New to PC Gaming. Been following a build guide from PC gamer. Is this a good build? Any suggestions and any advice is welcome!

[djmarks92]

I am completely new to PC gaming. Building my first PC and I found this build guide and started ordering parts without doing much research. I just want some opinions on this build. Is it a good build and will it last for a while? Is the room to modify this build to keep up as parts become outdated? Like I said I'm new so any advice helps. Thank you in advance! I'm excited to play games like Escape from Tarkov and PubG at the best settings available. Hopefully this is enough.

CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K

Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z370-E

RAM: G.Skill Flare X 16GB DDR4-3200

Graphics card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080 Ti

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P2

Storage: Samsung 960 Evo 1TB

Cooler: NZXT Kraken X62

Tower: NZXT H440

http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-high-end-gaming-pc/

 

[jgustin7b]

That’s definitely top of the line. One change I would make is to bring the SSD down to somewhere in te 200-300gb area, maybe down to 120 if you want to save even more, and then put that excess money into 2+ Tb of storage in a traditional hard drive.

 

[djmarks92]

That’s definitely top of the line. One change I would make is to bring the SSD down to somewhere in te 200-300gb area, maybe down to 120 if you want to save even more, and then put that excess money into 2+ Tb of storage in a traditional hard drive.

Any suggestions on a good Hard drive to look into?

 

[jgustin7b]

Seagate barracudas, western digital (also known as WD) black, caviar black, or potentially gold series are all good hdds

 

[djmarks92]

Seagate barracudas, western digital (also known as WD) black, caviar black, or potentially gold series are all good hdds

thanks a lot. Will be definitely looking into those hard drives.

 

[jgustin7b]

No problem. Just verify it has an rpm of 7200 (or better). Otherwise, happy holidays.

 

[djmarks92]

No problem. Just verify it has an rpm of 7200 (or better). Otherwise, happy holidays.

Perfect thanks, And Happy Holidays to you as well!!

 

[coozie7]

Yep, that's all top notch stuff, but you COULD trim the price a fair bit, particularly by dropping the SSD capacity and using a normal HDD for bulk storage OR by swapping to the slightly slower but far cheaper SATA 2 1/2" type SSD for all the storage. You could shave more money off by dropping to a lower output ( but not quality ) power supply and moving to a more value orientated motherboard.

Storage:
SSD https://www.overclockers.co.uk/samsung-sm961-polaris-512gb-m.2-2280-pci-e-3.0-x-4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-227-sa.html
This is an OEM drive, so no flashy software support but it's FAST. OR you could go for a slightly slower SSD and go all silicon storage; https://www.scan.co.uk/products/960gb-sandisk-ssd-plus-25-ssd-sata-iii-6gb-s-read-535mb-s-write-450mb-s-retail
As jgustin7b says, really just look for a 7200 RPM drive in the real world they're all pretty much the same in performance, although larger capacity drives tend to be a little quicker.

Pricing is always variable, especially at this time of year with plenty of bargains to be had if you're prepared to search them out.
Make a list of the parts you want, then check the prices, plenty of places to look, but here's a few I've used in the past: Scan, CCL, Overclockers, Ebuyer, Novatech, BT Shop and the seemingly omnipresent Amazon.

 

[djmarks92]

Yep, that's all top notch stuff, but you COULD trim the price a fair bit, particularly by dropping the SSD capacity and using a normal HDD for bulk storage OR by swapping to the slightly slower but far cheaper SATA 2 1/2" type SSD for all the storage. You could shave more money off by dropping to a lower output ( but not quality ) power supply and moving to a more value orientated motherboard.

Storage:
SSD https://www.overclockers.co.uk/samsung-sm961-polaris-512gb-m.2-2280-pci-e-3.0-x-4-nvme-solid-state-drive-hd-227-sa.html
This is an OEM drive, so no flashy software support but it's FAST. OR you could go for a slightly slower SSD and go all silicon storage; https://www.scan.co.uk/products/960gb-sandisk-ssd-plus-25-ssd-sata-iii-6gb-s-read-535mb-s-write-450mb-s-retail
As jgustin7b says, really just look for a 7200 RPM drive in the real world they're all pretty much the same in performance, although larger capacity drives tend to be a little quicker.

Pricing is always variable, especially at this time of year with plenty of bargains to be had if you're prepared to search them out.
Make a list of the parts you want, then check the prices, plenty of places to look, but here's a few I've used in the past: Scan, CCL, Overclockers, Ebuyer, Novatech, BT Shop and the seemingly omnipresent Amazon.

So glad i signed up for Tom's Hardware you guys are definitely helpful. Will without a doubt lower the SSD and get more storage with a HDD because its smarter and would save money. If just my OS is on the SSD my system will still work super fast right?

 

[coozie7]

Only the parts attached to the OS will fly, everything not on SSD will load/save at HDD speeds.

Me, I'd go for the Samsung I linked along with a 1 or 2 Tb HDD for bulk storage, 500Gb CAN be enough storage, even for a gaming setup if you keep control of what's on the drive but it's easily filled, so a big HDD is the best option for storing large files like movies or seldom used games.
If you're not too bothered about every second of load/save/boot times then the 960Gb Sandisk SSD is a demon buy, far faster than a HDD it offers similar capacity and will be silent in operation.

As a final note: SATA SSD drives are pretty similar in performance, you'll need to run benchmarks with an accurate stopwatch to spot the difference and you'll probably hear the word 'endurance' mentioned, this is a measure of how long the drive can last, like HDDs, SSDs' have a limited life and actually DO wear out over time. Don't fret, by the time the drive is anywhere close to it's end of life either you'll be old and grey or it'll be long gone.

As always, check prices and look for specials, especially if you choose to use a single SATA SSD for storage, like I said, performance is pretty much the same regardless of drive and endurance isn't an issue unless you're a data centre.