This is a boy whose aspiration was a GTX 750 Ti and is used to gaming on an old laptop.
A 270X is a huge step up whether at 720p or 1080p.
He may prefer to continue using the larger screen anyway rather than a 1080p monitor.
I suspect he will be delighted by a 270X or similar.
Quick question: how comes the configuration? Fully decided yet, if I may ask?
Also, as a 14 old boy (not doubting his skills) can fully put together and install a desktop computer?
EDIT: I would slightly modify the previously suggested build.
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/bKRsjX < £633
Proposed case with side window for £57
The newly proposed build got a non-BOX quiet CPU cooler, bigger SSD (256GB vs 240GB), bigger HDD (2TB vs 1TB), slightly faster GPU with efficient and quiet cooling, while still leaving enough from the £700 budget for a case of your choice with desired & respectable qualities.
Review for MSI R9 280.
Last edited by Bonebreaker777; 02-11-2014 at 02:48 PM.
Honestly I'd bin the SSD and shave the CPU cooler down to something like a freezer 7 (we're not OCing so anything should be fine) and you can get a 970/290X for the money. Yes they're massive overkill for that display now, but GPUs are probably the most awkward bit to upgrade (not technically just in terms of cost) and a 280/X is already an old card.Originally Posted by Bonebreaker777
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/VgmP99
I strongly suggest sticking to the stock Intel cooler. There is nothing to be gained by spending money on a 3rd party cooler. And actually installing a large cooler is often the single most fiddly part of the build.
An SSD is well worth it, obviously it does nothing to help frame rates, but it makes a noticeable difference to everything else. For someone who is used to playing on an old laptop even a 270X is just a massive step up. Unless you are a FPS fanatic it is questionable whether you would even notice the benefit from a 970/290X. If we knew he was going to upgrade to a pro-gaming quality monitor and play competitive FPS it might be a different story.
Changing the case might well be a good idea. Certainly the case is a big factor in how straight forward the build is. On the other hand a case is a very personal choice in terms of aesthetics and priorities.
The Arc Mini suggestion is a good one, I assume he does want a window based on his original case choice and you can easily bling up the case by adding some LED fans if that is your thing. I might suggest a Corsair 350D or 450D for similar reasons. The Corsair cases really are extremely easy to build into and very high quality. Might be a little restrained for the tastes of a 14yo boy, but who knows.
It is worth spending extra on the case and PSU because these are items that can almost certainly be reused multiple times. They are much more of a long term investment than the other items in the build. The cheap bronze rated PSUs are certainly adequate, but a higher quality unit would be a better bet in the long run.
True, the 3rd party cooler is the most irrelevant part of the PC, but if the rest of the components would be peacefully humming away, a Intel BOX cooler under load would be certainly an annoying one. After having a passively cooled CPU in my main PC and an Intel BOX cooler on the lowest settings in my home server/NAS, I do prefer the quiet.
Agree on the SSD. Maybe the only thing to look out for is the frequently changing prices, but a quid or two up or down shouldn't really matter.
The case was a suggestion only, it is down to the taste and preferences of the future owner. I prefer conservative.
The PSU I suggested in my opinion is a very sturdy one and should be able to accommodate all the power requirements for a long time (or until more power hungry components will be housed in the case).
One thing I will say about cases, at least in my experience, people are often surprised by the size of mid-ATX cases, as the sort of thing you get from the likes of PC World are generally relatively compact micro-ATX cases. It's hard to get a proper idea from pictures or even dimensions, but it's probably worth checking the external dimensions of any case you choose and check you have room for it.
Cases are one of the hardest things to choose or recommend as they're largely a subjective choice; I'd just avoid very cheap ones as they tend to be harder to work with, have sharp edges, and have poor acoustics (tend to vibrate and don't isolate component noise well for instance). Since a case is something you'll be able to keep through many upgrades, investing a bit more in a decent one is probably worthwhile to avoid buying twice, and their size/weight means they're not as easy to sell on.
