New Build Query.

[Slixer]

Recently I decided I really needed to get a completely new build for my desktop, preferebly with some ability to play the more modern games being released while having some of the more current and last year ones being able to run at a least moderate graphics.

The Budget set was around £500-£600 which while not alot is what I can afford at the moment.

To this end I spoke with a friend of mine more knowledge and he gave me suggested list as follows:

AMD piledriver FX-8 Eight core 8350 or A Intel I5-4440

MSI 970A-643 AMD 970 (Socket AM3+) DDR3 ATX motherboard Or A Gigabyte Z97P-D3 Intel Z97 (socket 1150) DDR3 ATX Motherboard

Powercore Radeon R6 270 TurboDuo 2048MB GDDR5 Express

Crucial MX100 256GB Sata 2.5" 7mm SSD + Adaptor

Teamgroup Xtreem LV 8GB (2x4Gb) DDR3 2666MHz Dual Kit

Superflower Golden Green HX 550W 80 Plus Gold Power Supply

Aerocool V2X Midi Tower

The AMD Build coming around to £428 while the Intel ended up around £441.

Now more recently same friend also suggested that I should consider shelling out a bit more for a Nvidia GTX970 4GB graphics card over the Radeon and while I can see the logic and I am considering it it also comes with the problem of would the rest of the components be able to handle it, I'm fairly sure the power supply would not but as I said I'm not particularly knowledge about any of this at the moment and I'm still learning so I thought I would come here hoping for some advice.

With that said I am open to any and all suggestions regarding this matter.

 

[PP Mguire]

Go with the I5 4440 chip instead, go with an Asus H81 motherboard instead, drop the RAM to cheapest 1600MHz 8GB set, while you're at it go with a Samsung EVO instead of the MX100. I'd go with the Corsair CX500 so you'll have the budget enough to go with a GTX 970 instead.

 

[Slixer]

thanks for the Speedy reply Mguire, I'm certainly looking into the suggestion you've given and I just wanted to query if there was a specific variant of the Asus H81 that is suggested or required. Looking over I notice quite a few different versions and I'm still not quite sauvy enough to confidently say I'd pick the right one.

At the moment, given it a rough look over it's standing around the £700 mark for me. though that could be the site I'm using to buy it.

 

[PP Mguire]

They are almost all the same. the -A or -K models should be the cheapest next to the -E. Either one of them are ok.

 

[Slixer]

alright gotcha! Thanks for the advice, definitely considering this build and will be sure to get back to you once I've made the decision one way or the other

The only question that now remains for me is thus; is the GTX 970 truly worth it, would I be fine settling for a slightly weaker on or should I just go ahead and go for the top of the line.

 

[PP Mguire]

If the 960 was out I'd say go for that but it's not. There is nothing in that price range that can touch a 970. It's a beast. I have a 680 which is a 770 and the 970 might become my stand in card until something better comes along.

Sent from my Z740 using TechForums

 

[Slixer]

Okay, been a while since I initial posted here but I'm just about to go ahead and order this and during my last checking of the parts I stumbled across a possible problem with at the least the parts I picked out based on the recommendations being the port between the Graphics card and the motherboard as, unless I'm wrong the graphics card requires a PCIe 3.0 x16 slot and none of the motherboards in that range that I can find have more than a 2.0 one.

That said I could be horribly wrong. At the moment this is currently what it's looking like and I just want to make 100% sure that it'll all work together before I order.

 

[PP Mguire]

PCI-E is completely backwards compatible, that being said all Intel boards today should be 3.0.

AMD is still stuck on PCI-E 2.0 though.

My only concern is the SSD. That motherboard doesn't have an mSATA slot.

 

[Slixer]

Well I'm glad I checked anyway, I wonder then what motherboard I should consider replacing it with?

 

[PP Mguire]

Don't replace the motherboard, just get a standard SATA Samsung EVO.