Possibly building own PC

watermanb

Honorable
Oct 23, 2013
2
0
10,510
Hey, as you could guess I'm considering building my own gaming PC. The budget I am aiming for is between $1000-$1500, and this does not include monitors, mouse, or keyboard. I am wanting to spend that budget solely on the PC. The PC will be used primarily for gaming, so I desire only 1TB (or even 750GB) of HDD storage, and probably 120 GB SSD for OS/a game or two.

My real struggle is debating on if building my own PC is going to save me any actual money, because while I think it would be fun to build my own I also do not want to spend several months getting parts and risk the issues of having no troubleshooting support if something goes wrong.

My system desires are:

- Very high end graphics card (I want to run maximum settings possible on new games for at least the next few years)
- 16 GB Ram (may as well make it semi-futureproofed imo)
- Dual monitor capabilities
- option to have good streaming/game recording (this one is not near as high a priority as the others)

Any advice/thoughts would be appreciated.
 
$1500 is a large budget. How's this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($319.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BK 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($74.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($122.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card ($305.91 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($98.98 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II 850W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($56.23 @ Amazon)
Total: $1359.05
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)


But for completeness purposes, here's a build that I think is worth the extra $100:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($239.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BK 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($74.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($122.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 280X 3GB Video Card ($305.91 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($98.98 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic M12II 850W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - OEM (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VS239H-P 23.0" Monitor ($167.48 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VS239H-P 23.0" Monitor ($167.48 @ Newegg)
Total: $1597.76
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

Has everything you mentioned. Dropped to 8GB of RAM. Should be plenty and you can always upgrade easily. Dropped the Blu-Ray drive. Optical drives are pretty optional nowadays, but one to at least install the operating system. Dropped to an i5. It should be more than sufficient for gaming for the near future and should not bottleneck any graphics cards.
 
Solution

watermanb

Honorable
Oct 23, 2013
2
0
10,510
Wow thanks man! Those look awesome (I'm pretty stoked about the perfect mixing/matching combo potentials with everything)

I'm also really impressed with the 1600 build that includes both monitors...and the OS. Damn.

I take it by your response that you really feel this kind of build/potential in a machine is not really possible for 1500 custom built?