As above, reuse is something to consider when it comes to power supplies too, however bronze/silver/gold/platinum (the 80plus ratings) tells you nothing of quality, only rated efficiency at certain loads (annoyingly, often not at the important idle power draw where the PC will probably spend most of its time), but paying over the odds for certain gold/platinum PSUs can be a false economy. Something around the 550W mark, given it's decent quality, should be adequate for most single-GPU systems and perhaps some overclocking headroom; power draw of high-end components has largely levelled out these days. Even a 450W model as suggested in this thread should be plenty for this sort of system, but I'd be more cautious of overclocking. Always go for a decent brand/model though; the ones in this thread are fine, just something to be aware of though - cheap rubbish can be downright dangerous.
There seems to be some disagreement on what to recommend for storage and graphics so I'll try to give some pros/cons to aid in deciding.
For SSD vs HDD, well it's a matter which has been the topic of many a forum debate; some people consider it one of the most important things in any system, others don't see what all the fuss is about. I'm more in the middle myself, having experience with both. As I said earlier, my personal opinion is, I wouldn't consider an SSD that high up on the budget, but to consider one if there's money left over after considering other parts - I'd be cautious of stripping money from CPU/GPU in order to buy one especially if gaming is a priority.
SSDs of course improve boot time, but since it's something you generally do at most once per day, that wouldn't come close to being a justification for me.
Some games have noticeably improved load time from installing them on an SSD, but not all.
Some applications will load and respond more quickly.
Having a load of bloat installed and running at startup will generally cause a HDD system to become more and more sluggish, while an SSD system will often cope better. But if, like myself, you keep an eye on what's installed and automatically starting, this advantage diminishes somewhat.
I could go on, and there are plenty of discussions already on forums and websites, but it's something you'd probably have to try yourself to make your own mind up - again it's a largely subjective thing and depends on how you use the system. Just beware of looking at benchmark scores for SSD vs HDD as they don't directly translate into perceptible differences to the extent the numbers might imply.
For GPU, it's largely a case of how much you want to spend vs what you want the system to do. You can easily spend hundreds to thousands of pounds in this area, but there's a point of greatly diminishing returns once you approach the mid-high end.
The age of a card alone isn't of much importance, and I'd consider the graphics card to be one of the easier things to upgrade, though of course buying a cheaper card only to upgrade soon after is a false economy. On the flip side, spending far more than you need to isn't always financially sound either; one tier up in the GPU market isn't likely to appreciably outlast the lower one, but you may pay considerably more for it, especially at the high end. I'm not saying this really applies to the GPUs recommended here as they're pretty solid, similar-value choices, I'm just rambling.
E.g. the 270X seems to be about 65% of the performance of the 290X for around 50% of the price; considering the 290X is a high-end part that's not bad going - you pretty much get performance tracking with what you want to pay. Of course there's also a mid-ground between these two recommendations, e.g. the AMD 280 series (weirdly the Nvidia 770 stock seems to be drying up?).
Sorry, that was a slightly longer post than intended, hope I've not further complicated anything.
Edit: OK that was a MASSIVELY longer post than intended, kind of defeating the purpose of posting it to clarify things...
Last edited by watercooled; 02-11-2014 at 05:01 PM.
Really, I used a stock cooler on my last rig and it was dead silent. It got noisy after a few years, but once I cleaned it, it became quiet again.
Hexus and other review sites report the same thing:
http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/coolin...-test/?page=12
They can get very loud if you take them out of their comfort zone, but on a stock i5 you shouldn't hear anything.
I don't disagree about the potential usefulness of the Intel BOX cooler under the right conditions, was just merely pointing out that once the ideal conditions dissipate, will the BOX cooler show it's true colours.
Having installed any recently into a gaming machine with a i5.
Last one went into a Sandy Bridge Pentium with adequately cooled case (1 x 12cm from FAN plus 1 x 12cm rear FAN) and was on level 5 speed setting in a AsRock motherboard but under load (prime95,FurMark or OCCT) after 5-7min quickly went full blast to keep the CPU under 65 degrees and then it was anything but not noticeable.
