~€2000 Gaming Build (inc. Monitor + Peripherals)

B_Sharp

Have been looking at building my first PC for like a year and am finally ready to take the plunge. Been using a laptop up to now so need to buy everything, including monitor, keyboard, mouse, etc.

I want a pretty small form factor, hence the Mini-ITX. Never going to be going SLI or anything so don't really need those extra slots. I'd consider myself an enthusiast gamer but not necessarily hardcore. I'll play some Battlefield and stuff online but don't take it too seriously so I've opted for Ultrawide over a high refresh rate. I'm coming from consoles and an average 'gaming' laptop so the jump to even 60FPS should satisfy me. Plan might be to upgrade the monitor and the GPU then again in like 18 months when high refresh rate Ultrawide gets cheaper.

1. What is your budget? [Under €2000 hopefully]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming mainly, including emulation, and some writing. Internet and movies also obviously]

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

4. Can you use any parts from an old computer? [Have a 500GB Samsung SSD for the OS and some games]

5. Do you need a monitor? [Yup. Was going to get a high refresh rate G-Sync monitor but swayed by Ultrawide in the end]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [34', only size Ultrawide 1440p screens seem to come in]

6. Do you need any peripherals? [Yes, starting from scratch]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [Not if I can avoid it]

8. How can you pay? [Debit Card, PayPal, Revolut]

9. When are you purchasing? [In next couple of weeks/month]

10. If you need help building it, where are you based? [Based in Galway but should be able to manage it with the help of Youtube]

This is what I've put together so far. If anyone can shave some money off without affecting performance too much I'd love to hear your suggestions. I know peripherals are pretty subjective but I've left them in there for an overall idea of the whole spend and so people can give any opinions if they have them.

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£174.99 @ Amazon UK)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£29.99 @ Amazon UK)
Motherboard: MSI B150I GAMING PRO AC Mini ITX LGA1151 Motherboard (£91.37 @ BT Shop)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£66.99 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£60.98 @ Novatech)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card (£383.98 @ YoYoTech)
Case: Fractal Design Define Nano S Mini ITX Desktop Case (£56.21 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£79.99 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (£84.98 @ Novatech)
Monitor: LG 34UM88C 34.0" 60Hz Monitor (£529.98 @ Amazon UK)
Keyboard: Cooler Master Storm QuickFire Rapid Wired Gaming Keyboard (£79.99)
Mouse: Logitech G700s Wireless Laser Mouse (£40.00)
Headphones: Kingston HyperX Cloud II 7.1 Channel Headset (£72.97 @ Scan.co.uk)
Total: £1752.42 (€1945.87 not inc. delivery)

With the drop in the pound, everything seems cheaper from the UK sites rather than the German ones but if there's particular stuff that's still better to get in Germany or elsewhere, please let me know.

Also, would I save much if I waited for Black Friday and Cyber Monday to buy stuff? I'd prefer to get this bought ASAP but since I'm buying the whole kit and caboodle, if I could save a couple of hundred quid over those two days, I'd hold off.

TerrorFirmer

Pretty good compact build. Evo 212 not essential but will be somewhat quieter than the stock cooler that comes with the i5-6500, but up to yourself. Good monitor but at that size you would want to be sitting a decent distance from the monitor i.e have a pretty decent desk at a minimum.

Eoinmc97

Flawless in my books! I'd say keep the EVO. I've been running stock cooler for a while now, and I find that while the fan is not overly loud, I had to disassemble mine and FILE it because an imoerfection causing friction. Not to mention that the stock fan seems to be in a higher frequency range, so you can hear them through your headset (well I can anyway)

thegreenbean

You could download win 10 for free from their website onto a usb and pay for a key down the road. It has a small watermark in the bottom right but it's unnoticeable tbh. I bet microsoft will be giving it away free again soon as their market share is dropping like a lead balloon. I'd bang the 85 euro into a 4K monitor or a gpu upgrade instead. Awesome build though. What a nice Christmas present.

ShadowHearth

I agree on Windows. Could do that and then if really needed buy key on reddit.
As for monitor, I would highly suggest staying with ultrawide 1440p. 1070 is a sweet spot for that resolution.
Extra cash woukd better be spent on increasing SSD or ram.

