Hi All, Been a very long time since I was on this forums ... even longer since iv built a PC. I am looking to build a Gaming rig, so were looking at CPU, GPU, Motherboard and RAM been my main concern for now. I would like to go water cooled at a later time but for the time been and budget id like the best hardware. So im turning to you guys as i have spent the day reading about Intel and AMD and to be honest its all pretty confusing. Would I be able to build a good rig for £750 ? Hope you all can help. Regards Chris
As a follow up i have done a little more digging and wondered if this would be a good rig? http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/zWuE
For a stock machine go haswell, no reason to use 1155 parts now. Also aria have a 7870 taheti on offer which would be a good bet. Rest looks decent though.
Hi. I think the very first thing you need to do is a bit more research. The Bit-Tech buyers guide is a good place to start: http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/buyers-guide/2013/08/22/pc-hardware-buyer-s-guide-august-2013/3. The Custom PC mag is also great in that it has a more up to date guide in addition to other bits or recommended gear. Not to mention the various monthly reviews and articles (I expect some advertising cheesecake for that!! ) We also need to be a bit more clear on what your £750 budget covers. Is it just the CPU, GPU, Motherboard and RAM? In which case, i5-4670K CPU + motherboard = £300, RAM about £50 which leaves £400 for a graphics card. Go crazy. Finally, what do you actually want to play on it? The computer I built in 2009 (using a rather middle-of-the-pack AMD Phenom 720 and ATI HD4870) still plays any every game at 1080p, usually with high graphics settings but without much or any anti-aliasing. I would LOVE to upgrade but just haven't been able to justify it. I think the truth of the matter is computers have been "fast enough" for the past few years. The biggest impact on system performance is not an uber-killer-crazy CPU or graphics card but a solid SSD and I would seriously urge you to get one. Once you do, you can never really go back to mechanical storage. I had great fun building my computer but a lot of that was in thinking hard about what I actually needed, doing lots of research and of course, asking for help on these forums.
Oh. It's also probably worth mentioning that as the new consoles are coming out, it might be prudent to wait a year or so to see how things pan out. For better or for worse, most games are multiplatform releases. PC development has far outpaced the current consoles but that should all change in a couple of months. There is talk that future games will take greater advantage of multiple cores and increased VRAM. AMD might also have an edge since they are designing the processors in both consoles. That's all speculation of course. Anything mid-to high end (by bit-tech standards) will likely run anything for years to come but it is some food for thought.
josephlck, Thank you for that well informed reply I have spent the last two days digging through reviews of a fair bit of gear. Games wise it will be things like BF3/4, Rome Total War 2, Skyrim, GTA .... the normal line up tbh. The missus also loves The Sims 3 and will want The Sims 4 when that hits the shelves. I have in fact got a pre-order in on the Xbox One but have been rethinking this due to the fact after Christmas the price will drop and it should be fairly apparent of any faults the console may have. Hence why I have been thinking of going down the PC route again. I also do a hefty amount of design work in Adobe Photoshop ( as I am a web designer ) and sometimes create 3D models. ( sorry i should have outlined this in my first post ). At the moment I am currently looking at the following : Intel I5-4670k MSI Z87-G45 Corsair Vengeance 8gb (2x4gb) Graphics cards is where I really am not sure. Eventually I would love to hook 2 up and in the long term the rig will be receiving the water cooled treatment. I have recently bought a Samsung SSD for my Samsung laptop and yeah it made one hell of a difference and it was already a quick machine to begin with. Thank you again for you help thus far. Regards Chris