Advice for first time buyer...

[PCUser1990]

First of all , I would like to thank you for taking the time to help me out here! I really appreciate it. So , I will get straight to the point :
I have a £3600 budget for a PC. It will be used for the following :
General day to day work such as typing up documents, creating spreadsheets, browsing the internet etc...
Running games on high/ultra such as GTA V with reasonable FPS.
Dealing with occasional , light rendering. (10-15 minute long videos after editing)
Being able to run fraps whilst playing games but still getting good FPS.
I think I have covered everything, I may have forgot some things but if I do those will be added to the list.
Extra information :
I currently use a laptop from 2011 with a 2.4Ghz clockspeed along with a cheap keyboard and mouse . I will most likely want a new Razer Keyboard, Mouse and Mouse mat along with a Razer Leviathan soundbar, and finally a 144hz monitor +1 or 2 monitors along the side.
I will add some comments along side each selection I have made to help you choose my thinking process, but any comments or feedback is really appreciated. I do not know the most about PCs but have a reasonable understanding.
Case
CORSAIR GRAPHITE SERIES™ 780T FULL TOWER CASE
-This may seem a bit over the top, but I would like to futureproof the PC as much as possible with the possibility to expand to a X99 chipset.I would also like to look at expanding to 2 graphics card in the future for SLI.
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-6700k Quad Core (4.00GHz @ upto MAX 4.60GHz)
As I only do light rendering, clock speed is my main priority. And with a 500Mhz clockspeed advantage over the I5 I felt this was neccasary
Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS VIII HERO: RoG, PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0
I know very little about motherboards, however after looking through each one I decided to go with the Asus Hero. If anyone has advice here I would be very appreciative.
Memory (RAM)
32GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 3000MHz (4 x 8GB Kit)
Previously mentioned about futureproofing, so I decided to go with 32GB of 3000MHz RAM. I know this is a bit overkill and that 16GB would be more than enough.
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GTX VR Ready!
I've browsed through many videos on youtube and comments on these forums, and the 1080 seems a must. In the future I may add SLI , so any comments about that would be useful.
1st Hard Disk
1TB Samsung 850 EVO 2.5" SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
As I would like windows 7, I cannot have a M.2 Samsung Drive. I will be storing the majority of programs, documents etc on SSD if possible.
2nd Hard Disk
3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
I have read that the WD black easily outperforms the SATA, however I will be storing my large files such as recordings etc on here and I personally couldn't find room in my budget for one.
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
I have an Xbox One to run Blu Ray, and I do still have some games/photos stored on discs , so this is a must.
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£79)
Once again, futureproofing for any upgrades.
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i V2 Hydro Cooler w/ PCS Liquid Series Ultra Quiet Fans (£109)
Futureproofing, although I do understand that a Noctua is more than capable of dealing with the I7-6700K
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

LED Lighting
2x 60cm Red LED Strip (£18) - To Compliment The Colours of Your Case
I would like some LEDs with my case, and if anyone could recommend me a good combination that would be great.
Extra Case Fans
2x 120mm Apache Black Quiet Fan (fitted to extract from rear/roof) (£25)
Not sure if I need extra fans with the water-cooling, or even with a x99 chipset. Any advice here would be great.
Sound Card
ASUS STRIX Raid DLX 7.1 PCIe sound card (£155)
I have an Astro A40 headset along with a mixamp , so I believe I need a good sound card. This is another area of my weak knowledge, so advice is once again much appreciated.
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11 AC1900 1,300Mbps/5GHz, 600Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD (£49)
I will not have ethernet access for a reasonable amount of time due to the location of where the PC is in contrast to my hub, which I will need to move.
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
I prefer windows 7 to windows 8 and 10, and I have used all 3 to confirm my opinion.
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language

Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
I already have a key to office so I won't need one.
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Not a big fan of Norton, any advice on anti virus would help me out.
Browser
Google Chrome™

Monitor
BENQ XL2730Z 27" 1MS 144Hz GAMING MONITOR (£465)
Not too sure on monitors, but it would be preferred to have a 144hz one somewhere in my build.
2nd Monitor
BENQ GL2450HM 24" LED MONITOR (£121)
Extra monitors to make working easier and more efficient in my opinion from experience.
3rd Monitor
BENQ GL2450HM 24" LED MONITOR (£121)

