This is my first PC build. I need help!

DMcDonagh

I'm currently doing some research about what parts would be perfect for my use of the PC I'm building. I will be using it everyday for: graphic design (photoshop mainly), watching videos on YouTube, watching streams on Twitch, playing 'some' games (Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty: World at War, Football Manager 2016, and maybe a few small games in the future) My budget is 700 including the monitor, keyboard and mouse. I would prefer 8GB RAM and 1TB and to look at 'hardwareversand' for parts first, thanks!

Digital Solitude

Is it pissing about in photoshop or heavily taxing stuff?

Wright

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Is it pissing about in photoshop or heavily taxing stuff?

Not really super important IMO; you either are or aren't using Photoshop :pac: that's from the perspective of someone whose been using it 10+ years.

OP, I recommend you go with a build that has no graphics card. If you're only doing light gaming, integrated graphics will do you fine. I've been using my processor's iGPU for about two months now and I got very decent performance out of it. Around 24-30fps in Alien:Isolation on Ultra, 60fps in Rocket League with post processing turned off, etc. My cpu is the i5 6600k for reference, but you can save some cash going for the non-k version and corresponding motherboard. Photoshop will fly, as will watching vids online. It'll keep things in budget while also making the PC as future proofed and upgradeable as possible. I really would not go under an i5 though. Maybe you could drop down to a 6500 even.

Hardwareversand is unfortunately gone, unless they've made some kind of a comeback. amazon.es, amazon.it, amazon.fr and sometimes amazon.de are your best best. The pound has taken a hit recently but unless there's a crazy deal going best not to be buying in pounds anyway.

My recommendation is gonna be;

http://www.amazon.es/Intel-BX80662I56500-Procesador-1151-i5-6500/dp/B010T6CWI2/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1456191418&sr=8-3&keywords=6600

http://www.amazon.es/HyperX-Fury-HX421C14FB-Memoria-compatible/dp/B00TY6A56U/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1456191515&sr=8-1&keywords=ddr4 (still weirded out by one stick, but apparently we've decided there are no benefits to more...)

http://www.amazon.es/ASUS-H170M-PLUS-Placa-Socket-DDR4x4/dp/B014QPF8KG/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1456191641&sr=8-4&keywords=h170 (I'm using the Z-variant of this, no issues, but maybe someone has a suggestiion with more features.)

http://www.amazon.es/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-Evo/dp/B0068OI7T8/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1456191725&sr=8-3&keywords=cpu+cooler (honestly a pain in the butt to install and I didn't like it personally, but it has near legendary status for performance/euro.)

http://www.amazon.es/SanDisk-Ultra-II-interno-lectura/dp/B00M8ABEIM/ref=sr_1_8?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1456191884&sr=1-8&keywords=ssd (Definitely recommend an SSD as a boot drive; just very very fast to start. My PC is in Windows ready to go before my monitor can turn on...)

http://www.amazon.fr/HGST-Travelstar-0J22423-interne-portable/dp/B00B4QESVQ/ref=sr_1_2?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1456192109&sr=1-2&keywords=hgst (Also fast, bigger capacity like you want)

And then at least an 80-plus bronze power supply and cheapest case possible. Cheapest monitor you can find in Argos; I have an Acer that was like 130 from there and its a fine panel. Then 15 on a cheap mouse/keyboard combo, if you become a counterstrike god and need expensive gamer gear later you can just upgrade.

That's a bit too much over 700 I think, might need something shaved off, maybe ditch the SSD, you can always get one later.

Digital Solitude

Well like if he's doing high res raw processing (I think that's a thing) hell want a Xeon or i7 with a good 16gb RAM, if it's a past time that's not super important then an i5 with 8gb is often enough.

Definitely get a GPU for gaming if you want AAA games, if the ones you've listed are as taxing as it'll get you'll be fine.

i5 6600 €250
H110 board €70
16gb DDR4 €100
500w PSU €60
Case €70
2tb WD Red €90
250gb SSD €90
Total €730 there

If you're getting a Non-K processor, which is all you'll need IMO, there's no need in a new cooler, especially the heartbreak of installing a Hyper Evo 212

If you want a GPU, a GTX 950 will be good for most heavy games, at €160 or so, a R9 380 is about €240 and a strong card, and an R9 390 is one of the top consumer cards, will play anything well for about €350.

That's just three reasonable cards in their price range, depends how much you'll invest in one really.

As above, Amazon are good for parts, mind factory.de is very well priced too, steep delivery though.

Wright

I'd have to disagree on a Xeon even if he's a Pulitzer winning photographer :P I don't recommend Xeon's personally unless you're doing serious movie editing/code compiling. I feel people jump to suggesting Xeon's rather quickly... also for 700, a Xeon build ain't happening IMO.

I avoided a WD suggestion because WD now seem to be in the news for similar failure rates we're used to seeing from Seagate. Also aren't reds for NAS? He should be going with blues no?

