Best price/performance parts and question about buying them

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Araesius

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Apr 30, 2015
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Hello,

Spent all day researching what hardware to choose for my new pc, this is what I came up with:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($224.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Asus Z97-A ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($129.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($96.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($349.99 @ Directron)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($47.99 @ Micro Center)
Total: $878.84
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-04-30 18:09 EDT-0400

Still got some Cooler Master 1000w psu I can reuse, just hope it will fit in the case :p
Now for my questions, I feel this is the best performance I can get for this amount of money, but I suck at this, so please feel free to change anything if you feel it can be better/more money efficient. I'll mainly use the system for games (World of Warcraft in particular, but I want to be able to play newer games if I wanted to) and i usually have a whole load of stuff open at the same time, hence the 16gb ram.
Also, this is a big issue for me, I live in the Netherlands and if I were to buy all this hardware in my country it would cost me hundreds of euros more than the prices listed above. Can I safely buy all this stuff online and assemble the parts myself, or should I, for whatever reason, go to a store nearby and have them build it for me (for a whole lot more money)? I've built a system before so I'm pretty sure I can get it right, I just want to get some expert opinions before spending so much money.

Any advice is greatly appreciated!
 
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Cristi72

Cristi72

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Jun 25, 2014
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Hello,

Your system will enable very good gaming experience at 1080p and it's pretty much the most balanced setup available nowadays. Of course, you must add at least an HDD and an OS to the selection above :) (an 120GB SSD for the system and at least an 500GB-1TB / 7200rpm HDD for storage and gaming installments are recommended).

Your PSU should fit the case (it can fit a Corsair AX1200, which is a long unit). How old is it? Which what system it was used before?

Check Youtube, there are quite a few tutorials on how to put a PC together (one example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bUghCx9iso). If still not sure, try to buy all the components from a company which can assemble and test the components together (it will be a fee of course, but it should not be higher than 100Euros, including OS installation). You will need to buy a new PSU most likely, as no one is willing to risk the component integrity.

I found this: http://gamepc.nl/. The prices are high indeed: your desired configuration will be 1500 Euros (PSU + SSD + HDD + OS included). On the other hand, the same system can be bought at roughly 1100-1200 GBP in the UK, so for cheaper solutions you must address some US sites (Newegg for example), but I don't know how the RMA situations will be handled.
 
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A

Araesius

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Apr 30, 2015
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Thanks for the reply!

Sorry, I did indeed forget to mention that I have a new 120GB Samsung SSD and an old 1TB Seagate HDD that I can transfer to the new system, the psu is probably 5-6 years old by now so I'm not sure if that will hold up well. It's currently installed in a system with:

CPU: Intel i7-950
Motherboard: Gigabyte X58A-UD3R
GPU: Nvidia 470 GTX
Memory: 2 different sets of 2x 2GB
HDD: Seagate 1TB
SSD: Samsung 120GB

If I were to buy all the parts as cheap as I can in my country it would cost me roughly 250 euros more than if I bought them from the stores listed on pcpartpicker, which is a lot of money. Add a few hundred more if I would let a store do it for me. Feels like such a ripoff :x

And yea my biggest concern when buying the parts cheap from the US would indeed be the RMA situation, I'd probably be screwed if a single part turned out to be faulty if all the parts came from different places right? (never had to deal with this before)
I figure if all goes wrong and I can't get the thing to work I can still visit a computer store nearby and have them assemble and install the system for me and still not have to deal with the high hardware prices here.
 
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Cristi72

Cristi72

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Jun 25, 2014
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At full load, your i5-4690K + GTX970 system will consume much less power than the i7-950 + GTX470, so the PSU should generate no issues. The only concern is the lack of support for Haswell low-power states (C6, C7), which can lead to the system crash when waking from standby/hibernation; you can disable them from BIOS though (you'll have some 3-5W higher power consumption when idle/standby/hibernation).

As for the prices: there is no other chance for us Europeans to circumvent EU higher prices but to directly order the components from US. Be aware though: along with the shipping, you may end up paying some additional fees, such VAT and customs tax (you will import the goods from outside EU), so you must carefully calculate all additional expenses (it will be much easier to have an acquaintance in the USA). RMAing a component purchased from US is also a tricky situation; sometimes they don't have an international warranty, so you must send back to US the damaged part.

If your system is still working OK, upgrade only the GPU for now, it will improve your gaming experience a lot.

EDIT: I put this together, it is close to your desired configuration and it's not far away (all components available at Amazon Germany, so less RMA hassle):

http://de.pcpartpicker.com/p/VHPmHx
 
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P

profoundnoah

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May 12, 2015
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To be honest, I think you should go for the Radeon R9 290 instead of the 970. There's been a dispute about how much VRAM it has, not to mention, the 290 costs a good deal less and will perform equal if not better. Overall, you should have no problems. Nice!
 
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