New rig $1000 (max $1100) budget - brainstorm thread

[Martyrius]

EDIT: Would like to get some suggestions as to what change in this planned rig.

CPU ......Intel Xeon E3-1231v3
GPU ..... MSI R9 270 Gaming
MOBO ..ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer
CASE ...Zalman Z11 Plus HF1 (like how these 3 fit together with black/red design)
RAM .... A-DATA 2x4GB with 9-9-9-24 CL
SSD .... Crucial M500 120GB
HDD .... Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 2TB
.... SEASONIC SSP-550RT (550W with 80-gold)
LCD .... BenQ GW2320, 23''
Genius slimstar 8000, wi-fi adapter, mousepad

Current price is $1048, using partpicker:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gMfXnQ

 

[sDGam]

I'd change the CPU to 4770K based on this benchmark: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Xeon+E3-1220+V2+%40+3.10GHz
Change the MoBo to Z87x/Z97x which have the 1550 socket for the 4770K and are recommended for gaming
Change the ram to Corsair Vengeance or G-Skill ripjaws since they are the best brands (i dont have any benchmark in mind)
Toshiba's 128GB SSD is better : http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/742?vs=808 (would be pricier though)
Last, i am a fan of corsair so i would choose the Corsair RM550 80+Gold

 

[Martyrius]

^
sDGam, thanks for replying.
That would make this build much more expensive. I don't have the money to buy the best, I am aiming for the value/power direction. 4770K is 25% pricier (in my shop) than 1231v3 + it needs more than default box cooler, so more like 31% pricier with the cooler.
RAM 14% more expensive (corsair)
that corsair is 32% more expensive than what I am suggesting.
Toshiba SSD (instead of Crucial) - 25% more.

I am already extending my budget, paying so much more wouldn't even out the gain I think.

 

[sDGam]

^
sDGam, thanks for replying.
That would make this build much more expensive. I don't have the money to buy the best, I am aiming for the value/power direction. 4770K is 25% pricier (in my shop) than 1231v3 + it needs more than default box cooler, so more like 31% pricier with the cooler.
RAM 14% more expensive (corsair)
that corsair is 32% more expensive than what I am suggesting.
Toshiba SSD (instead of Crucial) - 25% more.

I am already extending my budget, paying so much more wouldn't even out the gain I think.

I'm more of the "go for the best brand you can" so i cant help you much here. Searching for benchmarks on current parts can help you take the descision. After all, we are all advising the benchmarks to give out answers.
About the cpu cooler, you can get the Coolermaster hyper 212 EVO which is the best cost-effective cpu cooler

 

[Martyrius]

And I would like to heed your advice. Heck, everyone wants the best he can get, but that's it - I can't afford the best. I already over-extended my budget and reworked it from "basic" brands/models and got into this list I have presented.

If there is slight improvement you can make to the list, I would be glad.

But hey, it's not like I am buying the worst available equipment. And I am giving my 3-months salary for this ($1200), out of which I have to pay the rent+food etc, so I was saving for this quite some time :-D

 

[sDGam]

when pcpartpicker comes online i'll try to build a rig at similar budget for you

 

[Martyrius]

K. If anyone else wants to drop in here and offer his advice, he's welcome to do so. The key is - try to work with what I've selected and make a minor adjustments, not overwork it entirely.

 

[4cloud]

For a 1200$ budget i would spend at least 400 - 450 $ on the GPU and the rest on CPU, Motherboard peripherals etc.

 

[sDGam]

For a 1200$ budget i would spend at least 400 - 450 $ on the GPU and the rest on CPU, Motherboard peripherals etc.

what u are saying is impossible to achieve in a 1200$ budget unless you pick crappy parts that will bottleneck the gpu which makes it a hole in the water

@martyrius
how about this one?
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2QrNvK
some of the components can be downgraded to save some money but primarily i want to know how much this would cost in your country

 

[Martyrius]

OK, few things.
1)I have read your list and excluding Win 8 and optical drive (which I don't need), you list a price of $1266. However, in my country (and my favourite shop is one of the cheapest/biggest => quality customer service, mailing time) it costs 32200 CZK (and using current exchange rate, you get about) => $1600.

An outrage I say, but I really want to buy it locally, as I suspect problems with applying my rights of warranty (if the GPU or CPU or HDD or anything goes wrong, I should have 2-5 years of warranty - that would be more difficult to enforce with this rig shipped from overseas - that's what I am very much afraid of).

2)I have updated the first post, lowered the price point to 1000-1100, as here we can't use simple exchange rate as it seems. :-/ a bummer, $1050 so be it.

 

[sDGam]

how much does the Xeon E3-1231v3 and i5 4670k cost for you?
also how much does the ASRock Fatal1ty B85 Killer and Gigabyte ga-z87-d3h cost for you?

 

[Martyrius]

1231v3 (the refresh version) - $310
4670K (oh, it was released almost exactly one year ago) - $282 + the coolers cost something like $30 - $40

Fatal1ty:
B85 version = $104
H97 = $124
Z77 = $132
Z87 = $164
Z97X = $170

 

[Martyrius]

For a 1200$ budget i would spend at least 400 - 450 $ on the GPU and the rest on CPU, Motherboard peripherals etc.

Unfortunately, I can't. Some of it needs to go to buy LCD (I am selling a notebook and buying a desktop), I need a SSD, wanna buy 2TB instead of 1TB HDD (it's 2 times more space, but it's less than 2 times more expensive).

