wmo

Intel Core i5-4460
Gigabyte GA-H81M-DS2
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO
Seasonic M12II Evo 520W
MSI GeForce GTX 760 2GB Gaming

Should be less then 500.

Possible upgrades:
Z97/87 + i5 4690K + 80-100
GTX 960 +75
+ 8gb ram + 60-70

From what I can see the GTX 960 is around the same price if not cheaper, recommend those over the AMD R9 280?

yes, less heat, less power consumption, no shitty drivers, no shitty artifacts.

Just had a look at some reviews, the only downside is a slower bus/bandwidth whatever (?) you reckon there will be a 'ti' version released later?

Other than looks awesome for the price and lower power which i'm a bit conscious about so that's good.

i'm sure there will be a ti version given the price gap between the 960 and 970.

but its overpriced currently... :>

970 is best value in the 900 series hands down, but out of budget :/

from what ive seen its cheaper than the r9 285 & 280's whilst sitting between the 2 in graphics power and using less power and heat.

mobo: GIGABYTE GA-B85M-DS3H (~£45)
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K (3,3 GHz, 6MB LGA1150 BOX) (~£165)
VGA: Sapphire R9 280X 3GB DDR5 OC Vapor-X TRI-X with Boost (~£205)
PSU: Enermax Platimax 80+ 500 W (~£85)

8 GB RAM will be fine for a while.

That ~£100ish - forget hybrid drives. Just buy a decent case (for example CM Silencio 550 (~£60) - bit of sound dampening + dust filters, classy looks) and a 2 TB WD Red (the emphasis is on "Red", it's about ~£60).

Whats the advantage of me buying the K series CPU? Not planning to OC. Yeah I'll probably go for a normal hdd and use the ssd I have for OS, it's only a 60gb one.

Then it's basically nothing, only that 4690 has -4 W max TDP.

The difference in price between 4690 and 4690K is ~£10, so I figured it's worth the little extra, if not else, for the sake of selling purposes later on. You can't really buy any better stuff for that +£10 in the other areas.

60 GB SSD for OS is just fine. HDD -> 2 TB in that price range. Look for WD Red or 5400 rpm Hitachi drives.

Whats the advantage of the 'Red' drives?

They are meant for servers, especially Red Pro. Better reliability which is the most important factor for a HDD.

5400 rpm Hitachi drives normalized for 24/7 use are also a good option.

care to elaborate on why 5400 rpm, when there's 7200?
and it's not that more pricy

Cooler, quiter, generally lasts longer. It's recommended for mass storage.

I actually recommend no less than 16GB these days with some new games announcing 8 minimum.

I doubt that it will be really needed in the next 1-2 years.

RAM is one of the easiest parts to upgrade. It's better to have a good mobo+CPU+VGA first and have it work. I deliberately choose a motherboard for him with 4 DIMM slots.

Ya but don't u still think that a large majority of the processes don't require anywhere near as much? IE: think of what a person uses a pc for... for 90% of the time (assuming other 10 is gaming). I always sorta felt like cpu/gpu were significantly more important in this sense.

Something like this... you can switch the cpu with a 4690 and/or the vga with a 280X

# Pangoly.com user generated PC Build #

Motherboard : GIGABYTE GA-H97N-WIFI Socket 1150 DDR3 SATA3 USB 3.0 Mini-ITX (£95.43 @ Amazon)
CPU : Intel Core i5-4670 Quad-Core 3.4 GHz Socket 1150 84W HD4600 BX80646I54670 (£172.46 @ Amazon)
Video Card : ASUS AMD Radeon R9 290 DirectCU II 4GB GDDR5 R9290-DC2OC-4GD5 (£215.00 @ Amazon)
Power Supply : Antec High Current Gamer HCG-520M 520W 80 PLUS Bronze Modular (£69.43 @ Amazon)

Total: £552.32
(Estimated Wattage: 364W)
(Generated by Pangoly.com on Fri, 23 Jan 2015 18:06:56 GMT)

Thanks for the suggestions.

Think I've decided on the following setup and pushing my budget a bit!

Intel Core i5-4460 3.20GHz
Palit GeForce GTX 970 JetStream 4096MB
BitFenix Phenom MATX Cube Case gonna use old case to save £60
Seasonic M12II-520 EVO 520W
Gigabyte B85M-D3H
Western Digital Caviar Red 2TB

Looked at getting a 'K' series cpu but that would add another £40 plus a more expensive motherboard to the cost and I'm already stretching the budget!

As for the graphics card I think the GTX 970 would be worth it for longivity, the GTX 960 reviews are good especially in the power usage but it seems to be quite crippled by the low bandwidth and 2gb vram. A good card but not very future proof and I don't want to be spending more money next year.
The AMD cards have good speed for the price but I don't like the amount of power they use and also noise.
GTX 970 just seems the best thing to go for even if it's bumping the price up by about £100.

I had that problem with the 970 being so highly recommended... But having my older motherboard die forced my hand into spending more on a better CPU+board instead of more money on the GPU. Got a good deal on a 280X on ebay (150 euro).

Are you against getting second hand stuff? Might be able to get a better CPU on ebay!

From what i gather the only thing better would be a K series Haswell i5 or go up to an i7, both of which are on ebay for no cheaper than the online shops.

Ok, fair enough! :D

Looks like a great rig, bit jealous of that 970! :)

You don't need a new PC to play QW/reflex

qw no but i could do with an upgrade for reflex... so may as well get something that will last. its not really for that anyway.

then for what -_

Your budget is £500 - £35 ninox mouse for Dird ;]

And an MX300 for nYmPhets.

And dildo for funnyb.

I just upgraded for £450

Bitfenix prodigy MITX custom build - OS Win 8.1

AMD FX6300 3.5/4.1 GHz (Boost is 4.1)
MSI GTX 970 4GB
Gigabyte 970A-UD3P Motherboard - 8xUSB 2.0 2x USB 3.0
Bluetooth and Wifi adapter included
RAM 8GB 1866MHz DDR3 Corsair Vengeance Pro
128GB SSD - Sandisk Pulse Drive
250GB 7300RPM HDD

5 months from new - little used.

I just picked this up from eBay for £450

it's a risky business buying used stuff but with the right interrogation you can ascertain it's condition, whether it comes with receipts & warranties etc...

FUCK THE HIGH STREET TBH

yours for £699.99 :DDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Not exactly a blockbuster deal.

Bob Holness disagrees.

Whoever he is.

Bob was a legend to many a university student in the UK during the 80s and early 90s.

He knew nothing about modern computing but that's immaterial.

I consider my purchase to be boast worthy but not a blockbusting deal I agree.

Good tidings sir.