Need Help Building A Gaming PC

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1

Hi All,

                    As the title of this thread might suggest I need help in building my first gaming PC.

I have a budget of around £750 - £800 (yes, I'm in England so I need prices in GBP please!) and I will be using the PC for lots of gaming now and in the future but also I will be doing lots of coding in C#, Java, C++ and I will be using the Direct X graphics library, but I probably won't be rendering or creating 3D models etc.

I have pretty much decided on the AMD FX-8350 (around £150 - £200) as my processor however when it comes to GPUs and motherboards I don't really know where to start.

I would be happy to overclock the hardware to an extent if that would make much of a difference as long as heat and stuff stays stable.

Would anyone be able to suggest GPUs, motherboards, power supplies, RAM, a case and probably a monitor that would allow me to play the latest games and those that will be coming out in the future at reasonable FPS at medium-high settings, while staying within my budget.

Also, I wouldn't like to hear that X is better than Y just because it is, I want facts and figures, benchmarks etc to back up what your saying.

This is my first PC build and although I am well versed with computer software my hardware knowledge is severely limited. For that reason if you wish to use technical jargon like PCI-E, SLI, CUDA cores and stuff like that please clarify what they mean.

As a starting point two videos I have seen from Tek Syndicate introduced me to 

  • Asus GeForce GTX 760      - GPU 
  • P8Z77-V Pro                        - motherboard

Would these me good for me?

A few things to consider are

  • Will the power supply be able to provide for all the other parts? (in terms of wattage)
  • Will the motherboard, GPU and other stuff fit in the case?
  • Does the monitor support 720p (I don't particularly mind if I don't get to play in 1080p or 1440p)

Sorry about the VERY long post and thanks in advance for any help you can give me,

                   Matt.

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I had a gtx 760.  It'll play most all current games on ultra settings at 1080p.  Youll need at least around a 500-550 watt power supply unit.  Preferably one with two pcie 6+2 pin power connectors.  The 760 typically comes with a molex power plug to pcie adapter if your power supply only comes with 1 pcie plug.  

 

A good power supply on the lower end of price would be a corsair CX550( the CX550M or modular model is even better for cable management but costs a few quid more).

Any applicable motherboard will be ok of it has the features you want.  The 990fx chipset is the newest version for an 8350.  Asus makes some cheaper decent quality units.

After you pick a motherboard get a case that will fit it.  The boards are generally one of three sizes.  Largest is ATX, medium is micro atx, small is mini itx.  A case built for a larger board will accomodate any smaller one.

 

8gb of ram is all you need for gaming.   Any decent set is fine.  

 

Ill leave the rest to other commentors.

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This is 24£ above the budget :/ but imo it is worth it http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/NkLCD3

The FX 8320 is the same as FX 8350 just with a slower stock clock speed, and can be easily OC'd to above FX 8350 stock speeds (above 4 GHz)

The noctua cooler performs extremely well and will the cpu cool while operating extremely quiet even with a nice OC

The ASUS mobo is one of the best for overclocking on AM3+. It has good quality power phases and a beefy heatsink so you will not frie the board while overclocking. It will handle even 5 GHz+ OC's if you get lucky with your CPU.

RAM is RAM. picked a low profile kit because it was the same price as normal, so you won't have any interference with your CPU heatsink. Also it has CL of only 8 wich is better than the normal 9.

For storage, I would choose a 120 GB SSD + a 1 TB HDD. For the SSD, any from a good brand will do. The 840 evo is quite nice value and one of the fastest SSD's out there.

For GPU, the R9 280X will be A LOT faster than a GTX 760. The R9 280X is head to head with the GTX 770, but it is 20£ cheaper and has 1 GB bigger frame buffer, so if you like playing games like skyrim with lots of mods, the extra VRAM will come in handy. This GPU should allow you to play almost all modern games with Ultra @ 1080p (i'm looking at you crysis 3) with no problems, and with a FPS of around 60.

the corsair carbide 200R is a quite nice budget case. Solid build quality, good airflow and good cable management. It comes with 2 fans pre-installed so airflow sould be decent out of the box.

I made a calculation using this http://www.coolermaster.outervision.com/PSUEngine for the PSU. With a 4.6 GHz overclock and 1.4V on core, the minimum recommended PSU wattage would be around 480W (but i would assume the system to take somewhere around 400W while under a normal gaming load) So a good quality 550W PSU will be enough. XFX uses seasonics manufactured boards and high quality japanese capasitors in their PSU's so they are one of the best PSU's out there.

For the monitor, i'm not an expert but this monitor had good reviews and lots of recommendations. It's made by ASUS so it should be good quality. 1080p and 2 ms response time is also very good for even competitive gaming. 60 Hz is a standard refresh rate on this price bracet and it is quite decent.

Hope this helped you and have a great time building your PC :)

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Looks pretty good here.