New computer build €1,000-€2,000

Evilcamper

Hi all, hoping you will be able to help. Currently looking to build a PC and need some help speccing it correctly for what we require. Any suggestions on tools or other items would be helpful as well as this will be a first build. I have some experience in setting up new graphics cards and hard disks. Hoping my sister whos studying electronic engineering and brother who did computer science will also benefit from the practical experience in building a computer.

1. What is your budget? €1,000-€2,000 (can be slightly higher than €2,000 if for good reasons)

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? For gaming such as Star Wars Battlefront and RTS Gaming. My sister is studying engineering and may need it for computer assisted design projects. Sometimes virtual machines will be run on it by my brother who's an IT consultant. We need a CD burner as my mum operates a dance academy and needs us to burn music for her occasionally. We don't expect to upgrade for a few years so any future proofing would be useful. Hence the large budget provided.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need. Currently at 24 inches but looking at getting a 27 inch.

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Keyboard, Mouse, CD burner, Card Reader and Speakers needed

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay? Would like to pay by laser but willing to look at bank transfer if substantially cheaper.

9. When are you purchasing? Should be in the next month or so

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Bray

I would prefer if we could all get it off one site if possible. Many thanks for any assistance.

Digital Solitude

i7 6700k €360
Z170 board €150
16gb DDR4 €100
Case €100
500w PSU €70
2tb HDD €90
250gb SSD €100
GTX970 €350

Get a mechanical keyboard €100
5 or 7 button mouse €50
CD burner €20
Card reader €20

1440p 27" monitor €300

Windows €20 from Reddit.

Total €1830

Put whatever necessary towards a speaker system or headphones.

Prices from mindfactory or computer universe. Given you've room in the budget, I'd buy from OcUK or Amazon for piece of mind with returns.

Any questions, ask away

joseph brand

Digital Solitude wrote: »

i7 6700k €360
Z170 board €150
16gb DDR4 €100
Case €100
500w PSU €70
2tb HDD €90
250gb SSD €100
GTX970 €350

Get a mechanical keyboard €100
5 or 7 button mouse €50
CD burner €20
Card reader €20

1440p 27" monitor €300

Windows €20 from Reddit.

Total €1830

Put whatever necessary towards a speaker system or headphones.

Prices from mindfactory or computer universe. Given you've room in the budget, I'd buy from OcUK or Amazon for piece of mind with returns.

Any questions, ask away

Could you explain the part in bold please. (I know reddit and have an account)

Digital Solitude

You can get a Windows Key from reddit for 20 quid, it's an MSDN key. They occasionally get blocked, hit and miss tbh, if you upgrade to Windows 10 with it you're in the clear though.

Evilcamper

Thanks digital, that advice is really helpful. Just a few questions:

1. If I don't plan to overclock would there be any point to the 6700k, would a 6700 be okay for what I need?

2. On windows, not to sure if I should be getting a key off Reddit, is there anywhere else a bit more secure to get one or should I just get a proper one for €135?

3. Should I shift some money towards a bigger SSD or would the law of diminishing returns come into play?

4. Any recommendations for a speaker brand?

Many thanks for the advice.

Digital Solitude

Evilcamper wrote: »

Thanks digital, that advice is really helpful. Just a few questions:

1. If I don't plan to overclock would there be any point to the 6700k, would a 6700 be okay for what I need?

2. On windows, not to sure if I should be getting a key off Reddit, is there anywhere else a bit more secure to get one or should I just get a proper one for €135?

3. Should I shift some money towards a bigger SSD or would the law of diminishing returns come into play?

4. Any recommendations for a speaker brand?

Many thanks for the advice.

1. Might as well drop I guess, can get a H110 or H150 board if you definitely won't be over clocking.

2. I'm not sure of other places, ebay and Amazon are essentially the same story unless you push out for a full key.

3. You can get 512gb SSDs for €150 or so when a sale comes up, so you call if its worth it there, personally I'd push the budget if I had it, but you can always add another later so its not a huge deal.

4. Not from me, sorry.

levitronix

Evilcamper wrote: »

Thanks digital, that advice is really helpful. Just a few questions:

1. If I don't plan to overclock would there be any point to the 6700k, would a 6700 be okay for what I need?

2. On windows, not to sure if I should be getting a key off Reddit, is there anywhere else a bit more secure to get one or should I just get a proper one for €135?

