PC building and configs

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Sun Aug 23, 2015 5:25 pm

Hi all,

Moving along with my project I have decided to build a PC. PC configurations and building are not one of my strong points since I have never built a PC before.

I like opinions of the masses.

This is what my work colleague suggested I should get for my budget of approximately £1000 (This is for PC only, I have already acquired mouse, keyboard, mouse mat, desk and 2 monitor stand).

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00EB6O4N8/r ... JUPZ&psc=1 - Case

SSD - Samsung 250GB

RAM -
HyperX FURY Series 16GB (2x 8GB) DDR3 1866MHz CL10 DIMM Memory Module Kit

Motherboard -
Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard (4x DDR3, 4x USB3.0, 10x USB2.0, GBE, LAN, HDMI)

PSU -
Antec HCP-850 850W 80+ Platinum 13.5cm PWM DBB Fan Jap Caps

Graphics card - Asus Nvidia GeForce GTX 960 Strix Direct CU II Graphics Card (4 GB, GDDR5, PCI Express 3.0, HDMI, DVI-I, 3 x Display Port)

CPU -
Intel Core i7 i7-4790K CPU (Quad Core 4GHz, Socket H3 LGA-1150)

I have a 500GB secondary drive that I took out of an old PC thats going in.

What I want to know is if my system has weaknesses. I am not gaming on the PC, at least not serious FPS or anything like that. Most it will do is video editing. I am also in the camp that says my system doesn't have to be the best. I would prefer to save money if the dividends of say £100 buys me 10% extra (Thats what I heard about skylake). I also want potential for 3 screens in the future hence the choice of Graphics card.

Please chime in with opinions, personal setups as well as giving guidance. Thanks all.#

Richard.

ZellSF · Post by **ZellSF** » Sun Aug 23, 2015 10:32 pm

For a budget build, 850w power supply seems very out of place.

クリスチャン · Post by **クリスチャン** » Sun Aug 23, 2015 11:35 pm

What games are you planning on playing? You should put more of your budget towards a better graphics card (GeForce GTX 970 comes to mind).

16GiB of RAM isn't necessary, 8GiB is fine.

An i7 also isn't necessary, go with an i5.

PSU is also overkill, all you need is a 500-600 watt PSU.

You guys across the pond have Skylake already I believe so look for a socket 1151 Z170 motherboard and an i5 6600K as that is the new Intel platform.

blizzz · Post by **blizzz** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 2:12 am

For heavy video editing an i7 and 16 GB RAM helps a lot, but it's not necessary. If you're only doing light editing, an overclocked i5 or a Xeon might be the better choice if you want to save a bit.

- 850W PSU
That's way more than your system will need. A 400W or 500W PSU would be enough for your config. Just make sure it's from a quality brand with good caps.

- Z97 chipset
This only makes sense if you're planing to overclock your CPU. If not you can save a bit and buy a cheaper chipset.

- CPU Cooler
You haven't mentioned the CPU cooler you want to buy. I hope you're not planing to run a 4790k with stock cooler!

- Hard drive
500 GB for a video editing machine is really low. I would recommend 2 x 1TB RAID0 or RAID10 with 4 drives if you want to store videos on your PC and not on a NAS.

- GTX 960
Not a bad choice. But if you're not planing to play modern games it might already be more than you need.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 11:04 am

Would need someone to give alternative PSU as the one recommended was for the caps and reliability and being more than I need.

Stock cooler is so because my colleague runs games on his and has never had any issues with the intel processor or the graphics card... although he has a different graphics card. It should be noted that 2 people whom I work with had AMD beforehand and stated they run too hot and need lots of cooling. INTEL runs quieter than a mouse and the heat generated its almost zilch.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 11:17 am

Video editing/encoding is much more demanding on the CPU than games. If you work on videos often you will need a more efficient cooling solution.

mvsfan · Post by **mvsfan** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 11:34 am

I never go big in the graphics department because I almost always playing classic games. but for you, you will need a good video card to do editing.

your power supply is too big unless you are going to have a powerful graphics card or two.

a good brand power supply like an Enermax will last. dont get any no name junk and you should be ok. a lot of the off brand stuff has serious power quality issues as well as cheap brand caps.

ZellSF · Post by **ZellSF** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 12:20 pm

I have to agree on buying a better than stock cooler for the 4790k, I have a decent third party air cooler and I still had to disable hyperthreading and reduce the voltage to the CPU (from the admittedly insane defaults my motherboard picked) because of temperature concerns.

Would need someone to give alternative PSU as the one recommended was for the caps and reliability and being more than I need.

It's more than you need if you have two graphic cards and a whole lot of other stuff drawing power. That's money in your budget that could be going towards something you would actually benefit from.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 1:34 pm

Ok, could someone recommend a PSU and cooling solution that is suitable to my needs. Please.

