Prospective new rig advice

[Taffycat]

Some of you might recall that shortly before Christmas, I wrote about getting a new PC in the new year. The elderly Novatech XP, (6.5 yrs old) was beginning to make a few noises, etc.

Well, it died during the Crimbo hols... aww As a temporary measure, I decided to try reconnecting the old Vista. Much updating was needed, because it had been "in retirement" for around 18 months... but hey, it booted-up (with a few squeaks and groans, admittedly.) Hubby wasn't bereft of his surfing fixes, and I could access a few old favourite games etc., once again.

Now, it too, is beginning to make some noises... I actually think it might be a fan, but not certain about that... (the rig is close to it's 7th birthday.) So.... it is time to go ahead and get that replacement. Hopefully before poor old Vista also dies a death. (I'll be happier trying to "fix" it if it's not actually being relied upon... if you see what I mean?)

So cutting to the object of this post... bet you never thought I'd get there... lol I've been playing around with some specs, over at PC Specialist. (The Vista PC is one we purchased from them, not had any complaints with it either.)

Would you guys mind passing an eye over this spec please? I'd appreciate any observations you might have. Yes, I know... Ouch! I could build it for much less... only that's not really an option right now, so, other than the price, lol, do any of you think tweaks should be made to anything? I value and appreciate your opinions.

Case
COOLERMASTER CM690 MKII ADVANCED CASE


Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770k (3.5GHz) 8MB Cache


Motherboard
Gigabyte Z87X-SLI: ATX, LG1150, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs


Memory (RAM)
16GB KINGSTON HYPER-X GENESIS DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz, X.M.P (2 x 8GB KIT)


Graphics Card
2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 770 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready


Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON V300 SSD, SATA 6 Gb (450MB/R, 450MB/W)


2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1003FZEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)


1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM


Power Supply
CORSAIR 750W RM SERIES™ MODULAR 80 PLUS® GOLD, ULTRA QUIET (£89)


Processor Cooling
Corsair H80i Hydro Series High Performance CPU Cooler (£69)


Extra Case Fans
2 x 12CM Black Case Fan (configured to extract from rear/roof) (£9)


Sound Card
Creative Sound Blaster Zx 5.1 PCI-E Soundcard (£95)


Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs


USB Options
2 PORT USB 3.0 INTERNAL PCI-E CARD + STANDARD USB PORTS


Power Cable
1 x 2 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)


Operating System
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit w/SP1 - inc DVD & Licence (£79)


Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE


Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE


Warranty
3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)


Delivery
PCS EXTRA-CARE DIAMOND DELIVERY - MON-FRI, PRE-NOON (£9)


Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity 1


Other Features Included As Standard...

Software CD/DVD/BLURAY viewing & authoring software is included with all DVD Writers/BD Drives.

Ports Each computer comes with 1 x PS/2 keyboard port and either 1 x PS/2 mouse port or 2 extra USB ports.

Fans Where necessary your computer will come with extra case fans fitted.
Bezels All our drives come in either silver, black or beige and are all of a
high quality & matched brand.

Support We offer lifetime hardware technical support during normal office hours.
Cables & Manuals A power cable, all drivers, manuals, and a heatsink & fan are included with every orde.

Service Our computers come fully assembled & thoroughly tested. We are so confident in the quality of our computers that we offer a free collection and re-delivery service* should you ever have a problem with your computer.

Installation If you order an operating system it will come fully installed with the CD and licence key.

Packaging Your computer will arrive in a multi-adjustable double walled computer system pack. This packaging has been specially designed for your computer and includes shock absorbing cushion foam end caps and a top fitting box with lifting handles. Internal Instapak™ packaging is included free of charge with certain large case/powerful GPU combinations.

Low Total Cost of Ownership Taking into consideration our low cost telephone support, free collection warranty service* and our strive to use energy efficient components where possible, the total cost of owning a pcspecialist computer is reduced as much as possible.

And Finally If you are lucky enough to have seen a cheaper quote, click here.


Price for this PC System: £1,371.00 inc VAT and Delivery.

Here is a LINKY

Thanks very much for sparing the time to look

 

[Anon_F]

No Blu Ray?
Or AMD Eight Core (useful for crunching)?
But looks very good, can you buy me one too, please!

 

[muckshifter]

OK, well, as a rule, any PC that can run Vista, without tooo much trouble can run Win7 with little bother ... so 'fixing' it and buying Win7 will work out very cheap. It'll just cost you the train fare return.

