Have I been stupid?

A

ashspirit

Member
Hi All,

Does this look reasonable or a waste of money? I'm aiming for a system which will play games decently for the next few years...

If you would change anything, what would it be?

Case
COOLERMASTER HAF-X FULL TOWER GAMING CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-4790k Quad Core (4.00GHz @ max 4.70GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® MAXIMUS VII GENE: RoG, PCI-e 3.0, SATA 3.0, USB3.0
Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X BEAST DUAL-DDR3 2133MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
8x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ±R/±RW
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£89)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H80i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£69)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
ASUS PCE-AC68 AC1900 802.11ac Dual-band Wireless PCI-E Adapter (£69)
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 8.1 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,621.00 including VAT and delivery.
 
Outerarm

Outerarm

Well-known member
I'm not one of the experts around here, but that looks like a solid build to me. I was going to say you don't need the K series CPU or fast memory, but then noticed you'd gone for an overclocked system, so they are kind of mandatory for that!

Do you have monitor, keyboard and mouse? And what is your max budget?
 
Rakk

Rakk

The Awesome
Moderator
If its just for gaming, the you could easily drop to 8GB of 1600MHz RAM, drop the overclocking and watercooling, drop the motherboard to one of the cheaper ones and with the money saved get a better graphics card, and it is the graphics card that will determine how well the games play
 
A

ashspirit

Member
I'm going for a Dell P2414H monitorm which I'm going to run off the DVI or DP (undecided). That'll set me back about £200.

I've got a keyboard/mouse/speakers which I use at the mo, but i'll be upgrading eventually...

Realistically my total budget is about £1800-£2000 total.

Thanks for putting in the thought :)
 
A

ashspirit

Member
Rakk said:
If its just for gaming, the you could easily drop to 8GB of 1600MHz RAM, drop the overclocking and watercooling, drop the motherboard to one of the cheaper ones and with the money saved get a better graphics card, and it is the graphics card that will determine how well the games play
Click to expand...

The overclocking, from what i've seen on my own adventures in speccing a system, seems to be cheap as chips, but i'll consider dropping the RAM and mobo. Good thought, thanks!
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
Does this look reasonable or a waste of money?
Click to expand...
I would go with a GTX 780 rather than the GTX 770, there are many things you can downgrade (cpu, motherboard, ram) without a loss in gaming performance.
 
bigben

bigben

Master Poster
For that sort of budget I'd want a 780ti. I'd have gone for something like this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790 (3.6GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z97-A: ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 Ti - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£139)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
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 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,538.00 including VAT and delivery.

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

A314159

Super Star
bigben said:
For that sort of budget I'd want a 780ti. I'd have gone for something like this:

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4790 (3.6GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z97-A: ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 Ti - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
240GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
2TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD2003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 1000W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£139)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
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 8.1 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£79)
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BULLGUARD INTERNET SECURITY - FREE 90 DAY TRIAL
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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,538.00 including VAT and delivery.

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

Much better.
 
A

ashspirit

Member
A question - With dropping the specs on the other parts, does that open the system up to heat management problems? I absolutely HATE my laptop overheating at the moment! Secondarily, is there not a significant performance hit in dropping to 8GB ram?
 
A

A314159

Super Star
Most games use about 3-4gb RAM, normally less. My friend had a python calculation thing going, bf4 and minecraft and was using about 6gb RAM. With that case, you won't overheat at all.

Also, RAM is only getting cheaper, you can upgrade in the future.
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
ashspirit said:
A question - With dropping the specs on the other parts, does that open the system up to heat management problems? I absolutely HATE my laptop overheating at the moment! Secondarily, is there not a significant performance hit in dropping to 8GB ram?
Click to expand...

you can't compare cooling in a laptop with a desktop especially if you are getting the HAF-X, you won't get any overheating issues.
 
A

ashspirit

Member
UPDATE

Taking in to account some of the advice posted here, I've modified my specs.

Same as before, any stupid mistakes? I admit that it's hard to come down from the water-cooled over-clocked dream!

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 III ADVANCED CASE
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-4790k Quad Core (4.00GHz @ max 4.70GHz)
Motherboard
ASUS® Z97-A: ATX, USB3.0, SATA 6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 Ti - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£89)
Processor Cooling
Corsair H60 Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£59)
Thermal Paste
ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (£9)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps PCI-E CARD (£16)
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 8.1 Professional 64 Bit - inc DVD & Licence (£109)
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
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 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,627.00 including VAT and delivery.
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
is there a particular reason you need windows professional? Also if you are planning to overclock your cpu I would go with at least the h80i cpu cooler.
 
A

ashspirit

Member
keynes said:
is there a particular reason you need windows professional? Also if you are planning to overclock your cpu I would go with at least the h80i cpu cooler.
Click to expand...

From my understanding, professional was needed for 8+ GB RAM. That may be incorrect. I will probably upgrade eventually.

Secondarily, thanks for the cooling advice. Maybe I should stick with the basic non-OC version... It will probably be enough.
 
keynes

keynes

Multiverse Poster
ashspirit said:
From my understanding, professional was needed for 8+ GB RAM. That may be incorrect. I will probably upgrade eventually.

Secondarily, thanks for the cooling advice. Maybe I should stick with the basic non-OC version... It will probably be enough.
Click to expand...

Unless you are doing heavy editing you don't require more than 16gb ram, professional is for higher than 16gb. By the time you need to add more than 16gb ram you are looking at a new system.
 
A

A314159

Super Star
I would get a 2tb HDD and a larger SSD. There's no way you can afford 4tb of games (well..... Maybe you can) but the SSD will help more.
 
A

ashspirit

Member
Ah on the HDD side - I'm currently rather in to photography, and trust me, that 4GB is going to fill up.

The plan was to start with OS only on the SSD, and maybe upgrade to another SSD to games, if they come down in price enough.

Alternatively, upgrade to another HDD for the photos!

However, all that will be in the future.
 
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