Cheap(ish) Gaming/Office build

[mycarsavw]

This one's for my old man.

Nothing will be carried over from his current machine other than the mouse and keyboard.

Primarily it'll be a work-from-home machine but we all know it'll end up being a gaming machine(!), so with that in mind;

CPU - i5-4460 - £118
Mobo - Asus H81M-Plus - £34
GPU - GTX 760 - £129
RAM - Corsair Vengeance 8Gb - £55
PSU - Corsair CXM600W - £49
SSD - Kingston 120Gb - £36
HDD - WD Blue 1Tb x 2 - £72
ODD - LiteOn DVD Writer - £10
Case - Fractal Design Mini - £57
OS - W8.1 64bit - £64
Monitor - AOC E2460SH - £91

Any good? Can I do better for less?

TIA

[abaxas]

Work from home.

Do you mean you are an excel monkey? Or do you do something else?

[risapylsa]

I am quite new to the scene as well and pose a question to any further commenters:

Does the motherboard make that much of a difference? I know some boards support overclocking and some don't. What are the differences between chipsets (H81 as above or z97 or z87) and what is the function of a chipset?

[mycarsavw]

Work from home.

Do you mean you are an excel monkey? Or do you do something else?

I am neither an excel monkey nor do I work from home.

The old man (for it is he who this machine is for) will use a laptop he already owns to work from home when he semi-retires, he has said he needs a new PC to also work from home with, but what he really wants is a gaming machine.

A gaming machine that can also be used to create/view/edit Word documents is what we're after.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would get a R9 280 over a GTX760 TBH. It has more memory bandwith,more VRAM and simply better OpenCL performance in many applications like Adobe PS. It is also a faster gaming card.

There is a GTX960 being released on the 15th but looking at a leaked benchmark,it looks like it will just about catch a R9 280 but it only has a 128 bit memory controller though. The original release date was the 22nd so it is quite possible AMD is also launching a new card too.

[mycarsavw]

Cheers CTF.

I looked at the 280(x) as it was mentioned (edit: by you!) in my other thread.

No idea why I overlooked it though

Apart from that, everything else is ok?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

A motherboard with 4 RAM slots would be better if you want to upgrade the RAM.

I would get this SSD:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT12.../dp/B00BQ4F9ZA

I would get this PSU:

http://www.dabs.com/products/antec-5...Supply%20Units

Edit!!

This R9 280 looks a good deal:

http://www.ebuyer.com/661869-gigabyt...-r928wf3oc-3gd

UK based RMA too.

It appears the GTX960 should be similar in speed(might be slightly faster) than a R9 280 but with less power consumption. However,it only uses a 128 bit memory controller.

Also it seems the exchanges rates for the US dollar have crashed:

http://www.euroexchangeratenews.co.u...-year-low-8743

It might explain why the R9 280 and GTX760 have gone up in price,but it might affect the price of the GTX960 too.

[mycarsavw]

Thanks again CTF.

RAM won't be an issue, I think the next upgrade will be in at least another 5 years time when tech will have moved on considerably.

Noted on the SSD - any reason? I've been perfectly happy with my Kingston (same as yours IIRC).

PSU - the case is quite compact so I was hoping to make use of a modular PSU to only add the cables required. Antec do have some modular PSUs if they're the brand to have - This one Antec VP550F at £38 or this one Antec NEO ECO 450C at £42.

Noted on the GPU issues too - I'm not too fussed about this one being bleeding edge so I think the R9 280/ GTX 760 will suffice.

Appreciate your knowledge as always

[DanceswithUnix]

I have to ask why the pair of spinning drives? Do you *really* need 1TB as my kids (who basically just game) can fit easily on a 500GB drive.

It took me a while to fill my 250GB SSD with games (and again, gaming is what I use Windows for) so now I uninstall something I haven't played for 6 months if I want to install something new.

For the cost of 2x spinning rust and the small SSD, you could have a 480GB ssd. The machine would be a quieter, faster and more reliable.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The PSU is not very big:

http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=...5022122&lan=ec

It fits fine in a Bitfenix Prodigy for example. The SSD would be fine but the problem is Kingston quietly substituted worse NAND for some of the drives.

