£2500 Gaming rig

[Enjoyablenewt]

Hope you chaps can help, always been an amd fan but willing to try anything to have the best bang for my hard earned pounds,

• Where are you located? Yorkshire,England

• What is your budget? £2500

• Will you need a monitor, keyboard, and/or mouse included in that budget? NO

• Shall you be requiring an OS? NO

• What will you be using this rig for? Gaming

• If gaming, what resolution will you be playing at? 2560x1440

• Will you be overclocking?Yes

• Do you need a full build or will you be reusing some old parts? Full build

Thanks

 

[ahpadt]

What I would try to squeeze in:

i7-4770K (go down to 4670K should the money not be enough for the other parts)
16GB RAM (f.ex Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866Mhz or more)
Asus M6 Hero?
GTX 780 x 2 (SLI)
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB x 2 (RAID0) as stupid fast system drive
WD Red's for storage
Wait for the Corsair 750D in terms of case
PSU up for argument (I'd pick the Corsair AX860i maybe?)
Corsair H100i CPU cooler

 

[NeverBackDown]

Watercooling or air? If watercooling will it be something like a h100i or custom? that will rework the budget a little bit.

What will the colors be like? Or does it not matter? Case with window? Lighting?

Just to get a feel for the rig is why i ask these questions. With you not requiring very much except internal hardware this budget it quite large so many things can be added purely for aesthetics.

I would advise to hold out on a GPU. AMD will be announcing new ones on Sept 25th. Supposed to be a 9970(or whatever they call it) at titan speeds but at 780 prices.

 

[Cru]

What I would try to squeeze in:

i7-4770K (go down to 4670K should the money not be enough for the other parts)
16GB RAM (f.ex Corsair Vengeance Pro 1866Mhz or more)
Asus M6 Hero?
GTX 780 x 2 (SLI)
Samsung 840 Pro 256GB x 2 (RAID0) as stupid fast system drive
WD Red's for storage
Wait for the Corsair 750D in terms of case
PSU up for argument (I'd pick the Corsair AX860i maybe?)
Corsair H100i CPU cooler

16gb ram is not needed
reds are for raid
750d is kinda pointless with h100i

Watercooling or air? If watercooling will it be something like a h100i or custom? that will rework the budget a little bit.

What will the colors be like? Or does it not matter? Case with window? Lighting?

Just to get a feel for the rig is why i ask these questions. With you not requiring very much except internal hardware this budget it quite large so many things can be added purely for aesthetics.

I would advise to hold out on a GPU. AMD will be announcing new ones on Sept 25th. Supposed to be a 9970(or whatever they call it) at titan speeds but at 780 prices.

this.
wait for benchmarks of the new amd cards

 

[barnsley]

Hey and welcome to the forums . For your budget I'd recommend going with an intel processor as with your budget you can comfortably have one.

Here is my rough suggestion for you:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (if you are just gaming there is little need to go for the i7 imo)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (solid motherboard, not the most expensive one, but as Tom showed recently, you can still get decent overclocks on it)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600mhz
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (super fast for all your games)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (storage for stuff and backups)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (quicker than a titan in some tests and overclocks really well)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case (personal fave case, although you could go for something different)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Total: £1869.66

This is just a basic guesstimate if you wanted to build something asap, you'd probably do better to wait for the new AMD cards as stated by others.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Hey and welcome to the forums . For your budget I'd recommend going with an intel processor as with your budget you can comfortably have one.

Here is my rough suggestion for you:
CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (if you are just gaming there is little need to go for the i7 imo)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Z87-GD65 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (solid motherboard, not the most expensive one, but as Tom showed recently, you can still get decent overclocks on it)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600mhz
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (super fast for all your games)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (storage for stuff and backups)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card (quicker than a titan in some tests and overclocks really well)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case (personal fave case, although you could go for something different)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 (OEM) (64-bit)
Total: £1869.66

This is just a basic guesstimate if you wanted to build something asap, you'd probably do better to wait for the new AMD cards as stated by others.

With a budget like this i would ONLY put in ssds. No need for HDDs.
Also for a desktop build never get OEM windows. Just get a retail version.
Other than that solid advice but just voicing my opinion on it

 

[Enjoyablenewt]

Thanks for the advice, you've given me something to think about, really appreciate the advice :beerchug:

 

[barnsley]

With a budget like this i would ONLY put in ssds. No need for HDDs.

