MB: Asus Z97-PRO (WIFIAC + BT4.0)
CPU: i5 4690 / i7 4790
GPU: Gigabyte R9-290 4GB / Hold off until GTX880 releases
RAM: G.Skill Ares 2400MHz
PSU: Coolermaster Vanguard S 750W
Case: Thermaltake Urban S21
CDD: Pioneer Blu Ray Combo
OS: Windows 8.1 Home OEM
Fan: Coolermaster 120mm x 3
HDD: Crucial M500 240GB (a spare I have)
HDD: Spare 2.5 2TB HDD I having lying around
Primary use will be for gaming and photo editing.
Any feedback would be appreciated :)
Thanks!
i wrote it below the specs
"Primary use will be for gaming and photo editing."
Couple of items that come to my attention.
GPU: Gigabyte R9-290 4GB < Which model is this? Make sure its not a reference model, non-reference models will have much better cooler solutions.
HDD: Crucial M500 240GB < Samsung Evo is the slightly faster drive. Plenty of Googled benchmarks agree.
HDD: WD Red 4TB < WD Red is designed specifically for small NAS systems that have 1 to 5 drive bays. Not sure this is the right choice?
Thanks for the feedback
Gigabyte oc is the gpu
The ssd I have in my drawer
Will scrap the hdd, I have a 2.5 inch portable hdd that I'll open and use.
This build seems to be fine for heavy gaming and photo editing.
How much RAM are you getting? I would suggest 8gb or more if you want to have a few windows of photoshop/lightroom running.
Other than that, this build seems to be pretty good. You really don't need anything else for what you will be using it for unless you want to run some BF4 on triple monitors/4k gaming etc.
16gb
Sounds good to me. You would definitely benifit from the i7 as stated by RichardWise but all depends on how crazy you will be going with these photos. I would stick with the i5 and save some of that $$$ ;)
thinking about the i7… decisions decisions..
initially the first build i mocked up cost about 2.1k, now this one will cost just shy of 1.5k, looks like itll be going back up again =="
I was focused on the gaming side, forgot about Photoshop…
Definately want 16GB RAM, and the build will also benefit from an i7 as photoshop can definitely take advantage off the hyper-threading and multi-cores (as do some modern games including BF4). This all depends on budget however.
Hmm, I've thought about the i7, but want to keep my budget down…
I'll consider it, thanks for your input
I can't find your wireless card model online
just mentioning it since my ASUS wireless card has horrible problems on n and windows 7, and my USB dongle overheats in summer.
Also the case only has 1 12cm intake (with dust filter -looks hard to clean -requires removal of front panel)
The Antec GX500B-W has 2x12cm filtered intake and easy to clean. (although its not as sleek as the s21)
Otherwise there are lots of other cases with good airflow and filtering (mostly higher end)
-the r9 290 produces a lot of heat.
Thanks for the feedback, I'll look into wifi cards.
Do you have a recommendation for a wifi and blue tooth card?
TP link cards are generally pretty good and inexpensive.
If you have dual band 5ghz router in your home it's a good idea to grab a dual band NIC. say a TL-WDN4800
Bluetooth generally comes in the form of either MiniPCIE card for laptops or USB dongles. Since you're on a desktop, go buy a USB dongle from ebay for less than $5.
hmm, thought about this, and agree with you, should future proof with a dual band.
Think I'll just go for a motherboard with bluetooth and wifi built in, it'll cost $100 more but becomes $50 once you offset that with the cost of a dualband wifi minipcie card. happy to pay that little extra for convinience.
Save a few dollars, drop the Z97 for a H97. You aren't getting a K series processor so the overclocking utilities of the Z97 aren't needed.
Other than that, looks good!
going for a better mb with wifi+bt built in.
cant find a h97 one that does wifi+bt integrated.
I would say get the K series processor so that you can overclock it. And as mentioned previously, wd red is primarily for NAS and if I'm not mistaken, they are 5200 rpm. I would personally prefer hitachi drives at 7200 rpm. Even though they are by both owned by wd, hgts has a low failure rate
cant jutisfy spending extra for a k series, esp since i dont fully understand what overclocking is.
i am debating to myself if the extra $$$ for an i7 is worth it.
I would suggest lower your motherboard to h97 and get e3 1230v3 which is comparable to the i7 (if you are not doing OC), and replace psu with antec, seasonic or corsair.
any specific reason why to change the brand of the PSU? I have friends that reckon they're alright.
ah sorry at first I thought there's no review about this psu. but i checked again http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story… they seems great.
