Finishing touches on build. GTX 760 + i54670K + Fractal Design R4

beaver316 · Dec 13, 2014

So above I have a snapshot of a potential build I will be making in the near future (1-2 months). It is a screenshot of an edited pcpartmaker build. I edited the prices to show the current values from those sites, since they were slightly wrong.

Anyway I'm from Cyprus, so Amazon France and Germany seem to be the best and cheapest places that ship to my country. Most German retailers which have the lowest prices don't ship here. PC part picker didn't allow me to choose from Amazon France so I went ahead and edited the table above to display the exact prices from Amazon France, and also show the price before and after shipping. Shipping will be quite expensive though (of the €100 shipping cost, the case alone is €40!), but this is the best I could find. It's important to me to have a quiet case which the FD R4 is, plus I love the look of it. Does Amazon package items together in order to save on costs?

Anyway this will be my first build so I'd like it if I could get some input on my parts.

I will be gaming on a 1080p IPS monitor but it's not so important I max out current games so 760 seems to be the sweet spot between price and performance. Overclocking isn't that important for now but I may dabble in it in the future (hence the overclockable CPU and motherboard).

Keyboard, mouse, and DVD Drive will be used from my old computer. Budget isn't set in stone, but the current €911 is probably the highest I want to go up to which is why I decided to leave out an SSD.

Is there anywhere I can shave off some cents? I'd like to get it a little lower, but not sacrifice much performance. Also any possible incompatibilities between the parts I chose?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

geofelt · Dec 13, 2014

I might ask you to consider spending a bit more.

1. A i5-4670K is as good as it gets for gaming and long term.
The list price for a i5-4690K is exactly the same, but you get better thermal performance.
On the other hand, a less costly I5 would be very appropriate for a GTX760.

2. Z87 will work. Z97 is usually a similar price and will give you future options to 14nm broadwell cpu upgrades.
If you decide on a non overclocking cpu, a less expensive lga1150 motherboard will do the job.

2. You could use the stock cooler, particularly if you go with a non overclocked I5 cpu.

3. Vengeance ram has different options for heat spreaders. Fancy ones are useless, so buy ram with minimal or no heat spreaders.
8gb is appropriate, and a 2 x 4gb kit is best. If 1333 speed is significantly cheaper, it will impact performance minimally. Perhaps 2%

4. Love the case. You can get something cheaper, but a case is a long term deal, and you want something good that you will see and touch every day.

5. GTX760 needs only 500w. Corsair CX is ok, but not great.
Look for a better quality unit from XFX, Seasonic, antec an the like.
https://community.newegg.com/eggxpert/computer_hardware/f/135081/t/45344.aspx?Redirected=true
I expect to see a Maxwell GTX960 replacement launched in your time frame. It will need even less power. Look for that.

6. On the SSD:
I will never again build without a ssd for the "C" drive. It makes everything you do much quicker.
120gb is minimum, it will hold the os and a handful of games. If you can go 240gb, you may never need a hard drive.
I don't.
I would defer on the hard drive unless you need to store large files such as video's.
It is easy to add a hard drive later.
Samsung EVO is a good choice.
Intel is OK too.

A building tip:
Buy a #2 magnetic tip Phillips head screwdriver for assembly.

nikoli707 · Dec 13, 2014

change the 4670k to a 4690k because they should be the same price. get a z97 board instead of a z87 board. do not get that cx600 power supply. find a power supply from antec, xfx, or seasonic.

otherwise everything looks beautiful.

beaver316 · Dec 13, 2014

Thank you very much for your input!

I will switch out the CPU for a 4690k. The prices are the same on Amazon. I will also do some reading on a z97 motherboard. Any recommendations for one at a similar price to the one I listed? I will also look into swapping out the power supply.

Not too sure what else I would go with on the ram. What other options can I go with at a similar or lower price point?

geofelt · Dec 13, 2014

On the ram, here is a low profile kit for less:
http://www.amazon.fr/Crucial-M%C3%A9moire-PC3-12800-Ballistix-BLS2CP4G3D1609DS1S00CEU/dp/B006YG94Y2/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1418491971&sr=8-4&keywords=8gb+ddr3

Here is a Seasonic 620w unit for not much more:
http://www.amazon.fr/Seasonic-S12II-620W-Alimentation-620-BRONZE/dp/B003BIEOCI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418492172&sr=8-1&keywords=seasonic+620

On the motherboard, any Z97 based motherboard will do the job. Pick your favorite brand.
My French is not good enough to look through the specs.

beaver316 · Dec 13, 2014

Those look good. I will probably use those in my build.

