My first time. Not like that.

[Andy23]

Good afternoon ladies and gents.

I'm looking into building my own PC but I've never done it before. It will mainly be used for gaming and light Uni work. I currently use an Xbox One for gaming on but I'd like to get into PC gaming like I used to when I was younger. Ideally I'd like to be able to play something like Battlefield 1 at around 60fps med-high settings and I'd like to spend around the £1100-£1200 mark, depending on the performance increase for a couple of hundred extra. I've spec'd something myself below but I'm a little clueless when it comes to motherboards, power supplies etc. as I'd like to set up a system that could be upgraded in the future. If someone could take a look and feel free to make adjustments or recommendations that would be fantastic.

Thanks a lot.

Case
SHARKOON VG4-W GAMING CASE (Green LED)
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-7600K (3.8GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z270-P: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 8GB Kit)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!
1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON UV400 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb (550MB/R, 350MB/W)
2nd Hard Disk
500GB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 16MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 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 Apache Black Quiet Fan (fitted to extract from rear/roof)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
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 Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 2 to 4 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,130.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/FHunvp!5Wp/

 

[Frank100]

Hi,

I think the golden trinity of i5 with good clock speed, 16GB of RAM and a GTX 1060 are the basis of most sensible builds these days.

For many games 8GB would be sufficient but 16GB makes sense now. You might want to look at the cost difference between 3000MHz RAM and the slightly slower variants. The processor's memory controller runs at 2133MHz so you'd need to play with the speeds in the BIOS to benefit from the faster RAM anyway.

Some games are now making use of hyperthreading so it might be worth posting back a list of games you want to play before we advise on that but the price difference is quite a bit.

Getting a higher capacity PSU means you've got space to upgrade later on. The 350W doesn't really give you any spare capacity.

Storage is an area that is worth a little more money. The Samsung M.2 SATA chips are really fast and worth a little more money over the Kingston SSD. (The 128GB Samsung M.2 SATA is about £25 more). If you omitted the HDD and you were happy to spend some more you might even be able to afford a 512GB M.2 SATA and have all fast storage.

You might also want to look at the price increase to get a motherboard that has USB 3.1, which is much faster and more stable than USB 3.0. This is more about future-proofing but it seems a shame to spend over £1000 on a PC these days and not have it. You can of course add an expansion card later on though.

Obviously you don't want to go over budget because you'll have to pay back your student loans one day but maybe by tweaking the RAM you have some room to spend more elsewhere.

A few options to consider.

Frank100

 

[Oussebon]

The case doesn't actually have extra fan mounting points. If you press "proceed" on that order, it even says:

1. Unfortunately the case you have selected cannot accept additional case fans. Please remove the additional case fans from your selection or alternatively select a different case.

Normally it should be a "hard" warning that stops you proceeding rather than a "soft warning" that you can ignore and carry on regardless, but either way the case has only 2 fan mounting points and comes with 2 fans by default. The front fan is also obstructed by the front HDD cage plus any storage drives that live there. While cooling would likely be adequate, you might be limiting your future upgrades and/or hampering your boost clocks I'd generally recommend a better case.

Next, the configurator also gives you a warning of:

We notice that you have selected a 350W power supply, but based on our calculations we recommend you change your selection to a 450W power supply because your computer could require up to 380W of power including a 20% allowance.

Quite apart from how safe you like to play it, a 450W PSU would also have more PCI-E connectors, enabling a wider choice of future GPU upgrades.

The slightly faster RAM is actually slightly cheaper.

I'd definitely get a better motherboard that had more SATA ports and USB 3.1, as well as other goodies like better onboard sound etc.

With a £1200 ceiling therefore:


Case
InWIN G7 BRUSHED EFFECT DARK GREY CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-7600K (3.8GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® ROG STRIX Z270H GAMING: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB HyperX PREDATOR DDR4 3200MHz X.M.P (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x 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
128GB SAMSUNG SM961 M.2, PCIe NVMe (up to 3100MB/R, 700MB/W)
1[SUP]st[/SUP] DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 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
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11N 300Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
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 Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 2 to 4 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,200.00 including VAT and delivery.

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


Though if possible I would try to stretch to a 256gb SSD as 128gb will fill up pretty fast. That takes it to £1237.

 

[Andy23]

Thanks a lot guys you've been a huge help!

 

[ubuysa]

Thanks a lot guys you've been a huge help!

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