Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in

Reply to this thread

Solved Forum question

Started by spatel240sx | | 25 answers
Need help with 1st pc build
I am looking to buy my 1st gaming pc and after figuring out what gaming pc's need I think I have finally perfected my possible 1st pc. There are a few things I had questions about but I will save that for the end. First here is the build...keep in mind I will be using cyberpower pc since I found the price very reasonable compared to building my own due to sales going on right now.

CASE: CFI Boreallight w/ USB 3.0, EZ Swap HDD, 2x 120mm & 1x 140mm fans, Side Panel Window

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-4690K 3.5 GHz 6MB Intel Smart Cache LGA1150 (All Venom OC Certified)

FAN: Asetek 550LC 120mm Liquid Cooling CPU Cooler - Enhance Cooling Performance (Single Standard 120MM Fan)

HDD: 128GB Sandisk SSD + 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD [+30] (Single Drive)

MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1866MHz Dual Channel Memory (Corsair Vengeance)

MOTHERBOARD: MSI Z97-G55 ATX w/ GbLAN, 3 PCIe x16, 3 PCIe x1, 1 PCI, 1x M.2, 6x SATA 6Gb/s (All Venom OC Certified

OS: Microsoft® Windows 8.1 (64-bit Edition)

POWERSUPPLY: 600 Watts - Standard 80 Plus Certified Power Supply - SLI/CrossFireX Ready

VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750Ti 2GB GDDR5 PCIe 3.0 x16 Video Card (Major Brand Powered by NVIDIA)

The build will also come with the basics such as dvd drive, mouse, keyboard,, and a three year warentee all with free shipping. The final price comes out to $1025 which seams like a great price for the parts I am getting. A couple things I wanted to know about my build. For starters I want to know if it is a decent build I am getting the pc to play the upcoming games such as Project CARS and GTA V as well as older titles. I also wanted to know if overclocking is worth it, especially since it only cost me 49 for a 20% boost. I have already made sure all my parts are OC Certified but figured I would not see enough gains to spend the extra money. Also is my case okay, I wanted to go bigger and this case comes with 3 stock fans and than will have my liquid cpu cooler as well. I'm sure there are going to be more questions but these are the important ones for now. Thanks in advance for the replies and advice.

Oh yeah the sale ends the 4th of July so I really need to pull the trigger to keep most of the parts I have.
  • By posting on this site, I confirm I am over 13 years of age and agree to abide by the site’s rules.

July 5, 2014 5:12:46 PM

I am planning on ordering my PC in the next couple of days instead of waiting for possible future price drops. I am pretty confident that this build is what I want out of the PC, but if anyone see's anything worth changing please let me know.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/9mkgXL
July 3, 2014 7:12:37 PM

JackNaylorPE said:
spatel240sx said:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/4pGnTW

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/TccRsY

I have found a GPU that I am happy with in terms of price and performance. Out of the two builds I tried to keep one as modest as possible by cutting cost where I saw fit while the second one I chose higher end parts that will last longer through at least the first couple of upgrades. I am leaning towards the beefier build but am still open to any ideas. I am definitely going to wait a while and hope that prices dip down to where they were around April.


The 2nd build definitely. However, the PSU is waaaaay oversized and of very poor quality.....tho good for 4th of July as oft know to create fireworks inside ya case.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_77...
Quote:
Here is Guru3D's power supply recommendation:

GeForce GTX 770 - On your average system the card requires you to have a 550 Watt power supply unit.
GeForce GTX 770 2-way SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have a 750 Watt power supply unit as minimum.
GeForce GTX 770 3-way SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have a 1000 Watt power supply unit as minimum.

If you are going to overclock your GPU or processor, then we do recommend you purchase something with some more stamina.


$85 750 watts http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$95 850 watts http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

2. The MSI card is better rated and much quieter .... but Giga's are on sale atm whereas MSI sale just ended....so would have t wait a few days till MSI went on sale at $299 again.

MSI 9.8 rating / 1137 Core Speed / 29 dbA under load $329
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_770_TF_Gamin...

