Desktop PC

[Greenman]

Hi all,

Just looking for any advice on the spec below, helping a friend with speccing one. Mainly what's the difference between the different Mobo's (Big difference in price) and if 8gb would be enough for gaming or should he go for 16gb.

Case
SHARKOON VG4-W GAMING CASE (Green LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache
FREE Halo Wars 2 with select INTEL® CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG MAXIMUS IX HERO: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
8GB EVGA GEFORCE GTX 1080 FTW GAMING - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V300 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
LED Lighting
50cm Green LED Strip
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Cable Management
PCS 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,493.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/ZRhbUTZbtv/

 

[keynes]

do you have a budget? Any motherboard in the configurator will do the job for gaming.

 

[Stephen M]

If the budget allows I would go for a better SSD, the Kingston V300 is one of the slowest, an m2 drive would be best, preferably the Samsung SM 961. You should get by with 8GB RAM for gaming for now but may need more fairly soon, although it is a simple upgrade.

 

[Oussebon]

Maybe something like this instead:


Case
GAME MAX FALCON BLACK GAMING CASE (RGB LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache

FREE Halo Wars 2 with select INTEL® CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270E GAMING: LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GB, Wi-Fi - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
LED Lighting
50cm RGB LED Strip
Extra Case Fans
1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Cable Management
PCS 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,479.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/jbnCvnB0JU/


The Sharkoon case doesn't have much in the way of additional cooling options and the front intake is apparently somewhat obstructed by the HDD cages anyway. Something like the Game Max Falcon is a decent alternative with a lot more options and features. It also has RGB LED fans which will let your friend customise colours to a degree. You can also swap the green LEDs to RGB ones which can be customised via the mobo or software.

The GTX 1080 FTW costs £100 over a regular GTX 1080 model used by PCS and is just not worth it:



The Hero has things like LN2 support and seems designed for enthusiast overclocking. Unless there's something very specific that it has that your friend absolutely needs, a cheaper one would likely be a better bet. The Z270E is a good deal cheaper (though is still expensive) and has a lot of features like USB 3.1 type C, two M.2 slots, RGB LEDs etc.

At this budget level 16gb 3200MHz RAM is probably worth it.

The V300 is a very poor SSD, and 120gb isn't very large. The PM961 is a lot faster and 256gb should be a decent place to start.

 

[Greenman]

do you have a budget? Any motherboard in the configurator will do the job for gaming.

No real budget room there, sub £1500 is about the top limit. So there's no real difference with the mobo's?

If the budget allows I would go for a better SSD, the Kingston V300 is one of the slowest, an m2 drive would be best, preferably the Samsung SM 961. You should get by with 8GB RAM for gaming for now but may need more fairly soon, although it is a simple upgrade.

Didn't know that. Seen a spec below that specifies a different SSD as well. Will also note that about the RAM.

Maybe something like this instead:


Case
GAME MAX FALCON BLACK GAMING CASE (RGB LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache

FREE Halo Wars 2 with select INTEL® CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270E GAMING: LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GB, Wi-Fi - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
LED Lighting
50cm RGB LED Strip
Extra Case Fans
1x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Cable Management
PCS 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,479.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/jbnCvnB0JU/


The Sharkoon case doesn't have much in the way of additional cooling options and the front intake is apparently somewhat obstructed by the HDD cages anyway. Something like the Game Max Falcon is a decent alternative with a lot more options and features. It also has RGB LED fans which will let your friend customise colours to a degree. You can also swap the green LEDs to RGB ones which can be customised via the mobo or software.

The GTX 1080 FTW costs £100 over a regular GTX 1080 model used by PCS and is just not worth it:

View attachment 10323View attachment 10324

The Hero has things like LN2 support and seems designed for enthusiast overclocking. Unless there's something very specific that it has that your friend absolutely needs, a cheaper one would likely be a better bet. The Z270E is a good deal cheaper (though is still expensive) and has a lot of features like USB 3.1 type C, two M.2 slots, RGB LEDs etc.

At this budget level 16gb 3200MHz RAM is probably worth it.

The V300 is a very poor SSD, and 120gb isn't very large. The PM961 is a lot faster and 256gb should be a decent place to start.

Didn't notice the GPU difference to be honest, very big saving there, thanks. Do you know which one specifically PCSpec use GPU wise on that graph (If any). The rest also makes sense, here's the new spec which is just yours but 2 fans instead of 1.

Case
GAME MAX FALCON BLACK GAMING CASE (RGB LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache
FREE Halo Wars 2 with select INTEL® CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270E GAMING: LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GB, Wi-Fi - RGB Ready!
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 - DVI, HDMI, 3x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
LED Lighting
50cm RGB LED Strip
Extra Case Fans
2x 120mm Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Firefox™
Cable Management
PCS 1.5M Zip Cable Tidy - Professional Cable Management
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 4 to 6 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,483.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/B!ax4pmm2n/

 

[Oussebon]

No real budget room there, sub £1500 is about the top limit. So there's no real difference with the mobo's?

For performance, not really. The differences are in the features. e.g. USB 3.1, type C, M.2 slots, SLI support, onboard wifi / Bluetooth, RGB lighting, etc etc etc. You can compare Asus mobos on their website. You'll see a lot of similarities between the Hero and Z270E.

Do you know which one specifically PCSpec use GPU wise on that graph (If any).

The model they use will vary depending on what they have in stock. It can be Zotac Amps, Palit Jetstreams, Palit Duals. Any of those ought to outperform the founder's edition (which is on those graphs) due to better cooling helping keep boost clocks a bit higher. Plus most have at least small factory OCs anyway (above the FE clocks).

 

[Greenman]

For performance, not really. The differences are in the features. e.g. USB 3.1, type C, M.2 slots, SLI support, onboard wifi / Bluetooth, RGB lighting, etc etc etc. You can compare Asus mobos on their website. You'll see a lot of similarities between the Hero and Z270E.

The model they use will vary depending on what they have in stock. It can be Zotac Amps, Palit Jetstreams, Palit Duals. Any of those ought to outperform the founder's edition (which is on those graphs) due to better cooling helping keep boost clocks a bit higher. Plus most have at least small factory OCs anyway (above the FE clocks).

Great. Thanks.

Will tell him to check out the mobo features just in case.