New gaming PC around £900-£1000

[Sparky_Sct]

Gaming PC Configuration around £900-£1000

So I went and configured a PC at about £900, I can go up to about £1200 but I want to know if I can get it lower then that so as I can buy a 144Hz monitor, so is this a balanced configuration?

Case
PCS ENIGMA 6003B BLACK CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i5 Quad Core Processor i5-7400 (3.0GHz) 6MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME B250-PLUS: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 2133MHz (2 x 8GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP
1st Hard Disk
250GB Samsung 850 2.5" EVO SSD, SATA 6Gb/s (upto 540MB/sR | 520MB/sW)
FREE Rainbow Six Siege with select SAMSUNG SSDs!
2nd Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 350W VS SERIES™ VS-350 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
INTEL STANDARD CPU COOLER
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS


Price £906.00 including VAT and delivery

 

[Oussebon]

I'd probably advocate against the 7400. It's already quite expensive, but you're not getting any of: the higher frequencies of the faster i5s, the extra cores of an R5 1600x, the gaming performance of an i7 7700k, or the great budget gaming performance of a Pentium G4620 etc.

I'd also suggest a better case and better PSU for more upgrade options in the future, while a better case like the Inwin GT1 would also give more cooling options.

The B250 mobo costs not much less than a Z270 but doesn't support faster RAM.

I'd also suggest at least the Titan cooler.

You can help pay for some of this by dropping the SSD, since you can always add an SSD in the future far more cost effectively than having to replace a CPU.

Something like this would still let you just about squeeze in a 144hz monitor in:



Case
InWIN GT1 BLACK GAMING CASE
Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-7700k (4.2GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard
ASUS® PRIME Z270-P: ATX, LGA1151, USB 3.0, SATA 6GBs
Memory (RAM)
8GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3000MHz (2 x 4GB)
Graphics Card
3GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 1060 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP
1[SUP]st[/SUP] Hard Disk
1TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 32MB CACHE
DVD/BLU-RAY Drive
NOT REQUIRED
Power Supply
CORSAIR 450W VS SERIES™ VS-450 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable
1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling
Super Quiet Titan DragonFly Heatpipe Intel CPU Cooler
Thermal Paste
STANDARD THERMAL PASTE FOR SUFFICIENT COOLING
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking
10/100/1000 GIGABIT LAN PORT (Wi-Fi NOT INCLUDED)
USB Options
MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System
Genuine Windows 10 Home 64 Bit - inc DVD & Single Licence
Operating System Language
United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software
FREE 30 Day Trial of Microsoft® Office® 365
Anti-Virus
BullGuard™ Internet Security - Free 90 Day License inc. Gamer Mode
Browser
Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Warranty
3 Year Silver Warranty (1 Year Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery
STANDARD INSURED DELIVERY TO UK MAINLAND (MON-FRI)
Build Time
Standard Build - Approximately 10 to 12 working days
Quantity
1

Price £1,014.00 including VAT and delivery

Unique URL to re-configure : https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/saved-configurations/intel-z270-pc/pdBc67Cxwq/

Note if you go for an AOC g2460pf with its freesync, which you can get for ~£200 in some places, you could swap the GPU to an RX 570 to benefit from freesync.

 

[Sparky_Sct]

Is the i7 7700K needed to be balanced with the GTX1060 or can I go for the i5 7600K?

 

[Oussebon]

Even the i5 7400 is fine with a GTX 1060 - the point is that one day you'll be upgrading your GPU and then you'll very possibly find it won't be ideal.

I wouldn't recommend getting the 7600k. There's arguably not much point getting a Z270 mobo and fast ram only to pair it with an i5 7600k, in the context of all the alternatives. The extra threads of the i7 would likely be a lot more futureproof.

We're already seeing some games where the i5 is at a fairly real disadvantage compared to an i7. And some games where the extra cores of an R5 1600(x) help smooth out gameplay.

If you really want to save money I'd suggest either an i5 7600 + h110M-R mobo, or a system built around an R5 1600x. Personally I'd aim for a 7700k.

If this rules out a 144hz monitor, you could always upgrade your monitor when you upgrade your GPU, and still use the 1080p 60hz screen you have as a 2nd monitor for browsers etc.

 

[Sparky_Sct]

I can probably go for some more shiny parts and save some more for a monitor. Also, do you think the GTX1060 3GB is a good GPU for this price bracket?

 

[Oussebon]

Yes, I think it's a good choice. If you might end up with a freesync monitor, the RX 570 is worth looking at. It's a tad more expensive and uses a bit more power, but supports freesync and delivers similar performance.

 

[Sparky_Sct]

Would it be worth going for the 6GB 1060?

EDIT: I just looked at the price difference I may as well go for the 6GB it's about £30 more.

 

[Oussebon]

Depends on the price as you say. For £30 difference it sounds tempting. But it's often been ~£50-60 which hasn't always seemed worth it.

 

[Sparky_Sct]

Yea, for only £30 it is very tempting. It should be a bit more future proof with the extra vram.

 

[Oussebon]

The performance difference between them is more down to the 6gb one having more cores. The extra VRAM on its own doesn't matter much in nearly all cases. The GTX 960 2gb and 4gb were neck and neck in most measures, while the RX 480 4gb and RX 480 8gb also pretty much tied. The 8gb did slightly better, apparently due to slightly faster memory rather than more of it (and you could just OC the memory on the 4gb one anyway iirc).

So the extra cores on the 6gb 1060 do it for me a lot more than the extra VRAM on its own would.

 

[Sparky_Sct]

Yes my thinking was more along the lines of games will use more VRAM in the future so having more may be of a benefit later on even though the VRAM itself is not that much a benefit now.

 

[Oussebon]

I think that by the time VRAM is an issue, the GPUs will lack the horsepower to be running particularly high settings anyway. This is partly why the 960 didn't benefit as even games that could use more VRAM were too taxing at higher settings and/or sufficiently optimised that they made do with 2 vs 4. But we can only speculate about the future

 

[Sparky_Sct]

True, there are some games that can use the extra VRAM that I play myself, like rainbow six siege with the UHD texture pack. My other PC has a 970, wich has similar performance of the 1060 but it is limited in certain games by the vram.

 

[Oussebon]

I don't think I find that with my 970. Even FO4 with texture packs through the eyes isn't an issue - it's the GPU load from the ENB and Reshade that does it.

 

[Sparky_Sct]

The rainbow six siege UHD pack makes my fps a big more sluggish with my 970. even though its overclocked.