3. Should I shift some money towards a bigger SSD or would the law of diminishing returns come into play?

4. Any recommendations for a speaker brand?

Many thanks for the advice.

that kinda money put a high end SSD in like a intel 750, or go raid 0 with 2 SSD's

Xenoronin

Ah guys. Seriously overkill. WAAAAYYYYY overkill. This is a 1k build requirement with a 2k budget.
Remember that not all budgets need to be hit and that we shouldn't push them up artificially.

This is a family computer that needs to play games acceptably. It needs a decent CPU and enough ram to run a VM or two. It needs a CD drive to burn disks.

Nowhere does this spec say I want the best machine going and 1440p gaming.

So with this in mind here are some recommendations with some example manufacturers.

Intel Xeon E3-1231v3
8-16gb RAM (8 is plenty though) (Corsair, Kingston, G-Skill)
GTX960 (MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte)
H97 Motherboard (Asrock, Gigabyte, Asus, MSI)
1TB HDD (Western Digital)
256GB SSD (Samsung, Crucial)
500W PSU (Corsair)
Optical Drive (Samsung, Sony, Phillips, LG)
24" 1080p Screen (BenQ GL series one seems appropriate)

Digital Solitude

Ruining all the fun

In my defense €500 of mine is peripherals :pac:

Xenoronin

I know, ruiner of things :L

Evilcamper

Thanks Digital and Xenoronin,

Its true that I don't need the best gaming computer but would like to make sure that most games that could come out in the next two or three years could run comfortably as we don't want to update that often. The most strenuous thing I though was probably the CAD bit my sister would need to run on the system. We were thinking of going with a skylake processor as we tend to upgrade the graphics card, RAM and storage over the life cycle of our PC. We would probably want to prioritise the CPU, motherboard, the SSD for windows (Windows and system drivers bloat is a concern) and power supply over other components at initial purchase time if necessary. But at least now I have a range I should be looking at from lowest to highest. Will probably put an initial list of components up over the week so any comments would be appreciated.

Venom

Just swap out the i7 6700k for an i5 6600 seeing its only going to be used for gaming and put the difference in a better GFX card like a 980 or 390x. Whats overkill today won't stay that way so the extra cash spent now could save you needing to upgrade by a year or two.

As for not wanting to overclock, considering on the latest motherboards its simply a case of clicking a few buttons in the bios, you would be mad not to go for a K series chip.

TerrorFirmer

Xenoronin wrote: »

So with this in mind here are some recommendations with some example manufacturers.

Intel Xeon E3-1231v3
8-16gb RAM (8 is plenty though) (Corsair, Kingston, G-Skill)
GTX960 (MSI, EVGA, Gigabyte)
H97 Motherboard (Asrock, Gigabyte, Asus, MSI)
1TB HDD (Western Digital)
256GB SSD (Samsung, Crucial)
500W PSU (Corsair)
Optical Drive (Samsung, Sony, Phillips, LG)
24" 1080p Screen (BenQ GL series one seems appropriate)

Totally agree with this build considering the wide family usage. Maybe swap out the GTX960 for a GTX970 if you really want it to last without having to touch it for a few years.

I would forget about overclocking, k series CPUs and even Skylake to a certain extent. The Xeon will last years...and years...and years. By the time it's slow and obsolete so will Skylake.

If you really want to let your hair down and go mental get a 1440p monitor and an R9 390X or GTX980 for serious game performance.

You will not see any difference between that Xeon and a Skylake for anything you plan on doing, either today, or next year, or the year after.

People go absolutely mental on these boards over-recommending overkill CPU's. Grand if you were using the machine for a lot of heavy duty rendering, editing, whatever..but for a fairly general purpose and gaming machine, there's zero benefit.

You could pair a €70 2nd hand i5-2500K and a GTX980Ti and benchmark it against a €400 i7-6700 with a GTX970 and the first option would be faster in games. Running the latest games at 1440p at ultra settings for example makes even €500 graphics cards bottlenecks.

I have a €180 i5-4440 and a €800 GTX980Ti Hybrid for example.

Also with a budget of 2K just buy Windows and have peace of mind. I use a lot of Reddit keys and the block rate is about 40% across about 70 keys from different sellers, many of whom were recommended here. Some will replace, some won't or will have disappeared/been banned/whatever. It's not worth the bother when you've a massive budget.

tazzzZ

Also just searched for cheap windows

http://www.allkeyshop.com/blog/buy-windows-10-professional-cd-key-compare-prices/

I have used a number of sites shown on this site. If it offers protection and its being bought from their market place and not directly I would recommend getting the protection as the odd key may be invalid. but the protection is only 85c on kinguin (the cheapest place).

