Build Feedback? ~$2k Budget

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ElectroPulse

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 19, 2013
Messages
129
Hello, all!

My brother is planning on purchasing the parts for his first true PC build in the next couple of days, so I've been going through looking at components with him the past couple of days. I figured I'd run it past you guys to see if there are any parts we could improve for similar prices.

Obligatory questions:
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?
~$2000, quite flexible (that's just a general target)
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Boise, ID
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc.
CPU, mobo, RAM, storage (SSD+HDD), PSU, GPU, case, CPU cooler, optical drive.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None being reused, completely new build (previous desktop ~6 years old, so wanting a complete refresh)
6) Will you be overclocking?
He says possibly in future, but if so fairly mildly.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
I believe it's this one (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236313), I'll check in the morning when he's not asleep. 1080p, 24", 144hz.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
He'd like to purchase the parts ASAP (next day or two)
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.
He has not expressed any special requirements for the mobo... 1151 is new enough that it has all the features we could think of wanting (SLI support (he has expressed interest in purchasing a second 980 Ti maybe next year to up performance), M.2, PCIe 3.0, USB 3.1 gen 2 (damn you, USB standard namers...), etc.).
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
No. It isn't being figured into budget at this point. Will likely get Win 10 Home or Pro x64.

Here's the link to the build we've pulled together (CPU cooler is a placeholder, as PC Hound doesn't have Scythe Kotetsu):
https://pchound.com/rpXSv5/

Also, how's that GPU? I've read around online, and it sounds like the Zotac AMP! Extreme, MSI Lightning, and Asus Strix seem to be the top picks, unless the user intends to heavily OC. At this point, my brother is intending to stick with factory speeds on everything, so we're not really considering OC performance as heavily.

Also, how's an 850W PSU look? It's definitely good for the single GPU, but what if he were to add an additional 980 Ti in the future? Depending on the calculations I look at, it looks like with two of them there's anywhere from ~150W to 20W wiggle room.

Thanks for the feedback!
ElectroPulse
 
CPU is fine

Motherboard:
MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING (~150$ @ Newegg / Amazon) - Does have some design issues with SATA ports when adding a secondary long video card.
Gigabyte GA-Z170X-UD3 (~150$ @ Newegg) - Seems fine in all ways (looks like a very good buy)
Asus Z170-A (~164 @ Newegg / Amazon) - Seems fine in all ways
Asus Z170M-PLUS (~130 @ Newegg / Amazon) - As the above except no SLI support
All have standard controllers (Realtek Audio) and Intel LAN etc so they'll just work.

RAM:
DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) - Don't go beyond JEDEC specs, it's not worth it.

CORSAIR Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233833
105$

2X (Cheaper than buying in pairs)
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB Single DDR4 2400 MT/s (PC4-19200) CL16
http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-Balli...6894011,p_n_feature_five_browse-bin:677427011
59$

Video card:
Asus Strix series or MSI (Twin fan models only)

PSU is fine (make sure to get G2 series if you get eVGA)

SSD:
I'd stay away from Evo drives like the plague given their previous track record.
Grab the Crucial MX200 instead (~174 @ Amazon and Newegg) (SATA). M.2 is like ~5-10 bucks more...
I would however highly consider going for the Samsung 850 Pro (~230 @ Amazon) due to better memory and much longer warranty.

HDD:
Toshiba PH3400U-1I72 4TB
http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-7200r...F8&qid=1443516295&sr=8-1&keywords=toshiba+4tb
Much cheaper (120$) and works just as good if not even better...

Case:
Fractal Design Define R5 (Black or White) - 100-110$ @ Newegg
This is really a no-brainer

CPU Cooler:
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO is another safe bet, you might want to replace the fan for a lightly less noisy one however.
 
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diizzy said:
*snip*
Click to expand...

Thank you for the reply!

Motherboard: Hmm... We missed that Gigabyte UD3 (filtered by most/best reviews). I'll show that to him. Looks like the only differences are one less network port, one less PCIe x1, swapped VGA for the DisplayPort, and the power/reset/etc buttons on the mobo itself... None of which he'll use.

By the way, is "PCIe Metal Shielding" much of an advantage? I see it's on the UD5, and not the UD3. I don't know how heavy the 980 Ti is, and whether that would be a concern.

RAM: What do you mean by not exceeding JEDEC specs? Are you referring to speed? (also the RAM we chose is the same as the Corsair RAM recommended, just in black)

Video Card: Why specifically one of those two? What qualities do those have that others don't?

SSD: For the track record, is it specifically the 850 EVO, or the EVO line in general?

