Building a new pc for gaming! help please!

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lem0n

n00b
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Dec 6, 2013
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Hi! My current pc is reaching the end of its life and i decided to build my own. Pardon my ignorance on pc knowledge; let me know if I do wrong.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming (Elder Scrolls Online), word, browser, videos

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$800 post tax

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Seattle, Washington and Beaverton, Oregon (some sites ship tax-free i think)

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.
cpu, motherboard, ram, storage, gpu, power supply, case, maybe 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.
n/a

6) Will you be overclocking?
Not immediately, maybe in two years with a cooler

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920x1080, 21.5''

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Before January 6, 2014

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, or I don't know

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes. 64bit windows 7

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2fOJq
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2fOJq/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2fOJq/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor ($129.99 @ TigerDirect)
Motherboard: Asus M5A97 LE R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($52.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($58.13 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $771.06
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-06 01:13 EST-0500)

Here's a bunch of questions I have:

CPU: Intel or AMD? I've always been biased for Intel, but I read the difference in price is due to market share differences. So for mid-tier CPUs i should go with AMD because of better value? However, going by the logicalincrements. com , this AMD CPU pretty much outclasses all the other components of this pc, so is it just a waste?

GPU: Pretty much same question, radeon or geforce? Read something about CUDA and physx being superior to AMD's versions.

MotherBoard: Should i get an AMD mother board if I get an AMD CPU? What's the difference between a $50 motherboard and a $150, if they both have the sockets i need? branding or future upgrade potential?

Storage: How much will a SSD vs HDD impact performance? I've been learning about memory hierarchies and it seems to only matter on misses to memory in the DRAM (not sure if terminology is correct here), so i really shouldn't need to access the SSD with 8gigs of ram when all i'm doing is running a game, fb, pandora? Should i downgrade to just a 1TB HDD and save $160? I don't download much so I only need at most 200gb of memory.

Optical drive: No need right? i can install my OS using a usb? oh but i might want to do p90x lols

Any bottlenecks?

THANKS FOR THE HELP.
 
CPU: Intel definitely. For gaming, Intel CPUs just outperform their AMD counterparts. At a minimum, you want to go for the Core i3 4130. Though see if you can cram in the Core i5 4430 instead.

GPU: The AMD HD 7870 or the R9 270X are far better bang for the buck choices than Nvidia's GTX 660 2GB.

Motherboard: The difference between a $50 a motherboard and a $150 motherboard tend to be higher quality, higher chance of reliability, better overclock capabilities, more features such as eSATA and SLI/CFX support, etc. Pretty much the higher quality alone makes it worthwhile to spend more than $50 on a motherboard.

Storage: Everything your first question and your last question in this area doesn't make any sense. A SSD is totally worthwhile since it makes the system far more responsive than it would be on a regular hard drive. You won't get FPS increases with a SSD but you will get faster load times as well as smoother gameplay for MMORPGs.

Optical drive: If you have USB drive large enough to hold the Windows isntallation files, then yes, you don't need an optical drive.
 
I'd dump the SSD and get a better CPU and GPU. Those will help far more in games. The SSD will just make things load quicker, and possibly remedy mico stuttering you might get.

Most games load very quick on my WD Black 2TB drive. There are some exceptions, half of them are just poorly optimized with dated engines. My boot time is 93-100 or so seconds with Win 7 Pro. I essentially never wait for it to start up as I leave it on all day.

Get an SSD if you can up your budget. If gaming is your concern, get a high end GPU then CPU first. Once you have those covered, get an SSD.
 
Thanks for the responses. I took out the SSD for a better cpu, gpu, mobo.
For the cpu, the xeon e3-1230v2 is priced the same as the i5 4670k, and the only difference that I can see is that the xeon has hyper threading and lower "thermal design power"; good?

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2fScv

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V2 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($225.48 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($52.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($160.66 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $724.08
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-06 04:45 EST-0500)
 
The i5 4670k would not work with the motherboard you selected. Your Ivy Bridge choice for that MB would be i5 3### or i7 3###.

If you switch to a LGA 1150 motherboard then the equivalent xeon porcessor is the Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 which is about $254 at Amazon.

You will not be able to OC either xeon like you could the i5 or the i7 k version processors.

With the xeon you loose iGPU which can be a nice backup even if you are running a discrete GPU.
 
Last edited:
Thanks again for the response. Pretty close to a finalized build. One question though, should I go with the 4670 or 4670k; there won't be much impact on gaming performance by overclocking the cpu and I would have to buy a cooler if i did.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2g4Ut

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($214.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($117.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($52.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB Video Card ($160.66 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($42.98 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($74.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $724.58
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-06 15:56 EST-0500)
 
I would get the k. It takes little effort to bump it up to 4GHZ and it can give you a bit of extra performance. I would recommend buying a CPU cooler myself. The Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo (or +, forgot which) is good. If you need to save further, look into the Xigmatek Gaia 120mm.
 
If you're willing to overclock and get that 3rd party HSF, then yeah go for the 4670K. Otherwise, go with the Core i5 4570. The Core i5 4670 doesn't make sense as purchase unless it's priced the same as the Core i5 4570.

HDD wise, go for the Seagate 1TB instead. It's going to be faster than that WD drive.
 
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