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Workstation/Gaming Pc Build Advice
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Workstation/Gaming Pc Build AdvicePosted:

KXhaxho
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Hey forum, I've decided to try and build my very first workstation/gaming pc. I need advice.

I've got a budget of around £1.2k and my current planned set up amounts to that.

This is the plan:
NZXT Source 340 Trim Mid Tower Case with USB 3 Side Window Quiet Fans without PSU (£56.99)
Intel Core i7-7700k 4.2 GHz QuadCore 8mb Cache Processor (£256.90)
ASUS LGA 1151 PRIME Z270-A Intel ATX Motherboard (£139.51)
Corsair CMK16GX4M2B3000C15 Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3000MHz C15 XMP 2.0 (£162.99)
ASUS DUAL-GTX1060-O3G NVIDIA GeForce OC Edition 3 GB GDDR5 192 Bit Memory PCI Express 3 Graphics Card (£218.99)
Seagate Barracuda - 4TB Internal Hard drive(3.5", 256Mb Cache, SATA 6GB/s, up to 210 MB/s) (£85.49)
Samsung (MZ-V6E250BW) 250GB EVO PCI Express 3.0 x4 NVMe Solid State Drive (£101.96)
Anker Uspeed PCI-E to USB 3.0 2-Port Express Card, with 5V 4 Pin Male Power Connector and 1 USB 3.0 20-pin Connector (£13.99)
Cooler Master Hyper 212X CPU Air Cooler '4 Heatpipes, 1x120mm PWM Fan, 4-Pin Connector' RR-212X-17PK-R1 (£24.26)
Corsair CP-9020049-UK VS Series ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Power Supply Unit, 450W (£31.97)
Invero 3M Power Mains Kettle Cable UK 3 Pin IEC-C13 (£5.99)
Windows 10 Professional 32bit/ 64bit (£99.00)

Totalling £1,198.04

I intend to use the build for several things, including gaming, cad, and other editing softwares. Such as: Photoshop, Premiere, Illustrator, InDesign, Rhino, Vray, Fusion 360, Flamingo. Also being able to play games like Fortnite, CS:GO, Overwatch etc.

If you have any suggestions for any alternative options, sites to buy the parts on, or even some general advice. Please do help.

Also, my main aim is to get the best possible build out of this price range, so if you can provide another other cheaper options, Ill be really grateful.
#2. Posted:
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Yeah, definitely don't build that. Kaby Lake makes zero sense. If you were going Intel, go Coffee Lake. However, for workstation tasks(apart from Adobe programs), AMD is by far your better option. For gaming, Intel will be better at 1080p 144Hz. At pretty much any other resolution or refresh rate, you'll be hard pushed to notice a difference between AMD and Intel, especially with a low end GPU like the 3GB GTX 1060. You're even less likely to notice any difference between AMD and Intel with the games you've mentioned you'll be playing.

Don't buy that CPU cooler. Cryorig M9i is a tenner less and a better choice. Definitely don't buy that PSU, it's absolute trash. Don't pay £100 for your OS, that's just ridiculous. You can easily use Win10 for free, or buy a key for less than £20-25.

Since I don't know whether you'll be overclocking, or what monitor(s) you'll be using with this system, I can't really give you a solid recommendation. For your use case and budget though, this is far better;
[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] / [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

CPU: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£244.79 @ Aria PC)
CPU Cooler: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£55.14 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£125.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Memory: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£159.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£102.95 @ Aria PC)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£84.38 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£245.18 @ Amazon UK)
Case: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£72.50 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£71.99 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1162.91

Depending on the monitor(s) you're using and whether or not you'll overclock, you might want to make a few changes. If you're not overclocking, I'd either get an i7-8700 and B360 motherboard instead or swap the R7 2700 for an R7 2700x and drop the Be Quiet! CPU cooler(stock cooler with the 2700x is more than adequate, even if you decide to overclock).
#3. Posted:
KXhaxho
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AMD Ryzen 7 2700X, AM4, Zen+, 8 Core, 16 Thread, 3.7GHz, 4.35GHz Turbo, 20MB Cache, 105W, CPU, Retail + Wraith Prism (£275.94 @ Aria.co.uk)
Gigabyte X470 AORUS ULTRA GAMING, AMD X470, S AM4, DDR4, SATA3, Dual M.2, 2-Way SLi/CrossFire, GbE, USB3.1 Gen2 A+C, ATX (£127.99 @ Aria.co.uk)
CMK16GX4M2D3000C16 - 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair DDR4 Vengeance LPX Black, PC4-24000 (3000), Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 16-20-20-38, XMP 2.0, 1.35V (£160.79 @ Aria.co.uk)
MSI Nvidia GeForce GTX 1060 AERO ITX 6G OC 6 GB GDDR5 192 Bit Memory DP/DVI/HDMI PCIe 3 Graphics Card - Black (£240.18 @ Amazon.co.uk)
500GB Samsung 850 EVO Solid State Drive / SSD (£102.95 @ Aria.co.uk)
Western Digital 4TB Intellipower SATA 6Gb/s 64 MB Cache 3.5-Inch NAS Desktop Hard Disk Drive - Red (WD40EFRX) (£97.50 @ Amazon.co.uk)
EVGA SuperNOVA 650 G2, 80+ GOLD 650W, Fully Modular, EVGA ECO Mode, Includes FREE Power On Self Tester Power Supply 220-G2-0650-Y3 (£58.67 @ Amazon.co.uk)
Invero 3M Power Mains Kettle Cable UK 3 Pin IEC C13 Monitor PC Screen Printer Lead - 3 Metre Black (£5.99 @ Amazon.co.uk)
Anker Uspeed PCI-E to USB 3.0 2-Port Express Card, with 5V 4 Pin Male Power Connector and 1 USB 3.0 20-pin Connector ( expand another two USB 3.0 ports ) (£13.99 @ Amazon.co.uk)
Fractal Design Meshify C TG Light Tint, Mid Tower Computer Chassis, w/ Tempered Glass Window, ATX/mATX/mITX, 2x120mm Fan (£72.50 @ Aria.co.uk)

