Budget: £500 Main uses of intended build: gaming / HD video Parts required: Motherboard CPU RAM SSD PSU Previous build information: case optical drive x2 150G drives Maybe 8800 GTX (untested) Monitor resolution: 1920 x 1080 Storage requirements: I have lived with 150G drives in the past, so a SSD the same size would work Will you be overclocking: no Any motherboard requirements: on board display would be nice, so i can use it while waiting to get a graphics card, if the 8800 GTX turns out to be dead Extra information about desired system: I will be buying a Graphics card later down the line around the £200 mark. what iv been looking at (would like thoughts on): Gigabyte G1.SNIPER Z87 Motherboard - £122.91 Intel i5 4690 Quad Core CPU - £159.70 Crucial 8GB 1600MHz - £56.83 Samsung 840 EVO 120GB - £53.49 Corsair RM750 - £87.99 Total £480.92
The 8800GTX will bottleneck your build hugely so until you replace it with a more modern GPU your CPU choice will be massive overkill. Also, unless you are planning to go down the SLI/Crossfire route in the future the 750W PSU could be trimmed back as low as 500W. I run an overclocked 3570K and GTX770 based rig on one of these and it barely even breaks a sweat even when gaming hard, but you could get away with a more modestly priced unit around the 500-600W mark to save some pennies.
Shirty is bang on the money. 500W will be fine (I run my OC'd 3570K and GTX 770 on a 450W PSU). Also, you'd be better off spending the extra £4 and getting an unlocked 4670k. I know you've said no OCing, but honestly, its so easy nowadays. Just a question of jumping into the BIOS, raising the multiplier, and job done.
completely understand, the 8800GTX would be purely a layover for a few weeks until i get more funds. I was looking at a few cards around the £200 mark and a lot of the descriptions say 500w just for the graphics card. so i was just airing on the side of caution. whats the comparison like between a stock 4690 and an OC 4670k?
At stock the 4690 will be slightly faster due to the 100mhz clockspeed advantage. An OC'd 4670k at 4.4Ghz will blow the 3.5Ghz 4690 out of the water. (and 4.4GHz is very easily achieved)
ok iv been watching a few videos about the board and reading about OC'ing and i am coming around the the idea if it can really get those sorts of results. I was just going to air cool it, once you OC it what cooling would you recommend?
Any cooler that isn't the stock cooler will be fine for moderate OCing (up to 4.4Ghz). Something like this at the low end or this which should provide slightly better performance.
You should be able to get it to turbo at its max speed all the time on the stock cooler would not recommend a lot else though. You can decent coolers for cheap that will do a job and not break the bank. It's better to install a custom cooler first than later as if you want one later your removing the mobo to fit the bracket in most cases. The psu is overkill and that saving there would give you the cash for a custom cooler. Unless you plan to SLI or cfx in the future.
I'd err on the side of caution on this one. I've built numerous rigs at work with coolers ranging from mid range air coolers to top of the range AIO liquid coolers and only 50% of the 4670ks I've overclocked have made it past 4.2GHz without overheating or needing excessive volts (one needed 1.3V to sustain 4.3GHz). But yeah, otherwise I agree with going 4670k s even a small overclock will make it faster than the 4690.
I was thinking of just getting it to 4GHz OC, as i have never overclocked before i want to try get it to a nice speed but not push it to the upper limits. Is the i5 4690k any more reliable at getting the better overclock speeds? and i noticed the 4690k declares its socket as "H3 LGA-1150" is this different from just a 1150 socket? just wondering if i would need to look for a new mobo if i oped for the new i5
4Ghz should not be a problem with either the 4670k or the 4690k. There are some electronic details that are different with the Devils Canyon Cpus which could potentially lead to incomparability with older mainboards, however assuming you got the one you linked in the first post (Gigabyte G1 Sniper) then there will be no problem as that board does support the newer Cpus.
if i was looking at other boards what am i looking for to make sure it is compatible? or is there a list somewhere with compatible boards?
My 4670k sits at 4ghz with the greatest of ease and Im no o/c expert The MSI Z87 is now under 100pounds on Amazon and is a belter of a motherboard
All Z97 and most Z87 boards are compatible, best to just check the manufacturers website, most of them have a cpu compability list in the product description on the website.
IMO if you're going for a Devil's Canyon CPU which is what the 4690(K) is ( dubbed the Haswell Refresh on Scan.co.uk ) I would always opt for the 9 series motherboards which are Z97 & H97 chipsets, just for the fact that they are fully compatible out of the box!.. Even if it states that motherboard supports the Devils Canyon chips on the manufacturers website, you may get one from the shop that is not firmware updated to support it yet and so may run into issues booting up, UNLESS the Devil's Canyon chip & Z87 motherboard still allows you to boot into the uefi / bios and give you the chance to update the uefi / bios firmware in which I must say would be very fortunate of you if that is the case!.. If you can find a similar spec'd Z97 motherboard to go with that CPU for a similar price, then all for the better!.. However, if you're dead set on that motherboard you can't really go wrong with the 4670(K) CPUs albeit risking the chance of getting one which is not very overclockable, but in your case I guess isn't the top importance to you, right?.. Here's one Z97 motherboard from Gigabyte sold on Amazon if you don't mind the black & red/grey colour scheme... I know it's a little more pricier than the Z87 motherboard sold on Amazon but I guess you were expecting to pay that much from what I saw in the OP... 2pence worth!..