Is H110 the classification for Skylake? Shouldn't it be 170?
I'd also hope he could get a cheap crappy case for about half that...

Serephucus

H110 is the lower-tier Skylake chipset.
He absolutely can get an ok case for €35 or so.
Reds are billed as NAS drives, yes, but they're also generally (supposed to be) more reliable than Blues or Greens.
(If he wants super-duper reliability, then there should always be more than one drive in the equation)

challengemaster

Wright wrote: »

Not really super important IMO; you either are or aren't using Photoshop :pac: that's from the perspective of someone whose been using it 10+ years.

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Well like if he's doing high res raw processing (I think that's a thing) hell want a Xeon or i7 with a good 16gb RAM, if it's a past time that's not super important then an i5 with 8gb is often enough.

Not really true though on either account. Using it for minor stuff which is only a few layers such as basic retouching (which most people do), and keeping the majority of work in lightroom doesn't require that much of a hefty build.

If you start getting into proper compositing - then you need a beefier system to handle it (to a certain extent) if you don't want to sit there all day waiting.

Personally I've used pano-portraits to create normal aspect ratio landscape shots before, but with much greater detail (and obviously much greater file sizes when stacking RAWs). Largest shot personally was 50 portrait RAW files stacked to form the base image. Then another ~10-15 adjustment layers for editing. Final file size is 3.37gb - in fact it can't be saved as a .PSD anymore it's so large. Needed to be a .psb.

The fun factoid about this though, is that I edited it entirely using my 2012 macbook pro retina. Specs are a 2012 i5, 8gb DDR3 and a 128gb SSD. No dedicated graphics (Intel HD Graphics 4000)

Did it take a while for certain steps (pano stitching, saving, opening) - absolutely - that's expected though. Was it crazy unusable times? Nope. Could it handle it in a reasonable manner? Yes.

And that's on the very, very far end of the spectrum where most people will never even approach using that amount of processing power or RAM. I'm with Wright on this one - there's absolutely no need for an i7/Xeon in a build for photoshop. (Having 16gb ram is useful though, even if you don't hit it in PS, it's sub-applications like Bridge definitely benefit from it)

Digital Solitude

I can't stress enough that I don't know a damn thing about photo editing, I'm just running off the info I pick up here :pac:

Eoinmc97

Basically DS, photo and video editing likes to have faster speeds over more cores than games, which prefere 1-3 fast cores. That's why the AMD FX-8350 beats Haswell Core i5's in multi-threaded applications (although, only by about 15%)
The low end Xeons are actually stuck in the middle. Slower cores, but many threads. That's where the higher end Xeons step in with drastically higher thread counts to compensate for this.

A strong GPU isn't required until large resolutions come into play. Actually, a Core i5 Broadwell might be perfect for the OP, as it includes the Iris Pro graphics. Light gaming can be done on the Iris, so this is where I would go. Hop on the Z97 platform (it offers a good base for storage and RAID upgrades, aswell as PCIE lanes for GPUs).

Wright

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

A strong GPU isn't required until large resolutions come into play. Actually, a Core i5 Broadwell might be perfect for the OP, as it includes the Iris Pro graphics. Light gaming can be done on the Iris, so this is where I would go. Hop on the Z97 platform (it offers a good base for storage and RAID upgrades, aswell as PCIE lanes for GPUs).

The budget is 700 though; Broadwell is more expensive no? The newest integrated on Skylake is perfectly fine for light gaming; I can attest to this myself. Heroes of the Storm on High, Black Mesa on high, Bioshock 2 on high, all at good fps, 40+.

Eoinmc97

Yes, but broadwell well alleviate the need of a GPU for a while, whilst the OP can save for a DGPU later.
I mean, it costs;
Core i5 5565C: €255
Z97 Board: €90
16 GB DDR3 RAM: €65
500W PSU (for future upgrade): €60
Nice case: €70+

Wright

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

Yes, but broadwell well alleviate the need of a GPU for a while

Not for any longer than a 6600K would (did you even read my post?), and Broadwell is an architecture behind Skylake, doesn't have DDR4 support etc. Broadwell is also about 60 quid more expensive than a Skylake i5, not 10.

Eoinmc97

Wright wrote: »

Not for any longer than a 6600K would (did you even read my post?), and Broadwell is an architecture behind Skylake, doesn't have DDR4 support etc. Broadwell is also about 60 quid more expensive than a Skylake i5, not 10.

Core i5 6600K: €247
Core i5 5665C: €255
Don't know what prices your checking.
The Iris Pro trumps EVERY integrated GPU, meaning that you would see more life out of the Broadwell GPU. Whilst Broadwell falls an architecture behind, Intel's progress has been slow lately, but it is still a 14nm CPU.
Not to mention, a kit of 16GB DDR3 runs €15 cheaper than the same DDR4 kit. Also, Z97 boards run cheaper than Z170 boards.

