My Experience with PC Selection/Building

[The Untainted One 452]

For those of you that aren't interested in my previous history go to ---> Part Selection <--- to skip.

Background

I've always been interested in building a PC for myself. I started off my PC gaming adventure when I was maybe 9 or 10 on a PoS generic office PC that had integrated graphics. I moved over to console after that and didn't think about coming back to PC gaming. After years of Console gaming, I got sick of having to pay for monthly subscriptions for Xbox live on top of having to pay £45 a pop for any new game (my collection of £70 CoD packages is embarrassing) and decided to make the jump back to PC gaming.

I had no real experience in the PC gaming market and only one of my friends was a PC Gamer. In my IT classes I had a habit of creating different custom builds on PC building websites, so I had a small amount of knowledge of price ranges and what sort of parts were correct for other parts.

I wasn't feeling confident enough to build this by myself and nobody in my family had any sort of background with computers. It was also partly to do with the fact I didn't want to spend a lot of money on something that would require me to potentially spend a lot of time fixing without experience. I started searching around on different websites and eventually decided that the best value for money (excluding self building) was in pre-configured systems. I stumbled across a relatively less popular PC builder https://www.fiercepc.co.uk. They were offering the sort of PC specs I was looking for but for a reasonably lower price than competitors at the time.

I sat around for an hour or so searching through the website trying to decide what sort of PC I wanted. I ended up deciding to go for a smaller PC so that I could move it around freely (the computer desk I was using was opposite the front door) and take it to other places if I wanted.

This is the review of the PC from 2013 if any of you are interested in what I got (I removed the SSD in the configuration stage to save myself some money.):

https://www.kitguru.net/desktop-pc/roald/fierce-pc-prodigy-gt-hulk-overclocked-mini-gaming-pc-review/

I ended up paying around £1050 in total for the PC, Windows and 2 Years of Warranty. Apart from having to get the CPU cooler replaced twice (inside of warranty), this awesome PC has put up with the constant use and abuse over the past 3 years. As with most technology, the older it gets, the more obsolete it becomes. I began noticing that my FPS in games was starting to become slightly lower than before and newer games had settings auto set lower than I liked. This was it, finally time to replace my favourite purchase.

Part Selection

For those of you that don't follow the PC building scene at all, this past year or so has been pretty rough. The NAND flash shortage led to massive increase in RAM prices and a slight increase of SSD prices. Also, the Cryptocurrency mining craze has caused high end graphics cards to raise in price. These problems led me to wonder if you could still save money while the price of computer parts was increasing. I decided my best option for saving money with my new build would be to wait for major sales. I set myself a target date of 31st December 2017 (just under 1 year).

I spent quite a while looking at the different quality parts and customization available and set my mind towards high quality parts with some form of RGB lighting effects. I knew that this would bring up the overall price, but I was happy with this knowing I could potentially bring that price back down to a more reasonable one if I made carefully planned purchases. There are more in-depth reasons for my part choices but I don't want to spend ages on it (unless people want me to).

Below you can see a list of parts that I bought:

CPU - Intel 7700K

CPU Cooler - H115i 280mm

Motherboard - ASUS STRIX Z270-E

Memory - G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4 3200

M.2 SSD - Samsung 960 EVO 250GB

SSHD - Seagate FireCuda 1TB

Hard-drive - Seagate Barracuda 3TB

Graphics Card - Asus ROG STRIX 1080 8GB 

Case - Corsair 750D Airflow Edition

Power Supply - Corsair TXM 650W Modular

RGB Fans - Corsair SP120 (3 Pack)

This is a spreadsheet of what prices I bought parts at, with comparisons to (semi) current pricing and pricing of parts from when I purchased my first one:

*Change with higher quality image*

If you're wondering why I compare all part prices to March, it's because I was comparing waiting for sales to buying all of the parts at the same time.

The two sales I waited for were Amazon Prime Day and Black Friday/Cyber Monday. Historically these events have been much better for price reductions than Christmas deals, this proved to be true for me. There are only 3 exceptions to this, the graphics card, RAM and Case. 

Case: I ran out of time and I personally liked this case much more than any other case for a 280mm radiator (H115i). Checking the price history of this case I found that it never goes on sale, ever. I ended up getting a good price anyway.

Graphics Card: There was a deal back in late March and early April for £50 cash back on a 1080 or 1080ti. I knew that this could be the best deal for the rest of the year with the potential for rising prices. I took a risk and it worked out in my favour. 