How doe these look for a motherboard? I'm now leaning on not even bothering with overclocking. So an H97 should do fine I think.
http://www.amazon.fr/Asus-H97-PLUS-Carte-Intel-Socket/dp/B00K80N54K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418498945&sr=8-2&keywords=Asus+H97+PLUS+Motherboard+LGA
http://www.amazon.fr/Gigabyte-H97-HD3-Carte-Socket-LGA1150/dp/B00K872GHU/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1418500919&sr=8-3&keywords=h97

edit: since you said the gtx 760 only need 500W, would it be ok to go for the 520W Seasonic rather than the 620W you posted?
http://www.amazon.fr/Seasonic-S12II-520W-Alimentation-520-BRONZE/dp/B00390P1NO/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1418496403&sr=8-5&keywords=seasonic+80plus+bronze

nikoli707 · Dec 13, 2014

that seasonic 520 watt is nice. here is a high quality antec high current gamer 620w for the same price. i feel 520w is a little low especially in the future if you upgrade to a much more powerful graphics card. for the small difference in price, its better to have more wattage headroom.
http://www.amazon.fr/Antec-Current-HCG-620-Alimentation-interne/dp/B0047YISS6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418507050&sr=8-1&keywords=antec+current

those motherboard you picked out are h97s, not z97s. you would want a z97 so you can overclock. here is a good one.
http://www.amazon.fr/Gigabyte-Z97-HD3-Carte-Intel-Socket/dp/B00K9R1NMS/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1418506952&sr=8-8&keywords=z97

this msi twin frozr gtx760 is slightly faster and a little better in my opinion that the asus, and a little cheaper.
http://www.amazon.fr/MSI-N760-TF-2GD5-OC/dp/B00DIH8OW8/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1418507339&sr=8-2&keywords=gtx760

though this sapphire r9-280x is quite a bit faster than the gtx760 for only a little bit more money.
http://www.amazon.fr/Sapphire-VAPOR-X-Carte-graphique-Express/dp/B00KRXU20I/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1418507561&sr=8-6&keywords=280x+amd

the fractal r4 case is extremely nice!!!!

beaver316 · Dec 14, 2014

Thanks for that post. I'll definitely switch to the MSI 760. It's cheaper and seems to run quieter and cooler than the Asus. I don't think I'll go for the R9-280x, reading reviews tells me it has a high failure rate, and that's not worth it to me for a little added performance.

I'll also use that antec and that board. They seem like great deals. I'll post the final build in a little bit with hopefully the final parts and prices.

Thanks for all the help so far guys!

nikoli707 · Dec 14, 2014

beaver316 :

i disagree with the 280x having a high failure rate. and that sapphire vapor x is their premier model, and really only second to the msi lightning model. otherwise, the 760 is great in its own right, its much less power hungry, runs cooler, and quieter. that antec is great power supply, though i believe that seasonic 620w mentioned earlier is a little better, even to the point that you should consider the extra 5 it costs, but again either way your golden.

i will be honest though, once you get your rig up and running your going to be so impressed that in a few months your going to want better graphics card. but you will be fine, upgrading a graphics card every year or so is part of the deal. in the mean time you will have a solid rig to build upon and be able to fully enjoy 1080p gaming. down the road you should buy an ssd though.

i really love that fractal r4 case, i wish i could have one. you will enjoy!!!

beaver316 · Dec 14, 2014

So this is what it is currently looking like. We've managed to shave off 10 euros and get better parts than my original build. With a final confirmation from here I'll settle on this and slowly start ordering parts.

nikoli707 · Dec 14, 2014

solid build right at 900. come back and start a new thread when you get to giving that 4690k a good overclock.

beaver316 · Dec 16, 2014

So im in the process of ordering the final parts mentioned here, but now i'm starting to get an itch for an SSD. I'm wondering which is the best value SSD out there right now, preferably 120GB.

I've done some reading and I see the Samsung EVO mentioned a lot but I've also seen posts saying how it suffers from a read/write bug.
I've also seen the Crucial M500 and the Sandisk Ultra II. The Sandisk is the cheapest of the three at only 58 euro. Would this be a good pick?

nikoli707 · Dec 16, 2014

Crucial mx100 or samsung 840 evo. at least here in the states, they are the most competitively priced high warranty performance models. I'm not sure of the pricing there in France though. The m500 is the predecessor to the mx100, so it should be priced below the mx100, though the m500 is still a great model.

beaver316 · Dec 16, 2014

I think I'll pull the trigger on the Crucial MX100. The Samsung firmware bug is putting me off a little, plus the MX100 is cheaper.

Aaaand it's ordered

beaver316 · Dec 16, 2014

I've been googling around to no avail. What is the correct way to connect an HDD and SDD together in a build? I recall seeing a video where one connection goes directly from one disk to the other... is this a separate cable or does it come with the disks?

nikoli707 · Dec 16, 2014

beaver316 :

lol no

they are not connected to each other at all, just to the motherboard. what your seeing/thinking is the power cable from the power supply that has a string of power pins on it.

plug the ssd into the sata6 port on your mobo and also connect the power connector to the power supply. install windows first. after windows is installed… you can connect the mechanical hd the same way, well turn the computer off and unplug it from the wall fist. you can connect the mechanical drive to a sata6 port if you want, you have plenty of them, but a sata3 port is fine too as the mechanical drive is nowhere near fast enough to saturated sata3 bandwidth.

beaver316 · Dec 16, 2014

Ah right haha. Thanks for that

Finishing touches on build. GTX 760 + i54670K + Fractal Design R4

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