Help with a gaming build

Xyo

I'm just curious what kind of build I can get for 600ish and would it be a better option to build or buy a ready made desktop

1. What is your budget? [€600ish]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming] (I wanna get something to hopefully play current games on max and future games )

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? [nope]

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [nope]

5. Do you need a monitor? [no]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [19'/20'/22'/24'/etc.]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1920x1080] [No]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [nope]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Yes]

8. How can you pay? [any]

9. When are you purchasing? [probably in two weeks]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [I have a mate that can build it]

BloodBath

This should do nicely if you don't mind cheaping out on the case a bit and going matx. There's a lot of power there for a €600 rig.


Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€102.99
Club 3D Radeon HD 7950 13Series, 3GB GDDR5, AMD Radeon HD 7950, PCI- Express|€264.96
8GB-Kit GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)|€54.11
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€56.69
ASRock 960GM/U3S3 FX, Sockel AM3+, mATX|€48.87
Zalman T2 Mini Tower - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€18.61
ARCTIC COOLING ARCTIC F12|€3.16
Cooler Master B500, 500 Watt|€36.42
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€604.80

Or this if you don't mind losing some graphics performance for a better quality case and psu.

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€102.99
8GB-Kit GeIL Enhance Corsa PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24 (DDR3-1333)|€54.11
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€56.69
ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0, AM3+, ATX|€62.16
PowerColor PCS+ HD7870 Myst. Edition 2GB GDDR5(UEFI READY)|€193.57
Cooltek Antiphon Black, ohne Netzteil|€63.00
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€46.46
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€597.97

Xyo

Hi again, looking to finally go through with buying my pc. My budget is like 700ish now was wondering if you could do a current build as i'll hopefully be ordering on thursday.

BloodBath

How's this?

Item|Price
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€100.37
Alpenföhn Sella - 92mm, AMD/Intel|€17.78
ASRock 970 Pro3 R2.0, AM3+, ATX|€61.82
ASUS GTX660 Ti-DC2-2GD5, GeForce GTX 660 Ti, 2048MB DDR5|€203.86
8GB-Kit G.Skill PC3-10667U CL9-9-9-24|€54.63
Cooler Master N300, ATX-Midi-Tower, schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€33.01
Super-Flower Amazon 80Plus 450W|€45.88
WD Caviar Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€56.69
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€88.62
LogiLink USB 2.0 all-in-one Card Reader, für 3,5" Einbauchschacht|€3.32
Samsung SH-224DB schwarz|€17.37
LogiLink SATA Anschlusskabel mit Sicherungslasche, 0.5m|€1.39
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€703.73

Xyo

I'm thinking would i get a better graphics card if i let off the ssd and the card reader?

rob_itb

Item|Price
AMD A8-5600K Black Edition, 4x 3.60GHz, boxed (AD560KWOHJBOX)|€74.73
Corsair CX Series Modular CX750M 750W ATX 2.3 (CP-9020061)|€78.26
G.Skill RipJawsX DIMM Kit 8GB, DDR3-2133, CL11-11-11-30 (F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL)|€56.57
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€88.62
Toshiba DT01ACA Series 1TB, SATA 6Gb/s|€51.43
ASRock FM2A75M-ITX R2.0, FM2, ITX|€70.23
Samsung SH-224DB optical|€15.70
BitFenix Prodigy case|€68.04
MSI N660Ti-PE-2GD5/OC Twin Frozr IV Power Edition OC, GeForce GTX 660 Ti, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort (V284-036R)|€186.79

Shipping|€18.99
Total|€709.36

overbudget a little, but very compact and kick ass to boot
Hopefully all the links work for you as I used a price comparison site to get you a discount on most of the parts suggested elsewhere on this forum, and if you are buying a 660ti, make it the MSI PE version, it's 100mhz clock higher than most other TI editions with performance close to 680 reference cards

Recurve360

rob_itb wrote: »

