New build for the wife

My wife currently has an old asus pc with a q9450 6gb of ram and a nvidia 9800gt.

It currently suits her ok, playing skyrim with 9000 mods on medium and sims 3 on lower settings but now newer games are coming out that she has her eyes on like Dragon Age 3 so we figured its about time to upgrade. I put this together

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zNTTZL

what do yall think? I'm fine with overkill as we wont have to upgrade again for a long time (this one lasted her many many years). I was considering a 780 instead of 760 but that raised the price $1084 which we are still ok with but I'd really like to justify it first. She games on a smaller monitor that I believe is 1680 x 1050(new one possibly for Christmas which will be 1080). If this pans out and seems like a good deal I'll be placing the order tonight.

Could you please answer the stickied "ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS FIRST" so that we can help you better?

Also, how badly does your wife want a pink-colored case?

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? $1000~
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US, Detroit, Michigan
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
The parts listed here http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zNTTZL mobo, ram, cpu, gfx card, hard drive, PSU, case
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Reusing HDD as a back up
6) Will you be overclocking?
Shouldn't be necessary but am not counting it out
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1680*1050 upgrading later this year to a 1080 monitor
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Ordering parts today or tomorrow
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Nothing specific
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Already own a copy of win 7 64 though I can't remember which version as it's at work right now

and Dangman she is the one that picked out the case. She hates the color pink except for her gadgets (DS, Cellphone, soon comp case)

How long is the drive to this Microcenter for you?:
http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/madison-heights.aspx

Video card wise, I recommend the R9 280 instead it outperforms the GTX 760 and has an extra 1GB of VRAM which should help it later on with future OSes and games.

Let's go a different route:

$200 - Intel Core i5-4570 quad-core processor
$70 - ASRock B85 Pro4 ATX motherboard
$70 - G.Skill Ares 2x4GB DDR3 1866 RAM (included 10% discount promo code GSKILLBTS, limited offer)
$100 - Crucial M500 240GB SSD
$290 - Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB video card
$41 - EVGA 500W PSU
$45 - NZXT Source 210 Elite ATX mid-tower case
=====
$816 - Total before taxes (free ground shipping on all parts)

The problem (IMO) with PCPartsPicker is that it uses "shortcuts" for savings, most notably the use of after-rebate amounts that don't kick in at checkout. I prefer to use free shipping, promo codes, and combo deals whenever possible.

I focused my build on Skyrim and the possibility that you would buy a 1080p monitor around Christmas. I cut costs where I could to free up money for the better (for Skyrim, based on most benchmarks) R9 280X. I also assumed that you would stick with one video card, which is why I went with a (good) 500 watt power supply instead of a 750 watt PSU.

Since you could afford a GTX 780 (albeit with some justification on your end), I recommend that you double up your RAM now:

$148 - ADATA XPG V2 2x8GB DDR3 1600 RAM

I also recommend the addition of a mechanical hard drive for non-essential programs and files. Your SSD will perform better when it has more free space to work with.

$53 - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB HDD

You may want to also consider adding an internal DVD burner, especially since you can grab one these days for under $20 shipped. While an external DVD burner is more versatile, you'll pay more in comparison to an internal drive.

What can the pink Enermax Ostrog case do that the white NZXT Source 210 Elite can't?

I do have microcenter near me and I am an amazon prime member so free shipping ftw!

Tiraides that looks good. I wasn't sure psu and ram wise which would be the better choice and I mainly stuck with nvidia because thats pretty much all I've used and am familiar with. Would there be much of a difference in upgrading to a 780 or 290 series card for next gen games? I'm eyeing Dragon age 3 here mostly

She wont need another HDD as I am pillaging it from another computer and would there be a big difference going from 8gb to 16gb as apposed to putting that money into a better gfx?

Grab the following from Micro Center instead. You'll have to head to the store to take advantage of these deals:

$200 - Intel Core i5-4690K quad-core processor
$90 - MSI Z97-G55 SLI ATX motherboard (instant $40 discount when purchased alongside i5-4690K)
$50 - Cooler Master Seidon 120V liquid CPU cooler (for overclocking)
$145 - Crucial Ballistix Sport 2x8GB DDR3 1600 RAM

Go ahead and buy the 16GB RAM kit now. You won't have to worry about upgrading later, after DDR4 RAM becomes more mainstream and DDR3 RAM ends up becoming scarce and more expensive.

See if your local Micro Center will price-match NewEgg on the Crucial MX500 240GB SSD. If they will, buy the SSD from there.

I recommend the R9 290 only if you can afford it. Otherwise, from a cost perspective, stick with the R9 280X. The R9 290 outperforms the GTX 770, and the 4GB GTX 770 can cost nearly as much as the R9 290.

Tritonal1 said:

but now newer games are coming out that she has her eyes on like Dragon Age 3 so we figured its about time to upgrade.

Click to expand...

You should wait until Dragon Age 3 is out and the performance requirements quantified. Then your wife can pick the level she wants and you can bring out your credit card.

I'd recommend something along the lines of this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/pXkrqs

A little less CPU, but way more GPU...unless you plan to upgrade the GPU when the next gen AMD and NVidia parts get released.

8GB RAM is plenty.

Ok did a little revamping taking everyones ideas into consideration and came out with this

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/K2qMMp

Decided to go with the 290 for a little additional future proofing and it will be easy enough to toss in another 8gigs ram if needed later on down the road. I'm going with microcenter for pretty much everything as it's just more convenient that way and I can get her up and gaming by the end of the day. Thanks for everyone's help. Once I do get this put together I'll throw up some benchmarks!

Why do you need the MSI X97 MPOWER MAX? You never talked about any heavy overclocking.

Yeah that's the biggest WTF with that build: Why that mobo? Even if you were planning on overclocking and even with the MC discount factored in, it's still massively overpriced.

You're better off spending more money on the PSU than on that mobo:
$90 - Seasonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W Modular PSU

Just get an ASRock board. I've got the Z97 Extreme4. It's fine. Put the extra money into a 512GB SSD or save it or even put it towards an R9 290X. 16GB of RAM is also an option.

Most Z97 boards are coming with terrible Killer LAN garbage rather than proper Intel (including the one you linked).