Opinions needed on this PC please

[pringle1988]

Hello all, im after some advice for my brother and im not the best with computers and im hoping some people on here can point me in the right direction.
He has between £700 and £800 to buy a new PC, thats for the tower only but ideally to also come with windows. I have found this

http://3xs.scan.co.uk/configurator/cheap-overclock...

The stats to me seem good but im out of touch with computers and no idea what all the I5 4690k Haswell refresh etc means. He wants it to play modern games, not necessarily on max out graphics but something decent and something that will last for a while. In the future he plans on using it for sound recording and has an interface etc picked out already.

Is this ok for the money? Or is there better alternatives out there?
Thanks

[MissChief]

That will do the job but personally I'd be inclined to pay the little extra and get the 770 card.

[grumbledoak]

Games don't tend to stress the CPU as much as the graphics card(s) so it is traditional to skimp on the CPU and instead spend that money on LED fans and really ugly mice . So I don't really 'get' the overclocked i5 choice.

[Bullett]

A gaming machine doesn't normally make a good recording machine. They tend to be too noisey.
If he wants to do audio recording it will depend on the number of concurrent tracks he wants (in and out) and then you are into read/write rates on the HDD.
Then if he wants real time effects (reverb etc) he'll need lots of CPU cycles for that.

For gaming an i5 is fine and it should do the music as long as he's not doing too much with it.
I'd suggest and upgrade of the HDD to and SDD and a second HDD as well (2TB+) and don't forget an external backup drive.
For gaming a good GPU is critical but you don't need to spend the earth.
I'd also spend some money on a quiet case, fans etc. As long as the GPU is quiet at idle then it shouldn't be too much of an issue.

[Jinx]

MissChief said:

That will do the job but personally I'd be inclined to pay the little extra and get the 770 card.

I was going to suggest saving £20 and getting the 3GB R9 280 - or go R9 280X for £13 more (both outshine the 760) but at unless your going 2560x1440 or higher any of these cards will do.

[pringle1988]

Thanks for the suggestions everybody, il let him know. I didnt think about the noise factor. My computer is pretty loud and recording with it humming away wouldnt be the best.

[pringle1988]

Looks like hes going to go ahead with this one. Does anybody have any experience with scan.co.uk? Ive had a look around the internet and there are some very different opinions on the company.

[wizzard67]

pringle1988 said:

Looks like hes going to go ahead with this one. Does anybody have any experience with scan.co.uk? Ive had a look around the internet and there are some very different opinions on the company.

Scan are excellent IMO. I've been using them for years, service and support (very rarely needed) have always been great.