€2000 Gaming only Build

KpsCowley

Hello,

This is a build for a friend of mine. The desktop will be used for gaming only. His requirements are to run 1080p at a solid 60fps, and a large storage capacity (small SSD + 3tb hard disk).

I can put the parts together, but have no clue how to go about picking the right ones!!! So any help would be much appreciated. I have used hardwareversand.de previously and know about the discount method etc.

Thanks


1. What is your budget? €2000

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer?

Gaming (GTA V, Battlefield 4, Civ 5, Batman Arkham knight)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? Yes, Windows 8

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? No

5. Do you need a monitor? Yes

5a. If yes, what size do you need. Yes, 24 Inch 1080p

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? Yes, Keyboard (basic mechanical), mouse (Logitech G400S), mouse pad, speakers, CD drive, card reader and wifi card.

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay?

Bank Transfer, Mastercard

9. When are you purchasing?

Within the next month.

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? Can build myself.

Serephucus

With €2,000 you should be looking at at least a 2560 class monitor, so 2560x1440, 2560x1600 or 3840x2160 if you'd like an ultrawide one. I'm not one to usually say this (in fact, I usually say the opposite) but you should really be looking at higher than 1080p with that budget.

As for a full spec, I'm a bit busy at the moment, though I'm sure one of the lads will get to you soon enough. Rough guide:

X99 w/5820K (should be able to manage it), SLI 970s, 16GB RAM type thing, or you could go Z97 and maybe high-end AIO or something.

Digital Solitude

Item|Price
ASRock Z97 Extreme3, LGA 1150, ATX|€€ 115
2 x MSI Gaming R9 290 4G with MANTLE and Gaming Evolved client, 4GB DDR5|€€ 613
Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 Box, LGA1150|€€ 261
be quiet! SYSTEM POWER 700W 7 - bulk -|€€ 85
8GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9|€€ 56
Crucial 128GB SSD MX100 2.5 "(7mm)|€€ 65
Crucial 256GB SSD MX100 2.5 "(7mm)|€€ 97
Samsung SH-224DB black|€€ 12
Akasa AK-ICR-07 Internal 6-Port Card Reader with USB 3.0, 8,89cm (3.5 ")|€€ 14
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€€ 12
Seagate SV35 3TB SATA 6Gb of Use|€€ 116
Nanoxia Deep Silence DS 3 Dark Black, without power supply|€€ 66
BenQ RL2455HM|€€ 161
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€1700

What do you think of that Sere? CF 290's, only a 1080p monitor however. Z97 Xeon too

EDIT- 2 SSDs as one for boot and one for games, Xeon would have been my first instinct for CPU. Left €300 for mech keyboard (80-100 I suppose?), the mouse he wants is 60 from amazon.de, and then 150 or so from speakers

kenyard

is there really a point in such power with only a 1080p monitor?

Digital Solitude

Mine was a reference build I was too lazy to change. 1 290 with a 1440p monitor is what I would recommend... Probably should change that table

KpsCowley

Thanks guys for all the responses. Is there really much difference between the 1080 and the 1440?

Digital Solitude

Bit of a one. A 144hz monitor might be a good bet either, they're about 350-400 at 1080p

KpsCowley

Ok so he wants to go for the 1440 build.

Just a few additional questions:

Do you recommend only one R9 290?
Would 8GB RAM be enough?
Could you recommend a 1440 monitor?
Would additional cooling fans be needed?
How many SATA cables would be needed?

Thanks again for the help

Digital Solitude

Yes.
Yes.
I can't, there's a thread on 27" Korean 1440p IPS monitors on Boards if he'd be interested, I don't know **** about monitors though.
No.
4, there's two with the motherboard so he'll need two more.

Is an optical drive necessary?

Digital Solitude

Item|Price
8GB Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9|€€ 59
Crucial 256GB SSD MX100 2.5 "(7mm)|€€ 99
Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 Box, LGA1150|€€ 274
Nanoxia Deep Silence DS 3 Dark Black, without power supply|€€ 70
ASRock Z97 Extreme3, LGA 1150, ATX|€€ 118
R9290 ASUS DirectCU II 4GD5-DC2OC-OC with MANTLE and Gaming Evolved client, 2x DVI, HDMI, DisplayPort|€€ 296
SanDisk X110 128GB SSD 6.4 cm (2.5 ") SATA 6Gb / s 19 nm MLC bulk|€€ 65
Samsung SH-224DB black|€€ 12
Akasa AK-ICR-07 Internal 6-Port Card Reader 8,89cm (3.5 "), black|€€ 10
TP-Link TL-WN781N, 150Mbps, PCIe x1|€€ 13
Seagate SV35 3TB SATA 6Gb of Use|€€ 119
Thermaltake 630W Berlin|€€ 55
2 x Good Connection GC-0151 cable, SATA 6 Gb / s, with locking, 0,5m, angled, yellow|€€ 5
Shipping|€18.99
Total|€NaN

