Need Advice on Building

svgtom · Jul 13, 2014

I'm on the fence whether to build my own PC or buy pre-built. I'm pretty sure I can build one on my own but there's just too many options out there so I need some suggestions:

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Web browsing, video streaming, some gaming

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
700 - 900, no

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

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.
Case, motherboard, CPU + cooler, PSU, Hard Drive (1TB), RAM, GPU, BD-ROM/DVD Writer

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Would like to reuse my Xonar Essence STX soundcard but not mandatory.

6) Will you be overclocking?
No

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920x1080, 23"

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
soon

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.
Standard ATX is fine

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
No, will be buying Win 8.1

Overall, I'm looking for something that runs fairly quiet and my preference would be for a case that has no internal LEDs.

Thanks.

Dangman · Jul 13, 2014

How long is the drive to this Microcenter?:
http://www.microcenter.com/site/stores/north-jersey.aspx

Basically, with a $900 budget, you're better off building the gaming PC yourself. You really won't find a good prebuilt gaming PC with similar performance to a $900 DIY gaming PC till you're around the $1300 to $1500 range.

coolpurplefan · Jul 13, 2014

coolpurplefan · Jul 13, 2014

Oops, I forgot the Blu-ray burner $55 Pioneer Electronics USA Internal Blu-Ray Writer BDR-209DBK http://www.amazon.com/Pioneer-Elect...266567&sr=8-1&keywords=pioneer+blu-ray+burner

svgtom · Jul 13, 2014

Thanks for the replies so far. Some additional questions:

1. Other than speed, are there any other advantages to using an SSD for the OS?
2. Are there any other apps or programs that should also be on the SSD in addition to the OS?
2. How efficient is the stock Intel cooler? Would it be better to include a third party cooler instead?

Dangman · Jul 13, 2014

svgtom said:
Thanks for the replies so far. Some additional questions:

1. Other than speed, are there any other advantages to using an SSD for the OS?
2. Are there any other apps or programs that should also be on the SSD in addition to the OS?
2. How efficient is the stock Intel cooler? Would it be better to include a third party cooler instead?

1) Well fast system response is another advantage. i.e how long it takes for apps to start up and load, how long it takes to open a folder, etc. It's literally the most important advantage of a SSD. These days, you really should have a SSD in your system.
2) Whatever apps and programs that you tend to use a lot should be on the SSD.
3) It's good enough as long as you have a good case and don't live in a really hot home/area. If you do, then a 3rd party HSF would be a good idea.

However, I do not recommend coolpurplefan's build list as it has several issues. Here's what I recommend instead:

$190 - Intel Core i5-4570 CPU
$75 - MSI B85M-G43 Intel B85 mATX Motherboard
$7. - Kingston HyperX FURY HX316C10F/8 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$150 - Sapphire DUAL-X 100365L Radeon R9 270 2GB PCI-E Video Card
$75 - Crucial MX100 128GB SSD
$53 - Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$55 -Pioneer Electronics USA BDR-209DBK Internal Blu-Ray Writer
$60 - XFX TS Series XFX TS 550W PSU
$65 - Corsair Graphite Series 230T Black ATX Case
$95 - Windows 8.1 64bit
----
Total: $891 shipped

Key differences between the above build and coolpurplefan's build:

The 300Mhz clock speed increase is not worth the extra $34 for the i5-4690. It's a mere 3 to 5% performance increase at best for an 18% increase in price.
The GIgabyte mobo is technically newer but none of the new features are worth the extra $25 in this case.
Nor is the extra $8 for that 2 x 4GB set going to provide any sort of noticeable performance difference.
The R9 270 is significantly faster than the GTX 750 TI when it comes to games. The only real advantage the 750 Ti has is its rather low power usage.
You're also getting a significantly better quality power supply than that low-end Antec.
The Corsair case will provide way better cooling than the Coolermaster case and far easier cable management on account of the case's layout. In addition, the extra two fans plus the ability to actually install a SSD without using add-on brackets makes that 230T well worth the extra $10 over that Coolermaster.

coolpurplefan · Jul 13, 2014

Dangman said:
Key differences between the above build and coolpurplefan's build:

The 300Mhz clock speed increase is not worth the extra $34 for the i5-4690. It's a mere 3 to 5% performance increase at best for an 18% increase in price.

The GIgabyte mobo is technically newer but none of the new features are worth the extra $25 in this case.

Nor is the extra $8 for that 2 x 4GB set going to provide any sort of noticeable performance difference.

The R9 270 is significantly faster than the GTX 750 TI when it comes to games. The only real advantage the 750 Ti has is its rather low power usage.

You're also getting a significantly better quality power supply than that low-end Antec.

