Building first gaming PC in several years. PLEASE ADVISE

Quigglypoo

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Aug 28, 2014
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Greetings!

I have been saving to build a nice setup to use for gaming, video editing, and streaming for a few months now, and i would like your opinion if there is a better way of doing this. I mostly play arma 3(@15fps) and BF4(@20fps) but i want to be able to play both of these games and star citizen and Tom Clancy's division when they come out and record at decent quality.(1080p @ 60fps is ideal but not required)


http://pcpartpicker.com/user/quigglypoo/saved/HTXJ7P

I am going AMD despite some reservations, as my last AMD experience was pretty bad. But the reasoning behind this is if i go AMD i can afford the EVGA SC 4gb gtx 770. I already own the PSU, the case, the SSD, and the hard drive. My plan is to eventually overclock and water cool but that is gonna have to wait a few months.

I was planning on just using the stock heat sink and fan for a couple months till i buy the water cooling kit and overclock.


all of this excluding what i own in in my newegg cart and totals $927.68 with tax. is there anything you see that would be a significant improvement? is there a better CPU that is comparable in price?

any pointers are greatly appreciated!


thank you for your time.

Ignore the prices on partpicker. its wrong.
 
Solution
1) Go Intel. For a lot of games, especially older ones, the faster efficiency is seriously going to make a huge difference.

2) You only need 8GB of ram, and that'll save you a LOT of money. 8GB is enough to simultaneously run battlefield 3, photoshop, and 30 tabs in chrome. (Or open 75 bookmarked tabs at once without chugging, if you're a tab-hoarder like I am.)

3) Why are you buying that SSD. It's old. It's not as fast as it should be. And you can get a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO for less than half the price.

4) You don't need a 4GB 770; a 2GB will be plenty unless you're planning on running very heavily modded skyrim or really poorly coded games like watch dogs. Really, you don't need a 770 at all... a 760 would be enough to play the...

TomSkini

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Jun 7, 2014
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I really like this build and wouldn't change anything myself apart from the PSU - there are better ones out there for that amount of money. Go with a seasonic, antec or XFX in my opinion. And 750w is alot 650 should do.
 

TomSkini

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Yeh just noticed how the ssd is as well, would probably change that.
 

M0j0jojo

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This is a better build

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z97-G55 SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($118.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.98 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($86.95 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($53.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 780 3GB DirectCU II Video Card ($418.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($13.50 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Other: Enermax Ostrog GT ($59.99)
Total: $1282.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-09-05 19:48 EDT-0400
 

Quigglypoo

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i got the ssd for 50 bucks on a flash sale. the power supply i got for 60. the prices on part picker are completely wrong.
 
I can't make a case for an AMD based build above $800 or so.

The Blue is a horrendous performer. Sits in like 63rd place on THGs Hardware Charts. I'd suggest skipping the SSD and getting an SSHD (1s place on THGs charts) and putting the money towards better GFX

http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/hdd-charts-2013/-17-PCMark-7-Gaming,2915.html

EVGA SuperNova G2 and P2 are great units, other ones i wouldn't bother with.

The HAF 932 was a great case ... 5 years ago and i enjoyed making several builds with it. But it don't stand up to the likes of the Enthoo Luxe and other cases released in last few years.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811854007
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811854006

Why get 1600 memory when ya can have 2133 memory at the same price ... and with Hynix modules to boot ?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226420

If ya think ya might go Intel.... here's an incredible buy for $465 ... $179 more than your picks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1865315
MSI Z97 GD65 w/ 4790k

Going from ya SSD / HD combo at $277 to a $115 SSHD would save ya $162 ... that eats up all but $15 of the cost difference for the AMD MoBo / CPU.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178380


I went with the i7, 16GB and much faster RAM for the video editing ... the 4790k is also 4.4 Ghz as opposed to 3.9 so it along with the RAM will help with everything including gaming .... the SSHD cause no one can tell the difference between an SSD and SHHD w/o a benchmark or stopwatch.

SSD boots in 15.6 seconds
SSHD boot sin 16.5 seconds

 

TomSkini

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I wouldn't chose the i5 as OP said the build was for streaming and video editing along with gaming, so the fx-8350 will the the better cpu in this case.
 

M0j0jojo

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Can you show me proof that the i5 is garbage for streaming and video editing
 

TomSkini

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I didn't say the i5 would be garbage, I said the 8350 would be better. It just makes logical sense really - imagine playing a game that utilizes 4 cores whilst trying to stream, do you think the 4-core i5 would be the better choice over an 8-core fx-8350?
 

M0j0jojo

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4 Cores/ 4 Threads, meaning that one core can process two things at once, (Multi tasking)
 
1) Go Intel. For a lot of games, especially older ones, the faster efficiency is seriously going to make a huge difference.

2) You only need 8GB of ram, and that'll save you a LOT of money. 8GB is enough to simultaneously run battlefield 3, photoshop, and 30 tabs in chrome. (Or open 75 bookmarked tabs at once without chugging, if you're a tab-hoarder like I am.)

3) Why are you buying that SSD. It's old. It's not as fast as it should be. And you can get a 120GB Samsung 840 EVO for less than half the price.

4) You don't need a 4GB 770; a 2GB will be plenty unless you're planning on running very heavily modded skyrim or really poorly coded games like watch dogs. Really, you don't need a 770 at all... a 760 would be enough to play the games you're looking at without any hesitation at all. (But I personally would still buy the 770. Just get the 2GB version unless you have a triple monitor setup or something like that.)

5) I personally would never buy a $150 case. If I'm spending that much money, I'm making it myself and making it be exactly what I want. Over about $100, you really don't see many gains in the case.

6) Way overkill on the power supply. Seriously. You only need a 550w PSU, call it 600w or 650w to account for future overclocking. You can also get much cheaper, better options. Look at XFX and SeaSonic. I personally would get the SeaSonic M12II 620w. It's fully modular, bronze rated, made and sold by one of the best and most reliable companies out there... and is only $75.

7) Don't get windows 7. Seriously. Windows 8.1 has:

- The ability for an OEM copy to be de-licensed and move to your next computer.
- Way better bluetooth support, a better file manager, and much much faster search as soon as you train yourself to just press the windows key and start typing.
- Far better support for two or more monitors.

If you're listening to the people who whine about how horrible metro is, they don't know what they're talking about. Take ten minutes to uninstall the default metro apps and change a couple settings, and windows 8.1 is just a faster, more modern, less resource intensive version of windows 7.

Anyways, There you go - I just saved you a lot of money and got you far better quality and performance for it. :)
Talk to me again when you look at watercooling - you shouldn't be using a closed-loop watercooler, since they're more expensive and more noisy than big air coolers that perform just as well... so either go with a classic large air cooler, or look at actual watercooling, which is one of the nicest things I ever did with my rig for both noise and performance.
 
Solution


Erm... there is no modern game that can't be installed on a secondary hard drive, specifically because so many people are using SSDs now.

There's absolutely no reason that a 120GB ssd is too small; it leaves you with 60GB (with a windows 8 install) or 50GB (with a windows 7 install) of free space to put the few games that actually get a benefit from being on an ssd.
 


Except that you're completely discounting the fact that the i5 is significantly faster, clock-for-clock, than the FX "8-core / 4-module."

I would absolutely take an overclocked i5 over an overclocked FX 8350, for both heat and performance reasons.