Looking to buy a new PC, picked out a few parts and was just wondering whether there are any bad choices / easy upgrades for similar price ranges. I will be buying it from "pcspecialist.co.uk" which doesn't have a whole lot of choices. I know I could get it cheaper if I bought the parts seperately and built it myself.

If something doesn't have an alternative either the price difference is a lot, or there really isn't much else to choose from. Willing to pay extra if something is an awful choice or if it isn't a lot more.

Case - Coolermaster CM Storm Trooper (Alternative for identical price: Coolermaster HAF-X) (Alternative for a bit more: Coolermaster Cosmos SE Gaming Tower)

CPU - I7 4790k

Motherboard - Asus Maximus VII Ranger (Alternative for slightly less: Asus Z97-Pro Gamer)

RAM: 16GB Kingston Hyper-X Beast 2133MHz (2x8GB)

GPU - Nvidia GTX 980

OS SSD - 250GB Samsung 850 EVO - 540MB/sR and 520MB/sW (Alternative for slightly more: 240GB Kingston HyperX 3K SSD - 555MB/sR and 510MB/sW)

Game SSD - 250GB Samsung 850 EVO - 540MB/sR and 520MB/sW (Alternative for slightly more: 240GB Kingston HyperX 3K SSD - 555MB/sR and 510MB/sW)

Storage HDD - 1TB WD Caviar Black - 7200rpm (Alternative for slightly more: 1TB Seagate SSHD 7200rpm (64MB + 8GB SSD cache))

PSU - Corsair 750W CS Series Modular 80Plus Gold

CPU cooler - CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64Bit

This post was edited by Signild on Mar 17 2015 12:29pm

You likely won't need two SSD's. The OS doesn't need a dedicated drive all to itself (much less a 250GB drive).

If you have the option of getting Windows 7 Home Premium or Windows 8.1 for less money, do it. You will have no use for Win7 Pro as a gamer.

Between those two cases, I would get the HAF-X, but are there other alternatives?

That motherboard is extreme overkill unless you play on overclocking extensively.

Bottom line is, what are you going to be using the PC for? Just playing games? If so, what games? Are you going to be doing any professional video rendering or editing? What about 3D modeling and rendering in Photoshop? If not, you likely won't need an i7 and an i5 will be just fine. Also, unless you're going to be doing the previous things as well, you would be okay with 8 GB of RAM as well.


Overall though, its your money and I can't stop you from spending it.

You're right, no use for professional.

There's quite a lot of case choices, however the fans supplied are.. odd. They don't fill out all the cases, and the only additional fans they supply are 12CM ones. For example, the HAF-X has 1x rear 140mm, 1x front 230mm, 1x side 200mm but they don't supply a 200mm for the top. Whereas the CM Storm Trooper has 1x rear 140mm, 2x front 120mm, 1x top 140mm and they supply the 2x side 120mm for a bit extra. It's a really bad system they have, not sure why. I basically just want to maximize my cooling. - Kind of hard to list all of the cases, if you're willing to look yourself they're listed at the top here http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/view/Vortex-1250-gaming-pc/

As for overclocking.. I probably won't be. Maybe a little, maybe not at all. Definitely won't be going with anything crazy.

I'll only be gaming, though I do use 3 monitors and multitask quite a lot (Usually have a good 100-300 firefox tabs open). I do (rarely) stream, too, which is the main reason I prefer the I7 over the I5.

Edit: As for which games.. Currently, CSGO, H1Z1. I'll probably end up going back to WoW at some point. GTA 5 sometime, possibly farcry 4.. No others come to mind right now, but generally MMOS / FPS games.

This post was edited by Signild on Mar 17 2015 12:35pm

What games are you going to be playing (and streaming)? You'll see a slight boost in just the streaming performance with an i7 over an i5, but not enough to warrant the extra £80. The games you're going to be playing will also decided whether or not you should get a 980.


As for the cases, I would get one of these:
CM HAF 912
Fractal Design R5
Corsair Air 540
NZXT H440

Either way on the cases, you shouldn't need extra fans at all since you aren't going to be overclocking. Even if you do a mild overclock, you still won't need them.

Motherboard:
ASUS Z97-A
Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3

Also, just get the HyperX Fury RAM. No need to pay the premium for the HyperX Beast. The increased frequency won't make much difference.


/e

Seeing the games you play, there is zero reason to get a 980. You'll be fine with a 970 or an R9 290.

This post was edited by DeXaFiLaH on Mar 17 2015 12:41pm

Will probably wait a little to see if anyone else has anything to say, but I basically just wanted to make sure I wasn't making a huge mistake with any of the parts. Going to look at those cases, and will definitely be buying a cheaper motherboard. Thanks for the suggestions

300 firefox tabs open?

Yeah, I don't like closing stuff. I usually start watching a youtube series, or find a certain wiki page about something in a game, and then just leave it open in the back incase I want to go back to it. I think my max was actually 260 something, but it's usually over 100.

whats your budget?

I don't really have a specific budget. Somewhere around £1700 - £2200. Obviously the cheaper the better, though. I'd rather save £200 than have a 1% increase in performance. I will be buying it from pcspecialist, which doesn't have a whole lot of options.

This post was edited by Signild on Mar 17 2015 01:05pm

can you link ill see if i can save you money i bet i could