The lads have you well covered on suggestions there. Least you know both the overkill and bang for the buck options. but id defo pay that little bit extra on the GPU side if you decide to go 1440p. And also if you wanna push the boat out on the monitor g sync is a really nice touch and 120hz or higher is very nice also. but this will jack up the monitor price for all the extra little features.

Evilcamper

Thanks everyone i am taking it all on board cant really seem to find the xeon on overclockers(using it for piece of mind and for initial pricing for now) but should have a initial list of components for review soon. Just wondering I would have thought that DDR 4 would become mainstream in the next few years which is why i went with Skylake but would this be applicable for the Xeon (ie is Xeon compatible with DDR4)

Evilcamper

Hi thank you for all help on this. Please see a list of components I have specced on overclockers. Any assistance or advice will be appreciated:

Intel i5-6600k- £225
Fury Black 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 PC4-19200C15 2400MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (HX424C15FBK2/16- £80
AEROCOOL V3X EVIL BLUE EDITION MIDI-TOWER - BLACK/BLUE-£20
Z170 PRO GAMING INTEL Z170 (SOCKET 1151) DDR4 ATX MOTHERBOARD" with free Be Quiet! Dark Rock 3 BK018 CPU Cooler -£120
Windows 10 - £85
"BUILDER SERIES CX 750W MODULAR '80 PLUS BRONZE' POWER SUPPLY (CP-9020061-UK)"-£80
Seagate 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache HDD £55
500GB 850 EVO SSD 2.5" SATA 6Gbps 32 Layer 3D V-NAND Solid State Drive £132
H-224FB/BEBE 24x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM M disc compatible-£15
75-in-1 6-Port 3.5" Card Reader with USB -£5
BenQ GL2450 24" 1920x1080 TN Widescreen LED Monitor- £110
Wireless Desktop MK270 -£22
FC330 56W 2.1 Speaker System-£41

Total- £1150
Total in Euro-€1,610

Jilm

What video card do you plan to get?

Evilcamper

Apologies was priced up above its a:
GeForce GTX 960 OC 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N960OC-4GD)- £159

challengemaster

Seems ridiculous to me to spend €1600 on a build and only have a 960 in it.

grindle

Those prices are appalling.
If you have to buy from them get a different PSU (Antec High Current Gamer and Seasonic M12s are both cheaper and better) and if you can, try to get a better screen. A friend has that one and it looks a bit off unless you're square with it while viewing.

TerrorFirmer

Yeah, it's a €1600 build with €700 performance when it comes to games, to be honest. Also the case you have chosen is pretty cheap and nasty, functional but in a €1600 build a cheapo budget case seems a bit of a shame to me.

Evilcamper

Okay back to the drawing board probably need to re evaluate a few things . Not very good with cases, monitor, PSU or motherboard really. The remainder is probably more of a slight reluctance to spend that much on GPU and a concern not to run out of memory on SSD. Really appreciate the help everyones giving or probably would have made a few big mistakes.

grindle

Same budget spend (maybe a bit less), much better everything else (although the speaker system is cheaper on OCUK, not sure if the postage balances out).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microlab-FC330-Model-System-Speaker/dp/B0040N3BQI

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Antec-0-7mm-NSK3100-Micro-Case/dp/B00FB37N6K

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Philips-monitor-SmartControl-Lite-233V5LHAB/dp/B00ET4WSNU/



The card-reader & wireless keyboard I know nothing about so I went for same keyboard and tbh, with card-readers, once it recognises all SD-types and Sony cards it recognises everything in-use.

You could pick a better monitor with the savings and keep it under E1600, but there are other things you may not need like a 'K' processor and mobo - completely useless unless overclocking, and so you have to ask yourself why you're overclocking. Do you genuinely see yourself needing that extra power?.

Evilcamper

Probably dont need the extra power so if not what would be your recommendation on processor and mobo

SterlingArcher

Case Nanoxia deep silence 3 69 euro or deep silence 1 95 euro. Good cases quiet which with a family computer is needes. nice airflow.

Cpu Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 250 euro.

