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blessingboi111

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#1 blessingboi111
Member since 2010 • 53 Posts

#Hi All,

I've been thinking about PC Gaming for a long time now and wanted to take the plunge but before I do so, I wanted to get your opinion on this rig I've configured.

  • System Base Price - (£149.17)
  • Zalman MS800-Plus Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case (+£30.00)
  • 1000W SuperFlower Leadex GOLD Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply (+£90.00)
  • MSI 990FXA-GD65 AMD FX ATX Motherboard
  • AMD FX 8350 Black Edition, 8 Core, 4.0GHz/4.2GHz, 16MB Cache (+£145.00)
  • Corsair H60 High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooler (+£52.500)
  • 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Memory (2*8GB) Kit (+£145.00)
  • 4GB AMD Radeon R9 290X - 4GD5 Gaming Series Graphics (+£394.99)
  • 120GB SSD (+£57.50)
  • 3TB SATA III 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8ms Hard Drive (+£80.00)
  • Raid 0 Configuration (+£7.50)
  • Pioneer Blu-Ray Writer (+£57.50)
  • Bitfenix SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Internal Card Reader (+£24.17)
  • Creative Sound Blaster ZX High Performance PCIe Gaming Sound Card (+£90.83)
  • Windows 7 64 Bit Professional (+£90.83)

Do you think there is anything that could be trimmed/changed from that list to enable me to run the highest spec'd game there is on a ultra high setting comfortably?

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blessingboi111

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#3 blessingboi111
Member since 2010 • 53 Posts

Revert back to my title.

That's my whole point for posting on here in the first place, I'm very new to PC Gaming and my rig configuration was based on an educated guess from the leading titles and their highest spec requirements and compiled it from there.

But your cutting answer was soooo helpful and has provided me with the utmost, detailed feedback I could have required.

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GTR12

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#4 GTR12
Member since 2006 • 13490 Posts

@blessingboi111:

I gave you the honest answer, here's a more detailed response.

You ideally want a Intel based system, in short, its faster.

CPU: I5 4670 or i7 4770/4790

Mobo: Z97 chipset

RAM: Cut it to 8GB if short on money

Cooler: Leave it at stock or a hyper 212+

Do you really need a BD writer, card reader and a high-end sound card?

PSU: Change it NOW, this is the worst part of the system, you need a better brand (Corsair, Antec, Coolermaster, Thermaltake), you also need 650watt for the rig, if your thinking of adding a 2nd/3rd GPU then you need more.

GPU: Its fine

Case: Fine as well

The RAID 0 configuration is wasted money, you don't need it, so change it to $0

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prototypehobo

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#5 prototypehobo
Member since 2014 • 25 Posts

Wow nice rig, What do I think of PC gaming over console gaming? it's OK as I am a PC gamer myself and consider it to be the better option for games such as call of duty ghost, Battlefield 4 and all them FPS shooters you could say, Granted it doesn't have any exclusives at all much but you have more features on PC along with more hard drive storage etc & can go above 1920 x 1080 if you got a compatible monitor to do that of course, Games are cheaper and mp is free, You can install mods very easy on the PC (no flashing required like you have to on consoles lol) Game saves are drag and drop for easier installation, Better graphics and I think there is ton more to say about it but I think I said enough to justify how much it craps on consoles :D

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Coseniath

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#6 Coseniath
Member since 2004 • 3183 Posts

@blessingboi111, what @GTR12 means is your build costs more than £1400.

With almost half money you can make a build that it will have a better gaming CPU and it will generally perform around 90-95% of the £1400 build.

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/vgxmmG

Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/vgxmmG/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.99 @ Aria PC)

Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.45 @ More Computers)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£61.74 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.70 @ Aria PC)

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card (£295.39 @ Aria PC)

Case: Xigmatek Recon ATX Mid Tower Case (£28.51 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.93 @ CCL Computers)

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.32 @ CCL Computers)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.65 @ CCL Computers)

Total: £760.68

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-23 13:46 BST+0100

I can explain any choice I have here, just ask me for which part you have questions for.

Now if you want to go farther in performance you have to pay more going towards to 4790K, Z97 mobo, better cooling for o/c, and a GTX780ti.

Funny though getting all these might not make the build to cost more than £1400...

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SuDDi42

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#7 SuDDi42
Member since 2014 • 25 Posts

@blessingboi111:

@blessingboi111 said:

#Hi All,

I've been thinking about PC Gaming for a long time now and wanted to take the plunge but before I do so, I wanted to get your opinion on this rig I've configured.

  • System Base Price - (£149.17)
  • Zalman MS800-Plus Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case (+£30.00)
  • 1000W SuperFlower Leadex GOLD Fully Modular "80 Plus Gold" Power Supply (+£90.00)
  • MSI 990FXA-GD65 AMD FX ATX Motherboard
  • AMD FX 8350 Black Edition, 8 Core, 4.0GHz/4.2GHz, 16MB Cache (+£145.00)
  • Corsair H60 High-Performance CPU Liquid Cooler (+£52.500)
  • 16GB DDR3 1866MHz Memory (2*8GB) Kit (+£145.00)
  • 4GB AMD Radeon R9 290X - 4GD5 Gaming Series Graphics (+£394.99)
  • 120GB SSD (+£57.50)
  • 3TB SATA III 6Gb/s, 7200rpm, 64MB Cache, 8ms Hard Drive (+£80.00)
  • Raid 0 Configuration (+£7.50)
  • Pioneer Blu-Ray Writer (+£57.50)
  • Bitfenix SuperSpeed USB 3.0 Internal Card Reader (+£24.17)
  • Creative Sound Blaster ZX High Performance PCIe Gaming Sound Card (+£90.83)
  • Windows 7 64 Bit Professional (+£90.83)

Do you think there is anything that could be trimmed/changed from that list to enable me to run the highest spec'd game there is on a ultra high setting comfortably?

