Building new PC - advice please :)

Discussion in 'General LADS chat' started by Graphite, Dec 8, 2013.

  1. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

    I have taken the plunge and ordered an i5 4670K chip (apparently should OC to 4 GHz easy and up to 4.4 if you want to go crazy.. I don't! :D ) and an ASUS Z87 - PRO mobo having promised myself for years that I would build a 'modern' PC again :D

    Anyway 1st thing - memory - what would you recommend? Not sure if 8GB is enough or should I stick 16GB in while I am at it?

    Nearly bought 8GB of corsair vengeance 2133 http://www.scan.co.u...-11-11-11-27-xm but then was reading another website and the recommendation was just to get the cheapest 1600 RAM - so I then looked at 16GB 1600 and found Crucial Ballistix 16GB for £108 http://www.ebuyer.co...p8g3d1608dt1tx0 ???

    I thought I would probably use the onboard graphics for now - but the Radeon HD 7770 looks to be a pretty awesome card at a good price point just now? ~ £70-£80...

    I have an SSD that I haven't been able to use until now as the SATA3 board I got s/h didn't work 100% and I ended up returning it :?

    I have good PSUs available and a suitable 1TB hard drive or 2 hanging around...

    I've got a copy of Vista Ultimate I can stick on it - but was thinking of getting a Win 7 COA licence off ebay or somewhere... I've got a full retail copy of Win 7 so got all the necessary software DVDs to do the install...

    So any pointers?

    Cheers :mrgreen:
     
  2. Widdowmaker

    Widdowmaker Well-Known Member

    Firstly, what type of machine are you aiming for?
    a) Gaming
    B) office machine
    C) Web browser
    etc etc

    This will define the components you need....

    If aiming at A), any level of A..... go for as much memory as possible. Get a dedicated G card... on board just cant cut it...

    If your thinking about clocking ur processor then get clockable Memory (adjustable timings) and clock the hell out of them too. As said previously the more memory the . With certain G cards, you can use the memory to support the G card.

    You seem to have a good basic handle on what ur doing, and you are seemingly also, concerned about spending the hard earned.... At thelower end of the market, you can find some good bargnins and I could be here all day discussing the why, the wahts, the pro's and cons.... not really worth it.

    Youve actually gone for both suppliers that I would not choose for a gaming machine, I would use AMD chipsets on all products, processors and i would go invidia on G cards, but that is personel prefference. I have used both and found both AMD and Nvidia to be more end user favourable in a gaming environment and more compatable with each other.

    I would go solid start on the primary drive and run your operating system on it. This will give massive benefits to number crunching tasks and start up etc, program loading etc.

    Vista is pants in comparison to Win7.... doesnt matter which variant. I am still running my gaming machine on Win7 Pro.

    For B and C, go cheap as chips.... it really isnt going to matter.

    Hope that helps.
     
  3. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

  4. scalesy

    scalesy New Member

    You have made a good choice with Intel m8 but you will be lucky to Oc to 4.4 on water never mind Air as haswell chips run hot so I would not oc on air :lol: and 8 gig is all you need as even in benchmarks or games 16gb will make no difference! :wink: As for graphics cards I can only recommend Nvidia as I am team green and hate AMD and ATI :lol: Get a Nvidia GTX780ti proper next gen graphics card
     
  5. Tony Burns

    Tony Burns New Member

    You dont need more than the 1600mhz memory, 8gb is ok for pretty much everything day to day, 16 is a bit overkill.
    Avoid the older 5xx series cards, they are 3 years old now and end of line, BUT they still do the job, you are better off with the later 7xx series tbh as these are next gen hard ware, if you are on a budget then go for the 5xx or the 6xx series (my 580 GTX still runs fine but ill upgrade in the new year to a 780ti).
     
  6. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

    Got most of the bits now... just waiting on the EVGA GTX 560 Ti 1GB from SCAN - looks to be an optimum price/performance card... The best I have had previously is a HD 5570 - so should be lightning fast compared to that :D

    Also got a 'refurbished PC' copy of Windows 7 Pro from an official MS licenced seller on eBay for £49 so nearly set to go :)
     
  7. scalesy

    scalesy New Member

    do you plan on playing games m8?
     
  8. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

    Not really - we have a couple of PS3s :D - but I would like it be able to play games if required by my sons... I would like to be able to use a CAD programme like Sketchup without having to wait 1/2 hour for a detailed 3D image to finish rendering LOL :)

    I figure that you can always pop in another graphics card with minimal fuss if the PC gaming bug bites me...
     
  9. scalesy

    scalesy New Member

    560 is very weak and the 5 series is knocking on now you would be better off with a GTX760 for power per £ :wink: But if you doing 3d work a used GTX 580 or 480 off ebay will be around £80 and about 2x the power of the 560
     
  10. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

    Well... Looking at this chart http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html for example...