HDD: Based on what I've read, Toshibas are less reliable than HGST... If you've heard otherwise, feel free to let me know.

Case: I'll pass that on to him, but he really likes the look of the other other one. I've definitely heard good things about Fractal Design's cases.

CPU Cooler: I'll read up on that one, thanks!
 
Motherboard: EMI shielding is in theory better although it's more a marketing thing than actual use in this case. The video card(s) wont be affecthing this to the degree that you can actually tell a difference.

RAM: Don't get RAM the doesn't follow JEDEC specs (voltage, timing, speed) unless you like to spend hours troubleshoot for potentially ~1-2% better memory performance.

Video card: They're silent and a safe choice, most manufacturers follow the reference design so as far as reliability goes they're equal. Speed of the GPU and memory may however differ slightly, cheaper cards usually have slightly slower clocks but I'd say that acoustics is the main difference.

SSD: Evo line in general, Marvell have solid controllers and the Micron memory is fine. It's your data and not mine so I don't care but I'd value as little hassle as possible in this case.

HDD: HDDs die, if you have a look at Backblaze etc Toshiba fares better than HGST however all drives die so don't expect it to last for 5+ years. Keep backups!

Case: You have a lot of ppl complaining about that case (the quality) and IMHO it's ugly as f*ck, not to mention pretty loud too.
 
Ugh, people with totally misinformed Evo-phobia. No, no, no. Just stop, and/or read one of the articles where we addressed this. I keep seeing comments like this, and wish we could just do a front page PSA about it to tell people to chill.

The 840 Evo (and original 840) were the only ones with issues. The NAND in the 850 Evo uses a vastly different process that has none of the same issues as the 840/840 Evo. The 850 Evo is our mid-range SSD pick, and the best you'll get at that price point. Another good option is the SanDisk Extreme Pro.

The Crucial MX200 is a rebranded Micron M600, which, in performance terms, was a total dog.
 
Okay here's the deal,

Samsung's cheaper (low-end) SSDs have issues, that includes the EVO series. They already have poor specs on paper (shorter lifetime on memory etc than the Pro-series) and there's no larger site/vendor who uses them in production to my knowledge. Netflix ended up with Crucial SSDs utilizing Marvell controllers and Micron flash (still consumer models) for instance and they evaluated different vendors and models. So, does it still sound like a resonable good choice given data you have available? No, it doesn't. Sure, if you run your generic benchmark it will be faster but is it worth risking data (yes, you should have backups) and time? I'm going to say no and from what I can tell I'm not the only one who's sharing that opinion (some of us value time and want things to "just work"). That said, MX200 isn't a rebrand. If you have a look here and here (in the middle) you can tell there aren't rebrands as specs differ. They do however share the same firmware features to some extent. If you're going to do some half-assed rant please get your facts straight and if you have a different opinion you're free to voice it but at least try to do it politely and with something backing it up. Will you notice a difference in your average desktop, most likely not although placebo always exists and I personally would much rather go for the Pro-series due to the warranty and longer lifetime. Plextor have nice drives too (similar to Micron) but they're about as expensive as the Pro series and as warranty is shorter there's no point in going for Plextor unless there's a noticable drop in pricing. I'm not even sure how SanDisk is even "good" given that they have pretty much non-existant after sales support (no firmware updates for their SSDs except the Pro unit, that's not a good sign) and endurance is worrisome on the larger SSDs LINK. There are no reports as far as I can tell how well their own NAND flash so that's another thing to take into consideration. If you're into gambling that's a good option I guess ;-)

So far I've stayed away from the "blessed" Sandforce controllers back in the days, Indilix, jMicron and other exotic brands and used Samsung, Intel, Marvell (going for mid/hi-end models) and it has worked out very well so far. I've seen ppl go for the more exotic stuff in the past and it hasn't been a fun experience in the end so to say.
 
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Micron and Crucial are the same company. Per the earlier AnandTech article about the MX200's announcement:

The MX200 is essentially the branded version of Micron's M600 that we reviewed earlier.
Click to expand...
So yes, there are differences, but not big ones. It's still not exactly a top choice.

And what, exactly, are the purported issues with the 850 Evo? The 840 Evo's issues arose from charge state decay due to their choice of 19nm TLC NAND. The 850 Evo uses 40nm V-NAND, which has very different physics that obviate the charge state decay issue.

