Building/Buying a top-notch PC with £1200?

S

SimpleSam

New Member
Hi guys. Found this forum a few weeks ago, generally surfing my way around, reading advice, browsing shops for parts, and I'm still stumped. And so I come to you all for a little help.

I'm moving to a new place with a friend at the beginning of the new year, and I'll be needing a new computer as I'm leaving this machine for my little brother as a "cheaty" Christmas present, and as I know my parents can't afford to spend a chunk of money on his own one right now.

I've got around £1200 to spend on a PC that will hopefully run something like Bioshock Infinite, Saints Row V, and other recent games on higher settings, simultaneously allowing me to record footage without nuking my FPS.

I've been cycling through a few pre-built computers, as I'm hopeless lost when it comes to custom builds.

So, my actual question (Sorry for rambling!) Are there prebuilt PC's on the market that are good quality, can run the latest games? Or am I condemned to fumble around, trying to build something myself?

I've looked around for in-depth guides, but I've yet to find one that's detailed.

Thanks for your input!
 
Yes, it is posible to find a decent pre built PC for $1350. But, if you want a steady FPS in new games with max settings while recording, building your own is the way to go. It really isn't hard. Like really. Its like a 600 peice Lego set, a little complicated but not to bad. Look at the Newegg videos on YouTube, part 1 and 2. Really, you should look into them. It goes like this
Install motherboard with 9 screws
Instert multiple components, this isnt hard at all
Plug everything up, this is a little complicated but not to bad
Start PC

Of course its a bit more complicated then this, but not to much. It will only take you a few hours.
 
That's quite some money you got there and i will say that cyberpowerpc has some good deals. Now I don't wanna say this; but it's true in some cases you can probably get a better deal especially with all that money by building it yourself. If you need help ALL of us would LOVE to help :) :D
 
I'm from the UK and know all the good shops and what you can get for £1200. Would you like me to put a list of parts together for you and you can buy them and assemble them?

If you think you're 'hopeless' at custom builds, I would suggest researching a little bit on how to build a PC (look on YouTube) and trying to build it yourself, since it will be a lot better value for money than a pre-built will - and you will know that all the parts are quality components.
 
If you after customized pre-build, check out dinopc, pcspecialist, chillblast, aria. They are relatively cheaper, from my memory.

If you intend to build yourself, we could produce a list to suit your budget.
BTW, is your £1200 for tower only?
 
I think I found that Newegg video. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWkH_8b1Q9Y)
It's pretty long, so I'll watch it in a few hours.

And yes please, Spirit. The parts I thought were complicated, was compatibility, understanding what parts do what, and how they're better than others, ect. So a list would be fantastic.

And yes, it's for a tower only. I still have a TV I link up with, and intend to keep using, and some semi-decent accessories.
 
CPU: i5-4670K
Aftermarket heatsink - Optional. It depends how much overclocking you are doing. decent one could range from £30 - 100
mobo: mid-range like Gigabyte GA-Z87X-DH3
RAM: 2 x 8GB DDR3 1866 or above
GPU: GTX770 or R9 280X, depends on how much want to spend.
PSU: 600W for single card (£60). 850W for dual (£90) Choose one from decent brand like Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, XFX, etc
SSD: 120GB like samsung evo 840
HDD: depends on how much storage you need.
Case: depends on what style you want. sleek & clean finish? Or LED case fans with side windows? All £50 - 80
 
You say you are recording your gameplay. I think I would actually recommed an AMD FX-8320 paired with Gigabyte GA-970A-UD3 or GA-990X-UD3. 970A is for one GPU, 990X is for two.
The AMD has the advantage of having multiple cores. That'll come in handy when you're editing your videos, which I assume you do.
As for a case, I would urge you to look at Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 or Define R4. These are two of my favourite cases, because the design is simple, yet good looking, and they're very well built and has good airflow.
Arc = airflow
Define = silence
 
An overclocked i5 is fine for moderate video editing, take it from somebody who uses an overclocked 2500K and does moderate editing with 1080p footage in Premiere Pro all the time. ;)

One thing you will probably want is an NVIDIA graphics card depending on what software you are using to edit. You can then make use of the CUDA cores.

