Advice on £1500 gamin build

[Genesius]

Hi, I've been asked to build another gaming rig for a friend. He has £1500 to spend.
I'll need £50 for windows 7 he has a keyboard, mouse and monitor so I have £1450 to get everything.

I'm thinking of doing my first Haswell build so its futureproof for him.
I think i7 is a good bet.

I'd like to use a gigabyte board as I like my ivy board and have had no issues.
Any suggestions or things to look out for? Is there another amazing board that I'm missing?

Psu

Ram

SSD
HDD

Case

Graphics, I'm thinking 770 or 680 single card what are your opinions?

And finally cooling, could go with an all in one but if the budget allows I'd like to do a custom rig and maybe loop that Gtx in too.

Thanks for your help

 

[vorticalbox]

what will the rig be mostly used for?

 

[Saltire35]

Case: Corsair Carbide Air 540
PSU: Corsair AX760
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Hero Z87
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K
Cooler: Corsair 100i
RAM: 16Gb Corsair Vengeance Pro Series (1866)
GPU: 2Gb Asus GTX 770 DirectCUII OC
SSD: 128Gb Samsung 840 Pro
HDD: 1TB Western Digital Black Edition

Total Cost: £1448.22

 

[Genesius]

what will the rig be mostly used for?

Yeah, sorry, gaming.

 

[vorticalbox]

mobo: Gigabytle GA-Z87X-UD3H
CPU: I7 4770 k
Ram: corsair vengeance blue 8GB 1866MHZ
Cooler: h100i
GPU: club 3D 7970
SSD: samsung 840 pro 256GB
Storage: 1TB WD Green
PSU: Corsair AXi 760
Case: Carbide 500R

total: £1376.00

money left over for fans, lights or a different case.

 

[NeverBackDown]

For a single GPU with no plans of SLI/Xfire then go for a solid 650watt psu from Seasonic. Depending on the cards SLI/Xfire could also be run off 650watt psu just fine with light overclocking.
Just a thought to keep in mind.

 

[Genesius]

I'm not sure on the 7 series. What about. 670ftw or a 680ftw?

 

[NeverBackDown]

Why aren't you sure? If it's price then it's understandable but other than that 7 series is better.

 

[Genesius]

Because its more money for not much more gain. 10-15% is all and the 6 series just seem the better value at the moment.

 

[NeverBackDown]

May want to delete one of those posts. Not allowed to double post as you know... just click edit and towards the bottom there should be a delete button.

A 7970Ghz card is better than a 680 for most games. So mine as well go for that if its the same price as a 680.

 

[vorticalbox]

May want to delete one of those posts. Not allowed to double post as you know... just click edit and towards the bottom there should be a delete button.

A 7970Ghz card is better than a 680 for most games. So mine as well go for that if its the same price as a 680.

And free games too. Tom higher recommends the club 3d cards did very well in his testing.

 

[Genesius]

Changed my mind I'm going to put a superclocked gtx 770 in it.

This is my biggest build yet so your advice is very much appreciated.

What boards do you recommend? I like gigabyte
What cases? (Watercooling)
What ram? I'd like 16gb and want to go to 2133 if possible but I don't really want to go more than £160. What do you think?

Thank you

 

[UkGouki]

as you say its mainly for gaming why not go with the i5? you could then easily get a custom watercooling loop in with the build

i suggest
case let him choose but show him the nanoxia bitfenix corsair etc
cpu core i5 4670k
motherboard Gigabyte ud4 red and black or sniper green and black unless you want orange and black could go with the OC board i personally prefer the ud4
ram corsair vengance pro 16gb £180 or gskill ripjaws the latter can be had for £142 for 16gb 4x 4gb sticks 2133mhz

ssd i have samsung there currently the best on the market next ones are plextor beleive it or not...
hdd any 1tb drive for storage alot go for western digital black i like seagate had my barracuda drive for 3 years and never had an issue with it!
psu any seasonic/corsair 650w will be more than enough for a single gpu setup but if he ever wanted to sli/crossfire in the future i would go for 750w minimum

you can buy custom watercooling loop kits check out the review on them here>> http://www.overclock3d.net/reviews/cases_cooling/water_cooling_kit_group-test/1

my personal choice for my next pc case which will be watercooled is gonna be a corsair 540 air i love the 600t too im waiting on bitfenix to bring a new chassis out but i love the shinobi i have the nanoxia ds1 is a really good choice too

 

[NeverBackDown]

^^^ that sure is a lot of smileys lol

If you are going to watercool CPU and GPU you might need a bigger budget. Watercooling is only worth it if done right and it's far from cheap. If it's just a cpu loop mine as well get an AIO and not deal with the hassle.

 

[loglog]

Case: Corsair Carbide Air 540
PSU: Corsair AX760
Motherboard: Asus Maximus VI Hero Z87
CPU: Intel Core i7 4770K
Cooler: Corsair 100i
RAM: 16Gb Corsair Vengeance Pro Series (1866)
GPU: 2Gb Asus GTX 770 DirectCUII OC
SSD: 128Gb Samsung 840 Pro
HDD: 1TB Western Digital Black Edition

Total Cost: £1448.22

This is just about the EXACT build i'm putting together, only i'll be re-using my 800D.

I would agree with just about everything here, only I'd switch the Asus board out (which makes me sad, i usually love asus) and go with a gigabyte or maybe the MSI gaming (though I usually don't pay attention to MSI) on the z87 platform. The Asus Hero board is a great board, but there isn't that much difference that it provides for it's extra price over other boards. I ended up only going with the Gigabyte Z87-UD3H, because I liked the blue lol, and it had all the features I was looking for. It also preformed on par or better than the Hero.

Honestly there isn't any real world benefit of getting 16gb over 8gb, but will allow for expansion to 32gb vs 16gb in the semi near future. I just bought 8gb and called it a day. I used the money I saved and put it into better fans; 4x GT-ap15, 3x Corsair AF-140 silent, 2x Corsair SP-120 performance. That way i don't have to listen to the terribly loud stock fans.

I've planned on spending the extra money on the EVGA GTX 780, at least when it's back in stock. But the OC'd GTX 770 is a great card. I simply wanted the Titan chip set.

I'm a fan of Seagate HDD but honestly HDD brand between the two doesn't matter, they are both quality companies.

 

[Genesius]

thanks everyone. I think I can get a loop in there for about £300ish. But ill see whats left of the budget at the end. Worst case is I leave the cooler on the EVGA as its pretty good and fit a closed loop system to the cpu, but for £1500 in the 540 case with that massive window id kind of like to have something to show off in there.
Im not building this computer for a fellow overclocker or computer mad person like me, just for someone who has some money and wants a computer that will keep him gaming at an ok level for the next few years.
ive already convinced hiom away from the i7 onto the i5. I just think for the average person they want something to show off and that means a cool red custom loop and some LEDS. his budget is pretty flexible so ill get it in there.

Might do a build log and a Haswell delid guide!!

 

[NeverBackDown]

What case is loop going go into? I'm assuming the Cosair 540 Air since you said 540? If so then not much issue with that. Should be relatively easy.

Deliding imo is not worth it. Because your friend is not tech savy you do not want to push the overclocks very far because the cpu will die faster and end up giving him problems that he won't know how to fix. Keep a safe overclock will be fine but then again whats the point of watercooling if its a mild overclock? Mine as well go for a an i7 and sli/xfire and an AIO cooler. IMO at least but it's whatever he wants.