building a computer for my brother, please help?

spirit said:
Get the Corsair CX600M and this board http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...telsocket1150/z97chipset/ga-z97x-gaming3.html
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Wow that board looks good :good:

My brother keeps saying that he wants the same case as me for his computer (the define r3 but in white) and also he want's i3 or i5 :)

So we have 3 options lol,

Either Define R3 Case + Corsair CX600M motherboard + i3 CPU

or A cheaper case, + Corsair CX600M motherboard + i5 CPU

or Define R3 Case + Cheaper motherboard + i5 CPU

Shall we choose the CX600M motherboard over the case? I think it seems like the better idea, but my brother really wants the same case as me for some reason lol, thanks :)
 
If he really wants that case and he is content with an i3 I'd go for option 1 and get the R3 with the CX600M and Z97X board.

By the way, when we did your system 2 years ago (:eek:) the R3 was the latest but the R4 came out last year so tell him to check that out!
 
spirit said:
If he really wants that case and he is content with an i3 I'd go for option 1 and get the R3 with the CX600M and Z97X board.

By the way, when we did your system 2 years ago (:eek:) the R3 was the latest but the R4 came out last year so tell him to check that out!
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Yeah I cannot believe how fast those 2 years have gone! it's worrying lol where did the time go?:confused:

Oh wow I didn't realise that the R4 is out now, it looks really nice! :)

I think he should go for the i5 because otherwise we would just have to upgrade in the near future and it won't be easy to remove it from that motherboard lol :)

We will go for the CX600M powersupply and maybe the Z97X board, is there any similar boards about £20 cheaper than the Z97X? As that £20 could go towards the GPU or extra Ram as we can only afford 4GB at the moment :)

Thanks :) My brother like's the SPEC-01 case and the price seems really good, so maybe we should go for that rather than the Define R3/4 as it makes more sense really :) Is there any other cases around £35-50 that you would recommend so I can show them to him and see what he prefers please?

Thanks again so much! :)
 
Yup the Corsair 200R and Zalman Z9 would be good ones to look at along with the Cooler Master K380. The SPEC-01 is an awesome case though for the money.

So if you got a cheaper board and case you could afford an i5 and 8GB of RAM?

If so, get this board: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...s/intelsocket1150/z97chipset/ga-z97x-sli.html

And this RAM: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...ddr3pc3-170002133mhz/f3-17000cl11d-8gbxl.html

And this i5 (4460 should be OK if he isn't interested in overclocking): http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/intel4thgeni3i5i71150/bx80646i54460.html


Yes, the RAM being 2133MHz is faster than I'd normally recommend, but it's £1 more expensive than 1600MHz and the board looks like it supports 2133MHz RAM out of the box (even up to 3000MHz!) so why not? :D
 
spirit said:
Yup the Corsair 200R and Zalman Z9 would be good ones to look at along with the Cooler Master K380. The SPEC-01 is an awesome case though for the money.

So if you got a cheaper board and case you could afford an i5 and 8GB of RAM?

If so, get this board: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...s/intelsocket1150/z97chipset/ga-z97x-sli.html

And this RAM: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...ddr3pc3-170002133mhz/f3-17000cl11d-8gbxl.html

And this i5 (4460 should be OK if he isn't interested in overclocking): http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/intel4thgeni3i5i71150/bx80646i54460.html


Yes, the RAM being 2133MHz is faster than I'd normally recommend, but it's £1 more expensive than 1600MHz and the board looks like it supports 2133MHz RAM out of the box (even up to 3000MHz!) so why not? :D
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Awesome thank you! :) he loves the Zalman Z9 so we will go for that one also its a great price :) just to double check this is the correct one? http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cases/cases/z9plus.html thanks :)

Also that motherboard looks great and we can afford to go for that one! :) I think it would make more sense to get more RAM and that motherboard :) And wow yes it's worth the £1 extra lol! sounds really good, I think his computer is going to be great!

Thanks so much for all your help :) I'm going to try and make a list for all the parts now to double check, and then i'm going to order some of them tonight :D

Thanks again for all your help! legend :)
 
Case = http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cases/cases/z9plus.html

Power Supply = http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/powersupplies/cp-9020060-uk.html

Motherboard = http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=VigLink+Inc

RAM = http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=VigLink+Inc

i5 = http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=VigLink+Inc

Hard drive = http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...utm_medium=affiliate&utm_campaign=VigLink+Inc

Graphics card = http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...ds/nvidiagtx750tiseries/gtx750ti-oc-2gd5.html (my brother decided to go for Nvidia for Phys X)

I think that's everything that we need as we already have Windows 8.1 :) it's just a DVD drive now unless i'm missing something lol, also would it be worth the extra £20 to get the other version of i5?