Item|Price
AMD A8-5600K Black Edition, 4x 3.60GHz, boxed (AD560KWOHJBOX)|€74.73
Corsair CX Series Modular CX750M 750W ATX 2.3 (CP-9020061)|€78.26
G.Skill RipJawsX DIMM Kit 8GB, DDR3-2133, CL11-11-11-30 (F3-17000CL11D-8GBXL)|€56.57
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€88.62
Toshiba DT01ACA Series 1TB, SATA 6Gb/s|€51.43
ASRock FM2A75M-ITX R2.0, FM2, ITX|€70.23
Samsung SH-224DB optical|€15.70
BitFenix Prodigy case|€68.04
MSI N660Ti-PE-2GD5/OC Twin Frozr IV Power Edition OC, GeForce GTX 660 Ti, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort (V284-036R)|€186.79

Shipping|€18.99
Total|€709.36
overbudget a little, but very compact and kick ass to boot
Hopefully all the links work for you as I used a price comparison site to get you a discount on most of the parts suggested elsewhere on this forum, and if you are buying a 660ti, make it the MSI PE version, it's 100mhz clock higher than most other TI editions with performance close to 680 reference cards

Why use an APU and a graphics card thats just going to disable the onboard graphics anyway? A fx6300 is leaps and bounds above an a8 or a10 even. By the way, all parts you listed cant be viewed because you were going through geizhals or something similar. 750W is also total overkill for this system. I imagine a 500W bronze supply would be perfect. Any more tends to be for sli crossfire builds. Much better value out there for your money

BloodBath

Xyo wrote: »

I'm thinking would i get a better graphics card if i let off the ssd and the card reader?

You could get a slightly better card. The 660ti is great value at that price though and I wouldn't ditch the ssd for it. It will make your pc experience a lot better than a slightly faster graphics card will.

From 5 second boot times, especially handy when installing all your software at the start, to much faster opening of programs, better responsiveness, the ability to multi-task a lot lot better and even simple things like alt tabbing out of a game is all instant unlike trying to do it off of a single hdd.

Lu Tze

Recurve360 wrote: »

Why use an APU and a graphics card thats just going to disable the onboard graphics anyway? A fx6300 is leaps and bounds above an a8 or a10 even. By the way, all parts you listed cant be viewed because you were going through geizhals or something similar. 750W is also total overkill for this system. I imagine a 500W bronze supply would be perfect. Any more tends to be for sli crossfire builds. Much better value out there for your money

I would imagine he went with it as there are no am3+ itx boards

rob_itb

Lu Tze wrote: »

I would imagine he went with it as there are no am3+ itx boards

you are correct sir
and the 750w PSU is for not knowing what is down the road in terms of PSU requirements, the m-itx board in this build will only take 1 card but i'd prefer not to put the buyer in a situation where he might need to replace the PSU if he ups to a newer build in the next 2-3 years for very little extra cost on the peace of mind

Genghiz Cohen

BloodBath wrote: »

You could get a slightly better card. The 660ti is great value at that price though and I wouldn't ditch the ssd for it. It will make your pc experience a lot better than a slightly faster graphics card will.

From 5 second boot times, especially handy when installing all your software at the start, to much faster opening of programs, better responsiveness, the ability to multi-task a lot lot better and even simple things like alt tabbing out of a game is all instant unlike trying to do it off of a single hdd.

I really have to echo this. A SSD is just such a world apart from a HDD when booting and installing things.
I'm running a 670 right now and games like Splinter Cell: Blacklist are using about 60% of it (Ultra 1080p), a 660Ti will be grand.

