PC build advice

crate59 · Sep 27, 2016

I'm building a new PC (photoshop, light video editing and gaming) so wanted input on the parts chosen. I mainly play older games, however was wondering if the CPU and GPU would last at least 3-5 years down the line. Any advice is appreciated.

Note: 1080p/60fps is my preference for older games and as for newer ones hoping if I can do that for the next 1-2 years (1080p/60fps referring to mainly highest available graphical settings with the exception of highly demanding AA, and afer 1-2 years 1080p/60fps high settings etc.). I mainly play FPS and a few RPGs and RTSs occasionally.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus H170 PRO GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($122.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($43.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($107.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Strix Video Card ($319.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($129.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Cooler Master 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Monitor: Samsung S24E390HL 23.6" 60Hz Monitor
Total: $1134.87
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-27 11:15 EDT-0400

BadActor · Sep 27, 2016

For gaming at 1080p, I would say it's close to perfect. But for PS and video editing, I would step up to the i7 6700. The i5 will get the job done, but take longer. You could offset the cost by using a few less expensive parts that will have no major impact on performance.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($294.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170-GAMING 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($77.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill NT Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: OCZ TRION 150 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($65.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.71 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1060 6GB Strix Video Card ($319.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($104.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.88 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Samsung S24E390HL 23.6" 60Hz Monitor ($238.88 @ Amazon)
Total: $1313.27
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-27 11:35 EDT-0400

Slumy__57 · Sep 27, 2016

If I were in your shoes I would drop the Strix 1060 and get a cheaper version, and use the extra money to go for 16 gigs of ram. There's no way to guarantee that you will be able to play newer games on this in 5 years, but I think it's safe to say that if you are okay with lowering your graphics settings as games get more demanding, you should be able to maintain playable FPS for the next couple years.

There's areas on your build that you could potentially trim down to save a little money, but there's nothing wrong with what you've got as far as I can see.

King Dranzer · Sep 27, 2016

Here is the build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($294.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($56.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($66.54 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($72.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.71 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB ACX 3.0 Video Card ($404.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 2300 ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.88 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Asus MX259H 25.0" 60Hz Monitor ($193.86 @ B&H)
Total: $1264.81
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-27 11:54 EDT-0400

If you want 60fps at ultra settings then this build because GTX1060 is not scaling good at 1080p eg: Witcher3@45fps Arma3@40fps GTA V@50fps. Whereas GTX1070 is giving 70-80fps avg.

i7 recommended for video editing.

Zerk2012 · Sep 27, 2016

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($213.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: CRYORIG M9i 48.4 CFM CPU Cooler ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H170-GAMING 3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($77.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($74.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($93.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.71 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB GAMING X Video Card ($299.88 @ OutletPC)
Case: Fractal Design Define R5 w/Window (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($104.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($80.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.88 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Samsung S24E390HL 23.6" 60Hz Monitor ($238.88 @ Amazon)
Total: $1270.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-27 12:20 EDT-0400

Saves a bit of money with the same performance but with 16GB of memory and a CPU cooler to cut down on noise and heat.

King Dranzer · Sep 27, 2016

Zerk2012 :

Build is good but for video editing I would recommend i7-6700 and for gaming GTX1070.
i5-6500 is good for gaming but for video editing I think i7-6700 will perform lot better.
When set to ultra settings games are not able to hit 60fps at 1080p using GTX1060 but with GTX1070 they are, and probably for a year or so it will maintain games at 60fps.

crate59 · Sep 27, 2016

Sadly the i7 6700 and the GTX 1070 are quite over my budget. I went with the GTX 1060 due to the nice performance/price ratio, eventhough in certain benchmarks is more in line with 50fps. Was interested in the RX480, but the GTX 1060 seemed better.
As for the parts manufacturers, I chose the ones that were available in my region which are mostly ASUS branded. Will look into adding more RAM.
Thank you for all your suggestions thus far.

King Dranzer · Sep 27, 2016

For nearly the same budget of your build here is a build with GTX1070

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($56.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($66.54 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Samsung 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($72.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.71 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB ACX 3.0 Video Card ($404.98 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Core 2300 ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.88 @ OutletPC)
Monitor: Asus MX259H 25.0" 60Hz Monitor ($193.86 @ B&H)
Total: $1168.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-27 13:26 EDT-0400

Even if you give-up on increasing the video editing performance gain but with this build you will get huge increase in gaming performance over your i5 and GTX1060 build.

Zerk2012 · Sep 27, 2016

http://www.techspot.com/review/1209-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1060/page2.html
Witcher 3 60 FPS.
For some editing the i5 processor will work just fine.
Dont buy a crappy case that you will not like it also comes with only one fan the R5 you picked is a very solid case.

Zerk2012 · Sep 27, 2016

King Dranzer :

Zerk2012 :

Build is good but for video editing I would recommend i7-6700 and for gaming GTX1070.
i5-6500 is good for gaming but for video editing I think i7-6700 will perform lot better.
When set to ultra settings games are not able to hit 60fps at 1080p using GTX1060 but with GTX1070 they are, and probably for a year or so it will maintain games at 60fps.

Games do hit 60+ FPS with a 1060 and for some editing the i5 works just fine it's not going to matter if it takes 5 minutes to render or the 20% increase with the i7 taking 4 minutes.

King Dranzer · Sep 27, 2016

Zerk2012 :

i5 to i7 part is correct that's why I left it out, but GTX1060 hitting 60fps at ultra settings at 1080p is not correct it does hit but not in all games and it will become worse with upcoming games in a year. Where as GTX1070 is able to hit 60fps+ at present with all games and will do so for at-least a year to come. GTX1060 gives you Witcher 3@45fps Arma 3@40fps GTA V@50fps Crysis 3@45fps at ultra settings. But with GTX1070 you get Witcher 3@70fps Arma 3@65fps GTA V@75fps Crysis 3@70fps at ultra settings.

crate59 · Oct 1, 2016

I've decided to squeeze in extra RAM and a GTX 1070 in the build based on suggestions in this thread, Thank you again for your build examples and opinions

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