I haven't used Coolermaster personally, but I did have a friend tell me once that a watt on an Antec PSU is worth 2 of anyone elses. It may be a slight exaggeration but it seems to work quite well. I've got a 7 year old Antec 550W PSU that is easily powering a system that technically requires more than that, according to the reviews at the time they actually were able to use it in place of a 650W. So I would never go any other brand now!
but I did have a friend tell me once that a watt on an Antec PSU is worth 2 of anyone elses.
Which is not true at all. A well made 500 watt power supply will provide 500 watts reliably. It could also go over and many people who review power supplies often stress test these PSU's to see their tolerance levels. If the PSU doesn't blow up, then it's a sign of a reliable PSU. The wattage rating of the PSU is actually a ballpark figure of what the PSU can do. How much it can actually deliver when put to the test can either be higher or LOWER than what the PSU suggests. If it's a run of the mill PSU with no brand, they will over-promise and under deliver most of the time.
This is why video card manufacturers often over-state the power requirements. My 7870 recommends a 500w power supply but in fact a quality made 430w Corsair PSU is capable of running it with no issues.
FYI Antec does not produce PSU parts, they simply assemble. Long ago, Antec PSU's weren't all that reliable but after switching suppliers they are now of reasonable quality.
FSP and Delta are the ones making the Antec PSU's. If you bought a high end Antec, chances are you will have bought a Seasonic or a Delta made psu.
Here is a relatively long list of PSU's and the manufacturers behind them:
http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/psu_manufacturers
I actually just bought a similar speed machine. Got the k processor as it was all MSY had in stock. I went with an ASRock Z97 motherboard as the M.2 connector supports the newer faster SSD drives which aren't mainstream yet but will probably drop in the near future. I also picked up an NVIDIA 770, but I'm very brand loyal and won't buy an ATI/AMD again.
Mine is for for gaming and photoshop as well. My old machine was 5 1/2 years old and just got to the stage of not being able to play some newer games (or deal with panoramas in photoshop). I personally couldn't justify the i7 price difference as I tend to just do other stuff while I wait on lightroom/photoshop doing their thing.
Upgrade was from an i7 920 2.66ghz quad core with 6GB RAM and a GTX 260. Should be a decent improvement over what I am used to anyway!
And to sujithgokul above, I have 2 x WD Reds in a NAS and they are 7200 rpm, not sure if they all are though. Looks like you aren't buying those any more anyway.
I might hold off on the GPU, i was honestly initally going to grab a gtx780, however, the next gen maxwell cards are around the corner and ive been told theyre going to be much better (obv as with most next gen stuff). that was my reason for switch to amd for graphics, im still debating this decision though.
Fair enough. I waited a couple of months, but then gave up waiting. I couldn't really hold off as I couldn't play some of the newer games at all, e.g. COD: Ghosts required DX11, my card was so old it couldn't do it. They also usually release the high end cards first, which means I'd wait even longer as I refuse to pay the premium for them.
brand loyal and won't buy an ATI/AMD again…. you must not like money then.
Not normally brand loyal, but in this case, definitely so. The driver support for ATI was terrible and having recently fixed some issues with the in laws computer it reinforced my idea here. Spent about an hour searching myself and scouring forum threads to fix some bizarre software settings. I did have a look at a couple of comparisons this time and they also mentioned some driver issues. So I'll be sticking with NVIDIA for another generation at least.
Ill admit they had issues when they used to force-out driver releases each month, regardless of the update quality or not.
Since they have changed to updating only when drivers are ready, AMD cards & drivers have been much better for it
And I have personally alternated between Red & Green almost each and every card generation.
Yeah, they may be better now, but I still found the software painful when fixing the in laws machine, it was enough to put me off. The NVIDIA stuff just seems to work without me having to do anything. 5.5 years since the last upgrade, will give ATI a few years to sort it out before I next come to upgrade. ;)
Thanks to all for their help to this thread. I've decided and bought the following build and I'm very happy with it.
MB: Asus Z97-PRO (WIFIAC + BT4.0)
CPU: i7 4790
GPU: Gainward GTX750 2GB
RAM: 8GB x2 G.Skill Ares 2400MHz
PSU: Coolermaster Vanguard S 750W
Case: Thermaltake Urban T31
OS: Windows 8 Pro OEM
Fan: Fractal Design 140mm fan x2 + Corsair SP120 x2
HDD: Crucial M500 240GB (a spare I have)
HDD: Spare 2.5 2TB HDD I having lying around
Drop in GPU from an AMD 290 4GB to an Nvidia 750 2GB is huge!!
The 750 is barley mid range performance, the 290 is top end.
Yeah, just a cheap gpu while waiting for Maxwell ones to come out.
Gives me time to save up for a game library that actually needs to gtx880, all the games I have now don't even sweat the 750,lol.
1 question I ask when building a computer for family and friends is what are they going to be using it for.
Answer that questions and I'll tell you if this is suitable.