The OP just needs to decide how long he can wait without a dGPU, and if storage options through PCIE are important to them.

TerrorFirmer

The Iris Pro is miles better, but realistically he can just add a €100 GTX750 if he wants to down the line, and the performance is obviously well clear of any integrated solution.

Skylake is a newer platform and has DDR4 support, for the sake of a few euro I would have to also back that option.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Call of Duty: World at War, Football Manager 2016

Hardly the most taxing, Skylake iGpu will be fine for now, can add a discrete down the line.

Wright

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

Core i5 6600K: €247
Core i5 5665C: €255
Don't know what prices your checking.
The Iris Pro trumps EVERY integrated GPU, meaning that you would see more life out of the Broadwell GPU. Whilst Broadwell falls an architecture behind, Intel's progress has been slow lately, but it is still a 14nm CPU.
Not to mention, a kit of 16GB DDR3 runs €15 cheaper than the same DDR4 kit. Also, Z97 boards run cheaper than Z170 boards.

The OP just needs to decide how long he can wait without a dGPU, and if storage options through PCIE are important to them.

You can't even get the product code right mate, never mind the price. Just checked all continental european amazons. Nowhere is it going for that price, and the 6600K is much cheaper in every case too.

Why are you suggesting DDR3 in a new rig? I wouldn't buy DDR2 now, that'll be the scenario in about a year for DDR3. Not to mention, if and when it comes the day to build again, he can re-use the sticks if he goes with DDR4.

The 6600K is perfectly fine for the games that he plays. Going with the 5675c is overkill for his needs and gimps his system in the long run. Iris Pro cpu's are suited more for laptops, and prebuilt/self-built HTPC's.

Eoinmc97

Wright wrote: »

You can't even get the product code right mate, never mind the price. Just checked all continental european amazons. Nowhere is it going for that price, and the 6600K is much cheaper in every case too.

Why are you suggesting DDR3 in a new rig? I wouldn't buy DDR2 now, that'll be the scenario in about a year for DDR3. Not to mention, if and when it comes the day to build again, he can re-use the sticks if he goes with DDR4.

The 6600K is perfectly fine for the games that he plays. Going with the 5675c is overkill for his needs and gimps his system in the long run. Iris Pro cpu's are suited more for laptops, and prebuilt/self-built HTPC's.

Mate, you check Amazon for CPUs? And sorry about the name, that's Intel's mobile chip flagship found in the Macbook and other Ultrabooks. But ahm, the price is well within range of the 6600K. Your savings will be found on Z97 and H97 boards, aswell as DDR3 kits, which honestly, offer no virtual performance losses to DDR4. That right there could be put to either saving for a GPU or even getting a cooler, so the OP can overclock or just run quieter.
The reason why you wouldn't buy DDR2, is because you would be hard pressed to find a CPU and Mobo to go with them, that is not second hand (and I don't think anyone wants to risk having a 2nd hand CPU and Mobo). You are also assuming DDR4 will stay as long as DDR3 did. In reality, Micron and Crucial are now beginning works on the next gen of DDR, not only GDDR5X as some people have mistaken. So, those who own a 2500K haven't found a need to upgrade yet in performance terms (outside of maybe, Arma 3 and Cities Skyline) and still use DDR3. And besides, Broadwell eDRAM CPUs top benchmarks due to that cache they have, so I don't know how Broadwell is gimping him (albeit a Core i7 is pointless for gaming)
This thread is about getting options for the OP, so they can decide. You would build Skylake with a 6600K. I would build with a 6400, and put the savings into a GPU. But we aren't the OP. TerrorFirmer has even suggested getting a GTX 750, which could tie them over for when Polaris/Pascal launches. We haven't touched on FX CPUs (mainly because the supposed DX12 benefits are too far off to see any gains today and the chipset is old) but the option is there if you want to save even more on the motherboard.

Wright

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

This thread is about getting options for the OP, so they can decide.

I don't believe that's what you're after at all, I think you just need to be right.
OP does not need a GPU for the games he plays at the moment. If he comes across a title he likes down the road that needs something beefier, he can then purchase that with new funds or whatever. Why are you insistent on gimping the core components of his rig?

And yes I use Amazon to buy stuff. Duh.

OP, as I and others have said, due to your usage requirements and the low specs needed for the games you play, I'd go with a 6600K and just use its integrated graphics instead of spending money on a graphics card, a Z170 motherboard (or 6600 and H170 board if you don't plan to do any overclocking; I run at stock myself) and some DDR4 RAM, as much and as fast as you can budget. A lot of people will tell you 8GB is fine but I think 16GB is a smarter investment; and could come in handy for photoshop. 3000Mhz would be a good speed, but something slightly under that is fine too. For now you could just buy a single stick of 8GB, then when more money materializes, get another stick of the exact same.

Good luck.