Rate this build for a friend

Hey guys, Ive been out of the loop for a while because my x58-XEON build is still going strong. A friend of mine wants to make his first foray into PC-gaming and asked me to help him out. He knows absolutely nothing about PC parts besides the little bit ive taught him when he comes over and asks questions ( and to use my rig for gaming!)

This will be a complete build from scratch with a focus on whole rig longetivity/upgradability.

He needs EVERYTHING, so the price is higher than he would like.

Also, he wants everything red and black...yeah, I know, but its what he wants.

heres the link to the build. https://pchound.com/Lmom1B/


My thoughts:

I chose the 6600k for longevity reasons. He shouldnt need to replace his processor for a while but it might be possible to upgrade it for cheap later. He will not overclock at first but will want it as an option in the future.


MSI gaming 5. seems like a pretty solid board with some great features he can use for upgrading down the line. ( USB C, M.2, ect)

GTX 960. I would rather that he got a 970 ( thats what im running) but the money wasnt there for such a large price jump. He is mainly building this for star citizen but I think he can get away with this one until the pascal launch.

RAM: I've had good luck with G.Skill with my current build and they had some pretty inexpensive memory. I chose this as a basic entry-level set. Choosing capacity over speed since it will be a while before he needs to overclock and ram prices will probably drop.

SSD: Just the most inexpensive SSD I could manage as the performance is much greater than an HDD and he doesnt have many games...yet. I have told him to plan to add a HDD sometime down the road for his soon-to-be growing steam library.

cooler: The H80i GT seems like an evolution of the H50 ( what im still running) and has LED's capable of turning red. Should be slight overkill for what he needs but I prefer AIO's due to ease of install, customization, quietness, and less of a chance of damage while moving the unit.

Keyboard mouse, speakers: Cheapest set he can get at first. these will be upgraded over time. fits his red theme.

monitor: larger 27 inch monitor with pretty good reviews. decent price. Not going to blow anyone away but its nice.

PSU: Basic 600w unit. I usually would go with a 750 Gold rated but I had to fight him to get this in there.

Case: Corsair makes good cases, seems to be a good budget case. fits red theme.

disregard the 8.1, it should be windows 10.


thanks in advance for any help with this.

It's not an optimal build. Starting from the bottom:

Corsair does make good cases. But that's not one of Corsair's good cases. Unfortunately as a sign of Corsair's declining quality, that particular case is a pretty cheap quality case based on my experience with the Chinese OEM of that case. There's the limited amount of space behind the motherboard tray for cable management, It's also stupidly overpriced at $70 shipped considering that there are significantly better cases for the money out there. In fact, like this Corsair for example:
$70 - Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black ATX Case

Not only is it of higher quality, it also has better cooling, and more room for cable management. It's still also fits the red and black theme as well.

In another sign of Corsair's declining quality, that Corsair PSU is a piece of crap. The HardOCP review of its 750W brother was pretty damning:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015/01/21/corsair_cx750_750w_power_supply_review/#.VjLdeLerSCg

What's even worse is that there is a significantly better quality PSU that costs $20 less out there:
$55 - XFX TS Series 550W PSU

As for the SSD, I'm still not quite comfortable recommending an OCZ SSD even if it's a totally different manufacturer. I'd recommend spending the extra cash for a more reputable SSD:
$80 - Crucial BX100 250GB SSD

For the CPU, mobo, and RAM, it really comes down to how badly your friend needs more than 32GB of RAM. To be honest, he might actually be better off with an older build. Here's what I mean:
PC Hound Part List

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231V3 ($257.98 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z97 Killer ($131.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) Ballistix Sport ($74.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $464.95
Price may include shipping, rebates, promotions, and tax
Generated by PC Hound

Compared to your setup, the price difference is about $60 to $65. The only real thing you're losing is about a 5% to 8% clock for clock performance increase, the ability to overclock, and the ability to upgrade to more than 32GB of RAM. What you're gaining is a CPU that has the HT features of a Core i7 CPU, a more mature and well known platform, and a lower price. Considering that early PC specs recommendation for Star Citizen were Core i7 CPUs, that tells me that game will be heavily multi-threaded. So the HT feature of that Xeon CPU will come in far more handy in Star Citizen than a mere 5% to 8% clock for clock performance increase.

Unless you life-or-death NEED Nvidia, the 960 is a pretty poor card price/performance wise, AMD cards in that price range are pretty competitive.

thanks guys!

This has helped a lot. sorry it took me a while to respond, we lost half my team and ive been working overtime.