Son wants to build his own PC

Spook_ie

OK the lad wants to spend some of his savings and wants to build a reasonable gaming PC. Thoughts are looking at this configuration

HV20Y470DE Intel Core i7-4770 Box, LGA1150 316,99 €
HV1140IYDE Gigabyte B85-HD3, ATX, Sockel 1150 82,99 €
HVALU3Z4DE Kingston 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM XMP HyperX Savage 30,99 €
HVALU3Z4DE Kingston 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 Non-ECC CL9 DIMM XMP HyperX Savage 30,99 €
HV203F43DE Cooler Master K280, Midi-Tower - schwarz 41,99 €
HVR750CDDE Chieftec A-80 CTG-750C 750W ATX 2.3 69,99 €
HV1026KYDE Inno3D iChill GeForce GTX 960 HerculeZ X2, 2GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort 208,99 €
HV13TD10DE Toshiba DT01ACA Series 1TB, SATA 6Gb/s 49,99 €
HV207SX8DE Samsung SH-224DB schwarz 13,99 €

Total value: 876,90 €


Came up with this running to his maximum budget anyone any thoughts or suggestions to this before ordering it

Digital Solitude

Drop the CPU to an i5 4460 and you'll be able to bring the GPU up to a GTX 970, it'll have a massive impact.

I'd do with Antec One or Nanoxia DS3 case. Dropping PSU to 500w will free up some budget for case.

Western Digital Blue or Seagate Barracuda hard drive are most reliable, same price.

Are they single sticks of 4gb RAM or 2x2gb? Crucial Ballistix Sport have an 8gb pack for €52 or so

And get a H97 motherboard, better quality with more features

BloodBath

No need for a H97 board unless you are using RAID setups really.

I agree with the cpu and gpu change though. You could go for the xeon 1231v3 if you wanted the i7 performance for less.

The rest of the suggested changes are good too. Go with a Corsair CX power supply. 500w would be plenty.

Also use geizhals.de to get a discount on hardwareversand.

Spook_ie

OK he likes the idea of upping the GPU ( especially when I told him he can always put an I7 in at a later stage when intel bring out the next ones )

Case, he still like the look of the original

Memory is 2 x 4Gb, but was wondering if there would be a benefit going to 2 x 8Gb?

Motherboard, only thing I think we need is pcie 3 and room for 4 dimms, though I could see the benefit for mirroring the drive at some stage

geizhals.de how does that work? is it a collection of stores if so would that mean more shipping costs?

Digital Solitude

He won't need an i7 for gaming.

Look at reviews for the one you have then, they're more important than how they look.

Mirroring mightn't be a huge deal, BB is probably right with the B85.

2x4gb is ideal, 16gb is overkill for gaming for a few years

Geizhals is an affiliate site. You type the part in, and get a hardwareversand link back, with about 5% off.

He might be able to squeeze in an SSD after geizhals.

Get a good brand for the GPU, gigabyte, MSI, ASUS are ones to start with

BloodBath

Case looks are subjective anyway. Just get one with decent quality and features that he likes the look of if the budget allows.

There's no need for 16gb atm for gaming. You can always add another 8gb later if needed.

I don't think there's a need for RAID on a gaming system. I would however add an SSD. You can get something small for the OS and smaller programs cheaply. Something like this will massively improve the responsiveness and experience of the PC. I wouldn't build a PC without an SSD anymore.

If you just search the part on geizhals and select hardwareversand from the list of sellers you will get a link to the discounted price that you can add to the hwvs cart. You will have to do this manually for every item but it's usually around 5% discount at least.

Spook_ie

Any thoughts on using this motherboard instead?

Digital Solitude

Yeah they're a grand one

sadie9

My son (13) also wants to build a gaming PC. What does this list look to anyone who knows something about it.
Prices I just got approx averages from Geizhals like suggested on here:

Graphics Card: GTx 960 or 950 (€200)
CPU: Intel i5-6600 socket 1151 (€220)
MB: MSi Z170A Krait Gaming (€144)
RAM: 2 x Hybrid Fury 4GB (€40)
Case: NZXT Noctis 450 (€150)
Fans: 140mm Corsair Air spring AF140 LED Fan Quiet Edition 2 x 120mm (€25)
Iy stock cooler? not sure what this is
PSU: EVAGA Supernova 550w Modular (€95)
SSD: Kington 120 GB (€95)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master hyper212 Evo (€30)

Total so far: €999 excluding shipping

SterlingArcher

sadie9 wrote: »

My son (13) also wants to build a gaming PC. What does this list look to anyone who knows something about it.
Prices I just got approx averages from Geizhals like suggested on here:

Graphics Card: GTx 960 or 950 (€200)
CPU: Intel i5-6600 socket 1151 (€220)
MB: MSi Z170A Krait Gaming (€144)
RAM: 2 x Hybrid Fury 4GB (€40)
Case: NZXT Noctis 450 (€150)
Fans: 140mm Corsair Air spring AF140 LED Fan Quiet Edition 2 x 120mm (€25)
Iy stock cooler? not sure what this is
PSU: EVAGA Supernova 550w Modular (€95)
SSD: Kington 120 GB (€95)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master hyper212 Evo (€30)

Total so far: €999 excluding shipping

95 for a 120 gb ssd? Can't be right. Pretty sure you can get a 250 gb one.