1200 without a geizhals.de discount. Far more balanced build than above :pac:
The 290 rivals a GTX 980 at 1440p, while being €250 cheaper. PSU is more than needed, leaves room for upgrades, as does the motherboard. CPU is essentially an i7, without onboard graphics. €800 for mouse, keyboard, monitor and speakers/headphones.

KpsCowley

Great,

Thanks a million Digital Solitude for all your help!

Now its time to order this beast

KpsCowley

Any opinions on changing the GPU for this build to a GTX970 instead of the R9 290?

http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-290X-vs-GeForce-GTX-970

Digital Solitude

Stick with the 290 if he's getting a 1440p monitor.

delly

As a matter of interest, why only 8gb? While I may not be up to speed on the latest build recommendations, my build 4 years ago had 8gb, which I would see as entry level these days. I got a new laptop before Christmas with 16gb, so would be recommending at least that in this case.

Digital Solitude

Because no game requires 8gb. The Witcher 3 is the first game I've seen the even require 6.

delly

Gta v has 8gb recommended, but aside from games, Windows itself would benefit. It is such a low price point, and with the board having 2x2 channel, I think it is short sighted not to get 16gb when the budget is not being stretched. Future proofing within reason would be a secondary objective where possible on a build imho.

Shiminay

With that sorta budget, is there anything to be said for one of the monitors that supports either FreeSync or G-Sync?

wotzgoingon

Would he not be better off getting a 290x since he has the money?

David Maye

With that type of cash I would go for the fastest single graphic card not sli
and a 4k monitor. and a Intel 750 NVME SSD PCi with a x99 mobo. Asus are bringing out some new high res and high refresh rate IPS monitors soon I would hang fire till the reviews come out.
I am only thinking why choose yesterdays technology with that amount of money I would go with tomorrows tech and NVME SSD Is one of the the way forward 6Gb transfer speeds we only get 6Mb through Sata at the moment,this drive is lightning fast
Just my thoughts.
Regards.

Ps AMD R9 295X2 All though this is classed as an sli set up, but it is fast and is dirt cheap at the mo and it will run 4k I am more of a Nvidia fan boy myself.

Serephucus

To be honest, with this sort of budget there are a lot of options to go for. OP needs to figure out exactly what he's going to be doing with this, and what he wants from it.

Just some thoughts:
Single GPU and 4K is silly. Nothing (that makes sense to buy) can drive 4K properly, don't bother with it.
While NVME would be nice, in practice it doesn't help much. You'll also pay an arm for it. The lower latency is nicer than the raw speeds anyway.
Since you do have this budget, it might be worth waiting for the 390X/980Ti, as they're supposedly only a month or so out.
A *Sync monitor would also be an interesting option, though would consume a hefty chunk of the budget.

SterlingArcher

Serephucus wrote: »

To be honest, with this sort of budget there are a lot of options to go for. OP needs to figure out exactly what he's going to be doing with this, and what he wants from it.

Just some thoughts:
Single GPU and 4K is silly. Nothing (that makes sense to buy) can drive 4K properly, don't bother with it.
While NVME would be nice, in practice it doesn't help much. You'll also pay an arm for it. The lower latency is nicer than the raw speeds anyway.
Since you do have this budget, it might be worth waiting for the 390X/980Ti, as they're supposedly only a month or so out.
A *Sync monitor would also be an interesting option, though would consume a hefty chunk of the budget.

This.h

David Maye

Serephucus wrote: »

To be honest, with this sort of budget there are a lot of options to go for. OP needs to figure out exactly what he's going to be doing with this, and what he wants from it.

Just some thoughts:
Single GPU and 4K is silly. Nothing (that makes sense to buy) can drive 4K properly, don't bother with it.
While NVME would be nice, in practice it doesn't help much. You'll also pay an arm for it. The lower latency is nicer than the raw speeds anyway.
Since you do have this budget, it might be worth waiting for the 390X/980Ti, as they're supposedly only a month or so out.
A *Sync monitor would also be an interesting option, though would consume a hefty chunk of the budget.

