Gaming desktop for £1,500

[craig_treble99]

Hey guys.

Novice looking for some advice on a new (mostly) gaming PC. Budget is around £1,500-£1,600, but would go slightly over for a jump in performance. Not sure if 4k gaming is possible at this budget? Current monitor is 1440p, but would be nice to know if it would be possible. Priority is good performance that will last me a few years.

CPU
Was looking at the i7-7700, but noticed that the 7700k, isn't much more expensive. I don't have the knowledge or desire to overclock, but thought a little extra, for the faster clock speed sounded reasonable?

GPU
Looking for as good a graphics card as I can get. 1080 seems to fit nicely in my budget, with the Ti taking me over in most cases. Not entertaining AMD cards, as I've had bad experiences with them in the past.

Hard Disk
Most of my files live on a server or external drives, so I'm only looking for a small ssd for programs.

RAM
16GB? I will be working on this from time to time, so wouldn't want to go any lower. Not sure how important the speed is either. DDR3, DDR4 - open to suggestions!

Case
Lives under my desk so have no interest in aesthetics as long as it is, big enough and not too garish.

Motherboard, PSU, Cooling, etc.
Have no idea about this to be honest... Just want a package that gets the most out of my hardware and is as quiet as possible. No other requirements (that I know of!)

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Oussebon]

You could just about squeeze a 1080 ti out of your budget. If gaming at 4k, you might not find a 1080 satisfactory. A 1080 ti would be much better suited.


Case
GAME MAX FALCON BLACK GAMING CASE (RGB LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z270-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
Get Destiny 2 with select GTX 10 Series GPUs! ** Limited Codes Available **
1[SUP]st[/SUP] 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
CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Single 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 12 to 14 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,616.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/cBh0cxJSZd/

CPU - entirely agree
GPU - Sounds right for Nvidia GPUs. AMD cards are fine tbh - but the high end ones aren't widely available right now anyway
HDD - yep
RAM - agree with 16gb. Faster RAM can have benefits and for the price is worth having: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/foru...-Hardware-FAQs&p=397286&viewfull=1#post397286

If you decide you're not fussed about 4k, or can't afford a 4k monitor as well etc, you could drop the 1080 ti for a 1080, and get a PM961 M.2 SSD.

 

[craig_treble99]

So finished build would be...

Case
GAME MAX FALCON BLACK GAMING CASE (RGB LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z270-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
11GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1080 Ti - HDMI, 3x DP GeForce - GTX VR Ready!
Get Destiny 2 with select GTX 10 Series GPUs! ** Limited Codes Available **
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
CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
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
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Single 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 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,725.00 including VAT and delivery

 

[Oussebon]

Looks good to me.

and can upgrade my monitor if I feel the need to.

I would say that if you have no definite plans to upgrade, be wary about spending lots of £ on a GPU pre-emptively.

If you're not upgrading your monitor to a 4k one for another year, say, by then at least one new generation of GPUs will be out, not to mention more demanding games.

 

[craig_treble99]

Completely understand, I will decide early if I am going to upgrade. If not I will settle with the improved performance on my current set-up.

Thanks for your help.

 

[craig_treble99]

Quick update on this spec... I ordered it a few weeks ago however the case I picked was not in stock, the person I spoke to advised on the In Win 101, however I noticed that it doesn't have any case fans and I am worried about over heating.

Can anyone see any reason to avoid this case? I like the aesthetics, but wasn't sure if the lack of fans would be an issue. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Craig

 

[Oussebon]

The Game Max Falcon appears to be in stock now. Otherwise there's the Fractal Focus G.

If you like the Inwin 101 you can always buy some case fans yourself and add them in. You'll want decent airflow with a GTX 1080 ti.

 

[craig_treble99]

Thanks for getting back to me, I'm having a bit of a nightmare here! Was going to go with Fractal Define R5, however the additional case fans are now out of stock. Do you think that the two that come with this case would be sufficient?

 

[Oussebon]

Do you think that the two that come with this case would be sufficient?

Yes, in fact I'd actually advocate not having PCS put extra fans into the Define R5 as they'll put them in at the roof, removing the panels that keep the sound in and the dust out.

The stock fans on the R5 are more than adequate, but you can always add an extra fan as a 2nd front intake in the future yourself if you want.

If you don't need the dvd drive you could get the Define S which performs basically the same but is cheaper and has a window. Lacks the 3 speed fan controller but you can almost certainly live without that.

 

[craig_treble99]

Excellent!! I was actually nervous about having the fan controller, that's how much of a muggle I am! Define S it is then.

Thanks once again, hopefully that's me sorted