Too much money on case and psu that could be better spent on a better graphics card.

A decent 500w psu will run you about 50-60.

You'll get a good case for 60-70

Put the extra money into a better graphics card.

Actually the motherboard is also over priced not necessary for gaming experience.

Squaredude

sadie9 wrote: »

My son (13) also wants to build a gaming PC. What does this list look to anyone who knows something about it.
Prices I just got approx averages from Geizhals like suggested on here:

Graphics Card: GTx 960 or 950 (€200)
CPU: Intel i5-6600 socket 1151 (€220)
MB: MSi Z170A Krait Gaming (€144)
RAM: 2 x Hybrid Fury 4GB (€40)
Case: NZXT Noctis 450 (€150)
Fans: 140mm Corsair Air spring AF140 LED Fan Quiet Edition 2 x 120mm (€25)
Iy stock cooler? not sure what this is
PSU: EVAGA Supernova 550w Modular (€95)
SSD: Kington 120 GB (€95)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master hyper212 Evo (€30)

Total so far: €999 excluding shipping

CPU: Intel Core I5-6600, Sockel 1151 221,99 €
MB: ASRock B150M PRO4S, Sockel 1151, mATX, DDR4 77,99 €
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - Intel/AMD 32,99 €
Ram: 8GB Crucial DDR4 2133 MT/s DIMM 288pin DR x8 unbuffered 37,99 €
Case: Corsair Carbide Series SPEC-03 mit roten LED, ohne Netzteil 61,99 €
PSU: Corsair Builder Serie CX600 V3 Non-Modular 80+ Bronze, 600 Watt 73,99 €
GPU: MSI GTX 970 4GD5T OC334,99 €
SSD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO SATA 6Gb/s 250 GB 84,99 €

Total value: 926,92 €

sadie9

Thanks for those recommendations.
He particularly wanted that case he listed.
Also he said he would use the stock cooler but he wants to overclock it.
He specified a better quality power source in case he upgrades something later.

Digital Solitude

He can't ovelclock the 6600 anyways, so it doesn't matter what board he buys, he's better going cheap there

If he wants the best gaming PC he can buy, go with Sterlings advice, if he wants something he can piss around with, he'll get less performance, he's going to have to specify that.

Quality of a PSU doesn't matter for what you put into it, the 600w Sterling has listed is cheaper and will run more, though neither will be pushed

TerrorFirmer

Your sons build would trail way behind what the lads are suggesting.

It's up to him but a 1K build with a GTX950 or 960 is ridiculous.

These days any i5 processors do not need overclocking, the graphics card is the bottleneck in all scenarios.

If he insists on blowing a huge portion of the budget on an expensive motherboard, totally overkill power supply etc, he will end with a 1K pc with 500 euro performance.

Squaredude's proposed build would be almost 100% faster than your sons build in games. You're talking 1080p mid-high settings 60fps vs 1080p ultra settings 100fps.

sadie9

My mistake, he means the i5-6600k. It is a steep learning curve for us that's why we are taking our time doing a lot of research first.
If something doesn't make sense then it's good to know the theory of why exactly that is.

Digital Solitude

Yeah as Terror says, there's no need in overclocking the i5, the money is better spent elsewhere

Eoinmc97

Guys, one thing I must say on case aesthetics, is that's what some want. I wanted a H440, not for the storage upgrades but for the design.
A case is an investment, you might never upgrade it in your lifetime if you pick a case with all the features you could ever need. So, even if the GPU suffers, the next upgrade won't.
A case is the thing you show to friends. The first they see (or hear) is the case. Not the GPU. Not the CPU, which are obviously the core aspects of a gaming PC.
"Hey this is my PC. Ignore the case. Someone on a website picked it for me."

The Noctis is expensive. Definitely, but it also adds excellent storage, cooling and accoustic performance. Your investment will stand 5+ years down the line (the average time between upgrades according to Tom's Hardware)

As for the rest of the build, try this one for size:
Core i5 6400: €180
MSI Z170A PC-Mate: €110
8GB DDR4 2400MHz RAM: €45
AMD R9 380X: €230
1TB HDD: €45
240GB Crucial BX200 SSD: €65
600CX Corsair PSU: €65
NZXT Noctis 450: €140
Total: €910
You could buff the 280X upto a 390 for an extra €100, but for 1080p gaming, the 380X is great.