Need a new gaming PC

[Zeawen]

Hello everyone!

I am in need of a brand new computer. Here's some information:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, and standard web browsing. I have my computer hooked up to my TV as well in a dual monitor setup. I usually have a movie or show running on the TV (From PC) and then gaming on the other. There'll be no programming, photo editing or anything of the like.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
My budget will be around $1.500. It's not exactly a hard limit, but try not to go too far over. Don't worry about tax and shipping.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
I live in Denmark, europe.

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.
Okay so, a brand new PC. I need a case plus whatever case fans you might deem necesary, motherboard, CPU and CPU cooler, RAM, Video card, PSU, Windows and storage.

For storage I was thinking a smaller fast disk, maybe a 128GB or even 250GB SSD if that's still the fastest, for OS and maybe some select favorite games, and some larger disks for everything else. I have 2 TB now which seems to be doing the job fine.

RAM wise I have 8GB now, but it's starting to lack. They are old of course, so they might just be slow, but I'm also the kind of guy who likes to have a lot of shit running at once. So I'm thinking 16GB or even 32GB if the price difference is not too big and not too much of an overkill for my needs.

For videocards I have an EVGA card now which I've been happy with, but by no means a requirement. I was thinking some version of the GTX970, and I would really like a cool running card (Temperature wise).

I've been looking at other threads here and was thinking about the i5-6600k CPU. The price here in Denmark seems reasonable say to the i7-6700k (Which is too expensive for me), and the price difference, as I understand, doesn't really make up for the increase in performance.

I won't be water cooling, so I'd like a case with good air flow.

Anyways, just a few thoughts, I'm not hung up on any of them.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
I will be reusing nothing. My computer will be used by my girlfriend when she's visiting, so it needs to be whole.

6) Will you be overclocking?
I've never been overclocking, and I don't really think I'll be starting now.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
I have a Samsung Syncmaster 27A950D monitor. The max resolution, I'm guessing, is 1920x1080. I highly doubt my budget will leave room for a new monitor, so I'll be sticking with this one for a quite a while still.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Sometime in the next month or two max. My girlfriend will be back in April and I'd like to have everything done by then.

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.
I don't really think I have any special needs when it comes to a motherboard. I don't have the budget or need for SLI. I use a bunch of USB ports so I guess the more the merrier, but nothing I think a standard motherboard can't handle.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I do not have a copy of Windows for my new computer.



I'm sure I've forgotten something, but don't hesitate to ask if you need more information! Thanks in advance.

 

[travbrad]

http://techreport.com/review/29453/the-tech-report-system-guide-december-2015-edition

This is one of HardOCP's "competitors" I guess but they make great system guides. They break down each component individually and list some good choices, and at the end also have some examples of sample builds.

I think the 6600K is a good choice for the CPU. Even if you don't think you'll be doing any overclocking it's always nice to have that option in the future, and the regular 6600 is usually only $10 cheaper anyway.

I'd strongly recommend getting a SSD bigger than 128GB. Windows alone will eat up a big chunk of that, and a lot of games now are 40-60GB each.

For the motherboard I've had really good experiences with ASUS boards over the years. I'm sure there are other good brands too but my ASUS boards have always been rock solid.

I agree 16GB of RAM is a good idea at this point. I wouldn't worry about the speed of it too much though since that doesn't tend to make a big difference in most stuff. 32GB is probably overkill for gaming even if you have some other stuff open while you are playing games.

For the graphics card it will depend what you can fit in your budget. GTX970 is a good choice but you may even be able to squeeze a GTX980 into that budget. 390X is worth looking at too. It performs similarly to a 980 but is a bit cheaper. EVGA doesn't make a 390X however, since they don't make AMD-based cards. Whatever card you get just make sure it has 1 HDMI port since you are going to be plugging it into your TV as a 2nd monitor.

