First build advice

JamesEG

New Member
Hi everyone,

Next year I will be going to university and figured that building a PC would be my best option. At the moment I have a late 2013 Retina Macbook Pro which is more than capable of doing anything I need it to at school right now, and I will be using it through university a lot. I also do some photography and CS6 runs great on it.

However when I get to Uni I would like something else I could rely on, rather than just my Macbook as it's going to end up getting used a lot. I would also like to try some other things such as some gaming which I've never been able to do before and perhaps video editing. So, I thought the best way to go about it was to go down the route of building my own PC, I've wanted to do it for a while anyway but up to now I haven't had much of a chance to think about it. I've done some research so I think I know the basics but I still don't know much!

I looked at the minimum requirements for Battlefield 4 and based a list of parts off of that but I'd like to get some opinions -- http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2g9DJx -- Would you change anything in that list? I don't know much about the quality and reliability of different companies that produce the parts and I would like a PC that keeps the price lower but also performs well. I would also like to consider RAID 1 or RAID 10 with a small SSD for OS etc., unless a single large SSD or two would be a better choice. Lastly, I would like something that has a fair amount of room for upgrades or expansion, I don't know a lot about motherboards or if the MSI one has many upgrade options, but it had a lot of good reviews.

I have a Saturday job which pays quite well so my budget would be around £1500 by the time I've saved up in a few months. Very long for a first post but hopefully that's okay, thanks in advance.

- James
 
Few things.

Firstly, if you don't have the money for the build yet there isn't much point in doing a parts list just yet. Prices, components, and availability change incredibly fast and what's viable now will be different in a few months. This is noticeably true with Graphics Cards, CPU's, SSDs, RAM to an extent, and Motherboards to an extent.

However if you were going to the build now there's a few things I would suggest.

If you're going to Overclock at all, get a better motherboard. I have that same one, and it's alright for light/moderate overclocking but if you're wanting to push it very far you'll want a better board. If you're not Overclocking, ditch the Water Cooler, as you won't need it.

Video card is outdated. The R9 280 or higher for AMD and the 700 Series for Nvidia are going to be what you want to look for. If you're using Photoshop you'll probably want an Nvidia card. A GTX 760 or 770 might be your best bet.

With this budget, an Intel Build is probably a better idea. I'm not well versed with Intel motherboards and processors so I'll let somebody else suggest there.

Sound card is pretty unnecessary unless you have some pretty high level audio gear that you use. Stock sound on my board sounds great and I use Audio Technica ATH M50's.

Extra case fan probably isn't necessary but it wouldn't hurt either.

I don't know much about RAID so can't help you there.

As for upgrades, you'll probably want to stay away from an AM3+ board as I think that this is the 8320/8350 is the last processor their making for it. Intel would be better for upgradability.
 
Thanks for the help Denther, much appreciated. I don't have the money for the build yet but at least I'll have a better idea when it comes to building the PC. I'm not very familiar with over clocking so I'll have to find some information about it, anyway here's the new list with a few changes -- http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/kfdBTW -- I'll also do some more research and comparisons with what I've got at the moment.
 
Looks a lot better. If you've got the money you'd probably benefit from a GTX 770 though.
 
Okay thanks again for your help :) I should be able to get the GTX 770 so I'll choose that instead, hopefully soon I can start building the PC!
 
Back
Top