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Budget Gaming Comp Build

V

Viper16

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 3, 2005
Messages
1,895
Looking for a gaming budget upgrade.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc Gaming, Web Browsing, Business (emails, word, excel, light programs)
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?1,200-1,500 less tax/freight. Prefer to stay with NEWEGG as the supplier.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible Oklahoma.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, MOBO, RAM, GPU, PSU, and if leftover SSD for fun
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Just resuing my Chenmi Alum Large Tower, plenty of room. Reusing New Blu-ray Rom (LG)
6) Will you be overclocking? No, just fine tuning the RAM numbers if they are not as prescribed from the mobo, minor volt change if anything. Possibly nothing
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?Looking at a 27" but currently a 22" 1680x1050, with a small 1280x1024 19" side by side
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? Very Soon Future (less than one month)
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. None extreme, whichever comes standard.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? Win 7 Pro 64bit

Currently looking at the following:

CPU - i7-4790K (figured better for gaming than AMD 6 or 8-core cpu)
MOBO - ASUS Maximus VI Hero
RAM - G Skill Trident Seris 2x8gb - F3-2400C10D-16GTX
PSU - Corsair HX850 Plus Gold Cert
GPU - EVGA 04G-2972-KR GTX970

Puts me around $1150.00

Looking around this budget pricing, but will accept better choices. I am coming from a AMD Athlon X2 6000+, DFI MOBO, G. Skill 4GB DC, 8800GT 512mb, so I think it will be a large jump in performance and should keep me going for at least 4-5 more years until next upgrade, or that seems to be how it ends up.
 
Any chance you can post a picture of your case? I ask because if that case is as old as your current system, I doubt it'll be good enough for a modern system these days.

As for your planned setup, it's not good for the following reasons:
1) You're not overclocking so zero reason to get the K series CPU
2) You're not overclocking nor have mentioned really specific motherboard requirements. So that motherboard is not worth getting at all
3) That PSU is ridiculously overkill since you have not mentioned at all any plans for SLI or Crossfire or overclocking. You would be fine with a solid 550W PSU.
4) That video card is really overkill for that resolution. In other words, you're not really getting the full benefits of your card until you upgrade to a monitor with a higher resolution. Kinda like buying a $60,000 BMW for just doing grocery runs.
5) Missing a SSD.

Give me an hour and I'll get you a better setup.
 
IMG_1526.jpg


Measures almost 16-17" from front to back if I remove the bottom HDD Cage.
 
$280 - Intel Core i7-4790 CPU
$100 - ASRock Fatal1ty H97 PerformanceIntel H97 ATX Motherboard
$140 - 2 x Kingston HyperX FURY HX316C10F/8 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$335 - eVGA 04G-2972-KR GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card
$140 - Samsung 840 Pro 256GB SSD
$75 - Seasonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W Modular PSU
---
Total: $818 shipped

$332 less than your planned setup but basically the same performance and it includes a SSD which means the above is technically far more responsive. I also forgot a #6 from my previous list of issues: With current Intel setups, there's no noticeable performance increase with higher-speed RAM for gaming. Even if you went with DDR3 3000 speeds, still no noticeable performance increase.

Anyway, that also leaves you with enough money leftover for a new case as IMO your current case isn't good enough for my proposed setup in terms of cooling, cable management, and features set. I recommend the following cases:
$100 - Phanteks “Enthoo Pro Series“ Black ATX Case
$110 - Corsair Vengeance Series C70 Gunmetal Black ATX Case
$115 - Corsair Carbide Series 500R ATX Case
$116 - Thermaltake Chaser A71 Full Tower ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Graphite Series 730T ATX Case
$120 - Corsair Obsidian Series 450D ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$120 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$133 - NZXT Phantom 530 Black Full Tower ATX Case
$130 - Corsair Graphite Series 600TM ATX Case
$140 - Corsair Obsidian Series 750D ATX Case
$150 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case
$152 - Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$150 - NZXT Phantom 630 White Windowed Full Tower ATX Case
$158 - NZXT Phantom 630 Gunmetal Full Tower ATX Case
$170 - Thermaltake Urban T81 Full Tower ATX Case
$190 - Corsair Graphite Series 760T ATX Case
197 - Corsair Graphite Black ATX Full Tower 780T
208 - Corsair Graphite White ATX Full Tower 780T
$240 - Silverstone FT02B-USB3.0 ATX Case
 
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wow. looks like an old aluminum chenming dragon. pretty rare. would be worth something to the right person.
 