For power supplies Seasonic are generally very highly rated. The EVGA SuperNova G2 line is also very highly rated (which you might want since you like EVGA stuff). A 650W would be enough for the system you are building. The only reason I bought the 750W version is that the 650W version didn't exist yet.

For a CPU coooler/heatsink I would just get a cheap aftermarket cooler since you aren't going to overclocking anyway. CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo is super popular and only about $30. Even the stock Intel cooler would probably be fine if you aren't overclocking, but if you like things to run a bit cooler an aftermarket heatsink will make a big difference.

For Windows, Windows 10 Home would probably get you everything you want. Windows 10 Pro is a bit more expensive and doesn't really offer anything most home users would want. There is a comparison of the features here. Windows 10 will give you the best longevity in terms of support/updates from Microsoft.

As for the case, that's a tricky one. People have a lot of personal preferences when it comes to cases and how they look and are laid out. Any case with space for a few 120+mm fan slots will generally provide pretty good airflow. Most cases will come with a couple fans, but you'll probably have to buy a couple extra yourself also. Maybe someone else will have some recommendations on which fans to get, but I just get some cheap ones that get okay ratings on newegg/amazon. Any fans that big tend to be pretty quiet and effective. One other thing to make note of is what kind of power connectors the fans you buy use, and how many of those connectors your PSU has. You might need to buy some MOLEX to 3pin/4pin adapters if you are going to have a lot of fans.

Good luck, and if you have any more questions I'm sure me or someone else will be able to help.

 

[Zeawen]

Hey travbrad! Thanks a ton for your reply, it is really helpful! I'm so bad at picking parts for computer that I really apreciate the pointers you gave me. That combined with the link you provided, which is also really helpful, I'll try to put together a build and post it here. Thanks again!

 

[Zeawen]

Okay, so I've read through some stuff, and this is what I've come up with so far.

The motherboard I'm considering is not in the list, so I just picked one with about the same price tag for the total to fit. I'm considering this one. I had originaly chosen the ASUS from the TR guide, but the MSI had better customer reviews and the selling points for the ASUS is things I won't be needing. I like that it has a bunch more of USB ports, but I can't justify the price difference on that alone I feel. For my needs, and from my very limited view, looks like the MSI will do the job just fine for me, since I have no plans on doing SLI in any near future, if ever.

The memory choice is just based on what I've seen here on Hardforum and the TR review as well. They seem to be pretty popular. They are DDR4 2400. I figured based on what you said, not to worry too much from the speed, and also since I am upgrading from my current 8GB to double that, I would still feel quite the increase in performance based off that alone. So unless compelling arguments can be made, I feel those will do the job just fine.

Now for the video card, I've chosen a MSI card as well. That was actually based solely on the review on TR. I looked up prising on the 970, 980 and the 390x here in Denmark. The price range is probably not surprising, 980 being the msot expensive, 970 the cheapest and the 390x being somewhat in the middle, but closer to the price of a 970 then a 980. I have a website I visit that I stumpled upon a long time ago, with charts and scores of CPU's and GPU's and whatnot. I have no idea how reliable it is though. But the 390x on that list at least, is a bit lower then both 980 and 970. And based on what they wrote in the review on TR about the 390, about it being more noisy, higher temps, and I think also requiring more voltage (Might just have been the Fury though), that I'd rather stick with a 970 for now. I also feel that I even though it seems I might have the money for it, I don't know if I can justify buying a 980. I guess it might last longer in the future for me, but I'm not really the sort of guy who really strains my computer that much you know. I don't really do any 4k gaming, I don't need to stream or record anything in super high quality. I don't care too much if my game runs at 60fps or 55 you know. If the 980 had had a pricetag as the 390x, I might have jumped the gun on it.

Now for storage I'm a bit undecided. I read a lot about some fancy new kind of SSD that uses PCIe slots or M.2 or whatnot, but I really have no idea. And as I would like to not fork out money for something overly expensive, I'm also getting the idea that the technology might still be so new that everything is overly expensive for whatever benefits it might have. Should I just stick with a normal SSD and then some sort of mass storage disk as well? I'm thinking around 500GB for my OS and games etc.

