New tentative gaming build

graffex · Jul 30, 2014

I've sold of some firearms to FINALLY build a gaming computer.... Last system I build was in 2004.

I've been researching like crazy and this is what I've come up with:

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/graffex/saved/RGK2FT

Any thoughts? Going to be getting a 24" 1920x1080 monitor as a 27" 2560x1440 is still too god damn expensive for me right now.

iceblitzed · Jul 30, 2014

could save 50 bucks and get the crucial mx100 ssd for 75$ish. Should have similar real world performance vs 840prossd.

Danbuscus25 · Jul 30, 2014

good build, but you can save a little money by getting 8gb ram, if you want

graffex · Jul 30, 2014

Having a feeling my mind might exlpode coming from my current amd 3500+ system...

Calnin · Jul 30, 2014

Kept build in tact, and lowered prices on parts that I felt you were spending too much money on or it would just be better.

Motherboard, the ASRock z97 extreme4 has the same number of phases as the gigabyte Ud5h. Cheaper and still an effective board for overclocking and what not.

RAM, It's just ram. The ram i selected has the same amount, speed, and cas latency as the corsair ones you selected at a lower price.

SSD, There's no need to spend on a pro if the evo is enough.

WD Blue is cheaper than the seagate that you selected. It's generally more reliable brand than the seagate.

Tri-x over the windforce because it is slightly better cooler.

As for the PSU, you could go with a 650w if you want to and it'll still give enough headroom for some overclocking.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Micro Center)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($143.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($137.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($379.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1332.90

graffex · Jul 30, 2014

I was also thinking about getting the same memory but dropping it to 8 gigs.

graffex · Jul 31, 2014

The more I think about if I doubt I'll ever end up over clocking anything. What changes would you make?

iceblitzed · Jul 31, 2014

graffex :

change mobo to a asrock h97 mobo . you can find them for 90$ish. change cpu to i5-4690 without k or i5-4590

Calnin · Jul 31, 2014

Depends on whether you want the overclocking option open to you in the future or not.

If you don't really care, then get rid of the cooler and go with a xeon e3 1231v3 or i5 4460 + H97 motherboard (I recommend the asrock h97m pro4). The choice between the xeon vs the i5 is really down to budget and necessity and budget. The i5 4460 will do very well in gaming already, its just an underclocked i5 but still has everything the haswell refreshes offer. The xeon is almost an i7 at the normal price of the i5 4670k/4690k. It doesn't have an iGPU, but you're getting a gpu already anyways, so that part wouldn't matter.

Xeon build:

If you don't want/need the xeon, then just change that to the i5 4460 and you'll be fine. Everything else is fine as what it is already.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($247.94 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($81.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($137.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($58.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($389.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1311.85

If you do want overclocking open to you, keep the processor, get a cheaper z97 motherboard and get rid of the cooler and pick it up when you're starting to mess around with the overclocking.

Something like this would do:

The motherboard is cheaper, but will still hold a decent overclock if you ever want to mess with it.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Micro Center)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($108.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Team Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($137.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($58.00 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($389.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1290.91

The price difference is ~20$ not including any MIR. Performance wise, they'll both be the same (assuming the 4690k is at stock). In most games, the xeon will only give a marginal performance difference. However, it does give you more threads if you're working on video editing/3d rendering/live streaming or something along those lines. And future proofing wise, if games do use more threads effectively, then it'll do better in that aspects.

graffex · Jul 31, 2014

So I've been thinking about it and I will overclock it a bit... Why the hell not right?

I took some of the suggestions given and tweaked the build. I'm still partial to the gigabyte board as I trust there name more than asrock.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Micro Center)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($81.00 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($241.18 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($379.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1387.10
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-31 17:53 EDT-0400

What do you think?

Calnin · Jul 31, 2014

It's a good build. It'll play almost every game you throw at it on ultra at a good frame rate.

Questions: Any reason for the 500Gb SSD? You'll only need a 120gb ssd for most things. 250 would be for if you want more room for anything that needs the extra speed. For a gaming build, 120gb for boot up and 1tb for storage is usually good enough. You won't get any extra frames from an SSD over a HDD. You'll get faster loading times and that's probably the most noticeable difference.

graffex · Jul 31, 2014

I was planning on just putting everything on the ssd. 500 gigs will be plenty I will never fill it up. Seemed wiser to just ditch the hd and make the ssd larger.

Calnin · Jul 31, 2014

Its more expensive, that's for sure. It's more cost efficient to have both the SSD and HDD, but you're choice.

graffex · Jul 31, 2014

Updated once again. Got faster memory and ssd+hd, and it's a little cheaper.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Micro Center)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-UD5H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 290 4GB Tri-X Video Card ($379.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair Vengeance C70 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($104.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1300.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-07-31 22:03 EDT-0400

graffex · Aug 1, 2014

Micro center has a combo deal on the i5 4690k and asus z97-pro wi-fi for 350 bucks. Its 60 dollars off normal price. Any reason to not pull the trigger on it? Also the memory I picked has a voltage of 1.65 is that good or should I get a 1.5 version .

Calnin · Aug 1, 2014

If this is just a gaming build, go with cheaper ram. There's little to no difference in gaming performance with faster ram.

The asus vs the gigabyte would just be preference at this point. They're both going to come out the same price roughly.

1.65 vs 1.5v isn't going to make a huge difference, might be a little extra stress, but shouldn't be too bad.

graffex · Aug 4, 2014

Here's a update. Went to microcenter today and came home with these items:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($199.99 @ Micro Center)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($128.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance Pro 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($96.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.91 @ OutletPC)
Case: NZXT H440 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $684.85
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-08-04 21:55 EDT-0400

Also got a cooler master v650 power supply and a external USB DVD drive since case has no bays for one. All I need now is a 1980x1080 monitor (suggestions?), A gfx card (r9 290, or similar performing nvidia card)' and windows 8.

Build went together smoothly. I borrowed and old monitor to get is started and mess with the bios. I had to correct the memory speed so it runs at 1866. Been running for a few hours now while at a steady 35c processor temp. I love this case. Anything else in the bios I should enable/disable I only messed with the memory so it running at the correct speed.

New tentative gaming build

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