New Desktop, Suggestion regarding £1500 pricepoint

[ragingwhisky]

Hello,

Hoping to acquire my first desktop in over a decade - been laptops on the go since early 2000's.

My budget criteria is £1500 +/- 10%.
Fixed spec requirements:
Dead set on Nvidia 780
Stock Intel i7 4770 (not K)
Ideally as a quiet as logically possible.
I do high end gaming in my downtime, and during work hours I spend a fair time with HyperV/Citrix virtualisation tech so being able to handle many VM's will likely mean RAM (8-16GB).
No OS required, as I have access to Windows8 and will likely add/remove the HyperV features as and when required to halt any power loss for the GPU.
The Desktop will be situated in a room with no carpets - hard floors, and so minimal fibres floating around, however the room can get hot during warm days.

Any help though on suggested PC spec is most welcome, I've been out of the "desktop" game a long time and although I've been doing a large amount of reading up, I can't compete with the RAW experience of people who are living and breathing component builds.

Really appreciated.

 

[javthrower]

do you need monitor, keyboard and mouse?

 

[javthrower]

if you don't I suggest this:

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 550 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® SABERTOOTH Z87: USB 3.0, SATA 6.0GB/s, THERMAL ARMOR
Memory (RAM)
16GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (2 X 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
650W FSP RAIDER SERIES RA-650 80 PLUS® BRONZE (£59)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,501.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/VUaJq8Aub_/

 

[javthrower]

if you need the keyboard, mouse and monitor then I suggest:

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 550 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB2.0, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 X 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
650W FSP RAIDER SERIES RA-650 80 PLUS® BRONZE (£59)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
AOC 21.5" WIDESCREEN LED TFT - 1920 x 1080, 5MS, D-Sub, DVI-D (£89)
Keyboard & Mouse
Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard (£39)
Mouse
ROCCAT™ Kova[+] – Max Performance Gaming Mouse (£36)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,543.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/o4v0QkvMbb/

 

[ragingwhisky]

if you need the keyboard, mouse and monitor then I suggest:

Case
COOLERMASTER SILENCIO 550 QUIET MID TOWER CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-4770 (3.4GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® Z87-A: ATX, USB2.0, USB3.0, SATA6GB/S, SLi, XFIRE
Memory (RAM)
8GB SAMSUNG DUAL-DDR3 1600MHz (1 X 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 780 - 2 DVI, HDMI, DP - 3D Vision Ready
Memory - 1st Hard Disk
120GB KINGSTON HYPERX 3K SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 555MB/sR | 510MB/sW)
2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD CAVIAR BLACK WD1002FAEX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 64MB CACHE (7200rpm)
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply
650W FSP RAIDER SERIES RA-650 80 PLUS® BRONZE (£59)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet 22dBA Triple Copper Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler (£19)
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Network Facilities
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT - AS STANDARD ON ALL PCs
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 4 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Office Software
NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus
NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Monitor
AOC 21.5" WIDESCREEN LED TFT - 1920 x 1080, 5MS, D-Sub, DVI-D (£89)
Keyboard & Mouse
Microsoft SideWinder X4 Gaming Keyboard (£39)
Mouse
ROCCAT™ Kova[+] – Max Performance Gaming Mouse (£36)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour) (£5)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 8 to 10 working days
Quantity
1

Price: £1,543.00 including VAT and delivery.

Unique URL to re-configure: http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/quotes/intel-haswell-pc/o4v0QkvMbb/

Don't need a monitor/keyboard/accessories - apologies, should've stated!

 

[ragingwhisky]

Just out of curiousity then, the "Quiet" cooler, how does that fare in comparison to the watercooling H40 in comparison to noise levels and capability to cool?

Overclocking the CPU will never be an issue due to the K chips having "reduced" virtualisation capabilities but keeping it cool is a must.