The price of the Intel 400Gb NVME SSD was quoted by Intel as only $389 which works out nearly the same as a normal ssd, not an arm or a leg, why have Mutton when you can have Lamb;)
Regards.

Lu Tze

David Maye wrote: »

The price of the Intel 400Gb NVME SSD was quoted by Intel as only $389 which works out nearly the same as a normal ssd, not an arm or a leg, why have Mutton when you can have Lamb;)
Regards.

ON amazon ~€470 for 400 GB.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Series-SSDPEDMW400G401/dp/B00VPK0NSI/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1430739807&sr=8-6&keywords=intel+nvme

Crucial BX100 ~ €190 for 500gb

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-BX100-2-5-Inch-Internal-Solid-x/dp/B00RQA6M5Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1430739908&sr=8-2&keywords=crucial+bx100

It would be a nice to have sure, but i dont see any value for a gaming machine. Could be worth its weight in gold if you are running queries and lots of read/writes in huge databases and similar, saving yourself hours and hours, but i see no value for a gaming machine over a standard SSD.

David Maye

I for one have a gaming machine and as a boot drive it would be totally awesome.
The speed of boot up times widows running faster than you can click your mouse.
Games loading quicker than you can blink.
NVMe is one of the biggest leap forwards in Computer Tech in years.
It makes the standard ssd look like a mechanical hard drive.
I bet most people on here have an ssd for a boot drive and/or for games.
Why?
Because it is faster.
We have one bottleneck at the moment and that is Sata, NVMe does away with this.
If you read the reviews it's the biggest thing since ice cubes.
Sata ssd's by the end of the year will be old hat.
Why drive a 1.3 Micra when you can have a F1 for a similar price.
Regards

Digital Solitude

Its almost double the price, which doesn't bring double the performance iirc. In a gaming build €100 towards a GPU will have a much greater benefit that €100 towards slightly reduced load and wait times

David Maye

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Its almost double the price, which doesn't bring double the performance iirc. In a gaming build €100 towards a GPU will have a much greater benefit that €100 towards slightly reduced load and wait times

Double the price of what?

6MB through SATa
6Gb though NVMe, that when I went to school is more than double, you work out the maths.

I bought a Samsung 500 EVO for more than an Intel 750 NVMe a few months ago.
You do not need to be an early adopter for new tech, as with anything that comes out it will be cheaper when the other company's start producing in mass numbers which they will.
Asus for one have NVMe connectivity already in place on their new motherboards.
Don't tell me they are putting it there for effect.
Regards.

KpsCowley

Hi Guys,

The last few comments have been a good read, I never knew about NVME, 6GB transfer speed would be unreal!

This build is only for gaming. We are going to stick with the 1440p monitor. We were also talking about upping the GPU from the R9 290 to the GTX 980, that would push the overall budget up by €260 to a total of aprox €2200. And also putting the RAM to 16GB for a little future proofing.

Do you guys think these are worthwhile changes?

Digital Solitude

Not the 980. If he's willing to pay for it then I can't fault the other changes you want.

AMD cards are better at higher resolutions, and scale better than nVidia cards in dual card set ups, so I recommend sticking with a 290 or 290x

EoinHef

But its not at a similar price? Its a lot more expensive for something thats of little benefit to a gaming rig. Slightly faster load times would be great but not at 2.5X the price,in my opinion anyway.

Where are you getting 6mb/s for sata? Sata 3 is 6gb/s. In reality i know it rarely achieves that speed but its certainly a hell of a lot faster than 6mb/s

Digital Solitude

Lu Tze wrote: »

ON amazon ~€470 for 400 GB.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Intel-Solid-State-Drive-Series-SSDPEDMW400G401/dp/B00VPK0NSI/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1430739807&sr=8-6&keywords=intel+nvme

Crucial BX100 ~ €190 for 500gb

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-BX100-2-5-Inch-Internal-Solid-x/dp/B00RQA6M5Y/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1430739908&sr=8-2&keywords=crucial+bx100

David Maye wrote: »

Double the price of what?

You appear to have missed that, well over double the cost, for good performance gains I'll admit, but not enough to justify the price difference. It's certainly nowhere near the gap between HDDs and SATA SSDs like you seen to think.

David Maye

KpsCowley wrote: »

Hi Guys,

The last few comments have been a good read, I never knew about NVME, 6GB transfer speed would be unreal!

This build is only for gaming. We are going to stick with the 1440p monitor. We were also talking about upping the GPU from the R9 290 to the GTX 980, that would push the overall budget up by €260 to a total of aprox €2200. And also putting the RAM to 16GB for a little future proofing.

