First Time Build (€600)

Bangadrum

1. What is your budget? €600 but slightly flexible

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming I would like to be able to play games like Arma 3, Dayz, BF4 etc.

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? Mouse

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [Not sure 22" or 24"]

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

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Yes

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay? Credit Card

9. When are you purchasing? 1-2 months

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Dublin

I'm hoping that someone could help me evaluate my current build and suggest the best components that are value for money (p.s. I don't like AMD who have a higher power requirement compared to Intel or so I believe. Im trying to keep the Watts low so the electricity bill will be cheaper)

CPU: Intel Core i5-4590 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler

Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard

Memory: Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 750 2GB Video Card

Case: NZXT Phantom 530 (Black) ATX Full Tower Case

Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

Bangadrum

bump

Digital Solitude

€600 budget? You wont go too far tbh, I'll see what I can throw up. It'll have to be AMD

Bangadrum

Digital Solitude wrote: »

€600 budget? You wont go too far tbh, I'll see what I can throw up. It'll have to be AMD

Thats ok see what you can do because i'm so lost at this stage...
AMD FX 6300 seems to be popular along with the raedon r9 260/280. If I had to go with AMD I reckon they're decent...Thanks for the help!

Digital Solitude

Can you take the monitor out of budget by any chance? Even a middling TV will do for a time

Bangadrum

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Can you take the monitor out of budget by any chance? Even a middling TV will do for a time

Yes you can, as well as peripherals for the moment..
Will need a wireless wifi extension though?

Digital Solitude

Item|Price
8GB DDR3 PC3-12800 CL9 Crucial Ballistix Sport 1600|€€ 58
Seagate Barracuda 7200 1000GB, SATA 6Gb / s|€€ 54
Zalman Z1 Midi Tower - black, without power supply|€€ 29
Thermaltake Hamburg 530W|€€ 46
MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 2G 2GB GDDR5|€€ 219
Intel Core i3-4160 3.6 GHz LGA1150 3MB cache Boxed CPU|€€ 114
MSI H81-P33 ATX LGA 1150|€€ 47
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€585

Much better card that you specced. CPU is obviously weaker but CPU isn't overly important in most games. Don't know much about the case you listen but the Zalman is cheap and cheerful, not a bad case for the price.

And i5 4460 would be optimal here, but set you €40 over budget, so the i3 is definitely good enough for now.
To switch to a Fx 6300 from this would save about €15/20, and give worse performance in a lot of games.

If you can't stretch budget for monitor, get a second hand GTX 960 from Adverts for 190, or a Radeon R9 270X for €160

Digital Solitude

USB wireless card, they're all the same pretty much. Link.

€600 is grand for a PC, but with a monitor you're looking for a sub 500 PC to play decent games at 1080P, which is where the problems start. That PC above should handle everything you throw at it

Bangadrum

How much extra would it be to go for a bigger case like a full size tower and a bigger motherboard? I'm asking because I plan to upgrade this build in the future. Thank you

Digital Solitude

What are you going to be wanting from the new motherboard? SLI?

Mid tower cases are fairly large already, why would you want a larger one?

Bangadrum

Digital Solitude wrote: »

What are you going to be wanting from the new motherboard? SLI?

Mid tower cases are fairly large already, why would you want a larger one?

I'll admit I don't know much about building a computer but the option to continue adding on to the pc would be ideal, like when a better component comes out that I don't have to throw out the motherboard as well as the old graphics card for example. Not that this is the case but I'm thinking further down the road

Digital Solitude

To answer anyways, the cheapest Full Tower case on HWVS is €80, the most are at the €120 and €140 mark.

A motherboard with 2 PCI 3.0x16 slots (the fastest ones), and 4 RAM slots is about €110-130.

You won't need any more than 8gb ram for a little while, and then you can add another 8gb, so unless you plan to SLI or watercool theres no need to change.

The 960 will handle most games no issue for several years. The motherboard chip is spanking new, the current best consumer CPUs will fit the motherboard.

Motherboard is meh, I'll check one out. Case is fine imo

*edit* I don't mean to look ratty, I think I come off as aggressive online...

Bangadrum

Digital Solitude wrote: »

To answer anyways, the cheapest Full Tower case on HWVS is €80, the most are at the €120 and €140 mark.

A motherboard with 2 PCI 3.0x16 slots (the fastest ones), and 4 RAM slots is about €110-130.

You won't need any more than 8gb ram for a little while, and then you can add another 8gb, so unless you plan to SLI or watercool theres no need to change.

The 960 will handle most games no issue for several years. The motherboard chip is spanking new, the current best consumer CPUs will fit the motherboard.

Motherboard is meh, I'll check one out. Case is fine imo

*edit* I don't mean to look ratty, I think I come off as aggressive online...

Its fine I'm total new to this you're coming across very friendly and full of information so no worries

Digital Solitude

I'd recommend getting an i5 4460 for futurproofing then.

Graphics cards are basically universal, so if you needed to you could sell the GTX 960 and upgrade. Whatever you upgrade to will run as well in the current motherboard as it will in a more expensive one. The time for upgrading the GPU will be a year or two down the line, at minimum, so obviously I can't tell you what you'll be upgrading to.

Another futurproofing upgrade would be this PSU. PSUs are easy peasy to upgrade so that shouldn't take priority anyways.

This would be my recommendation for a new motherboard, but as it's way above the I've already specced, I don't think it's worth it. It'll allow for you to use two GPUs at the same time, which isn't important for someone who isn't an enthusiast imo. With your limited budget, this is the order I'd upgrade in.

If it comes to upgrading the motherboard in time anyways, everything I've listed is cross compatible

Bangadrum

I did up this build on a website...