I like the 1501 pricepoint - matches bang on criteria

 

[javthrower]

because your not overclocking the Triple Copper Heatpipe will be the best value for money and give you great cooling, while also being super quiet, although yes the watercooler will keep the cpu cooler, it really isn't necessary

 

[ragingwhisky]

Taken the plunge, only differences is that I've amended the following additions:

ANTEC QUIET COMPUTING™ PERFORMANCE P280 CASE
4x BLU-RAY ROM DRIVE, 16x DVD ROM
DUAL-BAND WIRELESS 802.11N 450Mbps PCI-E CARD (£35)

Ordered a few moments ago....heart is pumping, especially as you select "submit".

 

[Boozad]

If you want a quiet case go for the Silencio 650 over the Antec P280, I did a lot of research into those two cases and the 650 is much quieter than the P280. Also I'd suggest going for a Modular PSU which should give you quieter performance than the Raider Series.

 

[ragingwhisky]

Amended to the 650 silencio. And 750w Gold modular.

From your research how much quieter did you find it to be - from what "jav" had mentioned and my looking around - it was always a tossup between the P280 and the 650. My only worry with the 650 was the case fans being behind the big door...was always curious if that design configuration would be the thing that warranted upping to the H40/60 cooling.

 

[keynes]

When gaming the most noisy component is going to be the gpu. While a silent case should lower the noise it is not going to be a significant reduction (from reviews) also there is a trade off with cooling. Saying that it seems that the gtx 780 is less noisy than the gtx 680.

 

[Boozad]

Amended to the 650 silencio. And 750w Gold modular.

From your research how much quieter did you find it to be - from what "jav" had mentioned and my looking around - it was always a tossup between the P280 and the 650. My only worry with the 650 was the case fans being behind the big door...was always curious if that design configuration would be the thing that warranted upping to the H40/60 cooling.

If you check my sig I've just ordered the 650 with a pretty high end machine without water cooling on the CPU. My current rig has an A10-5800k CPU with an ASUS HD7850-DC2T overclocked to 1GHz inside the Cooler Master Silencio 500, and while the GPU does ramp up the noise a fair bit when gaming it's not overly bad, my wife doesn't moan about it so it's got to be OK, and temps are good while the rig is under load.
I read reviews of the 650 and it was a fair few dB quieter than the P280, enough to make a noticeable difference. The reviewer went as far as to say he'd struggle to class the P280 as a quiet case. It was on Tom's Hardware, I'll have to try and find it again. The only downside to that is the P280 is a gorgeous case.

As Keynes has just said though, the 780 does run considerably quieter than the 600 Series due to the improved cooling technology that comes supplied on stock cards, and I don't think you'd have to worry about either the fan noise on the 650 or any generated temps from the components. You can also set fan performance to find the right balance between noise levels and cooling that suits you.

Full review and test spec configuration link.

 

[ragingwhisky]

Which is exactly why the 780 was a golden choice, from what I'd read regarding nvidias gk110 builds, noise was always a pleasant surprise.

Logically it's always going to be a toss-up between making it quieter or making it cooler, and i'm likely not the only one chasing after the golden median between the two.

My argument to myself at this point is that if I find the CPU runs too hot for my liking, I can at least purchase and fit a liquid cooler after-the-fact, so i'll live with the purchase of the 22db silent air cooler unless it makes it's choice for me.

At least with the slightly upped PSU - the draw from the components won't increase over what they would have had before, and i'm trusting "boo" for his opinion on the reduced noise operation.

Luckily if anything goes wrong with the build - parts can always be changed!...I found myself uumming and aaahing whether to get a vortex laptop for the cost of this desktop instead, and the argument that won me over to the desktop was the capability to mix and match parts going forward (at least more-so than what laptops had ever offerred).

 

[ragingwhisky]

Ahh, that is a fairly large reduction in db for the 650.

I ran a db meter over m current laptop, desktop and server at home in the living room and found the average noise (1/2m away) to average the 30dB mark so the official test figures (on low) for the 650 do make me happier.

 

[Boozad]

The good thing about the 650 is that running with the roof fan exhaust port closed the temps barely change, so that's one way of keeping the rig a little bit quieter with hardly any heat trade off. Of course, if the rig is running well within your happiness range noise wise you can always try adding a roof fan at a later date to add extra cooling if the noise levels don't change too much.