The Corsair case will provide way better cooling than the Coolermaster case and far easier cable management on account of the case's layout. In addition, the extra two fans plus the ability to actually install a SSD without using add-on brackets makes that 230T well worth the extra $10 over that Coolermaster.

If you wanted to put a fan on a fan controller and it wasn't hooked up to a fan sensor, then I'd prefer a heatpipe cooler like the CoolerMaster GeminII M4 in case of fan failure.

These points made above are all debatable. Nvidia in case you want to do video rendering, less power. You might be begging for an extra 300MHz in several years. Case preference is very subjective. You can always search reviews on amazon and newegg. One of the things to look for: USB 3.0 at the front if you value that.

Well, power supplies may be a matter of debate as well. You can check reviews on jonnyguru.com I could have named some Corsair, OCZ, Seasonic etc. I prefer Seasonic but the only thing that may make me a little wary is compatibility with Haswell processors. I read some comments saying there may be an issue with sleep mode. But who cares about sleep modes.

Whatever. You can always do you own research on the individual parts. It may all boil down to which is available for what price at which site.

If you want to wait for an SSD, it could be a cool idea as well. Because the Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H and GA-Z97-D3H have a M2.PCIe connector compatible with future faster 10GB/s SSDs.

And I have without a doubt, read some messages regarding dual channel RAM. Some insist it's faster.

Dangman · Jul 14, 2014

coolpurplefan said:
Nvidia in case you want to do video rendering, less power.

But he never said anything about video rendering, now did he?

coolpurplefan said:
You might be begging for an extra 300MHz in several years.

No. Unless we're talking about very low clock speeds to begin with, a 300Mhz clock speed won't be missed. Again, that's a mere 3 to 5% performance increase. In games, that's only a ~3FPS increase. Do you seriously think 3FPS makes a huge difference in the long run?

coolpurplefan said:
Case preference is very subjective. You can always search reviews on amazon and newegg. One of the things to look for: USB 3.0 at the front if you value that.

Case looks are subjective, that much I'll agree with. But you can easily objectively see how superior the 230T is to the Coolermaster Elite 431 Plus if you actually just look:
1) The 230T comes with two extra 120mm fans for a total of three 120mm fans. The Elite 431 Plus only comes with one front 120mm fan. As such, the 230T has better cooling out of the box.
2) The 230T comes with mounting bays for SSDs. In order to properly mount a SSD in the Elite 431, you may have to buy an additional 2.5" to 3.5" adapter
3) The 230T has more space behind the motherboard tray to hide cables which helps with cable management and airflow.
4) The 230T has cable management holes in the motherboard tray which allow for cleaner and easier cable management and indirectly helping airflow
5) The Elite 431 has tear-off expansion slot covers which you really only see in low construction quality cases. The 230T has actual screws holding in the expansion slot covers.

With that said, the Elite 431 does have two advantages over the 230T:
1) It has an external SATA dock.
2) It can hold more 3.5" hard drives. The 230T can fit four whereas the ELite 431 can probably fit in 5 to 7 as long as your video card is short.

It's pretty clear who's the winner here from an objective standpoint.

coolpurplefan said:
Well, power supplies may be a matter of debate as well. You can check reviews on jonnyguru.com I could have named some Corsair, OCZ, Seasonic etc. I prefer Seasonic but the only thing that may make me a little wary is compatibility with Haswell processors. I read some comments saying there may be an issue with sleep mode. But who cares about sleep modes.

The XFX PSU I recommended IS a Seasonic PSU:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=225

As for the sleep mode issue, you didn't read the issue clearly: The Haswell sleep issue generally only occurs with group regulated PSU designs (like the older S12II and M12II and the XFX as an example) and if you have the C7 sleep state enabled. By default, the C7 sleep state is disabled in the UEFI of most motherboards. As such, there really is no problem with Haswell, sleep, and Seasonic group regulated since that C7 sleep state is disabled by default.

coolpurplefan said:
And I have without a doubt, read some messages regarding dual channel RAM. Some insist it's faster.

Again, as I have pointed out to you in earlier threads, that faster speed really only shows up in synthetic benchmark situations. There are very very rare and specific occurrences where there is a visible noticeable difference in real world situations. None of those occurrences are happening here. If you read a bunch of forum posts where people said they noticied a difference, they're experiencing a placebo effect.

coolpurplefan · Jul 14, 2014

I don't know you'd take my comments about the video card that seriously. The OP is better off knowing than not.

I'm amazed someone wanting to be that argumentative about things can even know what a placebo effect is. lol

I never even intended to defend the case. I invited the OP to search for one given differing tastes.

svgtom · Jul 14, 2014

Thanks for the continued input. Aside from looks, any thoughts on this case?
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Carbi...r=1-1&keywords=Corsair+Carbide+Series+SPEC-03

Still lots of decisions to make. Any additional mobo suggestions?