Here it is...

http /pcpartpicker.com/p/gbBj7P

Its a little over budget, but what do you think?

I took a lot of parts from your recommendations thanks for that

SterlingArcher

Digital Solitude wrote: »

*edit* I don't mean to look ratty, I think I come off as aggressive online...

Relax digital You only come across ratty when you are nawing on the dry wall.

Digital Solitude

If you don't want the Zalman get Antec One or Nanoxia DS3 for €45 or €65 respectively. No need in €90 case.

If you're buying from the states, you might get caught with customs, adding at least €150 on. Use hardwareversand.de after geizhals.de discount site.

You're gonna want a bigger PSU if you intend to keep this for upgrades, the Hamburg or Berlin I linked would be better choices.

Given that you're living in Ireland, there probably won't be much of a difference in speed between a USB or PCie Wifi adapter imo. Depends on your speeds though. Cheaper adapter would be adequate anyways

Bangadrum

Digital Solitude wrote: »

If you don't want the Zalman get Antec One or Nanoxia DS3 for €45 or €65 respectively. No need in €90 case.

If you're buying from the states, you might get caught with customs, adding at least €150 on. Use hardwareversand.de after geizhals.de discount site.

You're gonna want a bigger PSU if you intend to keep this for upgrades, the Hamburg or Berlin I linked would be better choices.

Given that you're living in Ireland, there probably won't be much of a difference in speed between a USB or PCie Wifi adapter imo. Depends on your speeds though. Cheaper adapter would be adequate anyways

Thanks very much I think I have a handle on it now just one last thing...

Is their a free extension to translate german to english I haven't a clue whats written on the hardwareversand.de and geizhals.de sites O.o

Digital Solitude

For geizhals you just search the name of whatever you're looking for e.g. "i5 4460" and click on the matching article. Likely the first one. Scroll down until you see the "hardwareversand" button, it's bright red so it stands out, and click it. It'll take you to the discounted hwvs page. Click add to basket and get the next item on geizhals.

On hwvs, you can use google chrome's built in translator, or click the button in the top right hand side that says "Deutch" or whatever German in German is, and then choose English and it'll reload the site for you.

whiteboard

Digital Solitude (replied to my previous posts), Bangadrum both reference

ASRock Z97 Extreme3 (90-MXGU90-A0UAYZ) - geizhals.de (€111,60)
https://geizhals.de/asrock-z97-extreme3-90-mxgu90-a0uayz-a1111282.html

over say the

MSI H97M-G43 (7924-002R) - geizhals.de (€84.72)
https://geizhals.de/msi-h97m-g43-7924-002r-a1111440.html

Interested to find out why ASRock Z97 Extreme3 could be better?

On a path with a similar build based on the i5-4460 and MOBO/PSU are 2 remaining considerations.

Lobbed 2x Crucial Ballistix Sport DIMM 8GB, DDR3-1600, CL9-9-9-24 (BLS8G3D1609DS1S00) as suggested earlier by Digital Solitude in the mix, so thanks for that.
https://geizhals.de/crucial-ballistix-sport-dimm-8gb-bls8g3d1609ds1s00-a723485.html

BTW Thermaltake Germany Series Hamburg 530W ATX 2.3 (W0392RE) is currently in the driving seat in terms of PSU for my build.
https://geizhals.de/thermaltake-germany-series-hamburg-530w-atx-2-3-w0392re-a636302.html

Where I am @ (leaving aside hot topic of case)
Intel Core i5-4460 in-a-Box BX80646I54460 182.89
2x Crucial Ballistix Sport DIMM 8GB, DDR3-1600 BLS8G3D1609DS1S00 117.18
MSI H97M-G43 Intel LGA1150 H97 7924-002R 84.83
Thermaltake Hamburg 530 Watt W0392RE 46.1
Seagate Laptop Thin SSHD 500GB SATA 6GB/s ST500LM000 62.57


Cheers
Whitey

Digital Solitude

The ASRock can be overclocked and has space for a second 3.0 pcie graphics card.

The build you've posted here is fine bar a case

Bangadrum

Item|Price
Intel Core i5-4460 in-a-Box|€€ 183,89
WD Blue 1TB 6Gb's|€€ 53,85
8GB Crucial Ballistix Sport CL9 DDR3 PC3-12800 1600|€€ 61,81
ASRock Z97 Extreme3, Sockel 1150, ATX|€€ 111,42
EVGA GeForce GTX 960 SSC ACX 2.0+, 2GB GDDR5|€€ 220,89
Nanoxia Deep Silence DS 3 Dark Black, ohne Netzteil|€€ 66,63
TP-Link Archer T4U AC1200|€€ 29,90
Corsair CS Series Modular CS550M 550W ATX 2.3|€€ 81,89
Total|€810,28

What do you think of this build?

Digital Solitude

You want to keep a modular PSU I'm guessing? That's very expensive for 550W though I think

Bangadrum

Digital Solitude wrote: »

You want to keep a modular PSU I'm guessing? That's very expensive for 550W though I think

Thats what I was thinking too its very pricey for a power supply but would 550w be enough power?

According to pcpartpicker's website the build is 303w, which is close to my old xbox 360 which I believe is 203w.

Are the advantages of a modular PSU purely cable management?

Digital Solitude

Yeah I had come up with about 300W for this, so a 550W would be grand.

Modular basically means you plug in whatever you want, but with the nanoxia, there's excellent cable management, so all eight cables from my PSU are perfectly hidden with no issues, I don't think there's need in modular unless you're tight for cable management, which you won't be

630W or 600W for €51 or €44 respectively would be worth more bang for your buck imo