Eoinmc97

ShadowHearth wrote: »

I agree on Windows. Could do that and then if really needed buy key on reddit.
As for monitor, I would highly suggest staying with ultrawide 1440p. 1070 is a sweet spot for that resolution.
Extra cash woukd better be spent on increasing SSD or ram.

16GB is pretty big large anyways, so I'd refrain from pouring more money into RAM as the benefits are never seen.
As for the SSD, you do have a 500GB one. You could grab another, but it all depends on how much files you have. If you want all your games to load from SSDs, that'd be pretty cool.

Alternatively, you could bump your CPU upto a 6600K, and alleviate any CPU bottlenecks you may encounter (GTA V being a notable one)

TerrorFirmer

I would say at 1440p ultra settings, cpu bottlenecking is not really going to be an issue, technical bottleneck at 1080p but obviously still way north of 60fps.

ShadowHearth

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

16GB is pretty big large anyways, so I'd refrain from pouring more money into RAM as the benefits are never seen.
As for the SSD, you do have a 500GB one. You could grab another, but it all depends on how much files you have. If you want all your games to load from SSDs, that'd be pretty cool.

Alternatively, you could bump your CPU upto a 6600K, and alleviate any CPU bottlenecks you may encounter (GTA V being a notable one)

Actually I missed that he already had 16gb in there. So yeah, no more ram. My booboo.

Saved money would be best for a larger or extra SSD. Its not really enough of saving to bump up cpu and mobo unfortunately.

Edit:

You could save 30£ as well and put more in to SSD if you go this monitor. I got exactly same one, but I payed 470£ on amazon when it had sale. Its 499£ now.
I got pictures of it and back light bleed in "gaming monitors" thread op if you want to have a look.

B_Sharp

ShadowHearth wrote: »

You could save 30£ as well and put more in to SSD if you go this monitor. I got exactly same one, but I payed 470£ on amazon when it had sale. Its 499£ now.
I got pictures of it and back light bleed in "gaming monitors" thread op if you want to have a look.

I'm happy enough to stick with the 500GB SSD for the time being. Having all my games installed on an SSD would be nice but I'm using it currently with my laptop and I've more than enough installed to keep me satisfied.

I saw your pics in the other thread alright, they're one of the reasons I'm swaying towards Ultrawide:p I like the idea of a curved monitor but it's not a necessity for me, if I got a great deal on a flat I'd take it. Choosing the monitor is probably my main decision at the moment but I think I'll just wait til Black Friday/Cyber Monday and see what's the best deal, if there is any!

ShadowHearth

B_Sharp wrote: »

I'm happy enough to stick with the 500GB SSD for the time being. Having all my games installed on an SSD would be nice but I'm using it currently with my laptop and I've more than enough installed to keep me satisfied.

I saw your pics in the other thread alright, they're one of the reasons I'm swaying towards Ultrawide:p I like the idea of a curved monitor but it's not a necessity for me, if I got a great deal on a flat I'd take it. Choosing the monitor is probably my main decision at the moment but I think I'll just wait til Black Friday/Cyber Monday and see what's the best deal, if there is any!

With about 100£ saved between monitor and windows, you could get one more 480-500 SSD or save some money and get 250 purely for os and small bits. Trust me, it's better have os and games SSD separate. Os one always fills up with crap from Windows and driver updates. Maybe I am more ocd then others, but I hate having ps and games on one SSD.

Ah, happy to help hehe. I am still in love with my one and I just can't see myself going to anything with normal aspect ratio, just no.
Installed grim down few days ago and it's just freaking amazing on ultrawide. That extra space on screen in mmorpgs games is just God sent.

Lu Tze

B_Sharp wrote: »

I'm happy enough to stick with the 500GB SSD for the time being. Having all my games installed on an SSD would be nice but I'm using it currently with my laptop and I've more than enough installed to keep me satisfied.

I saw your pics in the other thread alright, they're one of the reasons I'm swaying towards Ultrawide:p I like the idea of a curved monitor but it's not a necessity for me, if I got a great deal on a flat I'd take it. Choosing the monitor is probably my main decision at the moment but I think I'll just wait til Black Friday/Cyber Monday and see what's the best deal, if there is any!

I got a flat one, and could see the benefit of a curved monitor now that I have it, not for gaming but for when you have two/three windows open side by side, the ones at the edge are significantly further away from your head! I don't know if the radius of the current curved monitors is small enough to make a difference though, and I don't think there is any shops you could try them out in. Still delighted with my one though despite this