Just bought the start of my rig. What next?

xpletiv

Just bought the essentials to get a new computer running.

Heres what I have so far:

• Gigabyte GA-Z87-HD3, Intel Z87, S 1150, DDR3, SATA III - 6Gb/s, SATA RAID, PCIe 3.0 (x16), D-Sub (VGA) DVI-D HDMI, ATX
• Intel Core i5 4670K, S 1150, Haswell, Quad Core, 3.4GHz, 3.8GHz Turbo, 1200MHz GPU, 34x Ratio
• 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair DDR3 Vengeance Jet Black, PC3-12800 (1600)
• 2TB Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 SATA 3 6GB/s 7200rpm 64MB Cache 8ms OEM
• Another 500 gb Sata drive. Much older but has all my info on it so far.
• 700W Cooler Master B700 85% Eff PSU 120mm Quiet PWM Fan ATX 12V v2.3
• A copy of Windows 7.

and case

• NZXT Lexa S, Black Mid Tower Performance Gaming Case with Side Window with USB 3.0 w/o PSU

This is my first go at building my own machine in about ten years, so I know how to get it all together but am sure there are differences between now and ten years ago! Im starting to assemble it on Friday. Wish me luck on that!



So Im wondering, where do I go next with this?

• Is an SSD essential these days? Is a 120gb drive sufficient as I have two other hard drives, one totally unused?
• What kind of graphics card is good for about €150-200, as I would be playing a fair amount of games on it? Ive seen the Sapphire HD7950 3GB mentioned a bit on here, thought I was wondering if that was overkill at this time or is that whats needed for games these days to run on ultra?
• Do I need a cooling system (Im not sure if what Ive ordered has one!) extra to this?
• Any advice on good wifi systems would be good too, as I'll need one
• Any advice on an optical drive as well?

Is there anything else Ive missed or how to get the best out of what I have so far? Im expecting this machine to last me at least 5 years through upgrades anyway over time.



Much appreciate any help

Edit: Oh ya, budget for these things Ive asked about, well, I could probably buy whatever I need to make it good (except the optical drive which will be cheap and cheerful, hardly ever will be used!) so im looking for good stuff for good value.

BloodBath

A ssd should be an important part of any build these days. Not a priority but it should be got when you can. Once you go ssd you will never go back. A 120 Samsung evo would be the drive to get. You can get it on Amazon pretty cheap especially if you go through Flubit.com. I got a 12% discount with free delivery so it's only €76 to the door.

An Ati 7870 2gb, or Nvidia 660gtx or 660ti 2gb would be the card to go for in that price range. A 7950 or 760gtx would be the next step up to go for from those. Again try finding a good deal on Amazon and running it through Flubit for a better discount.

The cpu will come with a basic stock cooler. If you want to overclock you should grab a decent aftermarket cpu cooler. The Cooler master hyper 212 evo is great value.

Any 300mb/s wifi card should do the job. Have a look at the reviews on Amazon.

Any optical drive should do the trick as well. Grab something cheap and cheerful. You won't use it much.

xpletiv

Much appreciated for the reply Ive started looking up some of those cards and I think theyll do what I need for now

Ive heard good things about the hyper 212 so will look into that as well

As for SSD, i may wait till january sales for that one. Its best for booting up isnt it? So when i get it, should I just put windows on it and basically that being it, use the other 2 HDD I have for storage?

Xenoronin

Yup! SSD for windows and if you want one or two games to load like there's no tomorrow. I'd actually go with it now tbh. It really does boost your entire system and €76 is a crazy good price if flubit works like bloodbath said! You won't even care about powering on your system, restarting takes way less than 30 seconds here with a 120gb samsung 830.

Keep an eye on overclockers.co.uk for graphics too. They were having silly cheap cards on preorder a few weeks ago, haven't checked since but could still be good deals!

Lemming

Xenoronin wrote: »

Keep an eye on overclockers.co.uk for graphics too. They were having silly cheap cards on preorder a few weeks ago, haven't checked since but could still be good deals!

Overclockers.co.uk are not good value; their sale-of-the-week items tend to be the "normal" price you find elsewhere (or marginally more expensive). I just built a new rig and used a mixture of amazon.co.uk and scan.co.uk - I tend to only go near oc.co.uk these days as a last resort.

Xenoronin

This was slightly different, I posted it up in the bargains thread but they had some nVidia 670 gtx cards for much cheaper than I've seen elsewhere. You are correct, but I wouldn't dismiss them outright.

BloodBath

Sadly Flubit is not working at the moment. They recently updated the site so that you need a valid postcode. We don't use postcodes here. They obviously overlooked that. The only way around it at the moment is to use parcel motel in combination with it but then you would have to pick it up in Dublin.

They said they are looking into fixing it for Ireland. Hopefully soon. I ended up spending €15 more for a couple of things and didn't bother ordering the ssd. I'll wait until they sort the site out and order a few more things to go with it.

Use the ssd for windows and your non game programs. You could stick a couple of games on there i you wanted. I'd probably just get a second smaller ssd, maybe 30-60gb and use it as a cache drive for the 2tb hdd. This would speed up the performance and loading times of your most used games on the hdd to near ssd levels.

xpletiv

Ok; so im going to get an SSD drive then before I start doing my building, so I can put windows straight on that and not have to worry about other things. It'll take a few more days but thats ok as I forget to get the wifi card too How do likes of PC world or currys even stack up against buying online these days? I was going to just get a wifi card from one of them but if im getting SSD i may wait a bit more too.

I used scan.co.uk above as I have a valid VAT no so can get the vat off, if its made through the phone. Its not too bad doing it that way and saves quite a bit.

A couple of people on here have messaged me about graphics cards they are selling on, as theyve upgraded their machines or just have them to sell. Id go through one of these guys I think, probably for a 660Ti or 7950 if I want to spend just a bit more, based on advice given here. Anything I should look out for when buying a GPU second hand?

BloodBath

Not really. It's hit and miss. I bought a second hand 7970 on ebay. The first one I received turned out to be a broken 7950. The company refunded me for it. If they hadn't ebay or paypal would have refunded me. It still delayed my build by about a month. The second one I received was perfect.

I guess just check or a reliable seller with a long and good selling history.