Now, If you are after a new system, then ... IMPHO (in my personal honest opinion), based on BIY (build it yourself)

Cases:
As long as it has enough room to fit all the components one needs, then I just buy on price, not brand. Oh, I'm actually using a Cooler Master case, the Elite 330U ... nice vid

CPU:
I'd actually recommend something like the i5 4670k over the i7 for gaming, it still has the structural core edge, is a better on price too.

Motherboard:
Nice! I'd class it as a std entry level MB with a bit extra.

Memory:
8MB will be more than enough, no really, my name's not Bill.

Graphics Card:
yep, buy the latest bestist you can get from the savings on the overpriced/not needed stuff.

Storage:
1st Hard Disk main. Get a min 500GB SSD, you can thank me later

2nd Hard Disk:
Whatever.

DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
Can't do without a DVD drive.

Power Supply:
Good choice.

Processor Cooling:
Fine choice, but why? Stock cooler does a good job.

Extra Case Fans:
err, don't it come with at least one fitted?

Sound Card:
Creative Sound Blaster ... huh!
naw, just use the onboard, you not opening a sound recording studio ... then a SB would be as crap anyway.

Operating System:
Yep, Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit.

I can build it in 20mins, but I suppose they may have more than one to do.


You really could build it yourself, and it could well be under the £1,000 mark.



[edit]
I just used my own alterations based on above and my price is under £1k

 

[muckshifter]

No Blu Ray?
Or AMD Eight Core (useful for crunching)?
But looks very good, can you buy me one too, please!

GW2 and AMD don't mix.

 

[Anon_F]

GW2 and AMD don't mix.

Whats GW2?

 

[muckshifter]

Whats GW2?

Mr Google says ...

and

Here

 

[Anon_F]

Oh a game!
Dont play!

 

[floppybootstomp]

Too much money!

Ok, future proof, perhaps, but I don't think you'll reap the benefits of the cash outlay, let's consider:

All this assuming GW2 is the highest res game you'll be playing.

8Gb of memory is enough, buy one 8Gb stick (or 2 x 4Gb if the mobo has 4 slots), you can always add more later should it be required.

An i5 will cope comfortably, they're good CPU's.

The Gigabyte's sound will do you fine for GW2, music, films, whatever, unless you're recording and mixing bands on that machine or making wildlife documentaries for the BBC. Why lay out £100 for a Soundblaster?

Definitely a bigger main hard drive, at least a 250Gb SSD.

A 2Tb hard drive only costs about eight quid more than a 1Tb drive, go bigger, you won't regret it.

With the money you're saving, consider a 2Tb external drive and dock for backing up your data, that is one thing you certainly shouldn't skimp on.

Unlike Mucks I favour a non-stock cooler, but with Intel, nothing too expensive, a small outlay gives a worthwhile increase in cooling, imo, I'm talking between £25 and £40 here.

Power supply's good, I just put one of those in my media machine so I can play racing games on me big TV.

If you're making a significant outlay, get yourself an optical drive capable of playing and burning Bluray disks, a 25Gb disk is not to be sniffed at, very useful (I think they actually do 50Gb RW diisks now, will have to check).

Or - spend a few bob sorting out existing machine and go and have a holiday with other half

 

[V_R]

Whats been said is all good, 4670k is fine, especially with a little OC.

Go Win 8.

Apparently 2133mhz RAM and up is best for Haswell, but cant see the difference being mind blowing.. 8Gb is fine.

Sound card is personal preference. But I couldn't go back to onboard after having a dedicated card.


Heres my two cents..... Cheaper and pre overclocked to 4.2 out of the box. Win Win. (From OC as its quicker/easier to use the cart addon to post. Up yo you if you would use then or not, but I've had no complaints. )

YOUR BASKET
1 x OcUK Gamer X60i Intel Z87 Mid-Tower - Gaming PC Configurator £1206.74
- Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Windowed Case - Black (CC-9011017-WW)
- Stage 1 Intel: Overclock of CPU - 4.2GHz Overclock - Haswell K Edition Processors Only
- Intel Core i5-4670K 3.40GHz (Haswell) Socket LGA1150 Processor - Retail
- Akasa AK-CC4013EP01 Nero 3 V2 Premier CPU Cooler
- Gigabyte Z87X-D3H Intel Z87 (Socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard
- TeamGroup Vulcan GOLD 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-17100C11 2133MHz Dual Channel Kit (TLYD38G2133HC11ADC01)
- Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 WindForce 3x OC 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (GV-N770OC-2GD)
- Samsung 250GB SSD 840 EVO SATA 6Gb/s Basic - (MZ-7TE250BW)
- Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache - OEM (ST1000DM003) HDD
- OcUK 20x DVD±RW SATA ReWriter (Black) - OEM
- Asus Xonar DGX 5.1 PCI-Express Sound Card with built in Headphone Amp
- Corsair Builder Series CX 600W V2 '80 Plus Bronze' Power Supply (CP-9020048-UK)
- Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-Bit DVD - OEM (WN7-00614)
- Networking Not Selected
- Case Mods Not Selected
- Keyboard Not Selected
- Mouse Not Selected
- System Build Fan - Noiseblocker BlackSilent Pro Fan PLPS - 120mm PWM (EXNO-001)
- Monitor Not Selected
- Speakers Not Selected
- No Headset Option (Zero Cost)
- Game Controller Not Selected
- No Office Software
- No Security Software
- Standard Build Systems - Dispatched within 7 working days
Total : £1,225.34 (includes shipping : £15.50).