Please provide links. Doesn't matter if its American website I will just look up the UK equivalent.

Thanks.

beatsgo · Post by **beatsgo** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 3:49 pm

620w Seasonic PSU yo
CoolMaster Hyper 212 yo

RGB32E · Post by **RGB32E** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 4:12 pm

At this point in time I would go with an Intel Z170 based mobo and a Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe SSD. The Z170 mobos get better performance with M.2 PCIe SSDs and don't hog PCIe lanes from the graphics slots.

About the Z97 - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/sam ... ,3826.html, page 3:

Of course, as we've established, ASRock's Z97 Extreme6 is unique. It does have a two-lane M.2 PCI Express 2.0 slot competing for the PCH's limited bandwidth. But it also employs what ASRock calls Ultra M.2, which is a second slot tapping into a Haswell-based CPU's 16 lanes of third-gen PCIe, too. This slot isn't affected by the chipset. And if you drop a PCIe M.2 drive into the Ultra slot, you can still use SATA Express, which is wired into Z97. In exchange, you can't run a graphics card using the processor's 16 lanes, instead bumping it down to eight. Perhaps more severely, SLI and CrossFire configurations are out, too.

So if you ever want the performance of a PCIe M.2 SSD, the Z170 is a much better choice than the Z97. Also, the price difference between equivalently equipped Z170 and Z97 mobos is negligible.

ZellSF · Post by **ZellSF** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 5:05 pm

I'm sort of inclined to agree with people saying go Skylake, I avoided it personally because it would to me also mean buying new memory, but if you're starting from scratch it's not that much more expensive.

That said, you really shouldn't worried about the bolded quote, especially not for a 960. 8x doesn't even limit Titan X cards much. Limited PCI-e lanes is more a worry if you want to use expansion cards/M.2 SSDs in the future.

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 7:51 pm

The hardware you guys are talking about isn't even in the PC configurator at overclockers.co.uk.

Which makes a novice like me cringe.

Is there is a configurator tool out there which has all these hardware options?

beatsgo · Post by **beatsgo** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 8:08 pm

I'm surprised you haven't used this website yet: PC Parts Picker

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Mon Aug 24, 2015 8:10 pm

What an Eastern European website called duckduckgo!?

Nocturnal · Post by **Nocturnal** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 2:05 pm

If you are video editing, the extra ram will help, as well as the i7 processor. Too much ram is never a bad thing especially with gaming these days as well as video editing.

Would recommend getting a GTX970, and getting a lower wattage PSU. 850W is a bit overkill, 750W should do you fine.

Ed Oscuro · Post by **Ed Oscuro** » Tue Aug 25, 2015 9:45 pm

Here's a good article on power supplies: PC World

The only concerns about buying a power supply that's got a much higher wattage rating than what you are going to use is that it might be less efficient than its label (i.e. the 80+ Bronze, Silver, Gold, Titanium labels) states. The article glosses over this point; it doesn't seem the author has been looking at tests which demonstrate this can be an issue. But, in most cases, it probably won't be much of an issue.

On the flip side, it is important to have a power supply that can deal with the maximum power draw in your system, so don't worry about buying something with more wattage than you're using immediately. This is especially true if you ever decide down the line you need a new motherboard and CPU, or want to pop in a new hard drive or three. The potential can be useful. For myself, I've never had any trouble sticking with roughly 650W PSUs, myself, and that includes having a bunch of hard drives plugged in. I don't have a super power-hungry graphics card plugged in, though (my Radeon HD 4870x2 never got used, lol).

It's also important to find a good brand for PSUs. "Corsair, Seasonic, and Antec" are good default choices, as the article says. Cooler Master might be okay, though the latest review I've found of their recent PSUs is that it's not quite up to the best standard, but close.

For CPU fans, I'm actually pretty fond of Noctua products, though their customer support (in the US) wasn't good to me (I ended up having to order an adapter kit for one of my products, when it was clearly stated that they'd send one out for free - they never did). In the UK you should have better luck, and in any case, just buy what you need.

But there's one thing to note here: Noctua products are pretty quiet because they are huge towers full of metal fins to dissipate heat. Unfortunately this comes at the cost of taking up space elsewhere. You need a wide enough case to fit a big cooler, and you also want to be careful about buying RAM sticks with big heat dissipating fins, because on many motherboards those RAM modules go right next to the CPU cooler - whose edges might protrude over the edges of a cooling solution. I ran into exactly this problem, though I was lucky in being able to remove the additional heatsink fins from the RAM modules that were being blocked by the CPU cooler.

