These are my specs for a shade over £1700. Any suggestions or comments?

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690 (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z97 MK1: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card 8GB AMD RADEON™ R9 295X2 - DL DVI, 4 x mDP - DX® 11 Eyefinity 6 Capable
1st Hard Disk 240GB KINGSTON HYPERX SAVAGE SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s
2nd Hard Disk 1TB 3.5" SEAGATE SSHD, SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM (64MB + 8GB SSD CACHE)

What did you pick as a PSU?

Corsair 1000W RM series gold ultra quiet. Had pretty solid reviews.

electricwhiteboy wrote:These are my specs for a shade over £1700. Any suggestions or comments?

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690 (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z97 MK1: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card 8GB AMD RADEON™ R9 295X2 - DL DVI, 4 x mDP - DX® 11 Eyefinity 6 Capable
1st Hard Disk 240GB KINGSTON HYPERX SAVAGE SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s
2nd Hard Disk 1TB 3.5" SEAGATE SSHD, SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM (64MB + 8GB SSD CACHE)

I'd have thought you'd get an i7 for that price. Have you checked out OverclockersUK?

I considered the I7, however for a few extra fps it didn't seem worth it. It might be worth it for future proofing but by the time I would be updating the CPU there may be a switch to 8 cores.

PSU seems overboard though there are calculators to estimate expected consumption. The card look like beast but with this stuff .. I only follow it when I upgrade and its changing so fast that I lose track. I had Zalman display hooked to PSU showing actual consumption and I was surprised it indicated 300W in load around 100 W idle. That was with 670 GTX card and i5-2500k? CPU, around 150W lower than I saw recommended to me everywhere. Though some room is good to have. I have 450W still.

So what you gonna play first?

I know the PSU looks high on paper, but PC specialist has a built in calculator and wouldn't let me check out on a lower wattage.

Witcher 3 first, then Elder Scrolls from Morrowind on heavily modded, with a bit of Total War.

electricwhiteboy wrote:These are my specs for a shade over £1700. Any suggestions or comments?

Processor (CPU) Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-4690 (3.5GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z97 MK1: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM) 16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X FURY DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card 8GB AMD RADEON™ R9 295X2 - DL DVI, 4 x mDP - DX® 11 Eyefinity 6 Capable
1st Hard Disk 240GB KINGSTON HYPERX SAVAGE SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s
2nd Hard Disk 1TB 3.5" SEAGATE SSHD, SATA 6Gb/s 7200 RPM (64MB + 8GB SSD CACHE)

Seems pricey to me. That converts to ~$2660usd. Does that come with mouse, keyboard, speakers, monitor, etc? Blu-ray drive/burner perhaps?

Some thoughts:


I tend to avoid "gaming" motherboards. Marketing nonsense IMO. A standard, non-gaming Asus or Gigabyte motherboard should be fine, and much cheaper.

You don't really need 16GB of memory right now. You can save a little dough if you settle for 8GB, although you definitely want to ensure that you'll have room to add 8GB more in the future. Then again, you'd only save maybe $50-70 by dropping to 8GB, so either way is fine really.

What are your monitor's resolution and refresh rate? A $650 video card is overkill if all you have is 1080p 60Hz monitor. But if you have a triple monitor setup, or a 4k monitor, or a 144Hz monitor, then it's justified. If you only need to drive 1080p @60Hz, then a GTX 970 or R9 290x should suffice. In fact, right now I still have an aging ($300ish at time of purchase) GTX 670 and I don't really feel the need to upgrade yet. I'll hold off upgrading until VR headsets hit the market, as those will require a higher fill-rate than my current monitor. I used to buy $600-800 video cards, but I eventually learned to get my gear-lust under control. The thing with video cards and CPUs is, you have resign yourself to the fact that these have to be replaced every 3-5 years, so you shoot for bang-for-the-buck, rather than balls out performance. In short, if you have a 1080p 60Hz monitor, then a $300 GTX 970 or R9 290x should suffice. Hell, a $200 GTX 960 would probably be fine for most gamers. But, if you have a 4k monitor, triple monitor setup, 144Hz monitor, or if you plan to buy a VR headset next year, then by all means get the beefier video card.


