overclocked r9 270X, although Sapphire have squeeze some nice numbers out of the 270X toxic edition.

http://lanoc.org/review/video-cards/6716-sapphire-toxic-r9-270x?showall=&start=6


Yeah I was thinking along the lines of that MSI, or the Windforce or EVGA

The more I read, the more I'm liking the GTX 760 based cards. Spoiled for choice though.

I'd prefer a version that didn't push waste heat back towards the motherboard, so leaning towards the Gigabyte version. Seems to get better reviews for heat performance

EDIT:
That was one set of reviews. Across a few sites they seem to even out to a barely noticeable difference.

Jayd0g

So swapped the R9 270X for the MSI Twin Frozr GTX 760 and switched the case to a non windowed version (cheaper).

Strangely, the Twin Frozr became more expensive by €0.89 when put through geizhals.de.

Thanks for the advice on the GPU marco_polo!

Item|Price
MSI N760 TwinFrozr 2GD5/OC, 2GB DDR5|€219.89
Intel Core i5-4570 Box, LGA1150|€164.07
ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX|€87.14
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€15.82
8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1333, CL9|€61.77
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€84.43
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.76
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€877.19
ASUS PCE-N15|€14.90
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl|€86.46
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€880.43

Jayd0g

Final Order placed, exciting stuff!

I added a copy of Windows 8.1 64bit version and 2 SATA cables (1 spare).

Item|Price
MSI N760 TwinFrozr 2GD5/OC, 2GB DDR5|€220.26
Intel Core i5-4570 Box, LGA1150|€164.43
ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX|€82.49
LG GH24NS bare schwarz|€15.82
8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1333, CL9|€61.77
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€84.43
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€49.39
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W|€77.07
ASUS PCE-N15|€14.90
FRACTAL DESIGN Define R4 Black Pearl|€86.46
2x Good Connection GC-0147 Anschlusskabel, SATA 6 Gb/s, mit Arretierung, 0,5m, gelb|€4.18
Windows 8.1 64Bit Eng Intl (SB-Version) DVD|€80.74
TrustedShops Käuferschutz bis 1500 EUR bis 30 Tage (Payment Protection)|€2.94
Shipping|€11.99
Less the €10 Voucher|-€10.00
Total|€946.87

I used geizhals.de
and a €10 discount code from this site: www.gutscheinsammler.de

€46.87 over budget, but hopefully my wife will forgive me! Can't wait for this to arrive so I can start putting it together.

Thanks everybody for your help and advice, I've learned a lot from this thread and the help you've given to others in the forum.

Jayd0g

One last update, assembled the hardware over one day and installed software on the 2nd day.

Machine works like a dream, boots to windows 8.1 in about 8 seconds which is awesome. Playing my favourite strategy games on ultra settings with no difficulty.

Thanks everyone for all your help and I hope you had a great Christmas.

Email code from HardwareVersand today for €10 off: V9ARWHPN81

Blitz17

Jayd0g wrote: »

One last update, assembled the hardware over one day and installed software on the 2nd day.

Machine works like a dream, boots to windows 8.1 in about 8 seconds which is awesome. Playing my favourite strategy games on ultra settings with no difficulty.

Thanks everyone for all your help and I hope you had a great Christmas.

Email code from HardwareVersand today for €10 off: V9ARWHPN81

That's good to hear , all temps running ok ?

Jayd0g

Blitz17 wrote: »

That's good to hear , all temps running ok ?

Thanks! Haven't a clue on the temperatures, do I need to use a specific program to check? It's been mainly cold air coming from the exhaust anyways.

Cianog

I completely ripped off this build since it looks to be a good one but HWR doesnt have the ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX or the be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W - bulk - in stock (both are red) any idea if i can switch the parts out with something or a general idea when they order new stock??Sorry for the hassle lol

Slksht

Cianog wrote: »

I completely ripped off this build since it looks to be a good one but HWR doesnt have the ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX or the be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W - bulk - in stock (both are red) any idea if i can switch the parts out with something or a general idea when they order new stock??Sorry for the hassle lol

Any of the as rock pro atx 1150 socket will be an able replacement Mobo and a be quiet or corsair psu from about 550w upwards should power the machine without much problem.

marco_polo

Cianog wrote: »

I completely ripped off this build since it looks to be a good one but HWR doesnt have the ASRock H87 Performance, Sockel 1150, ATX or the be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 7 700W - bulk - in stock (both are red) any idea if i can switch the parts out with something or a general idea when they order new stock??Sorry for the hassle lol

Have you any future plans to go dual card, the above PSU and board are probably overkill. Since you wouldn't be overclocking even a good 450W would be sufficient for a single card build.

There are only a handful of decent value PSUs in stock at the moment and few ASRock boards but you never can never be sure with HWVS when they might come back in (could be tommorrow or a weeks time )

Of what is in stock as of this minute I'd go for the XFX 450W core on a tight budget or the modular CX500 with a B85 or H87 board.

If you had SLI in mind or are open to overclocking I'd nearly suggest a new thread might be in order.