Living room gaming system. i5 4690k - gtx 970

Getting it under $1000 wasn't hard and I actually upped the quality while also making it a quieter system too.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.95 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M Anniversary Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($51.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($45.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($63.13 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.80 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($319.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: Fractal Design Define Mini MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($48.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $978.78
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-18 01:43 EDT-0400

It depends on what budget you feel comfortable with. Skylake may be out in a few weeks so that's something to consider also as it will mean a different motherboard socket, ddr4 ram etc. If the budget is tight, a 4460 or 4590 will work. Otherwise it may be worth having the overclocking potential if this is a system you plan on keeping for a number of years. Looking at the here and now, the overclocking isn't a huge deal though there are quite a few people with aging systems who wish they'd gotten a k series cpu. In order to get better performance their only option is an upgrade (cpu/motherboard, reinstall of windows). A 4690k oc'd to 4.5ghz is anywhere from 1.1ghz to 1.3ghz faster than a 4460 (4460 turbo boost is 3.4ghz, dropping back to 3.2 or stock speed under full load across all cores). Even going with 4.4ghz for the sake of a conservative oc, the 4690k would still be almost 38% faster than the 4460. It's up to you whether a z series motherboard and aftermarket cooler are worth it.

The h97 motherboard doesn't support anything over ddr3 1600, no m.2 or sata express support, no crossfire or sli support, single bios (no dual bios). If you don't care about any of those things then there's no reason to pay for them however it's pretty limited for any future upgrades. If you did decide you wanted to throw in an m.2 ssd or go sata express or add another gpu for sli down the road you'd be buying another motherboard. Overclocking isn't the only reason z97 boards cost more money, more features drive up the price as well.

Some H97 motherboards support m.2, crossfire, and dual BIOS.

There is little real world performance difference between the overclocked i5 4690k and the i5 4460. You were trying to cut costs, overclocking is easily the first thing to cut. Especially for a 60hz 1080p monitor. The 4460 + 970 would be MORE than adequate for your uses.



PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.95 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($45.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial BX100 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($63.07 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($64.80 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($319.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Enermax ECA3280A-BL ATX Mid Tower Case ($70.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec Neo Eco 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($48.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG UH12NS30 Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer ($39.95 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($86.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $987.58
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-18 11:20 EDT-0400

I absolutely agree, at the moment. Systems don't get replaced every year though. Saying overclocking has no real world performance, actually it has exactly 38% more real world performance. Overclocked mhz are just as good as stock ones, they don't count for less. Comparing the performance right today, the differences won't be as big no. Which is why I said to compare older cpu's playing modern games, give it awhile. The extra performance can come in handy. Not all games are the same. Some even an i3 will play them, others like skyrim, bf4, shogun2 love cpu performance.

One user gained 20fps in b4 just by overclocking their 4670k, so to say 'little real world performance' even right now isn't very accurate. I call 20fps significant. The first thing I'd cut is the ssd which will do squat for game performance.

Here are screenshots from a user with a 2500k who overclocked it from 3.4 to 4.5ghz.
http://i.imgur.com/X6gbO3D.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ULvFVnh.jpg

In skyrim, the 4690k gets a 16% fps boost overclocking it and in shogun 2 it gets a 16% fps boost - in terms of min fps, in shogun 2 the avg fps goes up 18-19%.
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2014/07/03/intel-core-i5-4690k-review/5

The first asrock board didn't support m.2, sata express, crossfire or sli and neither does that one that got changed either. Neither support over ddr3 1600.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/H97%20Anniversary/?cat=Specifications

Not to say there aren't h97 boards that don't, but not the el cheapo's. Features cost money whether it's z97 or h97. I looked for the cheapest h97 board that supported sli, crossfire, m.2 - this is what it came back with, a board costing almost $90.
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/msi-motherboard-h97mg43

For $100 someone could get a gigabyte z97x gaming 5 with all those features plus the ability to overclock and 8 true digital power phases. It is what it is, features will always cost more. Just not that much more all else being equal. Trying to pair an i5 locked cpu with a junk h81 board or something trying to show how expensive it is to overclock doesn't really tell the whole story. There are plenty of other features which may get left out and as always, depends whether or not the user has a need for them.