Gigabyte 9.6 rating / 1137 Core Speed / 33 dbA under load / $309
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX...

I don't see the value of 4GB on a 770 at 1920 x 1080
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/gtx-770-4gb-vs-2gb-teste...

Quote:
This leaves five games out of 30 where a 4GB GTX 770 gives more than a 1 frame per second difference over the 2GB-equipped GTX 770. And one of them, Metro: Last Light still isn’t even quite a single frame difference.

Of those five games, two of them are unplayable at 5760×1080 although in these cases, 4GB GTX 770 SLI would finally make some sense over 2GB GTX 770 SLI. That only leaves Lost Planet 2 and two racing games that gain some advantage by choosing a single GTX 770 4GB card over the single GTX 770 2GB.











The PSU was the by mistake, I had thought I found a great deal but was mistaken. Here is the build so far boasting a 750w Fully Modular PSU. Also what is a good motherboard besides the one I have chosen, I am slightly over budget and want to see if I can cut some money there without any serious sacrifices.

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/3r6qqs
a c 251 4 Gaming
July 3, 2014 6:44:54 PM

spatel240sx said:
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/4pGnTW

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/TccRsY

I have found a GPU that I am happy with in terms of price and performance. Out of the two builds I tried to keep one as modest as possible by cutting cost where I saw fit while the second one I chose higher end parts that will last longer through at least the first couple of upgrades. I am leaning towards the beefier build but am still open to any ideas. I am definitely going to wait a while and hope that prices dip down to where they were around April.


The 2nd build definitely. However, the PSU is waaaaay oversized and of very poor quality.....tho good for 4th of July as oft know to create fireworks inside ya case.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/msi_geforce_gtx_77...
Quote:
Here is Guru3D's power supply recommendation:

GeForce GTX 770 - On your average system the card requires you to have a 550 Watt power supply unit.
GeForce GTX 770 2-way SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have a 750 Watt power supply unit as minimum.
GeForce GTX 770 3-way SLI - On your average system the cards require you to have a 1000 Watt power supply unit as minimum.

If you are going to overclock your GPU or processor, then we do recommend you purchase something with some more stamina.


$85 750 watts http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$95 850 watts http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

2. The MSI card is better rated and much quieter .... but Giga's are on sale atm whereas MSI sale just ended....so would have t wait a few days till MSI went on sale at $299 again.

MSI 9.8 rating / 1137 Core Speed / 29 dbA under load $329
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_770_TF_Gamin...

Gigabyte 9.6 rating / 1137 Core Speed / 33 dbA under load / $309
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GeForce_GTX...

I don't see the value of 4GB on a 770 at 1920 x 1080
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/gtx-770-4gb-vs-2gb-teste...

Quote:
This leaves five games out of 30 where a 4GB GTX 770 gives more than a 1 frame per second difference over the 2GB-equipped GTX 770. And one of them, Metro: Last Light still isn’t even quite a single frame difference.

Of those five games, two of them are unplayable at 5760×1080 although in these cases, 4GB GTX 770 SLI would finally make some sense over 2GB GTX 770 SLI. That only leaves Lost Planet 2 and two racing games that gain some advantage by choosing a single GTX 770 4GB card over the single GTX 770 2GB.









a c 251 4 Gaming
July 3, 2014 6:30:30 PM

RCguitarist said:
You should stop reading that .info site. They're info is probably pulled from you know where. My 660 runs Metro 2033 and Tomb Raider at higher framerates than they are claiming a 760 can. I own those games and I was getting around 50 fps in Metro 2033 and 40-50 fps in tomb raider with all settings maxed out including AA on both.

For that tom's chart about the ram speeds, what cpu were they using?


1. What demo are you using metro 2033 or Last light .... the latter will run much faster. Similar GPU results on every site.... how many sites I gonna have to stop reading :)  ?

Hardwareinfo said 38 fps, Techpowerup says


Hardwareinfo said 35 fps, techpowerup says


Seems like they agree quite closely. The hardwareinfo site is great cause it gives ya all the results for 1, 2 and 3 cards on same page....and 760, 770 and 780 over 3 pages.