Instead of getting bogged down in details, I'll just leave you with the thought that the computer can't be quieter than its loudest part - it wouldn't help much to buy an absolutely quiet CPU cooling fan if the computer case itself has loud and noisy fans (assuming you don't need the best just to keep your CPU cool). From the standpoint of noise, whether an older but cost effective design like the Hyper 212 Evo is best for you will come down to how much you are going to pay for quiet components elsewhere. Anything - including the graphics card - can add a lot of noise if it uses lousy components. Thankfully, many of the new graphics cards seem truly excellent in this regard. But then you're down to looking at the case and power supply fans, too.

ZellSF · Post by **ZellSF** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 8:39 am

Not sure if you were giving general advice or talking about what we wrote earlier, but we're not recommending he's buying a better CPU cooler to get a more silent system, we're recommending he gets one that's adequate to cool a i7-4790k: the stock cooler isn't.

Would recommend getting a GTX970, and getting a lower wattage PSU. 850W is a bit overkill, 750W should do you fine.

750w is also overkill, he could save a bit more money by going 650w which is still overkill: OP's proposed setup could run on a 500w supply just fine.

You want some overkill of course, just not 350w overkill and I wouldn't recommend 250w overkill either when there's money to save that could be going to something that'll have a noticeable effect. Maybe even just a higher quality PSU (rather than a higher wattage one).

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 11:49 am

Ok here goes then -

Case - Corsair 750D
CPU - Intel Core i7 i7-4790K (subject to change if Skylake takes my fancy later on but don't know what MB I need etc)
MB - Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel LGA1150 Z97 ATX Motherboard
GC - MSI NVIDIA GTX 970
HDD - Samsung 250GB
Dr2 - 500GB
RAM - Kingston hyper fury Black/red 2 x 8GB
PSU - Corsair Builder Series CXM 600W Modular 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX/EPS PSU

Does this seem more like a balanced system to you guys?

I know nothing of cooling fans and water cooling. Need advice for the fans.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 12:49 pm

The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo has been the top 'bang-for-buck' seller for years, but it's not the easiest to install, and it's BIG so make sure it will fit in your case.

Also you'll need a decent thermal paste like your average Arctic Silver 5
PS: some people recommend the Noctua NT-H1 for a few more $, dunno it makes a big difference...

The trick not to miss the installation of the Hyper 212 Evo is to have a friend hold the whole thing for you while you screw the thing to the board.
A friend that doesn't drink and won't sneeze in the middle of the operation I mean.

Once it's done say goodbye to overheating and loud fan noise, it is very efficient for the price.

blizzz · Post by **blizzz** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 1:18 pm

I assume he's going to overclock the CPU, since he's going for an unlocked i7 processor and a Z97 board. In that case the Hyper 212 will be pushed to or beyond its limits. I'd recommend either a top of the line air cooler like the Noctua NH-D15 or an AIO liquid cooler like the Corsair H110i.

The Hyper 212 would be fine at stock speed, but in that case it would be a waste of money to buy an unlocked CPU and a motherboard that's made for overclocking.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 1:21 pm

The Hyper 212 Evo is fine for OC'ing, not extreme OC'ing, I'd agree with that.

But how much more performance will he need to squeeze out of that i7 for video editing ?

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 1:31 pm

Not planning to OC the CPU.

There isn't anything I need to OC for. With Video editing I can wait a few mins extra for it to do its thing.

HydrogLox · Post by **HydrogLox** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 2:44 pm

neorichieb1971 wrote: SSD - Samsung 250GB

I think you need to research the state SSD of technology and reconsider RGB32E's point - get a motherboard that can utilize (NVMe) PCIe SSDs without compromise and get a PCIe SSD that works well with it. In all likelihood you'll be stuck with the motherboard for the longest time. Yes SSD technology is evolving quickly - but that can only be resolved by your next motherboard that will have to support that generation of SSD technology. Existing PCs are stuck using SATA SSDs because that is all they can utilize - but a new PC with an SSD should take advantage of all the performance benefits that the current SSD generation can offer (especially with Windows 10).

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 2:53 pm

Hi again,

Everyone keeps on saying what I should get but I don't even know what your talking about.

Its like I'm asking a question, you say go elsewhere... I'm like WHERE?

neorichieb1971 · Post by **neorichieb1971** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 4:30 pm

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CCL-Pro-Gamin ... 19f7e0b286

This is cheaper than my config and it seems to have more in it. I don't even need to build it.

HydrogLox · Post by **HydrogLox** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 4:58 pm

neorichieb1971 wrote:Its like I'm asking a question, you say go elsewhere... I'm like WHERE?

RGB32E was quite specific:

RGB32E wrote:At this point in time I would go with an Intel Z170 based mobo and a Samsung SM951 M.2 PCIe SSD.
...
So if you ever want the performance of a PCIe M.2 SSD, the Z170 is a much better choice than the Z97. Also, the price difference between equivalently equipped Z170 and Z97 mobos is negligible.