Monitor Cables
3 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE (£24)

Keyboard & Mouse
Razer® Black Widow Chroma Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (£142)

Mouse
Razer® Naga Expert Chroma MMO Mouse (£69)

Gaming Mouse Pad
Razer Firefly - Chroma Lighting Gaming Mouse Mat (£55)

Speakers
Razer Leviathan 5.1 Bluetooth Soundbar (£159)
Can anyone give me some advice or comments about the Razer soundbar? Read some review but it would still be nice to get second opinions.
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Read that this is pretty much a must, and for £5 extra I do agree.
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Is it worth getting the extra care? I have considered it but advice would be great.
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days

Thanks for reading through my 1st build. I will be looking to order within 2-4 weeks, depending on some personal things. Once again, I greatly appreciate any advice on the specs, as I want this to be as efficient and futureproof as possible and do not wish to make any mistakes due to my large budget.

 

[Oussebon]

Being able to run fraps whilst playing games but still getting good FPS.

If you mean for recording, you might as well use Shadowplay which is free from Nvidia (only works with their GPUs) and has less performance impact.

Sound Card
ASUS STRIX Raid DLX 7.1 PCIe sound card (£155)
I have an Astro A40 headset along with a mixamp , so I believe I need a good sound card. This is another area of my weak knowledge, so advice is once again much appreciated.

I don't think you need a sound card. It's only a £90-100 headset. If you're not listening to beyond-CD quality music (DSD files, FLAC 192kHz, etc) then you don't really need a sound card.
For instance this reviewer who said the sound card was good http://www.kitguru.net/components/s.../asus-strix-raid-dlx-7-1-sound-card-review/4/ was testing it with headphones worth ~£320

32GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 3000MHz (4 x 8GB Kit)
Previously mentioned about futureproofing, so I decided to go with 32GB of 3000MHz RAM. I know this is a bit overkill and that 16GB would be more than enough.

It is. You're buying RAM that you literally won't use. It's like buying a book you'll never read, except that you can't display it proudly on the shelf

Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£79)
Once again, futureproofing for any upgrades.

I'd suggest the RM850x, as it's better build quality and has a passive mode where on low loads (which probably includes gaming) the fan doesn't need to come on.

2x 120mm Apache Black Quiet Fan (fitted to extract from rear/roof) (£25)
Not sure if I need extra fans with the water-cooling, or even with a x99 chipset. Any advice here would be great.

I would have said no. Extra rear/top fans helps more with the CPU temp which you have watercooled, and the two front intake and rear exhaust should be fine for the GPU.

As I would like windows 7, I cannot have a M.2 Samsung Drive. I will be storing the majority of programs, documents etc on SSD if possible.

Bear in mind that DirectX12 is Windows 10 only.

If you're going DX11 only then there really isn't any point to an X99 chipset for gaming and might well perform lower. DX12 is what's supposed to let devs make better use of more CPU cores.

Monitor
BENQ XL2730Z 27" 1MS 144Hz GAMING MONITOR (£465)
Not too sure on monitors, but it would be preferred to have a 144hz one somewhere in my build.

Don't buy this. It's not IPS and it's also Freesync which means it only synchronises refresh rate with AMD GPUs, not Nvidia ones. £450 without an IPS screen is tragic.
It's for shooter type games when you're playing at a professional, competitive level and trades in having an IPS panel for even faster response time. For general gamers, it's not a good fit.
For your kind of budget and spec you should be looking at 144Hz 1440p IPS, possibly with gsync. Or a 4k screen since that's what 2x GTX 1080s are for.

 

[PCUser1990]

Thanks a lot for your feedback, will change the PSU to the 850W plus save quite a bit in my budget from the sound card, extra fans and I think I will downgrade to 16GB of RAM. May also downgrade the case and cooling as I really don't rock windows 10, so the X99 may be a bit pointless, especially due to the lower gaming performance. Never heard of shadowplay because I've always used default graphics in my laptop, so I will definitely research into that. +rep

 

[Oussebon]

Cheers

One other thing I'd note is that Razer products are notoriously expensive.

Keyboard & Mouse
Razer® Black Widow Chroma Mechanical Gaming Keyboard (£142)

Mouse
Razer® Naga Expert Chroma MMO Mouse (£69)

Gaming Mouse Pad
Razer Firefly - Chroma Lighting Gaming Mouse Mat (£55)

I mean, £55 for a mouse mat. Getting similar products from makers that don't have the same premium for the brand plus the other savings above would put you most of the way to a second GTX 1080.

