What changes could/should I make here?

[Dayve]

So I'm treating myself to a new PC and I quite like the look of https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Vortex-1250-Gaming-PC/ this one. I've made a few changes so far:

*Motherboard downgraded slightly to ASUS Z170-E
*Ram upgraded slightly to 16GB 2666MHz
*Changed processor cooling to Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler - £59 - (Don't mind spending a bit more for a quieter cooler, the noise of these things bugs me).

It'll be used for playing all the latest games for the next few years. General usage besides that. Can anybody see any problems here?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ubuysa]

Did you make these changes to save money or for other reasons? Do you have a budget? Knowing that would help people decide what might benefit changing

*Removed the SSD (never needed one, don't want one)

IMO this is a mistake. An SSD as your system drive (with Windows and programs on it) will make a HUGE difference to your overall system performance. It should be possible to reduce it to a 120GB SSD, that's usually big enough for Windows and lots of programs too, but I really wouldn't drop it altogether.

*Changed the 2TB hard drive to a 1TB WD Black hard drive (I've never ever used anywhere even close to 1TB of space, but I always get 1TB just to be safe)

That's fair enough, 1TB is a lot of space and the Black will give you better performance than a 'standard' hard drive. However, if your system disk is an SSD you can easily afford (performance wise) to have a slightly slower hard disk for your user data without really noticing any difference in overall performance. IMO it would make more sense to go with an SSD and help offset the cost of that by going for a cheaper hard drive.

*Changed processor cooling to Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler - £59 - (Don't mind spending a bit more for a quieter cooler, the noise of these things bugs me).

I have that Noctua cooler and it is amazingly quiet, but once again it might make more sense to put the £20 difference towards an SSD. A quick call to PCS will let you find out how much quieter the Noctua is than the CoolerMaster. I guess it probably depends on how hard you're likely to drive the CPU and how fast the fan needs to run.

 

[Dayve]

Max budget is £1,400 I guess, but I don't want to waste money on things I won't really need. I've never had an SSD before, I don't really understand what they're for. People tell me they make things load quicker. But the PC I have now just had a 1TB WD Black hard drive, no SSD, and everything loads pretty quick.

I really want that super quiet CPU cooler.

 

[Wozza63]

SSDs are great. They're pretty much standard on a PC over £800 these days. You'll also be surprised how quickly the latest games can fill up a 1TB hard drive. I've not even got most of my games installed and my 2TB is full.

I think you are making a mistake on cutting on storage. Before I got my PC, most I'd ever used was 250GB hard drive. Now I'm always running out of space even on a 4TB external.

 

[Dayve]

Well, I'm at roughly 50% of my 1TB hard drive space full, this is with around 30 games installed plus all other programmes. I really can't see myself going over 1TB, but I'll get a SSD. Will edit my initial post to show current changes then.

So, we're back to basically the original model in the link. Only change now is the slightly more expensive quiet processor cooler.

This a solid PC for gaming for the next 3 years or so?

 

[ubuysa]

Max budget is £1,400 I guess, but I don't want to waste money on things I won't really need. I've never had an SSD before, I don't really understand what they're for. People tell me they make things load quicker. But the PC I have now just had a 1TB WD Black hard drive, no SSD, and everything loads pretty quick.

I really want that super quiet CPU cooler.

Well, I'm at roughly 50% of my 1TB hard drive space full, this is with around 30 games installed plus all other programmes. I really can't see myself going over 1TB, but I'll get a SSD. Will edit my initial post to show current changes then.

So, we're back to basically the original model in the link. Only change now is the slightly more expensive quiet processor cooler.

This a solid PC for gaming for the next 3 years or so?

If your 1TB drive is already at 50% you should certainly look at a 2TB hard drive for user data. Once a hard drive gets past about 70% full response times begin to fall off quite markedly because the seek times increase (the heads have to move further over the disk). You generally don't want a hard drive more than about 70% full if you expect best performance from it.

As far as the SSD is concerned try some real numbers. A 450MB program will load off an average hard disk (with a data transfer time off the disk surface of about 150MB per second) in about 3 seconds - and because of the additional time for the seek and latency that will be closer in reality to 4 seconds. The same 450MB program will load off an average SSD (with a data transfer rate of about 500MB per second) in under a second. That's over four times faster. Bear in mind that Windows is always reading and writing to the system disk, so if you make those read/writes four times faster the entire system performs far better because Windows is in control of everything that happens, and speeding up Windows speeds up everything.

It is a well known fact that the major bottleneck in all computers is the spinning metal hard disk, this is because it's mechanical. Heads have to move over the disk (seek time) you have to wait for the disk to rotate (latency) and then you can only suck the data off the disk at the speed the disk is rotating (data transfer time). An SSD suffers from none of these problems, there is no moving metal, so no seek time, no latency time, and exactly the same high speed data transfer time for every single byte on the disk.

SSDs are not just a bit faster, they are WAY faster!

 

[Dayve]

Alright, you've convinced me, I'm leaving the SSD and the 2TB HDD in. The only change to the set build in the link now is the more expensive ultra quiet processor cooler (£59).

Anything else you can see in that build that doesn't make sense or whatever, or am I good to order? (And is it a solid gaming PC for the next few years in your opinion)?

 

[Tony1044]

Just for yours, and others' future reference, here are some benchmarks from my Defiance II.

You can see the absolutely enormous differences between the HDD and m2 and SATA SSD's



EDIT: That has just reminded me that I shrank the E: partition some time ago and never got around to re-extending it!

 

[jerpers]

I would save yourself some money by dropping the motherboard down to the E or P. You won't be overclocking and unless you want all the RGB features of it, it is a waste IMO. Upgrading to the 2666mhz RAM is only a small increase in cost for a few extra FPS in gaming.

 

[Dayve]

Okay, so we've got motherboard downgraded to the E model, RAM upgraded to 2666MHz and processor cooling upgraded to the ultra quiet doodad.

Anything else or is that fine and dandy?

 

[Dayve]

I took your silence to mean "Yes that's all fine and dandy" and ordered.

Case InWIN 303 MID TOWER GAMING CASE

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-6700 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache

Motherboard ASUS® Z170-E: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs

Memory (RAM) 16GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB Kit)

Graphics Card 6GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP - GeForce GTX VR Ready!

1st Hard Disk 240GB HyperX SAVAGE 2.5" SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk 2TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE

1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive NOT REQUIRED

Power Supply CORSAIR 650W CS SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET

Power Cable 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)

Processor Cooling Noctua NH-U14S Ultra Quiet Performance CPU Cooler (£59)

Thermal Paste ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND

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 & Licence (£89)

Operating System Language United Kingdom - English Language

DVD Recovery Media Windows 10 (64-bit) Home DVD with paper sleeve

Office Software NO OFFICE SOFTWARE

Anti-Virus NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE

Keyboard & Mouse Corsair Gaming Bundle - Keyboard, Mouse, Headset & Mouse Mat

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 7 to 9 working days

 

[ubuysa]

Was it my silence you were talking about? Sorry if it was, it's over 35 deg C here on Crete again today (not bad for October?) and I've not felt the desire to come below on the boat.

That looks pretty good to me, it's not that far off the PC I just took delivery of. You'll be glad you went for the SSD.

 

[Wozza63]

Looks good to me. And I can promise you, that you won't regret the SSD! I was sceptical at first too but these days the hard drive is quite often the biggest bottleneck with slower read/write and response times.

 

[Dayve]

Awesome. Thanks for the help guys I appreciate it. I'll give you some rep.