Dangman · Jul 14, 2014

coolpurplefan said:
I don't know you'd take my comments about the video card that seriously. The OP is better off knowing than not.

I'm amazed someone wanting to be that argumentative about things can even know what a placebo effect is. lol

I never even intended to defend the case. I invited the OP to search for one given differing tastes.

First and foremost, your logic doesn't track: So someone who is argumentative is someone who doesn't know what a placebo effect is? That doesn't make any sense.

Second, this is a subforum where we help dozens of people (if not more via people who just lurk) each week spend hundreds of their hard earned dollars on a new PC. If you're asking for help with your hard-earned money, wouldn't you want the best possible help within reason? That's why I try to make sure that the people who post in this subforum gets as much correct and needed information as possible. Even if that requires me to provide counter-arguments against other people's builds.

svgtom said:
Thanks for the continued input. Aside from looks, any thoughts on this case?
http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Carbi...r=1-1&keywords=Corsair+Carbide+Series+SPEC-03

If it was $10 cheaper, it would be a big winner. But since $5 more gets you the 230T, that Spec 02 really isn't worth it due to the following reasons:
1) The 230T can fit taller heatsinks as well as wider liquid AIO coolers. This gives you more options for a 3rd party HSF should you find that the stock HSF is not enough.
2) Despite the bulging side on the Spec 02, if you look at the actual width spec and the pictures, the 230T actually has more space behind the motherboard tray to hide cables.
3) The 230T comes with an extra 120mm fan
4) The 230T can fit two an additional 2.5" drives just in case you find a wicked deal on 2.5" hard drives or SSDs.
5) The 230T can fit an additional 3.5" hard drive for a total of four hard drives.
6) In general, Corsair's Graphite series are of superior material quality and/or better built than Corsair's Carbide series.

svgtom said:
Still lots of decisions to make. Any additional mobo suggestions?

Not really. Not enough room in the budget to fit in a better or different motherboard without seriously compromising on other aspects of the PC. Well besides the blu-ray burner: Are you sure you're going to burn enough blu-ray DVDs to justify the extra $35 for that Blu-Ray burner?

svgtom · Jul 15, 2014

Well, I actually never said I wanted a Blu-ray burner, just a reader, and thinking about it I probably don't even need the reader.

Dangman · Jul 15, 2014

svgtom said:
Well, I actually never said I wanted a Blu-ray burner, just a reader, and thinking about it I probably don't even need the reader.

My bad. Thought you did. So drop down to this DVD burner then:
$21 - Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD Burner

That frees up cash for a different motherboard. I'd recommend taking a look at the ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Performance, the Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H that coolpurplefan recommended earlier, or the MSI Z97 PC Mate.

coolpurplefan · Jul 15, 2014

If it's your intention to help, then why don't you tell people the difference between Nvidia and AMD and tell people if you spend just that much more, you can get 300MHz more.

Anyway, I had my input here. As a passing comment, I probably looked at around 200 motherboards at one point for those who wanted to know.

svgtom · Jul 15, 2014

Thanks for the continued input. If I can spare the additional cash, is it worth it to get the Seasonic G 550w over the XFX?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00918MEZG...TF8&colid=25E0NFT7ZC7WI&coliid=I2EXQES2S7CG4N

coolpurplefan · Jul 15, 2014

I just looked quickly and I saw this review. http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=323

I didn't look at the fine details but it had a higher score than the XFX.

Dangman · Jul 16, 2014

coolpurplefan said:
If it's your intention to help, then why don't you tell people the difference between Nvidia and AMD and tell people if you spend just that much more, you can get 300MHz more.

Because I don't like providing irrelevant, irresponsible, or useless information and recommendations?

The OP only mentioned gaming as the most GPU heavy thing he's doing. Combined with his budget, there no point in recommending or mentioning Nvidia when current GPU pricing favors AMD in the price to performance metric at the sub $200 mark. He didn't mention anything where a Nvidia video card recommendation would make sense for his budget.

As for the 300Mhz improvement, as I said earlier, it's a mere 3% to 5% performance increase. It's not worth $34. As such, I'm not going to recommend something that I think is a total waste of money. It's not a good choice for a CPU unless your main goal is to waste money. Especially if that spare $34 allows you to cram in a better quality PSU, better case, and actually fit in the SSD while remaining under budget. THose three items will more of a difference in the long term longevity of the PC than a 300Mhz clock speed increase.

coolpurplefan said:
Anyway, I had my input here. As a passing comment, I probably looked at around 200 motherboards at one point for those who wanted to know.

