£650 Gaming Build

[J-Pandit]

Looking to build a solid gaming PC, not sure if this is what some of you want to hear, but I'm more interested in the performance of the PC than the "build" itself. If that doesn't make sense, it's less of a hobby thing, more just buying a PC - I'm not looking for a £100 case with LED displays and water cooling that I'm going to spend hours overclocking and tweaking, with everything colour-coordinated, rather, I'm looking to get the most that I can for £650
Hoping to play games like Battlefield 4 at Ultra, above 50fps would be nice.

I'm not a fanboy either way, the impression that I get is Intel are better, but I can't tell whether the price difference justifies it. The budget of £650 is pretty strict I'm afraid.

I'm thinking something along the lines of:
CPU: Intel Core i5 4690 (Haswell Refresh)
Mobo: Gigabyte GA-Z97-HD3
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz 9-9-9-24
GPU: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 "Dual-X" 3GB OC
HDD: WD Blue 1TB
SSD: Crucial MX100 128GB
DVD: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE (SATA DVD Writer)
Case: Cooler Master Centurion 6 Black
PSU: XFX 550W Core
CPU Cooler: Zalman CNPS10x-Optima
(already got OS)

Buying all of that from Scan (besides the GFX card, from Novatech) comes to £681.14.

As far as I'm aware, that's a pretty standard/ideal build, I'd rather not skimp back on anything, so if anybody has any suggestions about where the £30 saving could come from that'd be much appreciated
Obvious choices are a cheaper CPU or scrap the SSD, but I'd rather do neither...

The Fractal Design Define R4 looks like a very popular case at the moment, but when I'm trying to find £s between CPUs, I can't really justify cases to myself.
I haven't seen much about the Centurion but all the Cooler Master cases I've ever seen have been good, and I can't see anything wrong with it.

Any suggestions on the motherboard? A small amount of OC potential would be nice, but I can't really think of anything else I need out of a motherboard (besides for it work!)
The parts I have the hardest time choosing are the case and motherboard, so if someone can recommend/verify my choices that'd be great.

Thank you!!

[kalniel]

Really smart build. Don't think I'd change anything, get building!

[J-Pandit]

Wow, thanks! I guess I'll have to find that extra £30 somewhere.

[Jtl2877]

How much is that case? Have you thought about the Corsair 230T or the 300? They both seem like decent cases.

I've always found the case to be an important part of any build, it's something you have to look at most of the time, it's the most noticeable part, always worth spending an extra £20/£30 on it if it's one you like.

[J-Pandit]

How much is that case? Have you thought about the Corsair 230T or the 300? They both seem like decent cases.

I've always found the case to be an important part of any build, it's something you have to look at most of the time, it's the most noticeable part, always worth spending an extra £20/£30 on it if it's one you like.

I'm guessing you mean the 300R?
The Centurion is £40 and I read the TechPowerUp review and it looks pretty good imo. The two you suggested are £60 and, I can't really see any advantage for me. Thanks anyway
If you spot anything wrong with the Centurion / much better about the Corsairs please let me know.

[Eldeblor]

Looks good, I saw the card on novatech but can not afford it currently .

[MrJim]

Any suggestions on the motherboard? A small amount of OC potential would be nice, but I can't really think of anything else I need out of a motherboard (besides for it work!)
The parts I have the hardest time choosing are the case and motherboard, so if someone can recommend/verify my choices that'd be great.

Thank you!!

If you're planning to overclock, you'll need a 4690K processor, as the 4690 is locked. Regarding the SSD, you might be better going for the M550 rather than the MX100, as the sequential write speed of the 128GB drives is only 150MB/s, against 350MB/s for the M550. The M550 is about £10 more expensive though.

[Jtl2877]

I'm guessing you mean the 300R?
The Centurion is £40 and I read the TechPowerUp review and it looks pretty good imo. The two you suggested are £60 and, I can't really see any advantage for me. Thanks anyway
If you spot anything wrong with the Centurion / much better about the Corsairs please let me know.

Yeah the 300R, get a bit lost with some of the Corsair stuff.

Just looked at the Centurion 6, looks ok, seems to offer an easy build (plenty of space and some decent looking cable management)

Like most things though when building a PC it comes down to what you like and what's in budget

[Jtl2877]

If you're planning to overclock, you'll need a 4690K processor, as the 4690 is locked. Regarding the SSD, you might be better going for the M550 rather than the MX100, as the sequential write speed of the 128GB drives is only 150MB/s, against 350MB/s for the M550. The M550 is about £10 more expensive though.