2. Test Configuration:

CPU Intel Core i7-4770K (Haswell): 3.50 GHz, 4C/8T
Overclocked to 4.50 GHz (45 x 100 MHz) at 1.25 V Core
CPU Cooler Thermalright MUX-120
Motherboard Asus Z87-Pro: LGA 1150, Intel Z87 Express, Firmware 1707 (12/13/2013)
Graphics PowerColor PCS+ AXR9 290X 4GBD5-PPDHE: 1050 MHz GPU, 4 GB GDDR5-5400
Hard Drives Samsung 840 Pro MZ-7PD256, 256 GB SSD
Sound Integrated HD Audio
Network Integrated Gigabit Networking
Power Corsair AX860i: ATX12V v2.3, EPS12V, 80 PLUS Platinum

July 3, 2014 11:18:03 AM

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/4pGnTW

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/TccRsY

I have found a GPU that I am happy with in terms of price and performance. Out of the two builds I tried to keep one as modest as possible by cutting cost where I saw fit while the second one I chose higher end parts that will last longer through at least the first couple of upgrades. I am leaning towards the beefier build but am still open to any ideas. I am definitely going to wait a while and hope that prices dip down to where they were around April.
a b 4 Gaming
July 3, 2014 8:13:09 AM

JackNaylorPE said:


4. No a 760 is not capable of running everything on ultra as is quite evident here and that doesn't include new games. With average fps at 30-40..... minimum frame rates will be dropping below 20.:

http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4632/33/geforce-gtx-700...

Metro 2033 - 1920x1080 - Very High 31 fps
Far Cry 3 - 1920x1080 - Ultra 4xAA 38 fps
Crysis 3 - 1920x1080 - Very High 4x AA 30 fps
Tomb Raider - 1920x1080 - Ultra 4x AA 35 fps



You should stop reading that .info site. They're info is probably pulled from you know where. My 660 runs Metro 2033 and Tomb Raider at higher framerates than they are claiming a 760 can. I own those games and I was getting around 50 fps in Metro 2033 and 40-50 fps in tomb raider with all settings maxed out including AA on both.

For that tom's chart about the ram speeds, what cpu were they using?
July 2, 2014 9:33:20 PM

I have two different links this time one to a build on CyberPower and the other from PcPartsPicker. I am not sure which route I am going to go but I will be waiting at least for the holidays to end to see what happens to the prices on CyberPower.

http://www.cyberpowerpc.com/saved/1G6NEH

The first PCPartsPicker link is a identical build as the one on CyberPower to help me evaluate price differences, the second one has beefier RAM and the Coirsair 500R as a place holder to see the total closer to that of my CyberPower build.
1) http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/QbjNnQ
2) http://pcpartpicker.com/user/spatel240sx/saved/TccRsY




a c 251 4 Gaming
July 2, 2014 7:16:19 PM

spatel240sx said:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/gjN3mG

Yet another update after JackNaylorPE's reply. I was aiming for the higher speed ram along with a little more juice from the PSU all while trying to squeeze in the GTx 770. I was able to get all these things but did have to cut down the case to the bare minimum so I want to make sure all parts are still compatible.


That's $454 in your build for MoBo, memory and CPU.

Thrown out for consideration ..... Here you can get the same parts (almost - see below) in a bundle for $433 .... minus $20 rebate - $14 (10% off w/ promo code EMCPDHD94, ends 7/2 on MoBo). That's $55 more to spend over ya $30 case.....looked like the 500R is back on the table....but noooooo sale over.... have to wait till next week or spring for an extra $ for the upgrade to the phanteks

http://www.newegg.com/global/au/Product/ComboDealDetail...

But that's a 4670k not a 4690k .... the 4690k should really be matched with a Z97 board .... the Z87 w/ 4670k was common pairing pre-Z97

$15 more for $100 Phanteks w/ window http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
$ 5 more for $100 Phanteks w/ window http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

You can do it !