And although I like gaming, I will spend as much time, or even more in windows, doing all kinds of multitasking, working.

And as sDGam pointed out, for having that expensive card, I would need to have a bigger budget.

Though after looking at
http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html
I am thinking a lot about MSI N760 TF 2GD5/OC Gaming
The problem is that it costs $300 (here).

 

[Martyrius]

I would also really like to go with Xeon 1231v3, as I wouldn't need Z87 (or better) motherboard, won't need a cooler and will have less overheating in general, because I won't go for overclocking.

 

[Guest]

Considering that you will be mostly multitaksing this is a pretty good build for me. Minor changes I'd do:
- go with E3-1230v3 instead of E3-1231v3, they are pretty much the same, except 1231 is more expensive
- there are cheaper alternatives for RAM you picked such as Crusial Ballistix or Kingston HyperX (I live near Chech Rep. so prices should be the same)
- think about getting 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue, it will cost less, generates less noise, have longer warranty than Seagate, also normal mortals usually don't use more than 1TB
- Zalman Z11 looks cool but lacks airflow, quality and has size of a small bear, personally for budget builds i go with mATX form factor, combo I like the most is Cooler Master Silencio 352 (it has excellent airflow, it's small, cheap and well... silent) and Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H - reliable despite low price (you can try GA-H97M-D3H as it's newer and should be better however I have never used it personally so I can't give you my recommendation).

 

[dominirican3351]

I would just recommend swapping 270 for a 270x

 

[Martyrius]

I would just recommend swapping 270 for a 270x

And then again, some people say that 270x is just slightly OC'ed 270. The difference between then is super small though (I like MSI versions with twin frozer coolers).

So I am not sure here. That's the problem, people are very divided when it comes to certain areas of computing, such as CPU's and GPU's. A "newcomer" like me with no experience has then hard time following advices.

270 - $217
270X - $243
GTX 760 - $299

 

[Martyrius]

Considering that you will be mostly multitaksing this is a pretty good build for me. Minor changes I'd do:
- go with E3-1230v3 instead of E3-1231v3, they are pretty much the same, except 1231 is more expensive
- there are cheaper alternatives for RAM you picked such as Crusial Ballistix or Kingston HyperX (I live near Chech Rep. so prices should be the same)
- think about getting 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue, it will cost less, generates less noise, have longer warranty than Seagate, also normal mortals usually don't use more than 1TB
- Zalman Z11 looks cool but lacks airflow, quality and has size of a small bear, personally for budget builds i go with mATX form factor, combo I like the most is Cooler Master Silencio 352 (it has excellent airflow, it's small, cheap and well... silent) and Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H - reliable despite low price (you can try GA-H97M-D3H as it's newer and should be better however I have never used it personally so I can't give you my recommendation).

1)Your Xeon suggestion would be nice if I ordered the rig using PartPicker, but in my shop (Czech Computer - one of the biggest here, rivaling Alza & TS Bohemia), their prices are very similar.
1230v3 - $310
1231v3 - $310
OK, correction. Their price in my shop is exactly the same. Is it stupid? I think so.

2)I've been checking some of these "better" RAM modules and discovered this one:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148500&cm_re=Crucial_Ballistix_Elite_8GB-_-20-148-500-_-Product
It's one of the more expensive in 8GB category, but in my shop, it comes just $6 more expensive than my selected A-DATA. And it has 8-8-8-24 timing, an improvement over A-Data's 9-9-9-24.
+ they look nice.+ passive cooler.

 

[Martyrius]

Considering that you will be mostly multitaksing this is a pretty good build for me. Minor changes I'd do:
- go with E3-1230v3 instead of E3-1231v3, they are pretty much the same, except 1231 is more expensive
- there are cheaper alternatives for RAM you picked such as Crusial Ballistix or Kingston HyperX (I live near Chech Rep. so prices should be the same)
- think about getting 1TB Western Digital Caviar Blue, it will cost less, generates less noise, have longer warranty than Seagate, also normal mortals usually don't use more than 1TB
- Zalman Z11 looks cool but lacks airflow, quality and has size of a small bear, personally for budget builds i go with mATX form factor, combo I like the most is Cooler Master Silencio 352 (it has excellent airflow, it's small, cheap and well... silent) and Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H - reliable despite low price (you can try GA-H97M-D3H as it's newer and should be better however I have never used it personally so I can't give you my recommendation).

3)Yeah, most of people do not need additional data, but all my life, I've been having free space problems. Currently having 640GB in my laptop and it's overcrowded, I had to delete a lot of data and move it to external drives. Nah, I would make use of 2TB just fine.

Yeah, it's cheaper, we are comparing 1TB to 2TB. And for both WD and SG
WD 2TB = $99
SG 1TB = $69

The $30 saved here wouldn't be (to me) of more use than this additional 1TB. It's just thirty bucks. But I will think about replacing WD with SG.


4)The case should be virtually identical to Zalman Z11 Plus (HF1 would then mean it's red instead of blue).
Airflow of Z11
http://pctuning.tyden.cz/ilustrace3/stoobi/Zalman_Z11plus/airflow.jpg
Airflow of 352
http://www.coolermaster.com/images/upload/images/case/silencio352-2.jpg

Showing it's very similar.

 

[Martyrius]

Still thinking about graphic card. Isn't this one of these "2 tribes fighting", that people are either AMD gpu VS nVidia GPU?

 

[dominirican3351]

I personally use nvidia but for the price point the 270 and 270x is a great card especially with mantle that it out preforms the 760 in some cases