Gaming/General computer for technology novice (hoping to last a long time)

[lerche]

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 300R COMPACT GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770k (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z87: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready (Seems quite expensive)
1st Hard Disk
120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 410MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
3TB 3.5" SATA-III 6GB/s HDD 7200RPM 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET
Processor Cooling
Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 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 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
BENQ GL2250HM LED 21.5" 1920 x 1080, 5MS, HDMI, D-SUB, DVI-D
DVI-D & HDMI Monitor Cables
1 x 2 METRE GOLD PLATED V1.4 HDMI CABLE
Speakers
Microlab B18 2.0 USB Speakers
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
Miscellaneous
FREE WATCH DOGS with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
Quantity
1

Any suggestions. Any bottlenecks, overkill or known hardware issues?

 

[bigben]

Hi,
Do you have a budget? Are you planning to overclock?

1. Swap 2nd HDD for a WD Caviar Black
2. Drop wireless and get homeplugs instrad.
3. Check to see if that monitor comes with an HDMI or DVI cable, my guess is that it does..

 

[lerche]

Saved those changes, now at £1,633.00. It's already more than I was expecting to pay, so I'm not actively trying to push it up further, but I am willing to pay money now for obvious cost efficient improvements as I plan to keep this one for a while. I'm not planning to overclock.

 

[bigben]

I'd go for something like this:

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 300R COMPACT GAMING CASE same as you chose
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4670 (3.4GHz) 6MB Cache for general use and gaming i5 is perfectly adequate, you only really need i7 for CPU intensive stuff like video editing
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE for the average user this is good enough
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) you won't benefit from faster RAM
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Free Item
FREE WATCH DOGS with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
3TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD3003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 650W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£79) If you wish to add 2nd GTX 780 in future (SLI) then this will need to be upped
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19) no need for liquid cooling unless you are overclocking
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 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 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
Monitor
BENQ GL2250 21.5" LED - 1920 x 1080, 5MS, D-SUB, DVI-D (£90)
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 11 to 13 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,351.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/GEKhfZGGj0/

 

[lerche]

While it's true I won't be video editing, I'm still thinking about the i7 to help with the fact that games will be getting more demanding as time goes on. Is the i7 a sensible way to approach that? Are there any advantages the i5 has over the i7 other than price?

Case
CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 300R COMPACT GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770k (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache I'm not going to change this just yet (but let's continue the discussion for now)
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE As suggested
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB) As suggested
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready Again, a second GTX 780 might be a good future upgrade for games of the future, but I don't need one now at least
1st Hard Disk
120GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 410MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
3TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD3003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) As suggested
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET Upgraded for potential second GTX 780
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler As suggested
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
Wireless Router/HomePlugs
HomePlug 200 Mbps AV - Turn any Electrical Socket into a Network As suggested
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 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 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence
DVD Recovery Media
Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit) DVD with paper sleeve
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
BENQ GL2250HM LED 21.5" 1920 x 1080, 5MS, HDMI, D-SUB, DVI-D Not sure if HDMI cable is included but I can borrow one
Speakers
Microlab B18 2.0 USB Speakers
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
Miscellaneous
FREE WATCH DOGS with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
Quantity
1

Total Order Price £1,586.00

 

[mantadog]

Games may start taking advantage of the hyperthreading in an i7 soon, or they may not. Not many people have i7's as a percentage of the total user base of any given game, so it's a little difficult for developers to justify coding for it. By the time hyperthreading (games making use of more cores) exist, it may well be 6-8-16 core CPU's are common and they will be far and away better than the 4 virtual cores you get on an i7. Its all conjecture though, an i7 certainly wont hurt if you don't mind spending the cash.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

Go for the fury ram, it's cheaper

 

[bigben]

The problem PC gamers have is that games are held back by consoles. The "next gen" consoles are equivalent to low-mid range pcs from last year.
My mate is still using a dual core i5 from 4or5 years ago with a gtx670 and his games look better than anything on a "next gen" console.

 

[mantadog]

The problem PC gamers have is that games are held back by consoles. The "next gen" consoles are equivalent to low-mid range pcs from last year.
My mate is still using a dual core i5 from 4or5 years ago with a gtx670 and his games look better than anything on a "next gen" console.

+1, I always forget consoles exist... a GTX 670 blows away console GPU's. They are in line with the 78xx series from AMD I believe.

 

[GeorgeHillier]

+1, I always forget consoles exist... a GTX 670 blows away console GPU's. They are in line with the 78xx series from AMD I believe.

You saying there's something wrong with the 78xx series?! Insulting my lovely card won't be taken lightly! Haha

 

[mantadog]

I would never insult the 78xx series, I run the coveted 7870 myself! The only reason I even bother to hold that information in my brain is because I had the exact card that equalled the power of a next gen console. I'd much rather have the GPU though, at least I can choose the settings i play at on PC

 

[GeorgeHillier]

I would never insult the 78xx series, I run the coveted 7870 myself! The only reason I even bother to hold that information in my brain is because I had the exact card that equalled the power of a next gen console. I'd much rather have the GPU though, at least I can choose the settings i play at on PC

We're 78xx series brothers?!

Yeah, PC gaming is best for the settings and the cheaper games, plus more games like DayZ and Banished which aren't available on console

 

[lerche]

Quick question: I'm assuming that nothing will be overclocked at delivery, am I right?

 

[Rakk]

Quick question: I'm assuming that nothing will be overclocked at delivery, am I right?

Correct (presuming you don't order the CPU overclocked).

