unreal engine dev PC base only, £700 total, buy 12th Nov 2014

[Wolfsbane2k]

Hi.

Im looking for a new PC for a friend who wants to dev ue4 games , with the recommended spec being a quad core with 16gb and a good gfx card.

I'm looking at this from Novatech, which is an i5 4460 and 750 ti.. and adding the windows 8.1 for £640, plus £60 for another 8gb ram
http://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/range/n...acknti112.html


It seems well balanced for the price, I could build the same for him for approx £5 less, so not worth it as I can then farm out support as well.

I'm giving him a 24" 1080p hdmi screen as well as a usb more and keyboard to get him started.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Get a better graphics card - at least a GTX760 or GTX770.

[Wolfsbane2k]

Get a better graphics card - at least a GTX760 or GTX770.

I'd like to, getting caught between balance of sdd size, gfx and ram.

Full specs I'm looking at.
I5 4460
H81 mobo
16gb ddr1600 CAs 9
750ti
120gb Sdd
1 tb HDD
650w PSU
Case.

[Biscuit]

Definitely listen to CTF and get a better GPU. Personally, i would look at self built AMD options as well, might find you have more flexibility with a 6/8 core AM3 part.

I don't think 16GB of RAM is necessary off the bat, you could get a single 8GB stick then another 8GB stick later. Dual channel RAM doesn't make huge difference to performance so don't worry there.

[Wolfsbane2k]

Definitely listen to CTF and get a better GPU. Personally, i would look at self built AMD options as well, might find you have more flexibility with a 6/8 core AM3 part.

I don't think 16GB of RAM is necessary off the bat, you could get a single 8GB stick then another 8GB stick later. Dual channel RAM doesn't make huge difference to performance so don't worry there.

Yep been listening to CTF for a while ;-)

I've been looking at the fx 8320 and 270x as a bundle in the
http://www.novatech.co.uk/pc/range/n...lacknta35.html

As I'd agree that's needed,but its not my cash :-(

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Only thing with UE4 - does it have Nvidia specific features in it?? APEX and PhysX are integrated into the engine - however I don't know whether any AMD specific technologies will be either,especially with the consoles having AMD GPUs.

Generally under £200,AMD tends to be better value IMHO though,although I heard from a dev,Nvidia cards might be a bit easier to develop for(I cannot independently confirm this though).

[Wolfsbane2k]

Thanks.

I just don't feel right recommending a fx 8320 nowadays, but its probably worth it over the 6300

[Wolfsbane2k]

Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £66.98
GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3P AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) Motherboard £49.99
Novatech Cougar ATX Case with PWM Fan £24.98
Samsung 224DB 24x DVD Re-Writer - SATA - Black - OEM £12.98
XFX ProSeries 550W Core Edition Power Supply - 80 PLUS Bronze Certified £46.99
Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £83.99
Microsoft Windows 8.1 Operating System - OEM - 64 Bit £79.98
MSI Radeon R9 280 TwinFrozr IV GAMING OC 3GB GDDR5 £149.99
Radeon Gold Rewards - Choose 3 Free Games £0
AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 3.50Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £104.99
Western Digital Caviar Green Power 2TB 64MB Cache Hard Disk Drive SATA 6Gb/s <8.9ms - OEM £65.99
Total: £686.86 inc VAT


Gives me a better GFX card, double the SDD size, 8GB less ram, and a different case ( minus the funky front panel) for £100 less.

Anything I'm missing or you would recommend changing?

[Biscuit]

Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800 1600MHz Dual Channel Kit £66.98
GIGABYTE GA-970A-DS3P AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) Motherboard £49.99
Novatech Cougar ATX Case with PWM Fan £24.98
Samsung 224DB 24x DVD Re-Writer - SATA - Black - OEM £12.98
XFX ProSeries 550W Core Edition Power Supply - 80 PLUS Bronze Certified £46.99
Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" SATA 6Gb/s Solid State Hard Drive - Retail £83.99
Microsoft Windows 8.1 Operating System - OEM - 64 Bit £79.98
MSI Radeon R9 280 TwinFrozr IV GAMING OC 3GB GDDR5 £149.99
Radeon Gold Rewards - Choose 3 Free Games £0
AMD Piledriver FX-8 Eight Core 8320 3.50Ghz (Socket AM3+) Processor - Retail £104.99
Western Digital Caviar Green Power 2TB 64MB Cache Hard Disk Drive SATA 6Gb/s <8.9ms - OEM £65.99
Total: £686.86 inc VAT


Gives me a better GFX card, double the SDD size, 8GB less ram, and a different case ( minus the funky front panel) for £100 less.

Anything I'm missing or you would recommend changing?

I would stick with an Nvidia GPU for the reasons CTF mentioned above. There will be no compatibility issues with doing this.

[Pob255]

Hard to say on the dev side of things, esp the nvidia vs amd gpu, there's no need to pair an nvidia with intel or amd gpu with amd cpu.
A lot will depend what he's developing and what it's for.

in theory if he's working on a pc game then he'll need a range of hardware for testing/optimization.

[Biscuit]

Hard to say on the dev side of things, esp the nvidia vs amd gpu, there's no need to pair an nvidia with intel or amd gpu with amd cpu.
A lot will depend what he's developing and what it's for.

in theory if he's working on a pc game then he'll need a range of hardware for testing/optimization.

Well unreal engine, which the main thing mentioned, is historically/typically Nvidia favoured.

[Wolfsbane2k]

I would stick with an Nvidia GPU for the reasons CTF mentioned above. There will be no compatibility issues with doing this.

I was looking at that, but the 760 is more expensive e than the r280, and generally slower, so baulking at the choice.

[Pob255]

unfortunately the gtx960 has been pushed back until q1 next year

if he's looking at a pc game, then he'll want support for both nvidia and amd gpu's, but again depends exactly what he's doing and it's the sort of thing he should know.
I don't expect him to know what's the best card or best value for money card but he should know roughly what he needs and which would be better suited for him.

[Wolfsbane2k]

OK, going with 8350 and 760 instead due to availability.

Can anyone recommend and alternative PSU as well that's at stock at Novatech?

[Wolfsbane2k]

Going xfx 650w PSU and jumping to the 770

[Wolfsbane2k]

Changing to r9 290 instead