I think including a DVD drive it will come to just under £550 (as long as i'm not missing something, I hope that's everything lol) the plan is that we will buy all these parts apart from the Graphics card so he can use the computer with intel onboard graphics for a month or so, while saving up for the GPU) :)

I think it will be about £440 without the GPU for the time being, will this i5 need a CPU cooler also?

Thanks again for helping :)
 
Last edited:
It all looks good. Tell him to have a look at the Z11 too (forgot about that, sorry!)

If you were going to get any other i5 I would advise you get the 4670K or the 4690K. The 4670K is £168 so it's a bit more expensive than the 4460. The difference is that the 4670K and 4690K are multiplier-unlocked so they're the ones you want for overclocking. Other than that I don't really see a reason why a 4460 wouldn't be fine. It's a quad-core so fine for gaming. Obviously if he got a 4670K and overclocked it it would be quite a bit faster than a 4460 but you would need aftermarket cooling for that and I think he will be fine with a 4460.

The i5s also come with a cooler so don't worry about that.

Here is the 4670K if you are interested: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/intel4thgeni3i5i71150/bx80646i54670k.html

You can pick DVD drives up really cheaply - this would be fine: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/opticaldrives/satadvdwriters/sh-224dbbebe.html but you could make a bootable USB drive of your 8.1 disc instead.

The GTX 750 Ti is great for the money, but if he is saving up to get a card in the future then I would recommend he maybe aim for a GTX 760 or the GTX 860 if it's out by then instead. I'm loving mine. :good:

PhysX is cool and all but I don't think it's really needed unless he plays a lot of games which can take advantage of it. Right now the Radeon R9 270X is a good card and is a little cheaper than the GTX 760 so that might be worth looking at if he could get something more powerful than the GTX 750 Ti in the future.

It's looking like a good little build though! :good:
 
spirit said:
It all looks good. Tell him to have a look at the Z11 too (forgot about that, sorry!)

If you were going to get any other i5 I would advise you get the 4670K or the 4690K. The 4670K is £168 so it's a bit more expensive than the 4460. The difference is that the 4670K and 4690K are multiplier-unlocked so they're the ones you want for overclocking. Other than that I don't really see a reason why a 4460 wouldn't be fine. It's a quad-core so fine for gaming. Obviously if he got a 4670K and overclocked it it would be quite a bit faster than a 4460 but you would need aftermarket cooling for that and I think he will be fine with a 4460.

The i5s also come with a cooler so don't worry about that.

Here is the 4670K if you are interested: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/processors/intel4thgeni3i5i71150/bx80646i54670k.html

You can pick DVD drives up really cheaply - this would be fine: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/opticaldrives/satadvdwriters/sh-224dbbebe.html but you could make a bootable USB drive of your 8.1 disc instead.

The GTX 750 Ti is great for the money, but if he is saving up to get a card in the future then I would recommend he maybe aim for a GTX 760 or the GTX 860 if it's out by then instead. I'm loving mine. :good:

PhysX is cool and all but I don't think it's really needed unless he plays a lot of games which can take advantage of it. Right now the Radeon R9 270X is a good card and is a little cheaper than the GTX 760 so that might be worth looking at if he could get something more powerful than the GTX 750 Ti in the future.

It's looking like a good little build though! :good:
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Awesome! We both really like the Z11 case and it's only about £8 more so we will 100% go for that one thanks! :)

Thanks :) I think we will stick with the 4460 as he will not overclock the CPU and also it saves us more money to go towards the graphics card :) Thanks I also think that the Radeon R9 270X looks great but my brother really wants the Phys X in games as he plays quite a lot of games, but I think your right we might as-well save up and try and get the GTX 760 or maybe the 860 if its released by then :) Yeah this looks like it's going to be a great build! :) thank you so much for your help :) I'm really looking forward to getting the parts now :)
 
I better get ready for bed now as I have to get up really early tomorrow, but thanks again so much for all your help :) I will be back on here tomorrow evening as we are going to order most of the parts :) Hopefully see you tomorrow, and thanks again!! :)
 