Also a $30 savings here with MSI Z97 and 4690k but no RAM in there.... ya kind agetting screwed by the timing..... too many kids out there with pocket fulls of HS / Kolludge graduation money :)  .... so combos and sales are down

http://www.newegg.com/global/au/Product/ComboDealDetail...

And yes....2 sticks or RAM on all 1150 builds

RCguitarist said:
]

Why did you go back to a 850W power supply? You won't need that much unless you SLI graphics cards.

Also, you switched back to a Z87 motherboard, was that a mistake?

Note that unless you plan to overclock your CPU, you won't see any bennifit from running ram with a higher speed than 1600.

A 760 is perfectly capable of playing everything out today at ultra settings at 1080p. Unless you are going for 60+ fps on the most demanding of games, you won't NEED a 770. If you are happy with a constant 50fps on everything, then save some money and get a 760.


1. Probably so as to allow upgrade to SLI

2. I recommend Z97 if ya have the bucks but it's not like you lose anything of note with Z87

3. That is simply not true. You do not have to overclock your CPU to get benefits of higher RAM speed. Increases at same CPU clock speed can range from 0% in games like Crysis to to 10-11% in gamnes like STALKER and F1..... why would you every buy 1600 when 1866 or 2133 is same price ?



4. No a 760 is not capable of running everything on ultra as is quite evident here and that doesn't include new games. With average fps at 30-40..... minimum frame rates will be dropping below 20.:

http://us.hardware.info/reviews/4632/33/geforce-gtx-700...

Metro 2033 - 1920x1080 - Very High 31 fps
Far Cry 3 - 1920x1080 - Ultra 4xAA 38 fps
Crysis 3 - 1920x1080 - Very High 4x AA 30 fps
Tomb Raider - 1920x1080 - Ultra 4x AA 35 fps


RCguitarist said:
The 760 is not the weakest of the 7xx cards by a long shot. The 750 and 750Ti are weaker.


We have a SLI Capable MoBo and a PSU oversized for future upgrade to SLI..... 750 / 750 Ti not in the picture as they don't do SLI .... an 850 watt PSU for a 2nd 750/750 Ti would be a waste.


3Dns said:

Its pointless to take more then 1600mhz with Intel CPU.
Because intel doesnt support more then 1600mhz RAM. If you take 2400mhz Ram intel will automatically downclock your RAM at 1600mhz so its pointles.


Where you get this idea from ? It's absolutely false. Care to explain then:

1. How I am running at 2400 ? at 4.6 Ghz ? And every build I have done in past 18 months is running > 1600 ?

2. This entire article ?

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/32-gb-ddr3-ram,3790...

3. Intel Compatibility List.....There are 459 sets of RAM tested and certified by Intel at above 1600 Mhz

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/gaming-co...

4. How about this image ?



5. Google XMP

The JEDEC specification only goes up to 1600 and that is what you MoBo will default to. However, you ** can ** enable the XMP Profile in the BIOS which is fully supported / endorsed by Intel because it is Intel that wrote the specification.


http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/gaming/extreme-m...

Quote:
Intel® Extreme Memory Profile (Intel® XMP) allows you to overclock compatible DDR3 memory to perform beyond standard specifications. It’s designed to enhance the gaming features built into Intel® technology–based PCs. If you like to overclock and squeeze as much performance from your PC as possible, then memory based on Intel XMP gives you that extra edge you need to dominate—without breaking a sweat.

Predefined and tested Intel XMP profiles can be loaded via BIOS or a specific tuning application through a computer’s operating system. ...

Intel has developed a certification program for memory vendors to test their products for compatibility against Intel XMP. To view compatible memory DIMMs from a variety of vendors, select Spreadsheet to download and be able to sort the Excel* datasheet, or PDF to simply view the datasheet:


July 2, 2014 2:39:41 PM

Got it. This is great now to just brush up on my building knowledge. Should I order any other parts I.e. network card, thermal compound, or other things that would help with the build.

See all answers