The 1TB hard drive is a bit smallish. If you're coming from the console world, it might seem like a lot, but on the PC those modern games and mp3s and what have you can add up quickly. I'd recommend at least a 2TB if not bigger. Also, Seagate hard drives are notoriously unreliable right now. I'd give them a wide berth. A 25% failure rate is insane...
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2015/01/hard-disk-reliability-examined-once-more-hgst-rules-seagate-is-alarming/


Lastly, don't overlook the case. Your PC's innards will probably get swapped out every so often, but cases tend to be around forever, so you don't want to start off with a shitty case. And there is nothing worse than a loud-ass, dusty PC. Big, slow fans are much quieter than small, high rpm fans. You want a nice roomy interior that is easy to work in and allows for good airflow. Removable dust filters are a must IMO. Sound damping material is nice too. I'm really liking Fractal Design cases right now: http://www.fractal-design.com/home/product/cases/define-series/define-r5-black I have the Define R4, and I couldn't be happier with it. The R5 is even better. Although, I suppose if you're buying a prebuilt PC, you probably don't have much choice with regard to cases, but if you do have some choices, don't just go and settle for the cheapest one available...

Tech is a lot more expensive over here.

I know that card is a beast, however I plan to get a 4K monitor in the lifetime of the rig or a VR headset. It's maybe slightly overpowered now, but is quickly going to become recommended spec. 16GB is also becoming recommended spec for RAM as well.

Noted re the motherboard, and the drive. I had not realised Seagate had gone down the tubes when it came to reliability, and I've upped the space to 2TB.

Basically I have a lump sum of disposable income right now, but my circumstances are about to change, this is one of the last big luxury item I'm buying for a while. Bang for buck isn't really how I'm looking at this.

electricwhiteboy wrote:I considered the I7, however for a few extra fps it didn't seem worth it. It might be worth it for future proofing but by the time I would be updating the CPU there may be a switch to 8 cores.

Fair enough. You've always got to draw the line somewhere.

There is option to have second/another HD external. The reason being, you said you have girlfriend pc capable and plan to get 4k display. External HD loaded with media hooked to DLNA capable Wi-Fi router/gear (including 4k display perhaps? and phones, TVs or AV receivers) could serve for multiple purpose on multiple platforms.

I mean, 2T toady is not too much but I suspect large part of such storage will be multimedia, unless you keep many games installed but those you probably play from SSD. You do not need to have PC on all the time to access your media and can access it over home network with more convenience and lower power consumption.

tuco wrote:There is option to have second/another HD external. The reason being, you said you have girlfriend pc capable and plan to get 4k display. External HD loaded with media hooked to DLNA capable Wi-Fi router/gear (including 4k display perhaps? and phones) could serve for multiple purpose on multiple platforms.

I mean, 2T toady is not too much but I suspect large part of such storage will be multimedia, unless you keep many games installed but those you probably play from SSD. You do not need to have PC on all the time to access you media and can access it over home network with more convenience and lower power consumption.

A sizeable external HD is something I've considered as a later add on. As a musician with a "bedroom studio" I record a fair bit of high quality uncompressed audio, at some point I really should rationalise all my data which is currently over split several devices, but today is not that day.

I am lead to believe that steaming, digital media, over home networks is relatively new trend due to technologies available. It should only get better in time, cheaper and more well technological. Watching HD Star Trek while sitting on toilet on tablet or playing your gf her fav song to her notebook from your phone is fun stuff but as you said, split over several devices and platforms. That is not how I see future.

Finally got my order in, now the impossible wait for build and delivery. In the end I got a 4ghz i7, and a 2tb drive. Rest of the specs remain the same.

Took delivery yesterday. Honestly couldn't be happier with the build and performance. Runs the Witcher 3 like a champ on Ultra, even with half the GPU shut down. A long lead in time waiting for delivery, but other than that I can't fault PC Specialist. Thanks to everyone that contributed to this thread. I've nick named it the Monolith, it's black, rectangular and slightly huge.

Get a couple of apes and see what happens.

Oh my God. It's full of stars.

electricwhiteboy wrote:Corsair 1000W RM series gold ultra quiet. Had pretty solid reviews.

If you have the money, why not SuperFlower Platinum?

By the way, you can post pics of that PC?

quas wrote:

electricwhiteboy wrote:Corsair 1000W RM series gold ultra quiet. Had pretty solid reviews.

If you have the money, why not SuperFlower Platinum?

By the way, you can post pics of that PC?

Fairly sure that the company that built it for me didn't have it as an option.

I've moved house recently but I've got it set up again now. Post some pics when I get home, I'm assuming folk want a peak inside as the case is basically a slightly huge black box.