Please could someone give me their input?

[bonalste]

My budget is around the £2500 mark and I intend to use this machine for gaming, with heavy flight simulation use, some CPU-intensive games, photo and video editing. I would like to make this machine capable of producing moderate results over the next, say, 5 to 8 years. My current machine is on its 8th year and now my wife is allowing me to buy a new one. I cannot, as some suggest, simply spend half this amount now on a good computer, then spend it again in 3 or 4 years' time, as my wife does not understand that sort of thing - to her a new computer is a new computer, regardless of whether I spend half of the amount - so I will be stuck with whatever I buy now for the next, say, 6 years minimum. I'd love to hear your opinions on this spec, if you have the time. So, without further ado, here goes:

Case
CORSAIR OBSIDIAN SERIES™ 750D FULL TOWER CASEThe only case which is cheaper and allows the H100i is the Fractal £85 job, but it looks a bit small and less effective at cooling than this. It also doesn't, in my opinion, look as nice, and I would lose the top fan to the 100i, further reducing the cooling. So, I opted for the 750D
Overclocked CPU
Overclocked Intel® Core™i7-4770k Quad Core (3.50GHz @ max 4.40GHz) longevitymwith a 4770k. I may be able to run what I want on an i5, but this thing has to keep on trucking for years to come. With the flight simulation itself being CPU intensive, as is the photo and video editing, I am inclined to go for this. Overclocking as it is only £9 for a PCS overclock so why not, if it'll help squeeze that little bit more out of it in a few years' time
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z97 MK1: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR possibly the most controversial part of my build. The thermal armor is said to do an excellent job at reducing the amount of dust in the motherboard, and the thermal armor actually works well at heat dissipation, which I expect to prolong its life. I could go for the cheaper variant but, after quite a bit of soul-searching, I'm concluding that the little bit extra I spend now could help save me a headache 5 years down the line
Memory (RAM)
8GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (1 x 8GB) Cant see why I would need more at the moment, but I fully expect to upgrade this in a couple of years. I don't think I need the Beast 2133
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 Ti - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready It is a lot of money, but this machine has to last and it'll be running at 1440p so could use the extra punch. I contemplated two 4gb 770s, as they show far better 1440p performance, but decided that it would be too expensive to upgrade well in the future. Whereas it'll be relatively cheap at that point (say 3 years down the line) to buy a second 780ti to SLI, whichll, give me maybe 30fps more than the two 770s at 1440p
Free Item
FREE WATCH DOGS with GTX 660 & 7 Series GPUs!
1st Hard Disk
500GB Samsung 840 EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW) This will be my main drive, housing everything a desktop computer could want, including games. I don't have that many installed at any one time so this seems like enough space without being overkill
2nd Hard Disk
4TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD4003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm) A large hard drive for a lot of files. At the moment I'm running on about 2.7Gb of space used up, and expect to reach the 4gb capacity within the next few years. An easy upgrade to buy another hard drive in the future.
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) I only need 650W for this build, but when I buy another 780ti, which I expect to do in the next 2 or 3 years, I will need 1000W according to the calculator. Interestingly, with the BenQ gaming monitor (the 24inch 144htz one), I would require a 1200W PSU, whereas with the ASUS this is apparently sufficient. I think that's a bit odd
Processor Cooling
Corsair H100i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£89) Another controversial aspect I'm sure, but it'll prolong the life of my CPU and, considering the overclock, having this over the H80i seems like the smart move. Besides the difference is only about £15 or so
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
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs Toyed around with the expensive wireless getup, but I believe that homeplugs are a better choice.
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
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED already owning Windows 7 Professional
Office Software
Microsoft® Office Home & Student 2013 (1 License & Disc) (£85)
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
ASUS 27" Professional SERIES PB278Q (£464) This has excellent reviews. It was between this and the iiyama equivalent, but the portrait view won it out for me, that and the excellent reports of pretty much zero backlight bleed
Warranty
3 Year Platinum Warranty (3 Year Collect & Return, 3 Year Parts, 3 Year labour) (£135) Because when you're spending £2500 on a machine, why not?
Delivery
PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9) Please take extra super-care of my machine
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 11 to 13 working days We shall see!
Quantity
1

Price: £2,528.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-overclocked/bvL2n_XUEP/

 

[keynes]

I'm concluding that the little bit extra I spend now could help save me a headache 5 years down the line

It looks nice but I really doubt that will increase longevity or performance.

PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9) Please take extra super-care of my machine

All packages are treated the same. The £9 is to get it before noon only.

 

[bonalste]

It looks nice but I really doubt that will increase longevity or performance.

All packages are treated the same. The £9 is to get it before noon only.

