Help Finalize friends first Gaming Build. $1700 budget

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fatalshot808

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Feb 5, 2010
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Approximate Purchase Date:Today to Cyber monday.

Budget Range:$1700 including Shipping and Tax.(Lower the better though)

System Usage from Most to Least Important:Gaming, Rendering, and web browsing.

Are you buying a monitor: Yes

Parts to Upgrade: N/A

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com NCIX Amazon Outlet PC

Location: City, State/Region, California

Parts Preferences: The one thing he wants to keep in system for sure is a Nvidia GTX 970 and he wants to keep the I7 4790k.

Overclocking: This is his first Gaming PC he says he will OC but I doubt he will be pushing his CPU that far.

SLI or Crossfire: In the future.

Your Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080P

I recommended thermal paste for him but he doesn't seem to think he needs, he says the CPU comes with some but I would recommend after market paste for the CPU cooler he is getting, what do you guys suggest?

Mouse, Keyboard, and DVD Drive not required, am I missing anything else?

Current build Here http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YHYWP6
 
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frag06

frag06

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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($299.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H110 94.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.99 @ Micro Center)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste ($5.35 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus MAXIMUS VII HERO ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($188.99 @ NCIX US)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($56.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($62.14 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card ($349.95 @ B&H)
Case: NZXT H440 (Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Asus VG248QE 144Hz 24.0" Monitor ($239.99 @ NCIX US)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($34.00 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $1529.36
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-29 21:52 EST-0500

I changed the PSU to a better model. The CX series should be avoided when possible.

I added an Asus 144Hz monitor (on-sale currently, good deal).

The CPU does not come with thermal paste, however the H110 comes with pre-applied paste which is fine to use. I added some MX-4 though, since for $5 it's worth having extra.
 
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ferwindjacks

ferwindjacks

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Great build. Few notes;

1. Arctic Silver thermal paste is some of the best you can buy, I recommend that.

2. Either grab an Asus GPU or the EVGA variant. Don't let anyone tell you different. MSI and Gigabyte are all trash in my eyes, simply due to QC, Customer service, and cliche rep. Just note that the Asus 970 has the slowest clock speed of them all, and overclocks the worst. This is due to its singular 8pin input as it prides itself to keep cool while under load, and it efficient. The EVGA on the other hand, is one of the fastest 970s and overclocks really well. I personally have my OC on my EVGA 970 at 1.5ghz core, but it is different for every card.

3. The CX series of the Corsair PSU is pretty garbage, I recommend anything Rosewill, (especially) XFX, and EVGA PSUs.

Besides that, you have solid parts that I would not change. Any questions? Just ask.

EDIT:
The Asus VG248QE is a very nice monitor, and down the road you can outfit a G-Sync module to it.
 
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Lowie1771

Lowie1771

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Get arctic silver thermal compound. Very cheap, will conduct temperature much more efficiently. Tell him some guy on the internet said so.

Secondly, it looks like you will be running low on RAM with this setup. 8GB of DDR3 just won't cut it for rendering or gaming, as you mentioned. Ask a RAM expert for better suggestions, but I can tell that that won't be satisfactory. I would also recommend increasing the storage, if possible. The current setup does not seem to leave room for backups or a media library.

Thirdly, if he is getting a 970 and a 4790k, he CAN overclock but I doubt he will find it necessary to do so for a while. I thought I would OC with my first build, but I never needed to. There's usually a smarter way to improve performance that doesn't involve shortening the lifespans of your hardware, at least in my experience. Good choice with the H100i, it works well.

EDIT: Yup, VG248QE is very versatile, would recommend as well.
 
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frag06

frag06

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There is absolutely nothing wrong with MSI or Gigabyte GPU's. The MSI Gaming and Gigabyte G1 have proven to be two of the best 970's. Both MSI and Gigabyte have good QC (MSI's QC is only bad with their motherboards), I haven't heard a bad thing about their RMA services either. If anything, EVGA was the disappointment this round (this is coming from someone who usually only buys EVGA cards and owned an EVGA 970).

--

8GB is the standard for gaming, it's more than enough. Doing heavy rendering though and you'll want 16GB or so.
 
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Lowie1771

Lowie1771

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At least get one 8gb stick. You want room to upgrade. Getting two 4gb sticks does not leave you with much room to go higher in the future.
 
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fatalshot808

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Okay so he'll add on the thermal paste to his build. He will probably switch out the power supply to a XFX and for the 970 I think he is going to keep the one he listed. I'll show him some comparisons later on with the GPU though to see the loudness, stock speeds, and temps of each vendors offerings. Thanks for the reply's everyone!
 
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ferwindjacks

ferwindjacks

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Built a computer for a buddy of mine and I did the same thing- put in 1 8gb stick so he could go to 32gb later on.

Just make sure that if you do buy 1 stick he isn't going to be sitting on it for a while, as you really do want to use dual channel memory slots for increased performance. Christmas is a good time to ask Santa for another 8gb stick...

Good luck with the MSI RMA process...
 
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fatalshot808

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Thanks for this reply, this is pretty much his whole gaming PC I think he might have changed one component, the SSD. He loves it though it runs like a dream and it was at a great cost, thanks for your input again!
 
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