Samsung MZHPV256HDGL-00000 - SM951 256GB M.2 PCI-e Gen3 8Gbps x 4 AHCI Solid State Drive
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-MZHPV25 ... ords=SM951

Gigabyte Motherboards based on Intel Z170
http://www.gigabyte.com/products/list.a ... p=346&v=27

Now none of these use the "Non-Volatile Memory Express" (NVMe) interface protocol (instead of AHCI) but that may not be an issue if you are upgrading your motherboard sooner than later. A PCIe SSD still has "longer legs" than a SATA SSD.

Everything you need to know about NVMe, the insanely fast future for SSDs.

Also keep in mind that SSDs have potentially shorter lifespans than mechanical hard-drives and volatile memory - so it helps to be mindful what goes onto the SSD (primarily the OS - everything else has to earn its privilege to live on the SSD) and have a disciplined backup strategy in place so that you have an image to put on the next one when the current one fails (and a SSD firmware update tends to wipe it).

In terms of reliability you may want to reconsider re-using your old 500GB hard-drive. It may make more sense to get a new one like a WD10EZEX and to put the old one in a 3.5 inch USB 3.0 SATA HDD Enclosure after moving all the files into public folders. That way you can move stuff over to your new machine as you need it without cluttering it up with cruft while at the same time retaining easy access to everything that was on the old machine.

neorichieb1971 wrote:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CCL-Pro-Gamin ... 19f7e0b286

This is cheaper than my config and it seems to have more in it. I don't even need to build it.

http://www.cclonline.com/category/202/D ... 5-1175003/

... their motherboards seem to be all over the place. It doesn't pay to save on the motherboard; when building a desktop PC you tend to plan on upgrading parts of it later. As a business to make a profit they have cut corners where they can to come up with a good price - so the system has to "look good" today but there is no consideration to delaying your new system's obsolesence.

creamygarlicdip · Post by **creamygarlicdip** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 5:35 pm

get a 1tb 7200rpm drive minimum, youd be surprised how quickly a hard drive will fill up. Also i'd get a 240gb ssd minimum as os drive

For video editing you probably want a config tailored to that, id ask video editing forums.

Xyga · Post by **Xyga** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 5:52 pm

neorichieb1971 wrote:http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CCL-Pro-Gamin ... 19f7e0b286

This is cheaper than my config and it seems to have more in it. I don't even need to build it.

Personally I don't see any problem with that one.

Don't worry about all the advice people are giving, everyone will always try to tell about the best they know.

In any case with a big i7, a GTX9** and enough memory, you'll end up with a machine overwhelmingly more powerful than the one you're probably using now, then after a while you won't remember why you've spent so much money on it.

Unless you already know exacly what you need on a pure technical/specs perspective this is how a 'PC build advice' thread always goes. :p
(Well, if the OP - you - specifies an absolute and rather tight budget limit -> there people will struggle to find the best bang/buck

)

CkRtech · Post by **CkRtech** » Wed Aug 26, 2015 6:48 pm

neorichieb1971 wrote:I am not gaming on the PC, at least not serious FPS or anything like that

blizzz wrote:- GTX 960
Not a bad choice. But if you're not planing to play modern games it might already be more than you need.

Xyga wrote:In any case with a big i7, a GTX9** and enough memory, you'll end up with a machine overwhelmingly more powerful than the one you're probably using now, then after a while you won't remember why you've spent so much money on it.

OK. I've been following this thread, and I am going to throw my two cents in.

I should start off by saying - I edit video (not professionally).

1: You don't need a GTX 960, GTX 970 or any of these other ridiculously priced video cards if you don't game. If you already edited high production video in a professional environment, your budget would be much higher than £1000 & you could probably be using CUDA and that sort of thing.

2: What software are you using? Are you more of an Adobe Premiere Elements/Sony Vegas guy or like an Adobe Premiere Pro guy? Do you already own the software? That stuff can get expensive as well.

3: SSD and an old 500 GB hard drive aren't going to cut it. I don't care what SSD you use for your system drive, get some 7200 RPM drives of decent size - either RAID them or not, and have some redundancy. Ideally you have a source drive (raw video) and a render drive (output) as well as some sort of backup. Personally, my system uses 3 drives (SSD for OS, 2 x Western Digital Black 1 TB drives) + NAS (4 GB drive) + online backup.

Don't lose your work.

I still use an i7-2600K from 2011 with a Noctua NH-D14* and 16 GB of RAM. It gets the job done. I am not saying that you should buy something old and used, but save your money from buying cutting edge, latest and greatest "futureproof" stuff because there is no such thing. Get an i7 processor with a proven cooler, a healthy amount of RAM, and drop most of your money on storage.

* http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002VKVZ1A/ref ... 1_ST1_dp_1

shmups.system11.org

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