Recurve360

This would be a better option for an itx build. If you had an extra 100-150 to throw at it you could make a fantastic system. By the way use geizhals.de to save about 30-50 quid on this build which would bring it inside the budget. Much more reliable HDD and processor

Item|Price
BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Gehäuse - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€69.67
Intel Core i5-3470 Box, LGA1155|€166.85
8GB-Kit Kingston HyperX blu.XMP PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-27|€60.28
LG DH18NS schwarz bare SATA II|€13.45
SanDisk SSD 128GB S-ATA 600|€77.01
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€56.69
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€168.50
ASRock H61MV-ITX, Sockel 1155, ITX|€46.19
be quiet! Pure Power L7 530 Watt|€58.29
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€735.92

Personally i would go with bloodbaths suggested build unless you were opting for a smaller build

BloodBath

If you're going to upgrade anything go for the be-quiet system power 7 500w psu instead.

rob_itb

and yes, SSD makes things so much better, areas of gaming where you just accept loading screen times as a given become noticeably less annoying

rob_itb

Recurve360 wrote: »

This would be a better option for an itx build. If you had an extra 100-150 to throw at it you could make a fantastic system. By the way use geizhals.de to save about 30-50 quid on this build which would bring it inside the budget. Much more reliable HDD and processor

Item|Price
BitFenix Prodigy Mini-ITX Gehäuse - schwarz, ohne Netzteil|€69.67
Intel Core i5-3470 Box, LGA1155|€166.85
8GB-Kit Kingston HyperX blu.XMP PC3-12800U CL9-9-9-27|€60.28
LG DH18NS schwarz bare SATA II|€13.45
SanDisk SSD 128GB S-ATA 600|€77.01
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb/s|€56.69
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660 OC Windforce 2X, 2GB GDDR5, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€168.50
ASRock H61MV-ITX, Sockel 1155, ITX|€46.19
be quiet! Pure Power L7 530 Watt|€58.29
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€735.92

Personally i would go with bloodbaths suggested build unless you were opting for a smaller build

I like it, but that isn't a TI 660?

Recurve360

rob_itb wrote: »

I like it, but that isn't a TI 660?

Losing about 10% performance if even. The 660 is still a great card for 1080p. Will play all bar crysis 3 at 40-60 fps on very high or ultra.

By the way, the 750W psu is a waste, your talking about future proofing it. If the upgrades he will have to sell case and mb aswell as itx only has 1 pci slot and cant run dual cards regardless of the power. If upgrading in a few years would be better to sell his old system and just start from scratch.

rob_itb

10%?
almost ~45% on 3dmark11 performance
http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/compare,2932.html?prod%5B5728%5D=on&prod%5B5898%5D=on

it's all about the stream processors, for €20-30 quid extra it has got to be a 660ti over a 660...
The MSI PE 660ti in particular is great value for money, 100mhz higher clock than most 660ti's out of the box meaning no real need to mess around with overclocking it
point taken on future proofing the PSU but not the case/Mobo though

BloodBath

I didn't see this 660ti. The price is crazy good.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=64931&agid=2270

rob_itb

BloodBath wrote: »

I didn't see this 660ti. The price is crazy good.

http://www.hardwareversand.de/articledetail.jsp?aid=64931&agid=2270

wow that's nice

rob_itb

Item|Price
MSI 990FXA-GD65, Sockel AM3+, ATX, PCIe|€106.30
AMD FX-6300 Prozessor, Boxed, Sockel AM3+|€100.37
Corsair Builder Series CX750 80PLUS Bronze, 750W|€79.61
WD Caviar Green 1TB Sata 6Gb/s|€55.65
Samsung SSD 840 EVO Basic 120GB SATA 6Gb/s|€88.62
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 660Ti OC|€179.00
Samsung SH-224DB optical|€17.37
Cooler Master N300, ATX-Midi-Tower|€33.01
8GB-Kit G.Skill RipJaws-X PC3-17066U CL11|€61.89
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€740.81

718.63 with geizhals discount on each item

/stealing that case from bloodbath because it's really nice for the price!

edit: just realized this is a ramless build
added ram

BloodBath

You forgot ram and a cpu cooler.

The board and psu are overkill as well imo as is 2 x 660ti's for 1080p.

rob_itb

BloodBath wrote: »

You forgot ram and a cpu cooler.