I'd normally agree but nothing wrong with a backup on a good ol' hdd .

 

[NeverBackDown]

I'd normally agree but nothing wrong with a backup on a good ol' hdd .

External drive dude lol

Anything you need more clarification on OP?

 

[B3rni3]

I built a system for a my mate that would do you nicely.

Cpu: Intel 4670k
Cooler: Corsair H100i with sp120 quite editions (definately change the fans)
Motherboard: His was an msi mpower but you could go for the red and black gigabyte one also
Ram: Kingston Hyper x 16gb @ 2400mhz
SSD: Samsung Pro 512 gb
Hdd: Western digital 2tb green, you dont need ssd's for movies and music and other apps like mumble and vent etc. Use your ssd for the os and games and you will have loads of space. The hdd will be more a secondary space drive and you wont need the extra speed a black gives you.
Psu: Corsair AXi860 watt will be plenty and they off easy plug and play coloured cables if you want them too.
GPU: He went with the EVGA super overclocked gtx780 and it is an amazing card so I would recommend that maybe even sli with your budget.
Case: Get one you like and have a read of some reviews before buying. Case is a very subjective thing imo so get the one you like the look of.


To be honest man, you shouldn't really need a 4770k for gaming or an ssd for everything. You probably wont notice a difference. Just my advice.

 

[ahpadt]

16gb ram is not needed
reds are for raid
750d is kinda pointless with h100i

I got WD Blacks for my new rig and regret getting them because they generate a f*ck ton of mechanical vibration, hence I think Red's will work just as well. You don't have to have them configured in RAID.

What do you mean by pointless aside from that an push/pull configured H100i is more than enough for most people? A custom loop requires a lot more planning and more importantly, money.

External drive dude lol:tongue:

Anything you need more clarification on OP?

Unless you have a NAS or dedicated server than external drives are clunky.

 

[s3ns3]

for gaming he doesn`t need more than 1600mhz ram ,8 gigs and he certainly doesn`t need an i7 and expensive mobos. nor 750W+ psus.

 

[B3rni3]

for gaming he doesn`t need more than 1600mhz ram ,8 gigs and he certainly doesn`t need an i7 and expensive mobos. nor 750W+ psus.

The faster the ram the better tbh and with it being quite cheap atm why not go for 16gb? Its not like he is short of cash for his budget.

I agree he wont need an i7 though unless he plans to use his pc for more than gaming but he would need to post that here hence why I only recommended a 4670k.

The msi mpower z87 is only 200gbp and the gigabyte board is 180. Thats not that expensive.

Also while technically true the axi 860 is probably one of the best psus on the market and it will leave him with some head room power wise for future applications.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Unless you have a NAS or dedicated server than external drives are clunky.

Who says it has to be plugged in all the time? If i could i would buy a wireless external drive and just hide it somewhere and stream from it when possible.


Anyway OP what does the build look like for you so far?

 

[Cru]

I got WD Blacks for my new rig and regret getting them because they generate a f*ck ton of mechanical vibration, hence I think Red's will work just as well. You don't have to have them configured in RAID.

What do you mean by pointless aside from that an push/pull configured H100i is more than enough for most people? A custom loop requires a lot more planning and more importantly, money.

reds are more expensive than something like a seagate barracuda or greens for example, and those don't generate that much noise/vibration from my experience

well putting an h100i in a full size case looks a bit dumb, and the case itself is more expensive than something like a define r4, temp difference is non existing so might as well go for better looks, save money and spend that somewhere else

 

[Charliew87]

2508.

Chassi is soundproof, shouldnt matter since almost 0 air will be blowring at anything. If you want a fan cooling your graphics cards then remove a harddrive, thats 2 x 2tb for raiding.

Sli GTX 780 will max pretty much anything you throw at it.
The Dominators are for shits n giggles. Theyre great RAM, but overpriced.
The 840 pro is the best buy Ive ever made, 256gb should hold most of the games youre playing atm.

The motherboard has good sound, good wifi built in if youre into that sort of thing.

The kraken is great frankly. Change it for a H100i if you want, but theres no need really.


Hoping I didnt forget anything.


If youre into pretty things there are modular cables for the PSU you can buy, again theres some wastefulness in the list, shouldnt be a problem to dig out 100 pounds for fans + modularity if thats your cup of tea.