EDIT: Sorry about the colours, the addon is designed for the OcUK blue/black themes.
EDIT 2: Fixed colours, they were annoying me!

 

[Taffycat]

Thank you for all of your informative and useful comments guys - as I said before, I appreciate them very much.

I agree the outlay sounds (is) a bit eye-watering, and ideally, it would be better to buy the bits and pieces and build it myself. But I have to be practical. Dodgy vision is a pain in the butt, as is lack of space. So yes, "future-proofing" was indeed the motive for being a little OTT with some of the specs...guess I've also been a tad spoilt by the rig I'm currently using... (<---specs shown below avatar) which was a huge improvement over my old PC.

Sticking with Win 7 64-bit might not be considered future-proof exactly, but I felt it would make life a little easier, and less confusing, if I'm dealing with the same OS on both rigs.

I hadn't really considered blu-ray (primarily because I was thinking of it as being just a viewable format... duh! lol) But okay, consider me convinced.

Ooh, the sound-card dilemma. No, Flopps, true, I'll not be making any wildlife documentaries anytime soon lol....(other than something featuring our cats maybe...) We listen to music, watch films and occasional catch-up HD TV. Decent sound is appreciated though, so was basically hoping to achieve that with a "better" sound-card(?)

Game-wise, yes, GW2 features quite large, but, more recently, I've begun to venture into Steam, with some GW mates, so will probably be adding a few more games as time goes on. (Currently having some fun with Borderlands 2..... however, I digress.)

V_R and Mucks... I'm going to trot off to digest your suggestions a bit more... and chat about it with hubby too, of course.

Thanks all, for taking the time to be so helpful. I'll keep you posted.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Postscript:

I've been thinking about the sound card and realised that of my three main machines, all of them have independent sound cards fitted, a pair of medium priced Asus Xonars in two of them and an ageing but really good expensive Auzentech card in my main machine.

So - what with what V_R said, perhaps I was wrong - go for the sound card. It's just that I don't like Creative, they've let me down in the past (twice) so maybe my judgement was coloured. It was 4am after all, little bout of insomnia last night

I note the OCUK machine V_R specced lists an Asus card, they're good, imo.

Win 8? It'll likely be dead in the water by the end of the year and I read yesterday that Microsoft are probably going to be offering it for free soon, probably to existing Win 7 users, Microsoft can't sell it, they're desperate, so looks like they're being forced to offer it Pro Gratis

I tried it for a month and hated it FWIW and I can't see the point in installing an OS if the GUI has to be radically altered.

But - that's just my POV, it's quite plain certain folk love it but - not for me

DO get the best graphics card you can afford, the choices in both offered specs look good to me.

PS: Very hard for me to read the yellow text in the OCUK spec but the price is £1225.25 best I can make out. If it were me I'd go for the OCUK spec, they've improved a great deal over the last coupla years and my last two orders with them have been faultless. But if you do go for that choice, make sure you like the look of the case first, it can probably be changed.

 

[V_R]

I haven't tried them, but the new Creative cards have all new drivers/software and apparently all the review suggest it is much improved. The Z TC specced... http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Creative/Sound_Blaster_Z/1.html


8 is fine! I haven't seen the metro interface since I installed the OS!

https://www.pcreview.co.uk/forums/p...ackground-thread-t3806837p7.html#post14215975

Thats what my desktop looks like.

MS offered Win 8 to Win 7 users for 25 quid on launch didn't they? I'll bet they do the same again for 8 users going to 9.


Free 'Windows 8.1 with Bing'

We’re told that Microsoft is aiming to position Windows 8.1 with Bing as a free or low-cost upgrade for Windows 7 users. Any upgrade offers will be focused on boosting the number of people using Windows 8.1. This Bing-powered version of Windows 8.1 may also be offered to PC makers as part of recent license cuts for devices under $250.