The board and psu are overkill as well imo as is 2 x 660ti's for 1080p.

the board and the PSU have some headway for down the line, and 2 660TI's will produce better FPS in most games?
I wish I had known about the price on these 660ti's before I ordered a 770 for €335

edit: boxed version of processor, he shouldn't need to put an aftermarket on it at stock speed should he?

BloodBath

He said he is willing to overclock and would be crazy not to on a 6300. Some games are cpu limited and will greatly benefit from a decent overclock on the 6300. I don't know why you are all pushing itx builds as well.

The prodigy isn't even much smaller than a normal atx cases and pushes the build price up on parts that will give him 0 performance and hardly any room to expand.

There is no need for dual cards for 1080p imo. I'd only recommend them for 1440p+ builds.

Recurve360

I just reccomended it on this as an alternative to rob_itb's itx.

As said in my suggestion personally I would go with your build as you get the best bang for your buck that way

rob_itb

You may be right about the CPU. Not sure why others are pushing ITX, I suggested it because I tend to LAN at friends houses reasonably often and it's nice to have the option if it's something you're in to.

If he never plans to leave the house with his rig then there is no other reason to do this, it's just one option.

For me if you're going full ATX you're better off buying a higher rated PSU because you can upgrade with one less part in mind for the sake of a few €. there's always a point to considering 2 cards not only for 1440p but for the boost in FPS and the ability to run games at higher settings
yes you can say that X card should run Y game at Z settings, but Z can always be higher with an extra card and cards have a tendency to drop in price meaning you can boost your system to nextgen card level by doubling your old card up at a significantly lower price than replacing it with 1 nextgen card. Also covers you for more demanding games in the future

BloodBath

If you need a boost you replace your single card with a newer higher performing one.

If you aren't going dual cards from the get go it's a waste of money paying for a better board and psu especially when your budget isn't that high.

It is a waste for 1080p. Even single mid range cards will run 95% of games at max settings.

rob_itb

yes you can replace your 660ti/670/680 with a 760ti(eventually)/770/780, or you can double your existing for half the price and get more performance than replacing the single card with it's successor.
Crysis 2 max settings, 1080/1440p on a single 660ti? maybe. But at under 30FPS. buy another in 6 months and its >45 FPS for maybe €130 extra? Or replace it with a single 760ti to get the same boost for ~€200-250 extra in 6 months.
I won't say it's definately the way to go always it's very subjective to what is available and costs. It's just flexible to circumstance and most of the time more affordable for the same if not better boosts. Bang for buck etc

BloodBath

Bang for buck doesn't involve adding 150-200w extra power consumption to your pc. Any money saved is lost through electricity costs.

He would be better off putting the extra costs of the psu and board into a better card now. A 7950 would be a better choice although with the 660ti at €180 I don't think it's worth €70 more unless it can be got for a better price elsewhere. Likewise with the 760 which only shows marginal gains over the 660ti.

Also the likes of Crysis 3 and Metro 2033 are exceptions to the rule in most cases. The majority of games are nowhere near as graphically demanding despite looking just as good. Far Cry 3 is a good example of this.

Overspending for the sake of a handful of games makes no sense when you can play these at a perfectly acceptable 30-40 fps while everything else runs at 60fps. You could get 60fps in these with some minor graphics tweaking.

Here's benchmarks for the card. You aren't going to get under 30 fps in Crysis 2. More like 60 fps even with the high res textures. Keep in mind they have 4 x AA enabled for these benchmarks and it still pulls 31 fps in metro 2033. Disabling AA or reducing it to 2x is going to improve the fps a lot. There's overclocking potential with the card as well which is covered in the review as well. Crysis 2 on max settings at a higher res of 1920x1200 with 4 x AA still pulling 60 fps.