Dangman, thanks! I do plan on upgrading to higher resolution monitor eventually. I would like to run the top games at 60+ FPS if possible in ultra graphics levels, at least for a few years if possible.

I do love my old Chenming case, but understand the need to move onto better cooling/placements of components. I am looking at the Phantom 530 in detail, and will look the other cases over.

So the difference between the i7-4790 and the 4790K is the ghz and the boost ghz..by about .5 or so, will that make any difference? The price difference from the vendor I am looking at is like a 10-15 dollar..not a break the bank deal.

Thanks for the help again...once I get it finalized I will repost the new selection for a final review.
 
if you like the phantom 530 you might as well look at the source 530. same sub chassis as the phantom only with different top and front bezels and a good chunk cheaper. not sure why it never shows up in dangman's lists.
 
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It's always been too expensive whenever I have looked at it.
 
that case is usually among the cheapest when i search the egg for full tower cases, but i reckon you do this more often than me so i defer to your experience.
 
rennyf77 said:
that case is usually among the cheapest when i search the egg for full tower cases, but i reckon you do this more often than me so i defer to your experience.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I can't recall ever seeing it with free shipping: That's really the killer. After this whole BF and CB and any residual sales clear out, I'll probably add it to my list if it has free shipping.

Thanks for the reminder!
 
-ORDERED-

Okay, I made a pull, not to say I was against everyone's input, but rather what I think I want to do in future upgrades in the next 1-2 years.

I went ahead with the following setup:

CASE - Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced
CPU - Intel i7-4790K
MOBO - Asus Maximus VII Hero
RAM - G.Skill 16GB 1600 DDR3
GPU - EVGA 970 FTW
SSD - Samsung 840 EVO 500 GB
PSU - ThermalTake TPD-0750M


I plan on upgrading my monitor to dual 2560 x 1440 or a larger high resolution 3840 x 2160. I want to start playing with OC a little bit, with a water-cooled upgrade for CPU and better ram eventually. I will eventually upgrade to sli or step up graphics card to the next gen if possible.

I reviewed the SSD and the EVO vs PRO, and understand the cons of the EVO, but price was fair, and feel for my use and the EVO would not exceed my requirements.

Being I wanted to get it all from one stop, I have $60.00 in M-I-R to get back, got Far Cry 4 and either AC:Unity or The Crew as the second game free, and free shipping. Price was around $1400.00. But felt it was still a pretty decent deal, providing what all i upgraded from our last discussion.

thanks again guys...now I need to start reading up on good SSD habits and setting up standard HDD for document filing, caching, etc..
 
Wow nice way to waste money for features that you'll never, ever use.
 
someone who says they're going to try overclocking or multi gpu somewhere down the line, actually they rarely do. its not that the asus hero board isn't bad, its just overpriced for the things is offers. you could have spent $120-150 for an sli/cf ready board that does everything the asus board does, and you wouldn't have to worry about asus rma burning you. if you had been smarter about your board choice the savings would have been at least $50. you would have saved $50 bucks on the case, too if you had gone with the suggestion of the nzxt source 530. you way overpaid on the memory as intel 1150 socket platforms don't really benefit from ram faster than 1600mhz. you probably overspent $100 on those trident sticks. the ssd, psu, and video cards are pretty good buys. that thermaltake 750 isn't the best 700w psu at its price. actually there are probably cheaper 700w 80+ bronze psus that would beat it in a real test, but i reckon you only overpaid $20.

all in all, i'm estimating a wasted savings of at least $200. that amount of money would have addressed the biggest isue with you computing setup: the monitor. at 1680x1050 the computational capacity of the gtx 970 is going to waste. you paid $330 worth of video card but you're only getting $200 worth of performance. by spending more wisely you would have been able to afford a decent 1080p monitor. heck with that savings you would have been able to afford both a 23-24" 1080p monitor and an aio liquid cooling unit to overclock your cpu.
 
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