[D1DM]

PSU - the case is quite compact so I was hoping to make use of a modular PSU to only add the cables required.

Antec do have some modular PSUs if they're the brand to have - This one Antec VP550F at £38 or this one Antec NEO ECO 450C at £42.

Antec isn't necessarily the brand to have, but IMO, the TP-550C is a helluva lot better than the CX600M.

If you really want a modular PSU, then two better choices compared to the CX600M are the Cooler Master G550M/G650M (£50/58 inc VAT at scan) or the V450SM/V550SM (£58/61 inc VAT at scan).

I have to ask why the pair of spinning drives? Do you *really* need 1TB as my kids (who basically just game) can fit easily on a 500GB drive.

It took me a while to fill my 250GB SSD with games (and again, gaming is what I use Windows for) so now I uninstall something I haven't played for 6 months if I want to install something new.

For the cost of 2x spinning rust and the small SSD, you could have a 480GB ssd. The machine would be a quieter, faster and more reliable.

I agree with this, plus would like to add that if more storage is needed later on then it is easy enough to add HDDs/SSDs (SSDs will be cheaper in the future?).

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I suggested the Antec for a mate's build - its made by Seasonic and appears to use decent caps too:

http://www.itocp.com/htmls/24/n-5124-4.html

[DanceswithUnix]

I agree with this, plus would like to add that if more storage is needed later on then it is easy enough to add HDDs/SSDs (SSDs will be cheaper in the future?).

Thinking further on this, if those drives are raid0 for performance, then that isn't going to cut it compared to SSD.

If they are raid 1 for data security, then you probably want those drives in a NAS so you can use them for a disc backup solution.

[mycarsavw]

I have to ask why the pair of spinning drives? Do you *really* need 1TB as my kids (who basically just game) can fit easily on a 500GB drive.

It took me a while to fill my 250GB SSD with games (and again, gaming is what I use Windows for) so now I uninstall something I haven't played for 6 months if I want to install something new.

For the cost of 2x spinning rust and the small SSD, you could have a 480GB ssd. The machine would be a quieter, faster and more reliable.

Thinking further on this, if those drives are raid0 for performance, then that isn't going to cut it compared to SSD.

If they are raid 1 for data security, then you probably want those drives in a NAS so you can use them for a disc backup solution.

IIRC there's a 500Gb drive in his current machine as well as a large external/backup drive.

The idea was to use the SSD for the OS and Office and RAID1 the two mechanical drives to use for everything else. That way he'd never have to worry about running out of space or uninstalling anything to make room for something else. Windows File History will be used in conjunction with the external drive.

I hadn't looked at larger SSDs because of cost limitations, but having had a quick look, prices have dropped a lot so it makes sense. I'll see how much of the current drive he's filled and ask whether he's hit the storage limit at all.

Antec isn't necessarily the brand to have, but IMO, the TP-550C is a helluva lot better than the CX600M.

If you really want a modular PSU, then two better choices compared to the CX600M are the Cooler Master G550M/G650M (£50/58 inc VAT at scan) or the V450SM/V550SM (£58/61 inc VAT at scan).

Unfortunately I've had issues with CM PSUs, cases and RMA procedures in the past which means, sadly, I have no desire to buy anything from them ever again.

The PSU is not very big:

http://www.antec.com/product.php?id=...5022122&lan=ec

It fits fine in a Bitfenix Prodigy for example. The SSD would be fine but the problem is Kingston quietly substituted worse NAND for some of the drives.

Noted on both counts.

[mycarsavw]

Checked with the old man, they are having to uninstall things in order to avoid filling the current/only HDD - a 500Gb WD.

For now, I'll stick with the two spinning HDDs and small(er) SSD.

Here's a revised parts list, minus a monitor which remains unchanged from my first post.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/hVKCqs

If I've not missed anything or made a glaring mistake, I think I'm there.

Thoughts?

[mycarsavw]

No news is good news?