Simply put- the 840 Evo's issues have no bearing on the 850 Evo's success. Is the 850 Pro a better drive? Marginally, in performance terms, as supported by the testing I wrote about here a few months ago. But I still struggle to understand the value proposition of a 512GB 850 Pro ($257) vs. a 500GB 850 Evo ($162), when that 58% premium on the Pro buys you less than a 5% performance increase.
 
diizzy said:
If you're going to do some half-assed rant please get your facts straight and if you have a different opinion you're free to voice it but at least try to do it politely and with something backing it up.
Click to expand...

Apart from the fairly in-depth article that I researched and wrote that I linked above, which looked at the M600, 850 Evo, and 850 Pro, here are a few more facts for you:

Controller on the M600: Marvell 88SS9189
Controller on the MX200: Marvell 88SS9189

NAND on the M600: Micron 128Gbit 16nm MLC
NAND on the MX200: Micron 128Gbit 16nm MLC

The difference is firmware. It's a hardware rebrand, which is fine, but that doesn't make it an 850 Evo killer.

As for SanDisk, you're talking about drives that are not the Pro not having firmware updates- so what? The Pro has firmware updates, great software, and a warranty that's on par with the 850 Pro, at 850 Evo prices.

You also talk about real-world performance. I agree that it's mostly a matter of splitting hairs, and that synthetics are useless.

Any of these drives will be fine, because there's only so much you can do with SATA. However, the misinformed 850 Evo bashing is not productive.
 
You're forgetting wear and storage size, which is mentioned above so it's not a just hardware rebrand. Just because the chip is 128Gbit 16nm MLC doesn't mean that they have the same specs....

Regarding the Sandisk vs firmware update thing, it's a bit of a concern when there are no updates to product ranges. As we all know products are far from perfect by release so the product's life span might be considerably shorter due to no software updates. Would you buy a motherboard with one or no BIOS updates at all or get one by a manufacturer that provides updates?

What you're missing is the factor that you probably want stuff that lasts and work, of course some will break irregardless but getting a product that you already know have shorter life span due to no support by the manufacturer isn't a good choice IMHO. Time will show but if previous models have been a bit dodgy I'd be a bit cautions about going there again especially when there are options that have better history and longetivity. This is also why I'm all about Intel NICs and Realtek Audio, there's support and they provide it for years not to mention it just works. Take a look at lets say Creative, Killer etc....

I'd happily buy something that I know is marginally slower but works just fine than something that "may work" or is questionable.
 
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The M600 and MX200 use literally the same NAND chips (part #NW662). Media wear and cache strategy are functions of the firmware, sure. The specs that you picked out as different are firmware-driven as well. This is one way that manufacturers can tune drives to specific applications.

SanDisk seems to be taking the Extreme Pro quite seriously. The rest of their business is mostly budget offerings, which aren't terribly relevant here.

As to your point on reliability- SSDs have come a very long way, and I suppose this is where individual values come in. It's my belief (based on MTBF calcs, TBW limits, and personal experiences, such as the fact that of the dozens of consumer and enterprise-grade SSDs I've owned, the only one to die prematurely was a server-spec drive) that most SSDs from reputable brands are just fine for the vast majority of users. I can't regard an Extreme Pro or an 850 Evo as a "might work" any more than an 850 Pro- 3D V-NAND in MLC is a new technology that is just as unproven as 40nm 3D TLC, or SanDisk's attempts at building a serious SSD.

I could have bought a reliable Toyota or a safe Volvo, but instead I bought a beautiful and totally impractical sports car that occasionally needs to spend a few weeks in the shop, but this is the situation that works better for my needs and wants. As for my data, anything remotely commercially or personally important is backed up to the cloud in real time, and I'm not worrying about whether a given drive is going to be working in 2 years because these things are already cheap, and they're only getting cheaper and faster.
 
If the 850 Pro world break you'd still have 10y warranty to back it and you'd get a replacement. However, as far as reliability goes pricier drives have better memory and lasts longer (rated). I think you don't realize the ppl keep their stuff more than 2y ;-)
 
The 850 Pro is excellent, just overpriced. While we're on the subject of warranties:

SanDisk Extreme Pro - 10 years
850 Pro - 10 years
850 Evo - 5 years
Crucial MX200 - 3 years

Maybe, just maybe, someone building a PC here would keep it for 3 years without major upgrades. 5 years seems well outside the useful life of an enthusiast/gaming system. 10 years is to make business customers and Consumer Reports readers sleep better at night.

To your point on higher-end drives having better flash memory, yes, that's generally true, but none of these have anything but good quality NAND. The Extreme Pro uses SanDisk's 19nm MLC (produced from their joint venture with Toshiba, so it's quite well-proven and used by numerous manufacturers).
 
