Building a Computer for the first time. Are my Parts Compatible?

Which parts?

What are you using the system for? The answer to that question can have a dramatic effect on what components you should get.

I know you said 'gaming', but is it purely gaming?

A GTX 960 is so weak for that budget.

well do these changes..
change to 650W psu
change the gpu to gtx970
mobo to Asus z170-A

get a 970 and get rid of the sound card it will work much better

I'd get an i5-6600K and R9 390 instead of an i7 and GTX 960, gaming will be much better.

Why not go with a 980ti?

Or just get the 960 for now and wait until the new Nvidia stuff comes out later on and then upgrade to that.

pretty much. the on-board sound is more then good enough for almost any situation.

Ok, in that case there are some major changes you should make.

1) CPU - You do not need to spend so much on an i7 for gaming. The benefits (very few frames per second) just dont justify the cost. An i5-6600k would be a much better option.

2) GPU - The 960 is very weak for demanding games. With the money saved from the drop down to an i5, pick up a GTX 970 or a Radeon 390.

3) Sound card - Unless your a major audiophile with expensive DAC/AMP speakers and headset, dont waste your money on a sound card. The inbuilt one on your motherboard is more than enough.

4) Wired Network Card - Totally useless as there is already one built into your motherboard. Ne need to buy 2.

5) Case - Thats a very expensive case. Only get it if your dead set on that one. If not, drop down to a $80 Corsair model.

6) PSU - 850 watts is way over what you need for this build (even with the above changes). A nice 550-600watt would be much better suited. I suggest the EVGA Supernova 550w GS.


Here is an alternate build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($238.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($24.29 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($6.89 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($156.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($74.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($85.49 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.97 @ Directron)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card ($324.99 @ B&H)
Case: Corsair 500R Black ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) ($86.49 @ OutletPC)
Wireless Network Adapter: Gigabyte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($29.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1252.94

Unless you're going to be editing music or you're an extreme audiophile, then you're not going to notice much of a difference between onboard audio and using an audio card.

if ur not gonna play in high res like 2k or 4K then 970 is okayish cuz the pascal will be more focused on 4K... so yeah why buy 2 gpus when u can buy 1 good one huh??
if u do have money go for the 980ti.. much better than the 960 or the 970 and u will be able to max out everything where as the 960 wont

i agree with most of this except the psu. op suggested considering a 980ti sli but wanted to wait for the new cards. if he ends up geting a sli of two of the new flagship cards the 850w will help

-Coolermaster Hyper212 is a decent choice, but others will probably point you toward better coolers for similar prices. It isn't a bad choice.

-Arctic Silver 5 isn't a great thermal paste, but nor is it bad. I'd use Noctua's NT-H1, personally.

-There are cheaper Z170 boards available. What criteria did you use to choose that one?

-RAM looks fine

-You might consider the M.2 version of the 850 EVO. It's no faster, but M.2 is the future of SSD connectivity, and it will save you some wire mess in your case. There's really no reason not to, but the SATA version is fine if you choose not to go with M.2 for some reason.

-HDD is fine

-GTX960 is nowhere near enough GPU to run AAA games at max settings. You're looking more at medium to medium-high for the latest games. I would look for places to shave your expenses and get a better GPU.

-Your ATX case is fine, but it will be almost entirely empty. Larger cases don't direct airflow as well, and require more fans, making them more noisy for the same cooling. I would personally go with a midtower, or possible even a mATX tower and a mATX motherboard, because that case is unnecessarily large, but I don't have any specific recommendations and there's nothing specifically wrong with your choice.

-850w Power supply is way more than you need. You have a 120w GPU and a 91w CPU. At stock, your entire system will draw less than 250w, and overclocked, I doubt you would ever see more than 350w. Even if you wanted to go with dual GTX970's in SLI, you could probably get away with a 650w PSU. This is a good place to shave some expenses.

-Do you really need a DVD writer? I haven't used a physical disk in nearly a decade.

-You might consider going with a motherboard that has Creative onboard sound, if you like Creative's software processing. Gigabyte sells a Z170 board which has onboard sound with "X-Fi" branding, which should sound identical unless you're using $500+ headphones, and even then the difference will be minimal. Asus has their own proprietary software stack for onboard sound that's also very nice. This would probably free up enough budget for you to get 2x GTX970's or maybe a single GTX 980, rather than a GTX 960.

-I tend to prefer Intel's WiFI solutions. There are a lot of motherboards that come with Intel WiFi cards in mini PCIe slots, which could save you some money while also providing you with a superior WiFi solution and saving you some wire mess.

-I can't speak for that specific Coolermaster fan, but not all fans are created equal. Coolermaster's fans are typically somewhat noisy for the amount of air they push. I'm partial to Yate Loon on the cheap, and Noctua fans if you are willing to spend a little more. Noctua fans aren't really quieter than a $3 Yate Loon, but they last a lot longer (the Yate Loons will get noisy after a year or two due to wear on their sleeve bearing if mounted horizontally) and come with a lot of nice accessories.

In short, you need more GPU, and you can probably shave $300 off of other things in order to get more GPU.