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/gigabyte_geforce_gtx_660_ti_windforce_oc_review,20.html

rob_itb

you are right with the power argument regarding electricity bills. Overtime he will lose money for short term gain.
Ye, at 1080p he might get 60 fps at near max settings, but these games are just examples of it's limits right now. In 1-2 years who knows. He can invest more money on the short term for long term savings. or less Money up front to pay for the benefit of it over time.
Maybe he wants max settings at max resolution and maybe paying a little extra on electricity bills over time is more appealing than a bigger short term investment. 1 size does not fit all and it doesn't hurt to have alternatives

BloodBath

He's not going to be struggling to run any games on a 660 ti in 1-2 years time. When he does need more power he can just upgrade to whatever the new price/performance king is for around the same price + get around half the price for his old card. Cheap as chips upgrade.

Next gen consoles aren't exactly wowing me either so I don't see visuals jumping any further than the likes of Crysis 3 anytime soon. Probably not until Crysis 4. These games are more so benchmarks for pc performance rather than the standard though.

Most people don't update their cards every gen. Skipping 2-3 gens so you get a nice big increase in performance is the way to go.

rob_itb

Yes, short term investment for a better card is ideal, some people prefer to get the same or better performance for less initial investment. As I mentioned I bought a single 770, I would get better performance from 2 660ti's at the cost of a little extra electricity,
for me that makes more sense, and maybe for the OP it makes more sense too.
for me <50fps doesn't look right anymore and it doesn't hurt to have more than 1 option to get the gains, everyone is different.

BloodBath

His budget is €700. Dual cards should not even be a consideration in that price bracket.

rob_itb

Yes his budget right now is €700, but he can plan for the future if he has a PSU which can support that now for the sake of an extra ~€20?
I just don't want to be telling him: "This is the way to do it"
The initial questions do not cover every conceivable desire and I just want him to have all the core options and decide what is best for himself.

Recurve360

Can we stop the bickering? Bloodbath has been on this forum for a long time and giving sound advice. He has specced many of the builds people go with on boards.

A PSU isnt a long term investment as a high end system would be replaced within a few years anyway. The longest lasting components of a system will be the Case/ Drive. If your going to spend extra in any one place i would suggest it in a case and not in components. As is it a waste to suggest dual cards in a 700 system. It will last for the next 3 years or so at a 1080p at high settings

If you have any grievances I suggest using a PM or something as you are spoiling the OP's thread.

rob_itb

Recurve360, where did I say he wasn't giving sound advice?
Bloodbath has given excellent advice for the one scenario he is trying to cover, his scenario fits with the information given by the OP.
I'm merely suggesting alternatives which also fit the information given by the OP.
The point of these threads is to help buyers who need guidance to understand there options.
I did not realize this constituted bickering.
If you want to believe that a PSU can't be a long term investment and that cases/drives are the only components worth keeping in a system that choice is yours to make.
But it is possible that other opinions exist and I don't see the harm in buyers being made aware of that, I'm on my 5th build now with some components other than the case/optical drives being reused from builds 2-4.
An example of this is that I am using a 1000w gold rated power supply with a 10 year warranty picked up for 150, this will not be getting replaced many times over the next 10 years for a cheaper, less energy efficient power supply, and will save me a little on the electricity over time.

Planning ahead like this means I had the money needed to invest in a better graphics card for this build and i'm unlikely to ever run into limitations with it.

I'll bow out of this "bickering" now as the purpose of informing the buyer of other options as I see them has been served and I can't see anything positive coming out of continuing to defend my suggestions

BloodBath

I agree with you to a certain degree rob. A good psu is a good investment that will last you many years and builds but with a budget of €700 i don't think going for an sli/crossfire capable board and a more powerful psu is the best way to spend the money.

No harm giving the op options though like you said. Not everybody thinks the same.

Your updated build with the discount is definitely worth considering.

Xyo

Anyways I ordered bloodbaths build.. cheers for all the advice now just have to wait for her to arrive

Xyo

just emailed hwvs asking if I was due any free games and they sent me a code for arkham origins which was pretty sweet!