Even if the direct performance of overclocking doesn't seem to match the slightly higher cost at the moment, factor in the value of being able to get 4yrs out of a machine that otherwise would've only gotten 3yrs of use before needing to upgrade. Being able to push off a major system overhaul for another year (or 2, depending) may very well pay for itself in dividends.

My recommendations are based off of a 1080p 60hz 48in HDTV the OP stated was being used. For this, overclocking is not worth an extra $100ish.

Overclocking Sandy Bridge DID make a bigger impact.

The 4690k review linked was using a GTX680 for convenient results. The difference would be much smaller with a GTX970.

No H97 board supports SLI and only about half of the Z boards do.

Considering the real world difference between 1600mhz and 2133mhz RAM in pretty much nonexistent, I don't see how the 1600mhz cap of H97 boards is relevant.

The $79 ASRock H97 PERFORMANCE offers crossfire support, sata express, dual BIOS, a 8+2 power phase, and actually overclocks better than probably any sub $100 Z board.

There has never been a time where I have recommended a H81 motherboard on this website.

If the OP had a 144hz monitor or 1440p etc... a 4690k + Z97 would probably be worth the investment, but that is not the case AND he was trying to cut costs. Where else do you think the cost cuts should come from in his original build?

That's not bad for an h97 board. Still lacks crossfire, m.2 and won't support memory over ddr3 1600. Why would the op need a 1440p monitor to see better cpu performance? Typically the cpu is less loaded at higher resolutions as the gpu's doing more of the work. That's why decreasing resolution shows increasingly more differential between 2 cpu's even if they appear similar at higher resolutions.

Having a 144hz monitor isn't the best for some games like witcher 3 where even 980ti's sli'd can't push more than about 60fps on ultra. It's really game dependent, they can easily swing one way or the other. Regardless, further down the road is when overclocking tends to pay off in gaming. When the cpu is aging and gpu's continually progress.

For witcher 3, the bigger limiting factor will be the 970 which will likely struggle to maintain close to 30fps at high details. Likely have to drop to medium or med/high. Going from the 4690k to the 4460 won't buy an upgrade to a 980 or 980ti. There are a few fps difference from the older i5 3.2ghz to the newer i5 at 3.5ghz, and a few more fps to the i7 at 4ghz. Hyperthreading seems to have little impact on this game. I would guess an oc'd 4690k to have around 5-6fps or more advantage and this is all based on a stronger gtx 980, not the 970. Dropping gpu power could have a larger cpu impact as other bench's have shown with weaker cards.
http://www.techspot.com/review/1006-the-witcher-3-benchmarks/page5.html

Similar differences are seen with gta v, but this time paired with a gtx titan and at 2560x1600. As stated before the cpu use should be fairly negligible at such high resolutions when the gpu is taking the full brunt of the work. If there's several fps difference clear up to 1600p with a titan x, imagine what will happen when the game drops to 1080p on a 970. Gta v is a very cpu bound title especially when it comes to maintaining min framerates.

In terms of what I personally would cut for a gaming pc? The ssd. It's $60 of waste that will gain no fps advantage in games. At 120gb it's too small to hold modern games so they won't even benefit from faster load times. You've got the witcher 3 which one user reported was 30.4gb of space to install the game. Another said gta v took up 60gb on their disk. You're already up to 90gb for just 2 pc games (both mentioned by the op). With windows, that 120gb drive is already full. Another consideration since this will be played on an hdtv, a $1000 gaming rig paired with a display that likely has pretty rough input lag. Unless the op has an extremely well suited hdtv, at 48" 1080p most have an input lag 4x that of a similar 24" 1080p monitor and some as bad as 6x the lag.

I'm not going to force anyone to overclock, just pointing out that both routes have their place, locked and overclocking chips. I also don't know every game the op plans to play. Personally, the few extra bucks for a k series are worth it to me. I don't want to have to pick and choose which games my cpu can handle, is it gpu intensive or cpu intensive. In the past I had a cpu I was able to overclock and it allowed my system to remain decent for gaming for another year to 18mo as it was bottlenecking my gpu at the time. Over the course of the 5yrs or so I had that pc, I honestly didn't miss the couple extra dollars for decent overclocking build. That's one or two nights of fast food to be honest, over the course of multiple years much less one - it becomes a moot point.