Totalling £1170.41

I took your advice generally, but some of the components weren't the prices you stated. Particularly with the Toshiba 4tb Internal Harddrive.

I searched the exact products you posted, but Im unsure if some of them may be different in a sense.Can you confirm this build please?
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Yeah that's looking fine. Here is the PCPP list I'd recommend if you're going R7 2700x;
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CPU: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£275.94 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£125.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Memory: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£159.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£102.95 @ Aria PC)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£94.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£245.18 @ Amazon UK)
Case: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£72.50 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£71.99 @ Aria PC)
Total: £1149.52

I've included the 4TB HDD at the right price. PCPP include Amazon UK items with the wrong price displayed fairly often. Like that EVGA 650 G2 you chose, it's not actually in stock at that price so just grab the 550G2 for 70 quid. 550W is more than enough anyway. The PSU will come with a kettle plug so you don't need to buy one of those. I also wouldn't be buying an adapter for 2 x USB ports. The motherboard has 9 and the case has 2.

Lastly, here is the same case with a dark tinted tempered glass side window;
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In case you prefer the dark tint over clear window.
#5. Posted:
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Do you have any ideas when it comes to monitors, mouse, keyboard etc. ?
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Depends on the budget for it all. Also depends on your preferences a little. Do you have any preferred mechanical switch for keyboards?

For monitor, would you like higher refresh rate, higher resolution, ultrawide, or not too bothered? Do you want/need VESA compatibility? Any other sort of preferences?

Also, could you tell us if you'll be using the system for gaming or workstation tasks more? Or just an even mix of both?
#7. Posted:
KXhaxho
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My budget for all the remaining parts will be around £200/250. I know it's not much but I'm trying to limit my spending so I can still have enough money left over. I've spoken to a friend about a monitor and he stated to get one that's 144Hz. I don't know what that means to be honest.

I intend to use this pc for a balanced mix of both gaming and uni work. I'm not really fussed at the moment for all those features, I just want something that's good enough for my budget.

So I generally have £250 left over for a monitor, keyboard, mouse etc
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144Hz is generally preferred for gaming. However, with your budget, you'd be limited to a 1080p 144Hz monitor which are all TN, which is definitely not preferred for video/photo editing and other similar tasks. So, this is the monitor I'd suggest(and have one myself);
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You can create a custom resolution for the monitor and should be able to manage 75Hz pretty easily out of it. That said, you could be seriously unlucky and not even manage 61Hz.
Tutorials/id=21549/how-to-overclo...nitor.html

For the mouse, I'd probably grab one of these three;
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[ Register or Signin to view external links. ]
Really solid budget mice.

Then for keyboard, you have a few choices;
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The cheapest keyboard(Turtle Beach with MX Blues) is a TKL keyboard, which is Ten-KeyLess which means it doesn't have the num pad on the right. Keep that in mind. The Roccat keyboard would probably be my last choice, but if you want RGB LEDs, it's your cheapest half decent option. The Strafe is the best quality keyboard there, but only if you don't mind the red LEDs(which can be turned off anyway).

Cherry MX Blues are my preferred switch type. MX Browns are similar to MX Blues but MX Blues are clickier. If you can go to a local PCWorld/Currys, they often have display keyboards out so you can maybe do that one day and see if you can get a feel for some different switch types to decide what you prefer before buying a keyboard.
#9. Posted:
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Actually, scratch pretty much everything I said about keyboards, I forgot Scan have some stupid good deals on refurb K70's. Corsair K70 is basically the Strafe's bigger, badder brother and for £60 is unbeatable so get a K70.

So, this is what I recommend;
[ Register or Signin to view external links. ] / [ Register or Signin to view external links. ]

CPU: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£275.94 @ Aria PC)
Motherboard: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£125.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Memory: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£159.99 @ Aria PC)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£102.95 @ Aria PC)
Storage: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£94.98 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£245.18 @ Amazon UK)
Case: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£72.50 @ Aria PC)
Power Supply: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£71.99 @ Aria PC)
Monitor: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£159.99 @ Ebuyer)
Mouse: [ Register or Signin to view external links. ] (£22.95 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £1332.46

with one of these keyboard's;
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MX Blues are clickier, MX Speeds are faster. People who play CSGO professionally would tend to prefer MX Speeds. I'd recommend going MX Blues.

You can find my review of the K70 here;
Archives/t=5249783/hardware-revie...rt=20.html
#10. Posted:
KXhaxho
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Thank you so much for the help. You've been really great and you've diverted me from building a disaster. Im really grateful.
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