There is also this on Scan for £6 more

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/120gb...-410mb-s-256mb

and for £20 more, you can double the size, with this. Although if you only install the basics like the OS and even MS Office, plus a few other bits you should be fine with the 120gb/128gb. I have the Samsung one, and love it, have around 80gb left and no games go on this, just OS and a few bits and bobs, but I could fill it up quickly if I really wanted too

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/256gb...c-95mm-adapter

[J-Pandit]

Thanks for all these suggestions, but I'm already £30 over budget. I can live with not overclocking - the way I see it a CPU's either outdated or it isn't, a small OC isn't going to change that.
Obviously a big OC might/could - but by the stage the 4690 is too old to play the latest games, I imagine the GPU will be as well so I'll be looking to upgrade the system anyway.
People are still using first and second generation Core i5s and i7s fine, so I think I should be good for a while with the 4690.
If you think I'm making a serious mistake please say so!

I won't need the SSD space with the 1TB drive - I'll just have the OS and my documents and essential programs on the SSD, and everything else (including games) on the 1TB. I probably will make the jump to the 840 evo, thanks for pointing that out.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Is that a 4690 or 4690K?? If it is the former it cannot be overclocked.

Also,I would stick with the MX100 TBH. The extra 8GB storage is far more important,plus it is even an MLC drive too.

I use a Kingston 120GB SSD which I won,and it surprising how quickly it will fill up.

Edit!!

If it is a 4690,I would just get a cheaper motherboard TBH.

[Jtl2877]

Maybe you could save a few £s on the mobo, this has had decent reviews and is a little cheaper, if your not OCing you could even get a cheaper one, just seen this had good reviews and didn't seem that bad.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/gigab...mi-dvi-vga-atx

Or maybe a mobo like this and the drop from the Haswell refresh to an i5 4670, can save a couple of quid on the cpu, however you would save more on the mobo. The performance wouldn't really be noticeable anyway, not really, maybe in the odd benchmark here and there, but not in 'normal' use.

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/msi-b85m-g43-intel-b85-s-1150-ddr3-sata-iii-6gb-s-pcie-30-(x16)-d-sub-dport-dvi-d-hdmi-matx

Just a quick thought, if your not OCing, would you really need the aftermarket cooler, It's nice to have, but would it really be needed? Any extra saved is a good thing

[J-Pandit]

Just a quick thought, if your not OCing, would you really need the aftermarket cooler, It's nice to have, but would it really be needed? Any extra saved is a good thing

You're suggesting that... that I use the stock cooler!
Yeah, I guess I could, but I like the idea of everything running cool and quiet (or cooler and quieter). My friend used the AMD stock cooler for a week, and his budget was tighter than mine, but he still managed to find the extra £20ish to get an aftermarket cooler - I don't know if that's because he was temps-mad or if it really was that loud.

It's an ~£8 difference between the 4670 and 4690 and the different motherboards combined, and I think I can justify that to myself for having the latest chipset and CPU.
I know it's basically still all Haswell, but I'd rather not be outdated before I even start building.

I guess I'm not being very helpful, asking for potential savings and turning down all these good suggestions, but I should probably have mentioned I managed to up the budget by £20. I've saved £10 just by looking in places other than Scan.

I never realised the non-K ones were completely locked, I just thought it meant that they weren't as good or designed for overclocking. The only cheaper Z97 motherboards are cheap MSIs or one Gigabyte that has a poor selection of ports, so again, it looks like I'm sticking where I am

How does the MX100 compared against the Sandisk Ultra Plus? They're exactly the same price on Scan, but the Sandisk has higher read/write speeds and they've both got the same "IOPs" but I know these figures aren't always everything.

I'll probably be ordering on Friday

[J-Pandit]

Update - (thanks to Jtl2877's suggestion!) I've just seen Scan have a deal on the Z87-D3HP with a 128GB Plextor SSD for £119.84 which would save me £17.06, so I might even be able to make the original £650 budget!

Is there any reason to go with Z97 over Z87? I checked the CPU support list for the Gigabyte Z87 board and it supports all the haswell refresh CPUs (4690 and 4690k).
I could even spend the money saved on the K CPU, would that be worth it with this motherboard? The impression I get is that D3HP is higher than HD3 in Gigabyte's weird naming conventions.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

If you have the extra budget I would get the Xeon E3 1230 V3 off Aria(no stock at Scan ATM). Basically it is a slightly lower clocked Core i7 4770K with no IGP and cannot be overclocked.

[Jtl2877]

If you have the extra budget I would get the Xeon E3 1230 V3 off Aria(no stock at Scan ATM). Basically it is a slightly lower clocked Core i7 4770K with no IGP and cannot be overclocked.

I also agree with this, I did a little research as I have just got a new i5 4670, I would have gone with the Xeon but Scan didn't have it in stock. It would have cost me an extra £25 I think, but the difference in performance made it worth while. You're getting i7 performance (almost) for the cost of a high end i5 (just a tad more)

I'm currently running a stock heatsink, it's ok, just ok though. I am looking at an after market one, so I know what you mean hehe just need to get one that will fit my itx board and leave room for my gfx card and doesn't get In the way of my ram!