For £1240 inc. VAT

Intel Core i5 4670K http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...encorei3i5andi71150socket/bx80646i54670k.html
Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H with a free liquid CPU cooler! Allows you to overclock that i5! :D http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...pset/atxformfactor/ga-z87x-ud4hpluscm120.html
16GB 2x8GB Corsair Vengeance 16GB (by the way, you can save some money by getting 8GB if you like) http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/memory-pc/ddr3pc3-128001600mhz/cmz16gx3m2a1600c9.html

Fractal Design Define R4 http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cases/cases/fd-ca-def-r4-bl.html
XFX ProSeries 750W http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/powersupplies/p1-750s-nlb9.html
Seagate 2TB HDD http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/harddrives-internal/sata2tbto2.5tb/st2000dm001.html
Samsung 840 Evo 250GB (you can save money by getting 120GB if you like) http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...nal/solidstate/128gbandabove/mz-7te250bw.html
Samsung DVD-RW drive http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/opticaldrives/satadvdwriters/sh-224dbbebe.html

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 780 (I am aware that Novatech may not have this particular 780 in stock for a while, but pretty much any other 780 will be just as good) http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/.../nvidiagtx780series/gv-n780oc-3gd-rev2.0.html

That should be everything and will make a truly fantastic rig. If you want to save money, get 8GB of RAM instead of 16GB (get this RAM if you want 8GB http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...pc3-149001866mhzplus/f3-17000cl11d-8gbxl.html) and that should put you down to around £1,183 or so.

If you want to save even more money, look a 120GB SSD instead of a 250GB http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...nternal/solidstate/upto120gb/mz-7te120kw.html that will save you around £40-50 or so.

Hope this helps!
 
Brilliant! Thanks a whole bunch everyone, especially you, Spirit. Fantastic help! I've watched the Newegg video, and it doesn't seem as complicated as I initially feared.

I'll be building this soon then, and I'll make sure to upload a couple of pictures.
 
SimpleSam said:
Brilliant! Thanks a whole bunch everyone, especially you, Spirit. Fantastic help! I've watched the Newegg video, and it doesn't seem as complicated as I initially feared.

I'll be building this soon then, and I'll make sure to upload a couple of pictures.
Click to expand...

Sounds fantastic! You're going to get one hell of a PC there! :good:
 
Jiniix said:
This alone is reason enough to choose Intel :) The performance would be that close I suspect.
Click to expand...

I didn't realise Novatech had this deal going on. I'm going to post it in the Hot Deals so if anybody else in the UK is looking to buy a Z87 board, they know that Novatech is selling this board with a free cooler. :D
 
Jason, I think Jiniix recommended AMD not because it renders video better than Intel (actually it does) but instead, when recording gameplay the AMD FX-83XX is significantly better. Because of the extra cores you get less of a FPS drop. I see FRAPS videos recording with the 8320 only dropping maybe 5 FPS from without FRAPS, but a i5 drops it 12 FPS or more. Though yes, I would still stick with Intel, it's something to think about.
 
PCunicorn said:
Jason, I think Jiniix recommended AMD not because it renders video better than Intel (actually it does) but instead, when recording gameplay the AMD FX-83XX is significantly better. Because of the extra cores you get less of a FPS drop. I see FRAPS videos recording with the 8320 only dropping maybe 5 FPS from without FRAPS, but a i5 drops it 12 FPS or more. Though yes, I would still stick with Intel, it's something to think about.
Click to expand...

That may well be true, but I think Jiniix may have been talking about the editing too.

I would stick with Intel. If you are really concerned about the CPU (which you shouldn't be), then you could forget about the GTX 780, get a GTX 770, then maybe replace the i5 4670K with an i7 4770K. I wouldn't necessarily recommend doing that though since the graphics card is where the money should be spent. For gaming, there will be a bigger difference between the 770 and 780 than there will between the 4670K and the 4470K.
 
SimpleSam said:
Yeah, I'd rather focus on the GTX 770, and I don't think I'll be editing anything too complicated.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Do you mean the 770 and the i7, or the 780 and the i5?

The 780 and the i5 would give slightly better gaming performance and is probably the way to go if you're not too worried about the editing side of things.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top