    The GTX 560Ti gets 3535 points (in comparison with my old HD 5570 which gets 712 points) and cost £70

    The GTX760 gets 5021 points and costs... - cheapest I could find was £170 - so 140% increase on price for 42% increase on performance :lol:

    I did spend a long time scanning eBay for suitable cards - but people pay silly money on there for 2nd hand cards - often if I looked I could find the same card brand new for the prices the 2nd hand ones went for :shock: - and I do buy a lot from ebay - but have had the odd problem with computer components and sometimes it's just too much hassle... :?

    If you've got an old one that still works well and is in my price range let me know ;)
     
  11. scoobaru mad

    scoobaru mad Active Member

    EVGA GEFORCE GTX SUPERCLOCKED 780ti FTW!!!

    [​IMG]
     
  12. covak2002

    covak2002 Active Member

    that looks great bud shame you went for a std drive Solid states are the way forward :) but I am a gaming freak running 2 Geforce titan cards and twin 550 solids for the games and a 450 solid for the boot I also have the corsair cooling system very good clocked just over yours runs stable bring on the bigger and better games :)
     
  13. scoobaru mad

    scoobaru mad Active Member

    The hard drive is a seagate 2TB SSHD. Soon to be 4TB. It has the carrying capacity for games an films etc. An boot speed to desktop takes takes about 25 seconds. Programs are very quick too. A good compromise between the 2

    With some of Mr Scales's magic. Its benchmarked at around 14.2k. Thats standard clock on a i7 4770k @3.5g. 8GB ram @ 1600mhz. Mobo is MSI Z87 G45. PSU is a corsair RM850. An the GFX card had some minor tweeks

    For what i use it for, its perect. NOCTUA fans all round so its quiet. And its water cooled too, so no worry about temps.

    I was a die hard console man. Then Scalsey showed me the error of my ways lol
     
  14. scalesy

    scalesy New Member

    :lol: Titan is clocked slower than a 780ti Sc my own can run at 1255mhz happy on air and had 7800mhz on the ram! But will be more happy when water block fitted should see 1300mhz no problems! The 780ti is now the worlds fastest single card beating titans for gaming! EVGA 780ti Sc FTW :lol:

    But 2x Titans = KILLER BEAST PC :twisted:

    And this is just a normal reference clocked 780ti vs every other beast cards inc the titan

    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gef ... ,3663.html
     
  15. covak2002

    covak2002 Active Member

    very true hence i went for the to clocked cards very expandable due to no game needing such power yet but had the spare cash so bought them BF4 runs smooth as just looking into twin touch 28" screens now god i need kids NOT :) let the BF4 killing commence :twisted:
     
  16. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

    DOH! the GTX 560Ti I was after was on 'Pre-order' due 27th Dec... then the 14th Jan... and now 22nd Jan - so I have phoned up and cancelled :?

    Just ordered an Asus GTX 660 2GB off a (hopefully nice) chap on ebay :lol:
     
  17. scalesy

    scalesy New Member

    660 will kill a 560 and even more so if a 660ti 8)
     
  18. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

    Well... All the bits are here 8) assembled and fired up yesterday.

    Windows installed on SSD - just need to do fine tuning of sorting out HDD for storage and installing all programmes and moving over relevant data etc now :)

    But very pleased it's all up and running with no hiccups :mrgreen:
     
  19. Graphite

    Graphite 23rd June 2016 - Vote LEAVE EU!

    Build is complete now and running great for a week or so...

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    Antec P160 case with front and rear 120mm case fans
    Asus Z87 Pro motherboard
    Intel i5 4670K CPU with Intel standard CPU fan
    Asus GTX660-DC2O-2GD5 (1085MHz) Graphics card
    16GB 2x 8GB PC3-12800 cL8 1.5v w/XMP Crucial Ballistix Tactical RAM
    OCZ Vertex4 128 GB SSD
    Western Digital WD5000AAKS storage HD
    Transcend 1GB USB 3 portable Hard Drive
    OCZ StealthXStream 600W
    Sony DVD RW
    Windows 7 Pro x64

    CPU overclocked with standard Intel cooling fan to 4.5 GHz...

    [​IMG]

    stepped up RAM to box specs 1600 and got a 7.7 on the Windows Experience...

    [​IMG]

    :lol: - I know it's not stable enough for proper durability testing at that level - but I am amazed to see it can do it on the standard fan 8)

    Not had time to mess with it properly - but I like the ASUS tuning software - their GPU tweak doesn't seem to include an 'AutoTune' of any description - any recommendations? - messed with it a bit and got GPU clock from 1085 MHz to 1145 MHz and mem clock from 6008 MHz to 6588 MHz.

    Also my front case fan seems to be either on or off - it is identical to the rear which has full control. Tried swapping fan headers on the mobo - but still the same :( - any ideas?
     
  20. scalesy

    scalesy New Member

    :lol: 4.5 on standard Intel cooler run prime 95 and see what temps you get bet can not see it being stable or safe temps! what cpu voltage is it at? only safe way to Oc a haswell chip is manually in the bios then run prim 95 and hardware monitor to check temps and stability :wink:
     

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