Do you guys think these are worthwhile changes?

I think there is nothing wrong with your choice in fact it will be awesome.
I run a Rog Swift 1440p /144 refresh rate and find it is brilliant even for a TN Monitor and it's so smooth in game.
Your card is is also brilliant with much better drivers from Nvidia than AMD like I said earlier, I am a Nvidia fan boy at heart.
Just make sure your Mobo gives support for the NVMe to future proof yourself as you have done with your Ram.
You won't be disappointed happy building KpsCowley
Regards.

Ps My specs are,

Asus Rampage Black A/C Mobo

Intel 4930K cpu

32 Gb Corsair 1866 MHz Dominator Ram

Titan X2 in SLi

EoinHef

KpsCowley wrote: »

Hi Guys,

The last few comments have been a good read, I never knew about NVME, 6GB transfer speed would be unreal!

This build is only for gaming. We are going to stick with the 1440p monitor. We were also talking about upping the GPU from the R9 290 to the GTX 980, that would push the overall budget up by €260 to a total of aprox €2200. And also putting the RAM to 16GB for a little future proofing.

Do you guys think these are worthwhile changes?

Personally i wouldnt go past a 290X or a 970 for 1440p. The price/performance really drops off after that.

One 290X or a 970 would be fine for 1440p,wont be maxing every single game but most will run with high settings at 60fps

David Maye

EoinHef wrote: »

But its not at a similar price? Its a lot more expensive for something thats of little benefit to a gaming rig. Slightly faster load times would be great but not at 2.5X the price,in my opinion anyway.

Where are you getting 6mb/s for sata? Sata 3 is 6gb/s. In reality i know it rarely achieves that speed but its certainly a hell of a lot faster than 6mb/s

Sorry I was in a rush to go out so i got my Gb's screwed up.

Sata3 6Gb/s = 600 Mb/s on average. ( s is for seconds )

NVMe over 4 PCi Lanes 32Gb/s = 4Gb/s again average.

Hope that clears that up sorry for that.
Regards.

Lu Tze

David Maye wrote: »

Sorry I was in a rush to go out so i got my Gb's screwed up.

Sata3 6Gb/s = 600 Mb/s on average. ( s is for seconds )

NVMe over 4 PCi Lanes 32Gb/s = 4Gb/s again average.

Hope that clears that up sorry for that.
Regards.

Great! Now throw up some numbers on the benefit for gaming? The percentage and actual time saved on loading games?

The tech is great, for certain uses. I see it as a waste if you can't or are not utilising the benefit.

The ssd benefit for me over hard drives is the access times. Not read and write performance per se.I have an Kingston ssd from a few years ago, and don't notice an really difference in snappyness and response with the newer crucial, samsung and Kingston's ssds I have.

Probably much faster with sustained reads and writes, buy on day to day nothing noticeable.

Total anathema probably to tech enthusiasts but my ssd criteria are reliability, price and then performance, as I find the performance difference negligible for what I do.

David Maye

Lu Tze wrote: »

Great! Now throw up some numbers on the benefit for gaming? The percentage and actual time saved on loading games?

The tech is great, for certain uses. I see it as a waste if you can't or are not utilising the benefit.

The ssd benefit for me over hard drives is the access times. Not read and write performance per se.I have an Kingston hard drive from a few years ago, and don't notice an really difference in snappyness and response with the newer crucial, samsung and Kingston's ssds I have.

Probably much faster with sustained reads and writes, buy on day to day nothing noticeable.

Total anathema probably to tech enthusiasts but my ssd criteria are reliability, price and then performance, as I find the performance difference negligible for what I do.[/QUOT

Oh my god, if your happy with your ssd's then i am more than happy for you.
I am happy with mine too but there is something better around the corner there always is
I came on here to spread the word not to squabble over what you do on your Computer no one is asking or telling you to buy it. I am just letting people know that it's out there now.The price of this drive and many more like it will end up the same price as your ssd's and mine in the not to distant future.
Regards

Asmooh

if you have 2k to spend why only 8gb? doesnt make sense

Lu Tze

Apologies, i think i may have driving the OPs thread off topic earlier.

To bring it back on topic, given a budget like that i would probably go for something like this (not run through geizhels).




If i didnt need it for anything except gaming, i would try to cut back a little on motherboard, cpu, ram and squeeze in a 34" monitor(there's a relatively cheap one on hardwareversand) and second 290, or a single 295x.