Hi, great that you want to put together a PC! I'll try to give some feedback since GTR12's response is a bit hit or miss...

First off you've put together a really high end PC with quality components and all together it gets quite pricey. Now I don't know exactly what plans you have for this PC other than playing games, and several decisions comes down to if you want to delve into overclocking at some point or not.

Let's start with the CPU. In short what GTR12 said is true, you want an intel CPU for gaming. The far superior per core performance makes it a much better choice. Get a 4670(k)/4690(k) (the k versions can be overclocked when coupled with a z97 motherboard) or a 4790k depending on your budget.

The motherboard will also have to change if you do this any intel 1150 board will do really, but to overclock you will need a Z87/Z97 chipset board. If not you can save your money and get something cheaper.

Now contrary to what GTR12 seems to think that is a very high quality PSU capable of powering just about any system. However, it is also very overkill for a Single GPU setup. Scale back down to 650w or so if you want to do a lot of overclocking. If not a 550w will be more than enough. As long as it is 80+ Certified you should be good.

A standard CPU cooler comes in the box but if you want to overclock or wish for an extra quiet PC then getting a separate one is a good choice. But in general you'll get a better thermal to noise ratio with an air cooler than those "all in one" liquid cooler solutions. A good dual tower cooler like a Phanteks-PH-TC14PE or Noctua NH-D15 would offer both superior cooling and much better acoustics. But something cheaper like the mentioned Hyper 212 evo would also do nicely

I don't mind 16GB ram if you have the money to spare. It's merely a future proofing thing. Not a huge investment.

If you do not have a large need for several terabytes of space I would skip the mechanical hard drive completely and just go for a 500GB SSD. A Samsung 840 EVO or something equivalent.

Are you actually gonna use your PC to run Blue Ray discs? Otherwise such a drive is very unnecessary. I've not used any optical drives in any of my PC for a number of years. When I need to install windows I either use a flash drive or use a simply connect an external USB optical drive. Disks are simply not a format I use anymore.

Card reader? Do you need such a thing?

Any motherboard comes with an integrated sound card and you won't notice any difference buying a dedicated card unless you have some enthusiast level audio equipment to use with it. Simply put, if you're gonna connect a 100 dollar "gaming" headset to your PC you're just wasting money using a card like that.

Now that's the feedback I got. Good luck with your building project!

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commonfate

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#8 commonfate
Member since 2010 • 13320 Posts

A build at half that cost will do almost everything you could want to do with that high end build. Going all out for a high end build is NOT something new builders should do. You're paying hundreds for diminishing returns.

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/7PHZ99
Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/7PHZ99/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (£158.34 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.25 @ Scan.co.uk)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Pro3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£68.57 @ Amazon UK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£61.74 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£85.34 @ Scan.co.uk)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.70 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 270X 2GB TWIN FROZR Video Card (£137.12 @ Scan.co.uk)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (£44.99 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£44.54 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: LG UH12NS30 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer (£39.99 @ Ebuyer)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.65 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £773.23

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-24 02:32 BST+0100

In 2 years get a used GTX 780 and overclock your processor and you'll be cruising on high end settings for 4ish years. You'll occasionally come across something like Crysis 3 in which you'll have to choose between lowering your framerate to 30 or playing on high settings instead of ultrahigh but coming from consoles you'll still be blown out of the water.

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GTR12

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#9 GTR12
Member since 2006 • 13490 Posts

@Coseniath said:

@blessingboi111, what @GTR12 means is your build costs more than £1400.

With almost half money you can make a build that it will have a better gaming CPU and it will generally perform around 90-95% of the £1400 build.

PCPartPicker part list: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/vgxmmG

Price breakdown by merchant: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/vgxmmG/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor (£139.99 @ Aria PC)

Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (£65.45 @ More Computers)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (£61.74 @ Amazon UK)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£38.70 @ Aria PC)

Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card (£295.39 @ Aria PC)

Case: Xigmatek Recon ATX Mid Tower Case (£28.51 @ Amazon UK)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£49.93 @ CCL Computers)

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£11.32 @ CCL Computers)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) (£69.65 @ CCL Computers)

Total: £760.68

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-23 13:46 BST+0100

I can explain any choice I have here, just ask me for which part you have questions for.

Now if you want to go farther in performance you have to pay more going towards to 4790K, Z97 mobo, better cooling for o/c, and a GTX780ti.

Funny though getting all these might not make the build to cost more than £1400...

Go with this rig TC, I would personally change the case, only because its ugly IMO but everything else is great.

And its not 90-95% of the original build, if anything, its faster.

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CWEBB04z

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#10 CWEBB04z
Member since 2006 • 4879 Posts

Sorry, but I disagree with the comments about going with only intel for gaming. The 8350 is a solid cpu and is great for gaming.

Your also spending to much money and adding stuff that is not needed (sound card, card reader) I would also change the psu to a more reputable brand. But other than that, it is a really solid build.