I assume as you are not going to go SLI and your budget is fairly top end you'll be going for a high end GPU? Nvidia should be releasing their pascal GPU's this year. Rumored for mid 2016 at the moment. If you can, I'd hold out for one of those rather than spending alot of money on something like a GTX 980Ti. It will be worth it, as everything rumored/leaked so far has these lined up to be a very nice performance jump on this generation.

Hey Ralackk, not seen you on here in ages!

Yeah, I'm looking for as high end a GPU as I can. However, I'm without a gaming machine right now as my current GPU died last week and I've been toying around with either getting a cheap GPU to tide me over or just a complete new build, but my 7 year old machine is showing its age and I'm not sure I can wait for the new Pascal tech. By the time it is out and has had its bedding in time to see just how good it is, it could be the end of the year.

With that budget, you can, certainly buy a nice config

So, ifyou want an i7, the latest architecture makes sense. an I7 6700 ( should be fine unless you want to overclock) retails for 276£, you can find Z170 MB's between 100 and 140£ ( above that price the question is "do you need the added gadgets"?) , 16 GB of DDR4 3200 is 110£, a seasonic EVO 850 W ( 80 Bronze, semi-modular) is 96£, a 500 GB SSD Samsung EVO is 130£ and a 4TB Caviar black 129£. . Say 900£. add a case, optic drives, cooler, keyboard, mouse and you can still fit a GTX980 in your budget.

If you go with the previous gen ( i7 4790 , LG1150 MB of good quality, DDR3 2400Mhz), you get another margin of 80£, which gets you a GTX980 TI instead.

Prices checked on overclockers, with MSI MBS (Gaming 5) and Corsair RAM (2x8GB) as references

Make sure your motherboard pci express port is the same version (or higher) as the video card you want to buy.

PCI Express is the type of motherboard slot video cards go into now a days.

There are different versions numbered sequentially. Later versions are faster:
PCI Express 2
PCI Express 3
PCI Express 4

You get the idea.


If you use a PCI Express 3 video card on a motherboard that only supports PCI Express 2, you'll only get PCI Express 2 speeds.


I'd say that's the most important detail to be aware of.

Well, I've had a play around on the Overclockers site with the configurators and one setup that I just put together is as follows:

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/ocuk-tech-labs-skylake-z170-midi-tower-gaming-pc-configurator-fs-007-tl.html#t=a1wb5c1d%28e8g1i1k0l_m1o3

I'm not really decided on case and CPU cooler, and I have a question over whether I would need a 700W PSU for this setup. Any thoughts on this setup?

Oh, I don't need mouse or keyboard as I replaced them only last year, so they are good for a while yet.

if you are running watercooling, dual R9 390's are beautiful.

That's a LOT of money to spend on a rig. Ill be looking at upgrading soon, but 1000 is really my limit. Budget conscious gamer ftw.

Nice rig if you intend to overclock ! ( if not you can gain a bit by finding a config with a "normal" 6700, not a "k" and by taking another MB , but I suppose you prefer to have the supplier build the computer). I would take 16GB (2x8) from the start, and go for 3000/3200 Mhz DDR4.

I also checked a bit other suppliers, and I saw this one : http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTCONFIGPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=1307762, The same budget gets you 16gb of ram and your OS as well...

Re the PSU. Peak power need for your system would be in the range of 500W. More if you overclock. Considering that with time PSU performabce dicreases, I'd go for at least 650W, 80 bronze certified or better.

Re cooler. Again, much depends on whether you intend overclock or not. If yes, then the dark rock will sustain a reasonable OC. If not, then you can go for something a bit smaller like the 92mm Noctua, or comparable. non OC Skylake cpus are not thermal powerhouses like Haswell-E.

Ironically enough, when it comes to I5's, haswell CPUs ( ie 4690) are a sweeter spot than Skylake, and allow you to use cheaper MB's and DDR3, without significant loss of perf. Combined with a Radeon R9 GPU, this can indeed make a rig more "budget friendly".

I wouldn't buy any GPU's higher than the 200-300USD mark, aka max. gtx970
and that's because in like half year the new 14-16node process will come and that means 500-600 spent on a 980ti right now will be blown out of the water by a 300usd new card (present node is at 28nm (for like 7-8years) versus 16-16nm in half year - the difference in performace will be HUGE).

Also, if you happen to use W7, be aware that ms is planning to drop support for it in about 1.5 years, if you happen to use skylake or higher class CPU's:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/skylake_users_given_18_months_to_upgrade_to_windows_10

Good luck!

actually as far mobo pcie version support is concerned, it's actually not so big of a thing as you'd think. pcie2 isn't often at the limits of bandwidth saturation for most applications. it really only starts to become a concern in numerous sli/crossfire situations.

doesn't really matter now anyway because pretty much all contemporary mobos, with the exception of some older AMD boards have version 3.

I looked at your build. and I really hate giving PC advice, but the two things I would say is that 120GB for the SSD can be a little small. 2 or 3 AAA games are you're already straining its capacity limits. about a year and it fills up. might consider 250GB.

if this computer is for gaming, the 950 is a little low, UNLESS you're being aware of the better cards that are going to drop this year. they will be nvidia only, as I just heard recently apparently AMD's won't be ready til 2017. so if you're not dumping money now so you can get a better card later, that's pretty good. I have no idea about bang for buck I just looked at the hardware, sorry. ask on a PC forum. they're nice. they help people with build requests. just remember to politely, clearly, and concisely explain what it is you want to do with the computer.

600w is more than enough to run a i5 600, which typically tops out around 65w, and a 950 which I think is sub-100. the better cards later will need a more powerful PSU, but these days everyone wants a more efficient PC with sucks less juice and is quieter and so I've heard the new cards are very efficient. if you can't run the top end you could probably manage mid range as that 600w could handle a 970 in that system.

don't be scared away by that 91w number on the processor. I honestly don't know why they have the tdp's so high when the chips don't go near that in reviews. they're even more efficient than the haswell stuff before. I think it's just marketing BS to try and entice enthusiasts to build as they might think they might look at that huge number and go "ohh desktop chip!" becuase those are the kinds of TDPs we've left behind in the last little while.

Wait for Pascal if you can. The 900 series lacks full dx12 support and async support. The R9 Fury is a beautiful card though for a current model. :>

I've been about, just gone into lurk mode as I don't have nearly as much free time as I used to have.

You could build a new pc with all the latest bits, i7, mobo etc but maybe get a gtx 960/gtx970 to tide you over til the pascal is out?

Also maybe someone else can confirm this but the difference between say 1600mhz and 2400mhz speeds in ddr3 ram meant a real world gain of 1-5% depending on program if you were lucky. Are ddr4 speeds the same story again? You could save a bit of money just getting ddr4 2133mhz over say 3200mhz if this is still the case.