Gaming PC - €1000

Stercus Accidit

What is your budget? ~€1000

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming, video capture, software development

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? none

5. Do you need a monitor? no

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Keyboard and Speakers: No, I have kb, mouse and speakers

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? yes, I want to get an i7 and a good cooler

8. How can you pay? Any

9. When are you purchasing? this week

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? No help needed



I am thinking of getting an i7, a water cooling unit for it, one good GPU, and 2 x 4GB ram. I need some help on motherboard choices too, I don't care too much about usb ports, I don't need an optical drive but do want two digital outputs for a future second monitor. The rest I can probably figure out myself such as tower, PSU, fans and connectors unless there are some obvious gotchas you can mention. I'll probably get a small good quality SSD and a cheap regular HDD.

I don't need an exact build if that helps, but some guidance would help me pick things out, thanks!

Digital Solitude

Budgets too tight for an i7k, why is it a necessity?

Gumbi

And why the water cooling unit? High end air cooler would be cheaper, cooler, less hassle and quieter unless you go the custom route (far more expensive).

Ant695

Gumbi wrote: »

And why the water cooling unit? High end air cooler would be cheaper, cooler, less hassle and quieter unless you go the custom route (far more expensive).

Exactly those AIO water cooling units simply look good. Less effective and more expensive.

Stercus Accidit

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Budgets too tight for an i7k, why is it a necessity?

Edit: i5 might be ok, I didn't price them properly

Gumbi wrote: »

And why the water cooling unit? High end air cooler would be cheaper, cooler, less hassle and quieter unless you go the custom route (far more expensive).

Ant695 wrote: »

Exactly those AIO water cooling units simply look good. Less effective and more expensive.

No problem, I just want effective cooling for overclocking. If air is better I can go for that.

For the sake of the thread, we can ignore the cost of the monitor as I might consider its budget separately.

Ant695

Air is better unless doing a custom water cooling loop but that as Gumbi pointed out is very expensive so I would say for one component not really worth it. Something from noctua would probably be the best although they are more expensive. Also if it's exposed it may not fit with colour scheme etc...

Digital Solitude

Do you max i7 standards or what?

I'll go with a Xeon for now.

Xeon 1231v3 €250
H81M board €60
1tb HDD €50
8gb RAM €40
Case €50
500w PSU €60
250gb SSD €90
GTX970 €350
Total €950 I think

Xeon is basically a non overclockable i7.

Are your programming tools or gaming priority?

Stercus Accidit

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Do you max i7 standards or what?

I'll go with a Xeon for now.

Xeon 1231v3 €250
H81M board €60
1tb HDD €50
8gb RAM €40
Case €50
500w PSU €60
250gb SSD €90
GTX970 €350
Total €950 I think

Xeon is basically a non overclockable i7.

Are your programming tools or gaming priority?

TBH I will probably not need an i7, I have a work machine I can use for heavy load and bringing work home isn't ideal as a habit.

Gaming is probably the priority. The above is helpful thanks, if I can I will order parts this evening.

Digital Solitude

You might as well drop that to an i5 to knock some of the cost of the monitor off then.

You can get Windows from Reddit for €20

Stercus Accidit

What do you guys think of http://www.adverts.ie/desktops/ultra-powerful-gaming-minipc-gtx970-4690k-16gb-for-sale/8875188 ?

I might go for a pre-built machine if I could get the price down a bit, for an i5 gtx 970 combo is this a bit steep? What would a decent price be?

Thanks

Digital Solitude

That's not a bad deal, €140 more expensive than building which ain't bad at all.

Stercus Accidit

Digital Solitude wrote: »

That's not a bad deal, €140 more expensive than building which ain't bad at all.

Is that compared to ordering from say mindfactory.de? I might be willing to wait for delivery if the price is much better, I was pricing gtx 970's for example in Ireland and the UK and mindfactory was much better than either.

Digital Solitude

Yeah from mindfactory, its 50 more than your build above, but yours has an SSD too.