I apologize for the wall, I'd apreciate any thoughts and comments on this build

Edit: Oh, and for the case I just picked the first one on the list. I have no idea about the case yet, but I do keep hearing good things about that one though.

 

[Ayoralyn]

Zeawen here, I got my old account back.

Was just looking at storage, should I avoid drives that's branded as NAS drives when I don't intend as using them in a NAS setup?

 

[travbrad]

Okay, so I've read through some stuff, and this is what I've come up with so far.

The motherboard I'm considering is not in the list, so I just picked one with about the same price tag for the total to fit. I'm considering this one. I had originaly chosen the ASUS from the TR guide, but the MSI had better customer reviews and the selling points for the ASUS is things I won't be needing. I like that it has a bunch more of USB ports, but I can't justify the price difference on that alone I feel. For my needs, and from my very limited view, looks like the MSI will do the job just fine for me, since I have no plans on doing SLI in any near future, if ever.

The memory choice is just based on what I've seen here on Hardforum and the TR review as well. They seem to be pretty popular. They are DDR4 2400. I figured based on what you said, not to worry too much from the speed, and also since I am upgrading from my current 8GB to double that, I would still feel quite the increase in performance based off that alone. So unless compelling arguments can be made, I feel those will do the job just fine.

Now for the video card, I've chosen a MSI card as well. That was actually based solely on the review on TR. I looked up prising on the 970, 980 and the 390x here in Denmark. The price range is probably not surprising, 980 being the msot expensive, 970 the cheapest and the 390x being somewhat in the middle, but closer to the price of a 970 then a 980. I have a website I visit that I stumpled upon a long time ago, with charts and scores of CPU's and GPU's and whatnot. I have no idea how reliable it is though. But the 390x on that list at least, is a bit lower then both 980 and 970. And based on what they wrote in the review on TR about the 390, about it being more noisy, higher temps, and I think also requiring more voltage (Might just have been the Fury though), that I'd rather stick with a 970 for now. I also feel that I even though it seems I might have the money for it, I don't know if I can justify buying a 980. I guess it might last longer in the future for me, but I'm not really the sort of guy who really strains my computer that much you know. I don't really do any 4k gaming, I don't need to stream or record anything in super high quality. I don't care too much if my game runs at 60fps or 55 you know. If the 980 had had a pricetag as the 390x, I might have jumped the gun on it.

Now for storage I'm a bit undecided. I read a lot about some fancy new kind of SSD that uses PCIe slots or M.2 or whatnot, but I really have no idea. And as I would like to not fork out money for something overly expensive, I'm also getting the idea that the technology might still be so new that everything is overly expensive for whatever benefits it might have. Should I just stick with a normal SSD and then some sort of mass storage disk as well? I'm thinking around 500GB for my OS and games etc.

I apologize for the wall, I'd apreciate any thoughts and comments on this build

Edit: Oh, and for the case I just picked the first one on the list. I have no idea about the case yet, but I do keep hearing good things about that one though.

Yeah that motherboard you chose looks fine. I know a lot of people have had good experiences with MSI. I tend to go with cheaper motherboards too just because I don't need a million USB ports, etc.

DDR4-2400 is plenty fast for gaming especially. Faster memory tends to make almost no difference in gaming. That is more about your video card than anything, and CPU to some extent.

A GTX970 is easily fast enough if you are fine with 60FPS. My 970 tends to get a lot more than 60FPS in most games actually. The only reason I was even mentioning 980 and 390X is that I saw you had a 120hz monitor, and those cards would be able to hit 120FPS in more games than the 970 will. It doesn't sound like you care too much about that though. There will possibly be a big jump in graphics card performance in the next couple years too when both Nvidia and AMD switch to 14nm, so it might be better just getting a 970 now and saving that money now and using it towards a new card a few years from now (or whenever you feel the need to upgrade).