SanDisk Extreme Pro 240Gb ~125-130$ (Tiger, Walmart, Newegg)
Samsung 850 Pro 256Gb ~140-150$ (B&H, Newegg etc)

SanDisk Extreme Pro 480Gb ~180-220$ (Newegg, B&H, Adorama)
Samsung 850 Pro 512Gb ~230-260$ (B&H, Adorama, Walmart/Tiger)

Can't really call that overpriced, slightly more expensive yes and given their previous commitment to the Pro series I'd find that price justified. As long as SanDisk actually commits to keeping it up to date it might be a good buy. The 480Gb is usually around 210-220-ish based on Google and right now Newegg is having a sale bringing it down to 180$ but at 210-220$ I don't see why you would go for it at all over the Pro series.
 
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Why wouldn't you just be looking at the lowest prices (among reputable sellers) from those drives?

A quick look on Google Shopping shows the following (someone always seems to have the Extreme Pro on sale at any given time, and both Newegg and Amazon are selling the 480GB for $180 right now):

850 Evo 500GB: $163
850 Pro 512GB: $223
Extreme Pro: $180

The 850 Pro is still 37%/$60 more expensive than the Evo, for a really incremental performance improvement. The difference is closer than it had been before- when I wrote the performance SATA SSD article in July, the Evo was the same price as it is now, while the Pro was $33 more. So, a better buy than it was, but still a decent bottle of wine more expensive than the Evo, for little gain. Meh.

Coming back to my original point, there's nothing at all wrong with the 850 Evo, and the woes of the 840 Evo are not relevant. The 850 Evo vs. Pro distinction exists for a reason- some people will pay more for what you get from the Pro. Doesn't mean there's any "issue" with the Evo.
 
Because of sales tax and preference, hence why I listed a few different ones.
Again, this is not about performance alone (Mbytes/s and IOPS). You have twice as long warranty, you have twice as high TBW (75 vs 150) on the Evo vs Pro and more storage (small difference but still). The Extreme Pro is speced at 80 TBW so there's quite a difference. People here are still using their first gen core systems so I would like to think that they care about longetivity in the end. The MX200 (500Gb) is at 160TBW so there's obviously a tradeoff.
 
diggi said:
Either
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150729
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202164

are good options
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion, but for something as performance-dependant as the graphics card, he wasn't wanting to go for a budget card. He's using it on a 144hz monitor, and based on what I'm seeing, 980 Ti gets about 2x the performance of that card. (That, and we're now an Nvidia family... No more ATI for the foreseeable future, due to issues we've had in the past).

------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyway, thank you for all the suggestions! He has the computer, and it's been assemble for a little over a week now. After reading reviews and considering the alternatives, here's the final lineup of parts:
CPU: i7-6700k (Kotetsu Scythe for the cooler - chosen on recommendation of Silent PC Review)
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-Z170X-UD5 (he decided an extra $30 for the extra features over the UD3 were worth it to him)
GPU: ZOTAC GTX 980 Ti (seemed to be the quietest air-cooled/slightly better performing version at the <=$700 price point)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX, 2x8GB
SSD: Samsung 850 EVO 500GB
HDD: HGST Deskstar 4TB
PSU: EVGA 850W 220-G2-0850-XR
Case: Fractal Design R5 (and an extra fan)
Optical Drive: Some LG BD-RE drive

He's loving the Fractal Design case! Solid case, and very quiet. It's the quietest computer any of us have had, especially with this kind of performance.
 
What was the final price tally with this setup after tax and shipping costs?
 
Tzzird said:
What was the final price tally with this setup after tax and shipping costs?
Click to expand...

I'm actually not sure. My brother has that information, but is just saying "I'll look it up sometime, it was between $2,200 and $2,300."

What I do know, is that between Amazon Prime free shipping and a Shoprunner trial/Newegg Premier trial (I don't know whether Shoprunner or Newegg Premier ended up being used) the shipping was $9.99 (Newegg charged to ship the case), and since neither Newegg nor Amazon have a physical presence in Idaho, no tax.
 
ElectroPulse said:
I'm actually not sure. My brother has that information, but is just saying "I'll look it up sometime, it was between $2,200 and $2,300."

What I do know, is that between Amazon Prime free shipping and a Shoprunner trial/Newegg Premier trial (I don't know whether Shoprunner or Newegg Premier ended up being used) the shipping was $9.99 (Newegg charged to ship the case), and since neither Newegg nor Amazon have a physical presence in Idaho, no tax.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the response. It's a great build and I'll be modeling it after mine.
 
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