Stercus Accidit

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/4096MB-MSI-GeForce-GTX-970-Gaming-4G-Aktiv-PCIe-3-0-x16--Retail-_976948.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-4x-3-50GHz-So-1150-BOX_962954.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/ASRock-Z97-Pro3-Intel-Z97-So-1150-Dual-Channel-DDR3-ATX-Retail_961259.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/CoolerMaster-Hyper-412S-Tower-Kuehler_777732.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/16GB-Corsair-Vengeance-Pro-Series-silber-DDR3-1866-DIMM-CL9-Dual-Kit_856470.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/250GB-Samsung-850-Evo-2-5Zoll--6-4cm--SATA-6Gb-s-TLC-Toggle--MZ-75E250B-E_987465.html


So I copied a lot of the components from another thread bar the GPU, I plan to order the PSU and Case from Ireland. Is there anything to consider about the above, bearing in mind I want to over-clock the CPU & GPU, are these components appropriate? Thanks guys.

Digital Solitude

Looks good to me

Ant695

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/4096MB-MSI-GeForce-GTX-970-Gaming-4G-Aktiv-PCIe-3-0-x16--Retail-_976948.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/Intel-Core-i5-4690K-4x-3-50GHz-So-1150-BOX_962954.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/ASRock-Z97-Pro3-Intel-Z97-So-1150-Dual-Channel-DDR3-ATX-Retail_961259.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/CoolerMaster-Hyper-412S-Tower-Kuehler_777732.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/16GB-Corsair-Vengeance-Pro-Series-silber-DDR3-1866-DIMM-CL9-Dual-Kit_856470.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/250GB-Samsung-850-Evo-2-5Zoll--6-4cm--SATA-6Gb-s-TLC-Toggle--MZ-75E250B-E_987465.html


So I copied a lot of the components from another thread bar the GPU, I plan to order the PSU and Case from Ireland. Is there anything to consider about the above, bearing in mind I want to over-clock the CPU & GPU, are these components appropriate? Thanks guys.

Where in Ireland are you ordering them from?

Eoinmc97

If I were you, I might swap the 970 for the R9 390. Less expensive, faster (in many games except Witcher 3) more VRAM the Nitro version now comes with a backplate.
But solid build there!

Stercus Accidit

Ant695 wrote: »

Where in Ireland are you ordering them from?

They will be shipped to Dublin from mindfactory.de

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

If I were you, I might swap the 970 for the R9 390. Less expensive, faster (in many games except Witcher 3) more VRAM the Nitro version now comes with a backplate.
But solid build there!

The gtx970 I picked out is described as having good cooling which is important as I plan to over-clock the card as much as possible while remaining stable.

Including over-clocking, would you consider the R9 a better card? I am fairly open to changing to it if it is better or a model of it is.

Thanks guys

grindle

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Including over-clocking, would you consider the R9 a better card? I am fairly open to changing to it if it is better or a model of it is.

You can fiddle the 970 way past it's stock specs while there isn't much headroom for the 390 when overclocking, so there's room for a 970 to catch up to and equal an overclocked 390.

Buying the 970 depends on if you like certain Nvidia tech or not, like Hairworks, Shield, Shadowplay, but the difference I see between an overclocked 970 compared to an overclocked 390 is that the 970 is a little bit dearer, won't last as long whenever VR lands and not very good for ultra textures going into the future (they're not going to start making games go easier on the VRAM for the hell of it).

Depending on how well Nvidia can optimise their drivers (it'll be a huge game of catch-up and a miraculous feat if they pull it off), the 390 likely has the 970 licked when DX12 or Vulkan gain widespread usage in a year or two.
If you're gaming @ 1440p or thinking of it, 390 also wins easily.

IMO.

Stercus Accidit

One more consideration, I would like to have a smaller case, so I should probably get a smaller motherboard, what are the considerations for that?

I also would like to have wifi as I may bring the computer to friends houses etc.