Yeah this build is going to be cool! :cool:

I think he will thank himself for saving and getting a GTX 760 or an 860. When the 860 comes out the 760s and 770s will be cheap for a little while whilst shops try to get rid of their old stock, so maybe he could pick up a cheap GTX 760 or 770 new? ;)

When the GTX 770 came out, the GTX 670 went from being about £300 to around £180 new on Novatech for a couple of weeks because they wanted to get rid of them... ;)
 
spirit said:
Yeah this build is going to be cool! :cool:

I think he will thank himself for saving and getting a GTX 760 or an 860. When the 860 comes out the 760s and 770s will be cheap for a little while whilst shops try to get rid of their old stock, so maybe he could pick up a cheap GTX 760 or 770 new? ;)

When the GTX 770 came out, the GTX 670 went from being about £300 to around £180 new on Novatech for a couple of weeks because they wanted to get rid of them... ;)
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Yeah that seems like a good idea! :) A 760 or 770 would be perfect for him so hopefully we will find one when they are on sale :)

Oh lol I think I paid £310 for my GTX 670! £180 is a bargain wow! to be honest it's a great graphics card :)
I don't think I will be upgrading for a while as it still plays every game on highest settings that I have tried lol but I suppose it's due soon :) I'm going to see how it runs "Project cars" if it runs that well, then I wont need to upgrade for another 2 years lol :D

Thanks again, also if you ever see a GTX 760/770 on sale pleaseeeee let me know lol :)
 
I will keep my eyes out. At the moment most 2GB GTX 760s are around £170-190 and most 4GB GTX 760s are over £200 (mine is a 4GB).

The GTX 670 is a tiny bit faster than the GTX 760 and the 760 plays games perfectly at 1080p certainly so I think you'll be fine for a couple more years!
 
spirit said:
I will keep my eyes out. At the moment most 2GB GTX 760s are around £170-190 and most 4GB GTX 760s are over £200 (mine is a 4GB).

The GTX 670 is a tiny bit faster than the GTX 760 and the 760 plays games perfectly at 1080p certainly so I think you'll be fine for a couple more years!
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Brilliant :) Thank you that's good to hear that my 670 is fine :) Is it worth getting the 4GB GTX 760? also thanks for keeping a look out for when they are on sale, if you ever see one please message me thanks :)

We are buying some of the parts tonight :) I found the Zalman Z11 case but there is two options to go for, there is these two:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cases/cases/z11p.html

and also

http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/components/cases/z11.html

Which one do we order please? Sorry I don't really know what the difference is, is one larger than the other?

Thanks so much again :)
 
Upgrading from a GTX 670 to a GTX 760 4GB would be pointless since both cards perform about the same - the 670 is actually slightly faster!

But if you're buying one new for a build then yeah it's a great choice but you can save yourself about £40 and go for a 2GB one. I only went for 4GB for editing high resolution video footage.

If you're interested there is currently a Radeon R9 280 for £150 on Novatech. That's cheaper and faster than a 2GB GTX 760: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...icscards/amdr9280series/gv-r928wf3oc-3gd.html

I recommend checking out Novatech's Deals page to see what they have on offer! http://www.novatech.co.uk/deals
 
spirit said:
Upgrading from a GTX 670 to a GTX 760 4GB would be pointless since both cards perform about the same - the 670 is actually slightly faster!

But if you're buying one new for a build then yeah it's a great choice but you can save yourself about £40 and go for a 2GB one. I only went for 4GB for editing high resolution video footage.

If you're interested there is currently a Radeon R9 280 for £150 on Novatech. That's cheaper and faster than a 2GB GTX 760: http://www.novatech.co.uk/products/...icscards/amdr9280series/gv-r928wf3oc-3gd.html

I recommend checking out Novatech's Deals page to see what they have on offer! http://www.novatech.co.uk/deals
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Awesome thanks! :) I will keep checking that deals page :) We just need to sell some things on ebay to buy some more parts for his computer as we have about half of them so far :) thanks :)
 
spirit said:
Good to hear good luck with the sales. :good:
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Thanks! :) Hopefully we can afford all the parts for the computer by next week or so :) That graphics card is a bargain for £149.99! But I think it's a bit out of budget for us at the moment, maybe we can wait another year or so for it to drop in price :)
 
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