RAM: RAM is the only part that I didn't save money on. I thought that the prices would start to come down at the end of the year but I was completely wrong. I ended up getting lucky with an amazing deal on the RAM I wanted, which saved me £60 compared to current prices. The loss compared to March pricing was £23.50, which isn't bad if you consider the overall price increase from March to now of £87.90.

Building

I still need to build my PC so I'll be editing this section when I come back from holiday. 3rd/4th January should be built.

Here's a pretty low quality pic of my parts (apart from RAM, Case and hard-drives):

Performance

This will come once I build my PC and use it for a bit.

Review

 

Edited June 28, 2020 by The Untainted One

[Quinn 643]

CPU - Intel 7700K WHY

[M1nt-l0u 1,235]

Nice thread.

I don't think it's worth waiting for prices to fall, because that could be 3 years or so. My plan is to build a portable mini gaming PC. Micro ITX form factor with a 1060 GPU and one of the better i5 Processors.

I have been waiting, and as you said - prices are not going down right now. May as well bite the bullet and spend it. 

[The Untainted One 452]

7 hours ago, Chris Lord said:

CPU - Intel 7700K WHY

Why not? 

[w33zy 1,523]

Looks good man wants pics of when its done. 

[M1nt-l0u 1,235]

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

[Oldmike 369]

@Mintlou Good choice to go for a small form factor case. I've done the same and i have zero regrets so far, it's just so convenient and it does the job perfectly. minipc.eu, a bit of advertisement can never hurt

[GingerPopper 402]

1 hour ago, Mintlou said:

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

I always wanted my ram to be almost as much as my motherboard, thank you phone manufacturers. Here in Bulgaria the difference in price between a 2400mhz kit and a 3000mhz kit is like 20 leva, or around 8 pounds.

 

 

 

Also veng3nce what monitor are you gonna use with this setup?

Edited December 27, 2017 by GingerPopper

[The Untainted One 452]

56 minutes ago, GingerPopper said:

Also veng3nce what monitor are you gonna use with this setup?

I currently have an ASUS VG248QE 24" 1080p monitor but I plan to buy a 1440p monitor sometime in 2018 and use the 1080p one as a secondary monitor.

[GingerPopper 402]

11 minutes ago, Veng3nce said:

I currently have an ASUS VG248QE 24" 1080p monitor but I plan to buy a 1440p monitor sometime in 2018 and use the 1080p one as a secondary monitor.

Yeah was about to say that with a system like that it would be a waste to play on 1080p, you could probably even go for a 144hz 1440p monitor but those are quite expensive, still here are 3 that I have seen to be pretty good:

AOC AGON AG241QG - A 24' 165 hz monitor with g-sync and a tn panel - around 450 pounds

AOC AGON AG271QX - A 27' 144 hz monitor with a tn panel and Freesync, which doesn't do anything in your case - also around 450 pounds

ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278QR - A 27' 144 hz monitor with a tn panel and g-sync - around 550-600 pounds

ACER XF270HUAbmiidprzx (yes that is the actual name) - A 27' 144 hz monitor with an IPS panel and Freesync - around 500 pounds

These were the ones that I have seen with pretty good prices and features, with the only thing that really pushes the price being g-sync, which you can decide if you want or not.

[BIBS 33]

3 hours ago, Mintlou said:

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

 

There has been a massive shortage of DDR4 ram lately...

http://www.pcgamer.com/get-ready-for-another-spike-in-ddr4-memory-pricing/

[GingerPopper 402]

1 hour ago, BIBS said:

There has been a massive shortage of DDR4 ram lately...

http://www.pcgamer.com/get-ready-for-another-spike-in-ddr4-memory-pricing/

It's been going on for almost a year and it doesn't show signs of slowing down, god knows when ram prices will stabilize, if ever. You could always just download ram though.

Edited December 27, 2017 by GingerPopper

[The Untainted One 452]

22 hours ago, GingerPopper said:

ASUS ROG SWIFT PG278QR - A 27' 144 hz monitor with a tn panel and g-sync - around 550-600 pounds

This is one of the monitors I've been looking at. I was thinking about getting an IPS monitor, maybe with G-Sync depending on how much it costs and using it for better looking games and watching videos. I'd then use my 24" for more competitive games like csgo and and league where the quality isn't as important.