First Time Build Plan, is it good?

aceofspades881

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Jul 29, 2015
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Hi all,

I'm looking for a general opinion on this build as well as some advice about a specific question.

This would be my first build. As far as its purpose: I have not done any computer gaming and don't have much time to start, while it'd be nice to have something that could handle it if I get to the point where I have the time, it is not at all the focus. I use my computer for web browsing, writing papers and working in excel, organizing and listening to music, and watching videos/ movies. My goal is to have a computer that will remain fast and useable for this purposes for as long as possible.

With the limited amount of knowledge I have, I came upon this build guide and thought it looked good for my purposes based on the quality processor, good amount of ram and a motherboard with lots of room to expand: http://www.techspot.com/guides/buying/page4.html My plan to make this more budget friendly would be to eliminate the SSD and upgrade later. Due to the fact that I don't do any gaming presently and wouldn't require highest FPS if I chose to give it a try, I was wondering if it would be wise to use a cheaper graphics card to save more money (Parts list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VByd7P ) . Suggestions would be appreciated.

Ace.
 
Solution
By the time any of those builds becomes obsolete in regard to web browsing, spreadsheets, word processing or watching HD video, the hardware will have long since outlived it's electrical lifespan.

Now if professional graphics, fairly serious video and/or 3D editing, VM's, gaming or serving multimedia at a high level are necessities, then it's a different ballgame, but none of those things were outlined as being intended so I'll assume they don't apply. By the time the i5-4460 is incapable of running whatever the current office applications, web browsers and streaming video requirements are, something will have certainly died due to simple age by then.

Overclocking is for performance now, not later. In almost every case, overclocking...
Since gaming won't be a priority, and possibly not even a potential use at all, I'd go with something more like this. It will allow you to add a graphics card later if gaming becomes a priority, as it includes a very good power supply that's large enough to run up to a GTX 970.

Since you're clearly not going to be overclocking, using dual graphics cards or running high end RAM, the Z series board is a waste of money. This H97 will be fine and if you decide to add a graphics card later it will be suitably compatible.

Lower latency RAM offers some performance benefits since only the Z series boards support RAM over 1600mhz, choosing a lower latency module like these CL8 models is a good choice.

I wouldn't bother adding the graphics card until you're sure to use the rig for gaming, and the included i5-4460 is more than capable of running any card you choose to install at a high level. Since the CPU has integrated graphics, I'd stick with those for now which are perfectly suitable for watching HD video and most other non-gaming tasks.

I also ADDED an SSD, because SSD's aren't of much benefit to gaming rigs, but they definitely speed up other kinds of operations and will certainly help reduce file transfer times, writes, reads and boot/reboot speeds. Adding an SSD, NOW, is going to be of much more benefit to you than adding one later, and definitely offers more potential performance for what you actually intend to do than the addition of a gaming card would.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($176.95 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 PRO4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($81.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra II 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($59.95 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($52.49 @ OutletPC)
Case: Thermaltake Core V31 ATX Mid Tower Case ($57.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($57.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer ($12.99 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($37.24 @ Amazon)
Total: $587.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-29 22:52 EDT-0400
 

fport

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May 22, 2011
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18,860
It's a nice thrifty solid build for the stated purpose.

An SSD would make the system more responsive, I'd add the spinner later and get at least 250GB now.

The 750 Ti is a very frugal but capable card. You could look to used locally, anything older than the GTX 600 series is
going to require more power, not that you do not have enough.

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Nvidia-GeForce-GTX-660-Ti-vs-GeForce-GTX-750-Ti

The 4690k is a clocker chip and nothing in the system reflects that. But it is fast.

You could go sideways and get a Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 for roughly the same price and have 4 cores and a total of 8 threads.
As a general purpose computer the build would be very balanced and still powerful.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Xeon-E3-1230-v3-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4690K

 
In reality, if gaming isn't going to be the main focus, even a higher end i3 like the i3-4360 would be more than enough for all your stated tasks. Same core speed, just not as many cores, but it does offer hyperthreading like the E3 Xeon and i7 have. And, it's perfectly capable of being used for gaming later as well, as seen at the following link. Better in fact in most tasks than an 8 core FX chip with an overclock.

http://www.techspot.com/review/943-best-value-desktop-cpu/page6.html
 

aceofspades881

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Jul 29, 2015
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I really appreciate everyone taking the time to help me out. Especially darkbreeze for offering an alternate build.

I had considered going with a processor/ board that was not capable of overclocking to save some money, but my thought was I may be able to squeeze some additional time out of the build before upgrading again if I had that capability. (I've dabbled with phones, never computers, but that was the case there. I ran a custom rom and overclocked which got me by until I was ready to upgrade.) I know a build with lower quality parts would serve my purposes now, but my main goal is to make this build last as long as possible and I thought was that by going big on the motherboard and processor, I could get more life out of the build before it became obsolete/ too slow to use. I'm not challenging anyone's opinion and with your input I'll definitely skip the graphics card for now and utilize integrated graphics. I just want to make sure it wouldn't be counter productive in the long run to skimp on the processor and motherboard to save some money upfront. Is that the case, or will going cheaper on those components not make a difference?
 
By the time any of those builds becomes obsolete in regard to web browsing, spreadsheets, word processing or watching HD video, the hardware will have long since outlived it's electrical lifespan.

Now if professional graphics, fairly serious video and/or 3D editing, VM's, gaming or serving multimedia at a high level are necessities, then it's a different ballgame, but none of those things were outlined as being intended so I'll assume they don't apply. By the time the i5-4460 is incapable of running whatever the current office applications, web browsers and streaming video requirements are, something will have certainly died due to simple age by then.

Overclocking is for performance now, not later. In almost every case, overclocking will in fact shorten the lifespan of the involved hardware due to increased voltage, heat and stress, so it's not a very good "down the road" type solution. It's a good solution for " I need it faster NOW" though.

Honestly, since you really don't need to include a gaming card right at THIS moment, and can do so at any later date, I'd probably HIGHLY consider waiting a week or two for the Intel Skylake LGA 1151 processors and motherboards to release, which will probably not be terribly more expensive than a current 4690k, if at all in some cases, and should offer about 10-15% performance increases over current Haswell Refresh cores. Seems like a better "long term" solution to me.
 
Solution

SuperAwsomeOne55

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Feb 22, 2015
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Honestly, if you want to do web browsing, spreadsheets, word processing, you dont need to buy anything more than 300$. I would strongly recommend an i3. The thing that you would need to stock up on is ram and 8 gbs should be plenty. Hard drive storage, 1tb should be more than enough. Honestly, you could go buy a prebuilt system or a laptop and do fine. A stock cooler
will do fine for light workloads and no over clocking.
 
This would EASILY handle web browsing, office applications, HD video, music and file organization and any other non-gaming task, aside from high end graphics processing and video/3D editing, every bit as well as the i5 build, for years to come. Now, if you do a lot of HEAVY multitasking, tons of browser tabs while streaming video and running three different spreadsheets, all at the same time, then the i5 MIGHT be a better choice. AND, you could still add a decent graphics card to this at some point for some pretty damn fair, probably better than almost any current console, gaming.


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4370 3.8GHz Dual-Core Processor ($142.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85-HD3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($76.98 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra II 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($59.95 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($51.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Thermaltake Core V31 ATX Mid Tower Case ($57.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($57.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer ($12.99 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($37.24 @ Amazon)
Total: $548.11
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-07-30 01:57 EDT-0400


AND, every component selected is of highest quality, which is likely to have more to do with the system's longevity, than simply picking a high end CPU and motherboard that won't see anywhere near full utilization of resources.