Mobo H97 Motherboard 80-90 euro

Gpu gtx 970/r9 390 350 euro

Ram 8 gigs crucial 45 euro

Ssd Samsung 250 100.

Hdd 1TB HDD 50 euro

Psu 500w be quiet 60 euro.

The optical drive is straightforward.

Monitor say 150.

Don't get a german keyboard. Pick one up elsewhere.

Basically chose a Haswell build / skylake build. Check the price v performance. Which for me will come down to the gpu anyway.

I understand you are getting alot of builds thrown at you. So it's probably getting slightly annoying now.

Either way the cases recommend above are solid performers for any build. Same with Psu maybe avoid corsair ones.

Evilcamper

Nah its all helpful and it does seem ppl are advising a haswell setup so i may take that on board and it will probably result in savings across other components aswell. Builds at least allow me to get an idea what others would do with the same requirements. And will probably go with one of the suggestions in the end as they all seem better than my attempted build

grindle

Going for a boxed version of the non-K 4690, dropping the cpu cooler (as the stock cooler in the boxed 4690 will be fine), picking a H97 mobo and DDR3 RAM will save €150, which'd make the build €1450-€1480 once all PayPal fees & exchange rates are paid.

If you can find the Xeon that Sterling mentioned then go for it, they're not available at Mindfactory so I went for the 4690.

You could upgrade to a 1440p or ultrawide monitor with the excess change.

Evilcamper

Hi all,

Thanks for all the help please see new list below using mindfactory (will be paying through paypal):

Intel Core i5 4460-€174
Nanoxia DeepSilence 3 -€68
ASRock H97 Anniversary Intel H97-€67
16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport CL9 DIMM DDR3-€76
500GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5 "(6.4cm) SATA-€160
2000GB WD Green WD20EZRX 64MB 3.5 "-€70
500 Watts be quiet! Pure Power L8 Non- €60
Samsung SH-224DB / BEBE DVD-RW SATA €12
Inter-Tech Card Reader 3.5 "multi-slot card €10
Gigabyte GTX 970 4096MB GeForce Gaming G1 Active PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail) €355
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit English DSP / SB €128
24 "(60.96cm) LG Electronics 24MB56HQ-B €139


Any comments or suggestions on the list will be appreciated. Many thanks for all the help.

I think I will buy the keyboard, mouse and speakers in Ireland as should put something into the local economy and for language compatibility for the keyboard

grindle

Evilcamper wrote: »

Nanoxia DeepSilence 3 -€68

24 "(60.96cm) LG Electronics 24MB56HQ-B €139

If the case and monitor together are €30 cheaper on mindfactory than you can find on Amazon or anywhere else then get them, Mindfactory keeps monitors & cases in a separate warehouse which doubles the delivery charge.
You'll probably shave a few quid off by shopping for those elsewhere + having Amazon's customer service on your side is good when it comes to monitors as shipping that back to Mindfactory if it was defective would be expensive vs Amazon's free return shipping.

Venom

Evilcamper wrote: »

Hi all,

Thanks for all the help please see new list below using mindfactory (will be paying through paypal):

Intel Core i5 4460-€174
Nanoxia DeepSilence 3 -€68
ASRock H97 Anniversary Intel H97-€67
16GB Crucial Ballistix Sport CL9 DIMM DDR3-€76
500GB Samsung 850 Evo 2.5 "(6.4cm) SATA-€160
2000GB WD Green WD20EZRX 64MB 3.5 "-€70
500 Watts be quiet! Pure Power L8 Non- €60
Samsung SH-224DB / BEBE DVD-RW SATA €12
Inter-Tech Card Reader 3.5 "multi-slot card €10
Gigabyte GTX 970 4096MB GeForce Gaming G1 Active PCIe 3.0 x16 (Retail) €355
Windows 10 Home 64 Bit English DSP / SB €128
24 "(60.96cm) LG Electronics 24MB56HQ-B €139


Any comments or suggestions on the list will be appreciated. Many thanks for all the help.

I think I will buy the keyboard, mouse and speakers in Ireland as should put something into the local economy and for language compatibility for the keyboard

Nice looking system but I would consider a R9 390 or 390X over the 970. The AMD card is faster and has more than double the Vram.

The selection of keyboards and mice in brick and mortar stores in Ireland is a joke. If you want anything decent you need to buy online.

Evilcamper

Meant to say buy it off an Irish website cant remember the last time i wa in a bricks and mortar pc shop and actually buying anything