I wanted to play skyrim, I had no idea whether it was cpu or gpu bound. I'm thankful for the extra cpu power. The op may never play skyrim. It's scenarios like this that are hard to predict. The op mentioned witcher 3 which happens to be a very gpu bound title. They've opted for a gtx 970, so down the road maybe a year from now they want to add another 970 in sli. How would they do that on an h97 mobo? They may never want a second 970.

As it is, from the current build they would likely need a stronger psu for 970 sli. So down the road you have the cost of a psu + 2nd 970. With the current build, they saved $30 by opting for an h97 mobo. When it's time to sli, the $30 savings costed them an additional $100 just for the option to add a 970. Plus the cost of windows, unless I read the m.s. licensing options wrong win 8.1 oem has similar restrictions to win7 oem. M.s. may or may not authorize a new license key if a mobo had to be replaced, if they didn't now it's a $187 deficit above and beyond the psu + additional 970. All to save $30? I suppose everyone looks at situations differently.

If someone knows exactly what they need or won't need (or want) a year or two down the road or 4yrs down the road and can pick the perfect components right this minute then I'm behind them 100%. Some people would argue well in a year or two I can just buy other components or swap out a motherboard. True, but if it's a non issue why the fuss over $30? I probably understand the concept of a budget as good (if not better) than the next person, but let's face reality. If $50 or $60 is going to put me in the poor house, the last thing I should probably be concerning myself with is blowing $1000 to play games, literally. I just try to give people options so they can choose what's right for them. I don't like spending other people's money any more than my own, I already think it's heinous the cost of video gaming anymore across the board.

I guess we are going to have to agree to disagree. I only recommend the overclocking setup when there is plenty of room left in the budget to do so. Anytime, cost cutting is necessary, overclocking will ALWAYS be the first to go for me. You are right about the ssd and it's effect on gaming performance, but ssds are so great in pretty much every other aspect of a PC, I would choose an ssd over overclocking 100% of the time.

It seems we just have different priorities when it comes to what we want in a PC, and that's fine. This board would be a boring place if we all agreed on everything all the time.

Absolutely lol. I don't mean any ill toward anyone at all. For a general use pc I'd agree some may find the ssd beneficial. As a console replacement I'm not so sure, maybe with a faster boot time? (if it stays off most of the time). Otherwise the budget is too tight and ssd price/gb isn't beneficial enough to store some of these huge games. Netflix/video watching won't improve because of the ssd and neither will burning optical media since the optical drive is far slower than even an hdd. If ssd's had a better price per gb ideally this is one use where it would be nice to have it as a virtually silent media pc in the living room.

Edit: with the size games are getting to be anymore, maybe swap the ssd for another 2tb hdd - if nothing else for gta vi lol.

^^^^^Good parts except for that terrible psu. Not a good way to get 5-10 years. I would trade that motherboard for the Asus Z97-E too.

This would be a better psu.
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-110b20750vr

Corsair has a few decent models but typically in the higher wattage (ax/hx lines) and they charge accordingly. Some people have ok luck with them but in general corsair tends to use lower quality components on the builder models, cx, cs, vs, rm etc. They charge quite a bit for the quality they are, there are just better quality alternatives at similar prices to bother with corsair for the most part. Seasonic, antec's hcg, evga b2/g2, xfx, rosewill captsone are better. Most of those are different brands with various internals made by seasonic (antec, evga, xfx etc don't actually make power supplies, they rebadge them - while seasonic, fsp, fortron, channel well, great wall etc are actual manufacturers).

Psu tier list, better (tier1) to worst (tier4) for general psu comparison of quality.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

I agree with Cturbo on the motherboard as well, something like the asus z97-e or gigabyte z97x gaming 5.
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-motherboard-z97e
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz97xgaming5

Motherboard tier list
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2383187/motherboard-tier-list-z97-chipset.html

The asus z97-e is the same tier as the asrock extreme 3, but the extreme 3 lacks m.2 support and sata express. Asus and gigabyte generally have a bit better quality than asrock/msi from my experience. The gigabyte board I mentioned is a bit more expensive but slightly higher tiered than those other boards. I don't think you'd go wrong with either, the asus would be about $25 cheaper.

Even a week or two from now, the prices will be completely different. Sales will be different. Some parts will be more expensive. Different parts will be cheaper. It's pointless to "shop" now if you aren't ready to buy.