Custom made Gaming PC. Specs alright? Anyway to lower price?

[Komirai]

Are these components alright to build for a Gaming PC? And will it be able to play the latest games? Also, is there any components you think you would recommend that would be able to lower the price tag a little?

This computer will be used for youtube'ing, so it will have to be able to edit, play the latest games and multi-task multiple programs at once.

Here are the specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core - £230.00

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing - £24.96

Motherboard: Asus Sabertooth Z87 ATX LGA1150 - £155.84

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 - £60.77

Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" SSD - £77.48

Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM - £37.50

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB - £437.98

Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower - £84.98

Power Supply: SeaSonic 550W ATX12V / EPS12V - £95.55

Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/RSBS DVD/CD Writer - £12.76

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) - £69.65

Total: £1287.47

EDIT: I've added the prices to the components of each part so you have a rough idea how much each part costs. Also I've made a few changes from other sources of help. So I've removed the Sound Card seems someone said that onboard sound cards are pretty good nowadays, and also the unwanted peripheral, the gaming keyboard. I've also added a Samsung Pro Series 128GB of SSD (Solid State Drive).

EDIT 2: Took one of the optical drives out. Also thanks to Seba, I've decided and found a newer version of the Geforce which for some reason couldn't see yesterday, so updated it to the Geforce GTX 980 instead of the 970 seems there really isn't much of a price difference. As for the CPU, a lot of you seem to suggest just downgrading down to the i5, but when I see the price of the i7 I don't really see the harm in paying a little extra money for something that clearly is mildly better than the i5. Unless there is a very substantial reason as to going down to the i5, I will be sticking with the i7.

 

[mvbighead]

You don't need an i7 to play the games, an i5 would do nicely. If you don't intend to overclock, ditch the K processor and the Z board.

To me, it all depends on what you want to spend. Personally, I would lose some of the stuff and add an SSD in there if that is your budget. There is simply no reason not to have an SSD in a system with that kind of hardware.

 

[Komirai]

You don't need an i7 to play the games, an i5 would do nicely. If you don't intend to overclock, ditch the K processor and the Z board.

To me, it all depends on what you want to spend. Personally, I would lose some of the stuff and add an SSD in there if that is your budget. There is simply no reason not to have an SSD in a system with that kind of hardware.

The thing is, is that it isn't solely purely for gaming it is going to need to be able to do pretty heavy graphical designing as well with Cinema 4D, Adobe AE and Sony Vegas as well. It needs to be able to render those pretty decently as well, or will the i5 still do the job fine enough? I chose the i7 because of a little future proof, I need it to last it's money worth. Like how long of a difference between the i5 and the i7 begin to start getting out of date for example, or become just ok?

And with ditching them both, what would you recommend from the i5 range and the motherboard then?

 

[mfenn]

Can you update your post with the answers to these questions? It's also helpful to list out the current prices that you're seeing so that we can tell whether you picked a particular part because it was a good deal (some of your choices are a bit odd but would make sense if they were good deals).

 

[postmortemIA]

keep the I7, drop the $200+ mobo, $120+ will do the same thing. for the difference, for heavens sake, get the 240GB SSD

 

[Komirai]

Can you update your post with the answers to these questions? It's also helpful to list out the current prices that you're seeing so that we can tell whether you picked a particular part because it was a good deal (some of your choices are a bit odd but would make sense if they were good deals).

Which choices were odd to you?

keep the I7, drop the $200+ mobo, $120+ will do the same thing. for the difference, for heavens sake, get the 240GB SSD

I've added an SSD, just not a 250 GB one. I personally think a 128GB would suffice. Unless others believe in the same opinion as you.

 

[Seba]

In my opinion, a 120GB/128GB SSD + 1TB HDD is the perfect combination today (optimum performance and storage capacity, at a reasonable cost).

If you build this PC for games, better go with a cheaper Core i5 instead of Core i7. The performance in games is similar, but the CPU is considerably less expensive.

Do not buy the GTX 780 graphics card. Get the newer GTX 970 instead.

Why do you need two optical drives?

 

[DSF]

It depends on what you intend to store on the SSD, but if you'd actually like to put a few games on it I don't recommend 128GB. It's just too small by today's standards. Have a 180GB one and that's the smallest I'd go.

If you intend to keep all of your games (or at least all of the large ones) on the 1TB drive then 128GB is fine.

Keep in mind that Windows system files get pretty large these days. The WinSxS directory on my gaming computer is 30+GB all by itself, making it over 25% of a 128GB drive.

 

[Seba]

For games, even a 250GB SSD is to small. Unless you install/uninstall games and in that case, a 120GB SSD is enough.

 

[Komirai]

In my opinion, a 120GB/128GB SSD + 1TB HDD is the perfect combination today (optimum performance and storage capacity, at a reasonable cost).

If you build this PC for games, better go with a cheaper Core i5 instead of Core i7. The performance in games is similar, but the CPU is considerably less expensive.

Do not buy the GTX 780 graphics card. Get the newer GTX 970 instead.

Why do you need two optical drives?

Thanks for mentioning the GPU there, for some reason the only ones were showing up for me was the Titans, the 780 and earlier. Went with the 980 just because there really isn't much difference in pricing.

As for the optical drive, I've decided to remove one of them. If I need more later, then I get just get one later on if so need be.

 

[Seba]

At what price did you find the GTX 970 card? The price difference between GTX 970 and GTX 980 should be significant ($330 vs. $550).

 

[Komirai]

At what price did you find the GTX 970 card? The price difference between GTX 970 and GTX 980 should be significant ($330 vs. $550).

It might be a difference there in America, but in Pound Sterling the GTX 970 cost around 350-450 range, while the 980 is only in the 450+ range. Which I'm not too concerned about if the 980 is worth that much difference to get. Seems nVidia doesn't show the performance difference between the both of them.

 

[Seba]

GTX 980 is something like 15-20% better than GTX 970.

Maybe the prices are not stabilised yet, because these cards have just been released.

 

[mfenn]

Which choices were odd to you?

Thank you for adding the prices, the reason I didn't want to comment on specifics was that I didn't know if you were getting a ridiculous deal on any given part. There are very few bad parts, but a whole lot of bad prices.

Here's what I'd recommend:
- CPU: For gaming, there is very little benefit to the i7 over the i5, so it's not a good price/performance option. In many cases, the i5 4690K (£170) will perform identically for £50 less. That £50 can go towards a bigger SSD or more memory. If you absolutely want to spend the money on the i7, it doesn't make sense to pay £230 for the older and slower i7 4770K when the newer and faster i7 4790K is £240. Without knowing your overall budget (see the list of questions that I linked), it's hard to determine what tradeoff should be made.
- Mobo: In the absence of a stellar deal, getting a prior generation board like the Z87 Sabertooth doesn't make much sense. You can get a good quality Z97 board like the Gigabyte Z97X-Gaming 5 for £110.
- SSD : The idea of the 840 Pro series is to get the maximum performance. However, the 128GB part isn't a good example of that when you consider that SSDs scale up performance as their capacity increases due to increased NAND parallelism. The 840 Pro is in a weird spot because you're paying for a 128GB drive with performance similar to the 256GB drives in the same price class. I'd swap that to a drive like the 840 EVO 250GB for £80.