The PCIe and M.2 SSDs are theoretically faster, but it's not something a normal user would ever notice IMO, and certainly not something I'd spend extra money on right now. The real noticeable jump in performance comes from switching from a HDD to a SSD. The difference between a PCIe and a regular SATA SSD is only noticeable in very specific use cases and benchmarks. For just gaming, browsing the web, and using a few light programs there will really be no difference.

There's nothing wrong with using a "NAS" drive as a regular drive in your system but they will tend to be slightly more expensive than a non-NAS drive. If anything the NAS ones will be a bit more reliable but probably not a huge difference.

For the power supply I'd recommend this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438054

It's a "G2" rather than a "P2". The P2 is probably okay too, but I know specifically the G2s are some of the highest rated power supplies at sites that thouroughly test them (johnnyguru for example). There is only about $5 difference between them. The G2 also comes with a 7 year warranty as opposed to the P2's 3 year warranty.

That case looks good. It comes with 1 front and 1 rear fan, but also has room for about 4 more fans. I would probably just get a couple 140mm fans for the top and call it a day. These are the fans it comes with if you want to have all the same fans. Like I said before you'll probably need a couple "MOLEX to 3pin" adapters to plug them into your PSU. Something like this.

 

[Ayoralyn]

Thanks for getting back to me again.

I'm counting on, and hoping, that this PC will last me at least 3 years. I'm hoping it might even last 5-7 years if I'm lucky. I don't really need an upgrade at the moment either, it's just because I need a secondary computer for my girlfriend when she's here. Maybe upgrade to 16GB RAM but that's it. So I'm counting on this one lasting for a long time.

The PSU unit in the PChound is actually an error. I chose the wrong one. The one I've found on a website here in Denmark is close to the one you linked, and the one you recommended as well in your first reply. The only difference is that the one you linked is the EVGA 220-G2-0650-Y1, and the one I've found here is 220-G2-0650-Y2. I don't know if that makes a huge difference?

Oh and by the way, in case you wanted to know, this rig, with the parts we've talked about, plus fans and a 2TB WD harddrive, will cost me 1.800 USD here in Denmark.

 

[Dangman]

Thanks for getting back to me again.

I'm counting on, and hoping, that this PC will last me at least 3 years. I'm hoping it might even last 5-7 years if I'm lucky. I don't really need an upgrade at the moment either, it's just because I need a secondary computer for my girlfriend when she's here. Maybe upgrade to 16GB RAM but that's it. So I'm counting on this one lasting for a long time.

The PSU unit in the PChound is actually an error. I chose the wrong one. The one I've found on a website here in Denmark is close to the one you linked, and the one you recommended as well in your first reply. The only difference is that the one you linked is the EVGA 220-G2-0650-Y1, and the one I've found here is 220-G2-0650-Y2. I don't know if that makes a huge difference?

Oh and by the way, in case you wanted to know, this rig, with the parts we've talked about, plus fans and a 2TB WD harddrive, will cost me 1.800 USD here in Denmark.

Whether or not a PC will last a certain amount of time is really dependent on your actual usage. With that said, there's a very very good chance that it will be another five years before you see another Intel CPU worth upgrading to. This is mainly due to the fact that A) Intel is only slowly increaasing CPU performance with each release and B) AMD isn't putting much pressure on Intel to sell even faster CPUs. For example, if you had bought a Core i7 2600K CPU back in 2011, it's only right around this year that it makes financial sense to upgrade that Core i7 2600K CPU.

No real big difference with the PSU. You're fine.

 

[Ayoralyn]

Thanks for the answer Dangman!

And yes, you are absolutely correct of course. You can't really predict it 100%. But as you said, depends on usage, and I know that I don't really tax my system very heavily, so my PC's tend to last. The thing that hits me once in a while is the itch for new hardware, not because it's actually starting to fail.

But thanks for the feedback, I will be buying this at the beginning of next month then!