Thanks guys!

Digital Solitude

Get a Z97M board and a mATX case, make sure case can fit your cooler.

€10 WiFi dongle, internal is so good on an matx board

Stercus Accidit

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Get a Z97M board and a mATX case, make sure case can fit your cooler.

€10 WiFi dongle, internal is so good on an matx board

I don't follow this comment, are you saying the matx board is so good I shouldn't care about wifi on the board and just get a usb dongle? What is it about having wifi on the board that would be a drawback?

Ant695

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

I don't follow this comment, are you saying the matx board is so good I shouldn't care about wifi on the board and just get a usb dongle? What is it about having wifi on the board that would be a drawback?

Don't quote me on this but I'd say it's a typo and was meant to read no good.

Stercus Accidit

That makes sense, I'm going to pick out a board, and the PSU and case now, thanks.

BTW, is that ram DDR3-1866 fast enough?

Digital Solitude

A typo yeah, sorry

A larger GPU will cover the other slots on the board.

Have homeplugs been recommended?

Stercus Accidit

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/ASRock-Z97M-Pro4-Intel-Z97-So-1150-Dual-Channel-DDR3-mATX-Retail_962532.html

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/ASRock-Z97M-Anniversary-Intel-Z97-So-1150-Dual-Channel-DDR3-mATX-Retail_967693.html

Should I save a few bob and get the motherboard with 1x PCIe 3.0 x16?

Digital Solitude

Yes, SLI in a mATX will give you a nice heater :pac:

Go with one slot imo

Stercus Accidit

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Yes, SLI in a mATX will give you a nice heater :pac:

Go with one slot imo

Cool, the cooler I picked out is out of stock so I am going to pick a new one, how would I figure out the size of cooler I could fit into the machine, I assume the GPU will cantilever away from the processor, freeing up that space?

http://www.mindfactory.de/product_info.php/CoolerMaster-Hyper-TX3-Evo-Tower-Kuehler_774566.html

Digital Solitude

For gaming there's virtually no difference between RAM speeds.

Depends on the case, it should say the Max cooler height in the spec. This cooler is 153mm so once it's below that.

The GPU and CPU won't overlap, don't worry about that

Stercus Accidit

I'm having a look at wifi cards, will there be any drawbacks to using a usb wifi dongle? I will probably be on a wireless connection a good bit of the time.

Other than that I think this much of the order is good

Digital Solitude

I have the tiniest bit of space for a card next to my GPU on a mATX board beside me, I wouldn't like to jam a card there as its the fan side too. I know WiFi cards are small but even still.

I had a really cheap and crap USB one that bluescreened me whenever it was even touched, but I can't vouch for all of them. This came from AliExpress.

Stercus Accidit

I threw the €8 card in to the order for the craic, if it is rubbish I will get a USB one, I can always install a pcie extension cable if it impedes air flow to the card.

I made the order for the parts, I need to choose a case and PSU and order those next, preferably somewhere with a UK style plug for the PSU as I heard it is no cheaper for cases from Germany anyway.



If anyone has anything to say about the chosen parts please do, I can contact mindfactory before they ship and make changes if needed.

Stercus Accidit

Has anyone got any advice on where to order the case and psu to suit the above parts?

So far I am looking at elara.ie and as above it's a micro ATX board. The smaller the case the better. I am looking at this http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?productcode=JCEFD-CA-CORE-1000-USB3

The psu has to be beefy enough to handle over-clocking of the gpu and cpu. This is the list of psus I am looking at http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

Thanks!

grindle

Of the tier 1 units the XFX Pro XXXs are the best price, was ~€100 when I bought my 650w version.
The 650w Seasonic G or the M12s and S12s would be good in the €75-90 range. I'd get that from Mindfactory and buy an EU->UK adapter.

The Core 1000 and 1100 are great cases but the 1000's mesh design means fan noise might annoy you more. Both are around €40 on amazon.co.uk.