Gaming Desktop - advice please

[Englishman]

So in 2013 I bought myself a laptop from PC Specialist and the latest games have just overtaken my system for running on min requirements. The laptop has been superb and has never let me down, It's as fast today as the day that I got it!

So I'm looking to buy a desktop now, predominantly for gaming and specifically with a good amount of longevity and future-proofing. I'll be getting it on finance and my budget is around £40 a month (this system comes in at just under £38). I don't need a mouse, keyboard or monitor as I will buy these separately not on finance.

This has been made in the 'Top-spec Core Computers' rather than the 'Core i7 Extreme Computers' as the cheapest ~equivalent came out at over $50 a month seemingly only for a six core as opposed to 4 core CPU.

I'm not overly familiar with PC parts so I'm asking advice on the build, simply will it be what I want it to be and have I made any massive bottleneck errors or poor choices?

Case
SHARKOON VG4-W GAMING CASE (Green LED)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700 (3.6GHz) 8MB Cache
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270E GAMING: LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GB, Wi-Fi - RGB Ready!
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
250GB Samsung 850 2.5" EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
2TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED) - The case comes with wifi
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence


Price £1,347.00 including VAT and delivery

 

[keynes]

Case
CORSAIR SPEC-03 COMPACT GAMING CASE - RED LED
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-7600K (3.8GHz) 6MB Cache
FREE Halo Wars 2 with select INTEL® CPUs!
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z270-P: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1070 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x 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
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
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 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,404.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/J9kbhmQNk7/

 

[Englishman]

Looks great, thank you!! There's some food for thought!

Would this processor and graphics card combo be superior for gaming than the proposed system?

Apologies I'm not very tech savvy.

Thanks

 

[keynes]

Looks great, thank you!! There's some food for thought!

Would this processor and graphics card combo be superior for gaming than the proposed system?

Apologies I'm not very tech savvy.

Thanks

For gaming yes, significantly better.

 

[Englishman]

For gaming yes, significantly better.

Thanks a million, you obviously know your stuff!

Can I ask one last thing? Would you say that keeping everything the same in the system you listed, but getting the i7-7700k 4.2 with a GTX 1080 is worth the additional £5 per month? Or would the rest of the system need to change to make this work? I'm thinking from a purely 'future-proofing' perspective as I could just about raise my budget to that now but probably couldn't afford to replace any parts in the foreseeable future.

Thanks again for the advice and for getting back to me so fast!

 

[keynes]

It depends on the monitor you are using, for 1920x1080 resolution the gtx 1080 is going to be overkill. Upgrading the cpu is an option, if you have more funds I would probably go with a slightly better motherboard and case.

 

[Englishman]

It depends on the monitor you are using, for 1920x1080 resolution the gtx 1080 is going to be overkill. Upgrading the cpu is an option, if you have more funds I would probably go with a slightly better motherboard and case.

Ok that's good to know, yes it will likely be a 1920x1080 monitor.

As you can probably guess I have never owned a desktop (I'm moving away from gaming laptops) so I have little to no clue about the cases. You're going to hate me but the one in my original proposed system was mainly a style choice as I don't really know what makes a particular case superior to another.

So going by what you have said then, grunt per £ this would be a better system?

Case
CORSAIR SPEC-03 COMPACT GAMING CASE - RED LED
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache
FREE VR Game Bundle with select INTEL® CPUs!
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 2133MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
8GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1070 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Hard Disk
NOT REQUIRED
2nd Hard Disk
2TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
M.2 SSD Drive
256GB SAMSUNG PM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 2800MB/R, 1100MB/W)
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
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 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,590.00 including VAT and delivery (this is my limit on price)

(is the power supply overkill?)

Again, thanks for the replies, and apologies for the 20 questions, I'm just looking to secure the build today and process my order.

 

[Scott]

Given the budget and component choice I would recommend going for a pre-overclocked build (Already done for you and covered under warranty).....

Case
CORSAIR SPEC-03 COMPACT GAMING CASE - RED LED
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-7700k Quad Core (4.20GHz @ up to 4.8GHz)
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 1070 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x 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 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
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 7 to 9 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,595.00 including VAT and delivery

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


If you can spare a couple of extra £ per month then you could have your original storage drive selection and you could also upgrade the case to a better model. My recommendation would be something like the Corsair 200r (if you want a DVD drive) or the Define S (If you can live without it).