Possibly true, but going by the reviews it seems to suggest a fair increase in reliability and cooling, which makes for a long and healthy life.

Ah, I thought they packaged it with kittens and sent it postcards every month or something. That's great, you just saved me £9. Thanks!

 

[mantadog]

Hmmm, your post should give PCS an idea, as im sure your plight is common. Pay £2,500 for a computer but PCS actually keep the remaining balance for you to spend in a few years time

Anyway...I'm quite surprised that lot adds up to 2.5k in all honesty. But I guess getting the premium components adds just that little bit each time...

I helped a guy with a flight sim build over PM's a few weeks ago. The i7 is really going to help with simulators, the overclock will do aswell but not by a great deal in the grand scheme of things. I advised against it on the grounds of heat (therefore noise, the h100i is a noisy beast) I think he also ignored me and went for it anyway, but just a word of warning. This machine probably wont be whisper quiet.

I see the rest as fairly reasonable, yes you could probably save circa £300/£400 if you cut everything back but I don't think that matters too much to you. So I don't see any glaring errors, if you got that machine exactly as is you would probably be delighted with the performance.

 

[bonalste]

Hmmm, your post should give PCS an idea, as im sure your plight is common. Pay £2,500 for a computer but PCS actually keep the remaining balance for you to spend in a few years time

Anyway...I'm quite surprised that lot adds up to 2.5k in all honesty. But I guess getting the premium components adds just that little bit each time...

I helped a guy with a flight sim build over PM's a few weeks ago. The i7 is really going to help with simulators, the overclock will do aswell but not by a great deal in the grand scheme of things. I advised against it on the grounds of heat (therefore noise, the h100i is a noisy beast) I think he also ignored me and went for it anyway, but just a word of warning. This machine probably wont be whisper quiet.

I see the rest as fairly reasonable, yes you could probably save circa £300/£400 if you cut everything back but I don't think that matters too much to you. So I don't see any glaring errors, if you got that machine exactly as is you would probably be delighted with the performance.

It is expensive, yeah. I could drop some money by getting a cheaper monitor, going for the standard motherboard, not overclocking so I won't need the 100i and therefore also not need such an expensive case, dropping the SSD to 250GB... Thing is I can see myself regretting knocking back on any of those things.

As for the overclocking and the noise from the 100i, thanks very much. Noise isn't something that I had considered so it's nice to have a fresh perspective on this build. The overclock is something I'd probably want to do on my own once the warranty period is over anyway, to give it a bit of a boost and help it keep up with newer titles, but whether that would warrant the extra noise... I'll certainly not ignore your advice, but I will look on YouTube and see if I can find videos showing how noisy this sort of setup might get. Thanks for the input - it's definitely something to think about. Now I don't actually care about the noise, but the wife might, so it'll be whether I think I can get away with having it that noisy that depends on whether I'll overclock it or not

 

[mantadog]

You could go with a slightly lower spec cooler than the h100i, that would reduce noise. The h100i does have 'quiet' mode but from what I hear even this isn't exactly silent.

What you could do is grab the 4770k and say the triple copper heatpipe. Once your warranty expires you could buy a better cooler and fit it at the time you plan to overclock.

 

[bonalste]

That's a good idea, but I don't feel comfortable fitting my own equipment, especially a CPU heatsink. A GPU or some RAM wouldn't scare me but...! A good idea though. Well if you think this build is suitable, thanks very much. I needed to hear that considering the money I'm spending.

 

[mantadog]

Meh, a CPU heatsink isn't hard, not really. Loads of people on YouTube have videos on how to fit them, you could probably find one for your exact motherboard and the h100i if you wanted to. I totally understand though, I'm more than happy inside a PC but id be pretty miffed if I bought a car and they said "yeah just fit the wheels and your good to go"

Though just know its not too hard, and if your wife can't stand the noise you could change it out fairly easily.

But yeah, as I said it looks like a nice build. You could save a bit, but for your set of circumstances I understand why your going all in so to speak.

Enjoy it.

 

[grimsbymatt]

I cannot, as some suggest, simply spend half this amount now on a good computer, then spend it again in 3 or 4 years' time, as my wife does not understand that sort of thing - to her a new computer is a new computer, regardless of whether I spend half of the amount - so I will be stuck with whatever I buy now for the next, say, 6 years minimum.

Have you considered explaining it to her?

 

[mantadog]

Have you considered explaining it to her?

Is that a genuine question? or are you currently single

 

[dogbot]

My wife didn't complain about the noise, I had my computer in a shed about 50 ft from the house. It wasn't the computer that made the noise anyway, it was the 5.1 attached sound system.

How much noise does yours make?