£1300 Gaming / Content Production First Build

[cloudlaws]

Taking on a fair project for Christmas and building my first computer, any comments or input on my choices or tips I should know would be appreciated!

CPU: i7 4790k
GPU: Gigabyte Gtx 970 G1 Gaming
Motherboard: Gigabyte z97x-SOC FORCE
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 2x8gb 1866mhz
Storage: WD 3TB 3.5" + 250GB Samsung Evo SSD
PSU: Corsair AX860i
Case: Fractal Design Define r5 black w/window
Monitor: Could do with advice on a 144hz monitor
Keyboard: Corsair K70 RGB (mx brown switches)
Mouse: Razer Naga 2014

Thanks!

[george1979]

What kind of content production? To be honest that set up will do fine for any video/photo creation you might undertake.

Unless you are going to overclock I'd get rid of the 4690k and either get the non-k or save more money and get a xeon as its basically an i7 without the IGP. I wouldn't recommend overclocking if you are using it for work projects - these CPUs are more than powerful enough and you're just giving yourself more work to do and more opportunity for things to go wrong. Hopefully CAT will be on as I'm sure he uses a Xeon and can point you in the right direction on that.

The Xeons use the same socket as i7s:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/intel...che-80w-retail

You could then save some cash on the Mobo as well, although I understand you may well be happy to spend the extra on these items I just thought I'd point it out

The 860 watt PSU is overkill in my opinion, you'd be fine with a good quality 500w unit from seasonic, superflower etc.

Just an example:

http://www.scan.co.uk/products/520w-...bronze-atx-psu

The money you save on the CPU and PSU you can put into your monitor, SSD or whatever you fancy

[cloudlaws]

What kind of content production? To be honest that set up will do fine for any video/photo creation you might undertake.
The 860 watt PSU is overkill in my opinion, you'd be fine with a good quality 500w unit from seasonic, superflower etc.

Content production is mainly video editing and rendering, photography related and live streaming/recording. Would love to start doing animation too!

Would be more than willing to do some over OCing if I were to opt for an i7, the PSU is actually the only item I have, I picked it up on SCAN when it was at £130, which was a really good price, and even cheaper then the ax760i on most other sites. The platinum efficiency is nice and I wanted a little extra headroom in case I put in a second 970 in the future

Thanks for the advice!

[george1979]

Content production is mainly video editing and rendering, photography related and live streaming/recording. Would love to start doing animation too!

Would be more than willing to do some over OCing if I were to opt for an i7, the PSU is actually the only item I have, I picked it up on SCAN when it was at £130, which was a really good price, and even cheaper then the ax760i on most other sites. The platinum efficiency is nice and I wanted a little extra headroom in case I put in a second 970 in the future

Thanks for the advice!

Ah ok fair enough if you got a good deal on the PSU.
I do video work too and I'd advise against OC'ing as stability is much, much more important than saving a little time rendering. You may not have any issues but when it comes to video I'd value reliability and consistency over speed any day. When you also take into account the extra effort, power and cooling required it's, to me anyway, just not worth it. I know a lot of people enjoy tinkering and wringing out extra performance though so each to their own

Also you haven't mentioned cooling for the CPU - if you are going to OC then you'll need an aftermarket solution for this.

It looks a great build though (very jealous lol) so best of luck with it!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would consider a six core Core i7 5820 and also remember if you are using Adobe software there are far more certified AMD cards(and then tend to perform better in realworld OpenCL benchmarks and CS uses OpenCL).

If you are doing animation what software are you using??

You can brute force rendering at a higher rate using consumer cards,but things like viewpoint acceleration suffer on consumer cards due to the drivers.

[cloudlaws]

Also you haven't mentioned cooling for the CPU

Ahh sorry I forgot! Dark Rock Pro 3 by Be Quiet! Hope to make the system a near silent affair Thanks again for the input, its given me a bunch to consider

[pledgerwood]

I think that the build is good. If you are going to be gaming, you could balance it out with a 980. Other than that it is very good! Good luck!