 

[PCUser1990]

Yeah, I do understand that £55 for a mouse mat is pretty expensive, with everything adding up to around £260. I may reconsider after seeing how much this is eating up.
As for the monitor what would you recommend? I was considering the ROG Swift but went with the BenQ because it was cheaper. However with the savings from your previous comment I can go up an extra £200+
---
ASUS PG279Q 27" IPS G-Sync ROG Swift (£705)
What about this monitor? It has an IPS and after thinking about it along with some research I don't think I'll be utilizing 4k anytime soon so there shouldn't be any need for a second graphics card.

 

[Oussebon]

There are 2 ROG Swifts
ASUS 27" ROG Swift PG278Q - which has a TN panel and while an excellent gaming monitor (no doubt just like the BenQ also is) it's still £525 for a 1440p TN panel. It does at least have Gsync.*
ASUS PG279Q 27" ROG Swift - £700. But it's an IPS panel. Also with Gsync.

*Gsync tends to be more expensive than Freesync as manufacturers need to pay Nvidia for its use and that cost is passed on to consumers, while Freesync doesn't have royalties for AMD afaik.

There are alternatives not sold by PC Specialist of course. For instance, PC Specialist doesn't appear to sell any 4k IPS panels. But they do exist and you can get these from about ~£350.

 

[PCUser1990]

I have opted for the IPS Panel ROG Swift (PG279Q) after visting Asus' site and browsing around. Is there anything else in the spec that could be improved? I don't plan on running 4K now or in the future, so that's no issue.
Thanks for all the help by the way, clearly there are some big mistakes I would have made.

 

[PCUser1990]

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE

Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-6700k Quad Core (4.00GHz @ upto MAX 4.60GHz)

Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS VIII HERO: RoG, PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0

Memory (RAM)
16GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB Kit)

Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GTX VR Ready!

1st Hard Disk
480GB HyperX SAVAGE 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
3TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM

Power Supply
CORSAIR 850W RMx SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£109)

Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-D15S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler (£69)

Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)

LED Lighting
2x 60cm Green LED Strip (£18) - To Compliment The Colours of Your Case

Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)

Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11 AC1900 1,300Mbps/5GHz, 600Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD (£49)

USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS

Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£109)

Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language

Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365

Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Browser
Google Chrome™

Monitor
ASUS PG279Q 27" IPS G-Sync ROG Swift (£705)

2nd Monitor
BENQ GL2450HM 24" LED MONITOR (£121)

3rd Monitor
BENQ GL2450HM 24" LED MONITOR (£121)

Monitor Cables
1 x 2m DisplayPort Cable - DP (M) to DP (M) (£19)

Keyboard & Mouse
Razer® Black Widow Tournament 2014 Gaming Keyboard (£69)

Mouse
Razer® Naga Expert Chroma MMO Mouse (£69)

Gaming Mouse Pad
ROCCAT™ Taito Mini Gaming Mouse Mat (£10)

Speakers
Razer Leviathan 5.1 Bluetooth Soundbar (£159)

Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)

Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)

Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days

Thats the new PC after changes. Anything else that may need changing?

 

[Oussebon]

Looks decent

Why the Windows 7 Pro btw? What does it have that you need that Windows 7 Home doesn't? If the answer is nothing, save yourself £30.

I've also seen some people on these forums say that the Ranger mobo is pretty well as good as the Hero. I can't comment, but perhaps they might.

Review of the Leviathan: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/73...hannel-gaming-sound-bar-sub-review/index.html
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/au.../audio-systems/razer-leviathan-1275494/review
Keenly-priced is not something I'd ever thought I'd read in a review of a Razer product. But there are some caveats that you might want to check out, if you haven't already.

 

[jerpers]

In my research for my PC, I couldn't find any discernible difference between the Ranger and Hero. I think the Hero may have 2 more SATA ports but that's about all I could find.

Edit: Sorry, no links Oussebon as I couldn't find any differences when I looked extensively in November

 

[PCUser1990]

Thanks for all the help, there isn't an option for windows 7 home on the site and honestly I'm not too fussed over it as I would rather it comes ready to use than buying things from different places.

 

[Oussebon]

Aha, this makes sense then