My suggestion case wise came from a friend recent build which utilised a Corsair 350D, with mATX internal description but the actual case came closer to a mid ATX. And no, the assumed extra space which should come from a fact like that (midATX outside but can take only mATX inside) was not present during installation. He abandoned the case and went for the Fractal Design in which the installation was more of a walk in a park. (His build also utilised i5 Sandy Bridge and BOX cooler which makes itself noticeable every time he edits or converts media files).
Last edited by Bonebreaker777; 02-11-2014 at 06:12 PM.
Wow, thanks for all the extra info everyone. I will have a good peruse through it all and see what we can come up withj.
It seems his original spec was based on a Dell Alienware he saw in the outlet so seems that they maybe don't know as much as they think
As far as cases are concerned, he isn't really into jazzy stuff, his main criteria in terms of aesthetics is that it matches in his bedroom with is mainly white with teal blue (turquoise). Not so much a typical 14 year old. Multicoloured leds and brute looks are not really on the agenda. So if there was something fairly straightforward that didn't involve a lot of red and black that would go down well.
With a lot of off-the-shelf systems you see an over-emphasis on CPU over the graphics card; and if anything it should be more the other way for a gaming-focussed system.
Well sure, if you run prime95, but there is no need to run anything like that at all if you are not OCing. Any cooler will make a racket under artificial loads like that. Mine certainly does, but in normal CPU heavy tasks it doesn't make a sound.
If it does make too much noise it will be because the motherboard is being too aggressive. All the major manufacturers have very simple to use software to correct this if necessary.
What particular difficulties did the 350D present? I found it extremely simple in all aspects just as I had read from multiple reviews. Much more convenient than my dad's Define R4 or any other case I have used. The only downside is the lack of a top dust filter.
Having one stupidly powerful component can be grin worthy, his aspiration was an i7 on a £240 motherboard which wouldn't make for a good system.
My point was that things are going towards a nice sensible CPU with a nice middle of the road GPU. Nothing bad in there, and the 270X is better than anything in my house, but it is merely very competent and not something special.
I think the middle of the road system will make him very happy. Nobody needs to tell him it is middle of the road!
Once he knows a little more about computers he can make his own decisions about whether an expensive GPU will be worth it.
And actually upgrading a GPU isn't that difficult either, not even financially. If he wants to upgrade in a year or so he'll be able to pick up a way faster card for not very much and he can flog his old card on ebay.
But he may still be happily playing minecraft and skyrim @ 720p.
Aye, no top filter is one, which must be either covered up (which he did before switching to FD) or must be remedied by adding extra two extra FANs.
Plus the size is betraying, not you would expect from a mATX case.
I personally had an easier time doing the FD that the Corsair.
I missed the case requirement of being white/baby blue.Wow, thanks for all the extra info everyone. I will have a good peruse through it all and see what we can come up withj.
It seems his original spec was based on a Dell Alienware he saw in the outlet so seems that they maybe don't know as much as they think
As far as cases are concerned, he isn't really into jazzy stuff, his main criteria in terms of aesthetics is that it matches in his bedroom with is mainly white with teal blue (turquoise). Not so much a typical 14 year old. Multicoloured leds and brute looks are not really on the agenda. So if there was something fairly straightforward that didn't involve a lot of red and black that would go down well.
Would suggest either http://www.scan.co.uk/products/silve...-psu-(std-atx) or a case I recently purchased ( http://www.coolermaster.com/case/min...dvanced-white/).
The ITX case would require some slight changes but due to size and colour should complement any apartment.I have it, looks elegant and does isolate sound and vibrations reasonably well.
Also the extra financial means required to pull off the ITX build could come from the saving you would make by buying the Cooler Master case.
EDIT: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/VL7P99 £680 for the whole build.
Last edited by Bonebreaker777; 02-11-2014 at 10:42 PM.
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