 

[steaky360]

Quick question: I'm assuming that nothing will be overclocked at delivery, am I right?

Unless you order an overclocked CPU nothing will be overclocked by PCS

EDIT: Too slow

 

[lerche]

With a quick search I found that the i7-4770k can get pretty hot. With the other components such as the GTX 780 and PSU generating their heat as well, will the super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler be sufficient for cooling (for no overclocking)? Furthermore I'd like to slightly overcompensate for cooling as well since I've found (based on anecdotal evidence) overheating problems to be common even for pre-configured builds without overclocking. However it seems to me the next step up are liquid cooling option which I have been told are not necessary for systems without overclocking.

Is the CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 300R COMPACT GAMING CASE be sufficient for cooling as well? Will there be indoor environments that will be unsuitable for running the system without overheating.

Also out of curiosity, I notice there is only an option for a CPU cooler, will the GTX 780 be cooled by its own fan? A quick search suggests it gets up to 80C, won't that be a problem for keeping everything else cool?

 

[mantadog]

Relax.

I know it can be a bit daunting spending this much money on a high end rig, obviously cooling is important but you might be thinking its more important than it actually is. The GPU can run at 80 degrees yes, the CPU can run at 90 degrees. Those are 'safe' temps. You don't want to be going over those, but hitting those wont do any harm at all.

The upgraded air cooler is ample for a non overclocked CPU, depending on your fan profile the motherboard will probably let the CPU get into the 80's before it really ramps up. The GPU has its own cooler that will likely not really ramp up till it reaches 70 degrees. The are designed to keep as quiet as possible, so say your CPU is running at 80 degrees, the cooler can probably kick up another couple of gears further to keep it their if needed. Sure you can set more aggressive fan speeds but then you have a loud system.

The case might benefit from one of the extra chassis fans added for £5 just to move a little more air through the case but that chassis is fine. Add the extra fan and it will certainly cope just fine.

 

[lerche]

Don't worry I don't need cooling myself (lame joke), I'm just not shy of asking questions I don't know the answer to, (especially) when this amount of money is involved.

Strangely enough there are no options for an additional fan (I'm wondering if this is some hiccup with the site). And while £5 is not much there is something to be considered with my PSU.


There is now branching options

Initially I chose the CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 300R COMPACT GAMING CASE, with a 1000W PSU, with a 624W of power required including a 20% allowance, there is potential for an extra GTX 780 which brings the power to 984W including a 20% allowance. All the numbers work fine.

However now that I realise the CARBIDE 300R Case has no internal SD Card slot (which is a mild pain, because I use them) and I can get a the PCS Maelstrom T900 Case for cheaper which supports the SD card (lose some USB 3.0 slots but I have only one USB 3.0 device anyway; my external harddrive, which will be sacrificed (formatted) to my Wii U after I get a new PC) With an SD card slot and a single GTX 780 this requires 647W. However when a second GTX 780 is added the problem is that now there is 1007W of power required including a 20% allowance, which is still under 1000W with a 19% allowance (because 1.19 < 1000*1.2/1007 ), and the average error of two identical graphics cards should be smaller than of one (central limit theorem- ish). This seems like it should still be fine to me (And I suppose the sd card reader can be disconnected to get a requirement of 996W), but I'd like to hear other people's thoughts; is there potential risk to hardware?, warranty?

The problem is now what would happen with an additional case fan, I can't select the option for one, so I don't know how much power it needs, but I reckon it's a lot more than an SD card reader. This isn't a problem for a single GTX 780, but could cause issues for two GTX 780s (which is probably when another fan case could be useful). Of course the PCS Maelstrom T900 Case has 3-4 fans anyway.

This obviously could be solved by using a 1200W power supply but that is £100 more expensive than the 1000W one.

Also note the second GTX 780 is a potential future upgrade, not something I plan on getting anytime soon.

Here are the options

1) Throw out the idea of a second GTX 780 or additional fans, use the Maelstrom T900 with card reader and 650W PSU for £1,498.00
2) Throw out the idea of an internal card reader or additional fans and stick with the Carbide 300R with 1000W PSU for £1,576.00
3) Throw out the idea of additional fans, use the Maelstrom T900 with card reader and 1000W PSU, but an additional GTX 780 would require 1007W (with a 20% allowance) for £1,570.00
4) Upgrade to 1200W PSU and get to add Maelstrom T900 SD card reader and any additional fans I want to for £1670.00

 

[keynes]

For SLI I wouldn't choose a compact case, you want a slightly bigger case. I wouldn't bother with adding additional fans but getting a better case instead. The power requirements seems a bit high to me, I would contact PCS for a confirmation. You don't need the i7-4770k if you are not overclocking the CPU, you could get the i7-4770 ( non-k) instead

 

[lerche]

the Maelstrom T-900 has about 7% more volume, which isn't that much but comes with 3-4 fans, it's cheaper than the compact case and supports an internal card reader which very few cases do. I'm estimating most of the 7% more space is taken up by the 1-2 more case fans the Maelstrom has.

the COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE has about 27% more volume than the compact case for £75 but it is only tagged with 'gaming' rather than 'extreme gaming'. The next cheapest thing on the site suitable for 'extreme gaming' (maybe because it has 3 fans) is the NZXT PHANTOM 410 WHITE GAMING CASE with 26% more volume than the compact case for £82.

The thing that seems suspicious about the power required is that 360W more when an additional GTX 780 is added, however the maximum power usage of the GTX 780 is 250W, which with a 20% allowance is still only 300W, it seems they've given a 20% allowance TWICE, so a 44% allowance.