If you want to play that game: I've been on this forum for about 8 to 9 years now. I've been doing hardware recommendations ever since the Core 2 Duo CPUs came out. Since then, Intel has released six different consumer Intel sockets. Which means that I've had to look at about ~200 motherboards for each new socket in order to give the right recommendations. In addition, almost every Intel socket has had chipset refreshes where another 100 or so motherboards were released. There's been like ten different Intel chipset refreshes. That's just the Intel consumer motherboards side. We're not even talking about the AMD motherboard or the server class motherboards I've also looked at throughout the years.

So yes, while you've looked at 200 motherboards, I've looked at thousands.

svgtom said:
Thanks for the continued input. If I can spare the additional cash, is it worth it to get the Seasonic G 550w over the XFX?
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00918MEZG...TF8&colid=25E0NFT7ZC7WI&coliid=I2EXQES2S7CG4N

Yes. It's of higher quality, offers more power on the +12V rail, and has better performance. So it is worth the money if you can spare it without cutting into the other parts.

coolpurplefan · Jul 16, 2014

If you believe mentioning a GTX 750 Ti is irresponsible and irrelevant then this sub-forum needs a different moderator.

$34 spread over 5 years means 56 cents per month.

I only read introductory textbooks on the social sciences but anyone who says "I would not recommend xxx's ideas..." has no business being a moderator. I should tell the OP I would not recommend YOUR suggestions.

E4g1e · Jul 16, 2014

coolpurplefan said:
If you believe mentioning a GTX 750 Ti is irresponsible and irrelevant then this sub-forum needs a different moderator.

$34 spread over 5 years means 56 cents per month.

I only read introductory textbooks on the social sciences but anyone who says "I would not recommend xxx's ideas..." has no business being a moderator. I should tell the OP I would not recommend YOUR suggestions.

Still not worth the extra 56 cents per month for that 300MHz worth of extra CPU clock speed. In fact, by the time games require that extra speed, they will also require support for new instructions that do not yet exist in current CPUs.

My advice for the GTX 750 Ti still stands: Unless the OP is going to use a crappy low-realistic-wattage PSU and/or a cramped case with relatively limited airflow in his new build, there is no point in me recommending a GTX 750 Ti when there are faster gaming performers at a similar price point.

P.S. In addition to what has been stated, the R9 270 that Dangman recommended provides more than double the total memory throughput compared with the GTX 750 Ti: 179.2 GB/s versus only 86.4 GB/s. That substantially lower memory throughput seriously hurts high-resolution gaming performance with the GTX 750 Ti, especially with AA and AF set to higher settings.

Soulwrath · Jul 16, 2014

I will state though that the XFX Pro 550W is not bad a psu (S2ii rebranded) but the S2ii is loud, would instead suggest the Cooler Master V550S

Dangman · Jul 16, 2014

coolpurplefan said:
If you believe mentioning a GTX 750 Ti is irresponsible and irrelevant then this sub-forum needs a different moderator.

....
I only read introductory textbooks on the social sciences but anyone who says "I would not recommend xxx's ideas..." has no business being a moderator. .

Your logic doesn't make sense: Where does it say anywhere in the forum rules where a moderator cannot disagree with the users of this forum? In addition, what kind of society are you from where no one is allowed to disagree with anyone? Using your logic, if I said "I don't recommend Stalin's ideas", that means that I should not be a moderator? See the problem there?

Yes recommending that GTX 750 TI is irresponsible and irrelevant in this thread because the OP only mentioned gaming. He did not mention anything where a Nvidia card would make sense as a choice. Therefore recommending Nvidia was irrelevant. We are trying to help him spend his hard-earned money to get a video card that's good for video games. As such, it is irresponsible of us to recommend spending money for the SLOWER GTX 750 TI over the R9 270. In addition, it's also irresponsible to keep recommending the wrong part even after you've been shown that it's the wrong recommendation for the exact requirements.

So unless you can prove that GTX 750 TI was a responsible and relevant recommendation to the OP's specific requirement of "gaming", the GTX 750 TI is still the irresponsible and irrelevant recommendation.

coolpurplefan said:
$34 spread over 5 years means 56 cents per month..

He still has to pay $34 up front which also means that the OP would have to cut down on other parts in order to remain in budget.

So again, that $34 is not worth spending considering that $34 can go towards the SSD, better case, and better PSU. That 5% CPU performance is not worth losing all of that.

coolpurplefan said:
I should tell the OP I would not recommend YOUR suggestions.

If you can defend your original recommendations better and/or can prove that my recommendations are wrong, by all means, do so. So far, I'm not seeing any good reasons put forth by you where the better case, PSU, and inclusion of a SSD are not worth getting over the slightly faster CPU.

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