Complete Beginner looking for Build advice

Laighleas

Hi, as the title says I'm a complete beginner but I'm looking for help picking components.
I would like a powerful gaming pc, and hopefully not have to upgrade for several years.

1. What is your budget? €500-€1000

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? Gaming (witcher 3, Fallout 4, Civ 6 etc.)

3. Do you need a copy of Windows? No

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. 20-22', whatever is a good buy/on sale


6. Do you need any of these peripherals? A keyboard

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? No

8. How can you pay? Debit card and Paypal

9. When are you purchasing? over the next few weeks

Also I was wondering where would the best and most trustworthy place to buy from be?
Thank you very much in advance if anyone talks the time to help!

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor (€65.53 @ Amazon Deutschland)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC - Freezer i32 CPU Cooler (€24.95 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: Gigabyte - GA-B250M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€77.72 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: Crucial - 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (€60.13 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: SanDisk - Ultra II 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€154.93 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Hitachi - Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€65.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card (€180.00)
Case: Zalman - Z1 Neo ATX Mid Tower Case (€42.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: LEPA - MaxGold 700W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€78.88 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Monitor: ViewSonic - VX2457-MHD 23.6" 1920x1080 75Hz Monitor (€149.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €899.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-28 12:21 CEST+0200

You'll need to buy your GPU used (due to the mining craze) - I recommend scouring Adverts.ie for a dual-fan GTX 970, most sellers should accept €165-180.
Mindfactory are great for parts; make sure you get the monitor & case from Amazon.
Above budget leaves you with ~€100 for a keyboard; I recommend any mechanical with Red switches (Logitech Romer-G worth checking out too).

Joshua J

https://de.pcpartpicker.com/list/jpDMHN

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (€211.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: *Biostar - B350ET2 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (€74.20 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (€62.98 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: SanDisk - SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€53.67 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Toshiba - 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€49.48 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: *Palit - GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB Dual Video Card (€265.49 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Corsair - Carbide SPEC-M2 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (€61.84 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: *SeaSonic - G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€79.97 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €859.62
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-28 14:43 CEST+0200


Went for a Ryzen build should see you gaming for the next few years at 1080p no probs. Get a monitor for circa €100 and a cheap keyboard/mouse setup to get you started can upgrade at a later date.

Billy86

Wow, €180 for a new 970 is doing pretty well - also though it's the unpopular fan type I have that card (admittedly with the bigger fans) and have never noticed even a hint of heat off of it despite there being a mesh opening right beside where it sits in the case. That monitor is extremely good value too, found it even cheaper on Amazon. Though the cooler can be dropped as the G4560 comes with a stock one, as does the 1600 in the build below...

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor (£195.42 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: ASRock - AB350M-HDV Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard (£64.38 @ CCL Computers)
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (£117.41 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Plextor - M7V 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£63.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate - BarraCuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.97 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: NVIDIA - GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card (€180.00)
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H15 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£34.98 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: Corsair - CX 500W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£63.23 @ Amazon UK)
Monitor: ViewSonic - VX2457-MHD 23.6" 1920x1080 75Hz Monitor (£109.18 @ Amazon UK)
Other: Wireless USB WiFi Adapter AC 600Mbps Dual Band 2.4G/150Mbps + 5.8G/433Mbps with High-gain Antenna, USB Network Adapter for Desktop/Laptop Complies with IEEE 802.11 a/b/ g/n/ac Standard Supports Windows & Mac OS X System (£19.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £708.55
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-28 12:15 BST+0100

£708.55 = €799 + €180 (GPU) = €979. If any of the UK retailers don't deliver to Ireland or try to charge a crazy amount for it, use Parcel Motel for €3.95 per item, they're excellent.

The wifi adapter is only for if you want wireless internet as motherboards in this price range tend not to have that included; if not feel free to get rid of it. If you want to reduce the cost a bit you can knock £50 off by going for 8GB 2800mhz RAM instead, though personally I would recommend just going in the full whack at the start as you get better value buying both sticks together (16GB 3000mhz is £117, but a single 8GB is about £85 for example). 8GB will still do perfectly fine, but 16GB will give a lot more breathing room and help if like me you tend to pause out of games with Chrome running in the background with a bunch of tabs and maybe some other stuff on in background etc.

Laighleas

Thank you all for your replies, I was also wondering if I need thermal paste or an anti static wrist band etc?

Laighleas

Thank you Very much K.O.Kiki for putting together this build for me!
I just had a wee question, I get this error message when checking compatability:

"Some Intel H110 chipset motherboards may need a BIOS update prior to using Kaby Lake-S CPUs. Upgrading the BIOS may require a different CPU that is supported by older BIOS revisions."

Will this cause problems?
I also am not keen on buying a second hand GPU, would a Zotac - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB Mini Video Card
(€143.99) be okay instead?]

Thank you again for the help.

BloodBath

I'd go with a ryzen over that pentium. The 1600 above has killer price/performance but it will take some overclocking to get the most out of it.

You would need to upgrade the pentium fairly soon and even now it will give sub par performance in some more cpu demanding games. That 1600 should be good for at least 5 years.

You would be far better off going for that and a second hand 970. There's lot's of them around and you get get a high end 1 for around €180.

The Price of new RX 570 and 580's is artificially inflated atm because of Etherium mining.

TerrorFirmer

I agree. The G4560 only makes sense if you're on a tight budget, in a build with that sort of leeway the 1600 is a way better option, overclocking helps but not essential for a first time user.

If you don't want to buy 2nd hand a GTX1050Ti 4GB is a pretty OK card for most new games at 1080p med-high but a 2nd hand GTX970 for the €160-180 is way faster. The new equivalent would be a GTX1060 6GB though if buying new but that's double the price of the GTX1050Ti (though is it hugely faster). There is also the GTX1060 3GB model for about €220. It's a bad time to buy cards as prices are being screwed up by mining.

Gehad_JoyRider

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor (

:eek:
Really?

Billy86

At the same time, don't laugh at that Intel card. For this budget I would say 1600 but I did a budget build for the gf only a few weeks ago on the g4560 and it really beat my expectations with a 1050 ti, so much so I only got the parts today to do the exact same for the sister and her boyfriend as a housewarming/birthday present. Different needs but along with the 1600 it's the best value for money chip there is right now, probably has to go down as the best budget gaming chip ever since it costs so little.

Billy86

Laighleas wrote: »

Thank you all for your replies, I was also wondering if I need thermal paste or an anti static wrist band etc?

Nah, thermal paste should come with the CPU chip (or was it motherboard? It comes with one of them as standard anyway...) and the good old homer Simpson sack of doorknobs is fine for static (rubbing your hands on anything metal quite vigorously beforehand will clear the static. Also build on a hardwood or tile floor, nowhere near carpet, couch seats etc, short sleeves I guess would help top).

Laighleas

Thank you guys for the great reccomendations and feedback, I greatly appreciate it all

TerrorFirmer

Billy86 wrote: »

At the same time, don't laugh at that Intel card. For this budget I would say 1600 but I did a budget build for the gf only a few weeks ago on the g4560 and it really beat my expectations with a 1050 ti, so much so I only got the parts today to do the exact same for the sister and her boyfriend as a housewarming/birthday present. Different needs but along with the 1600 it's the best value for money chip there is right now, probably has to go down as the best budget gaming chip ever since it costs so little.

I think the best budget gaming chip ever was the E2160/2180, they were a similar price to the G4560 and they could literally overclock from 1.6ghz to 3ghz pretty easily - and this was when dual cores were king, so for €50 you literally had the same performance as a €500 cpu in games.

My only problem with the G4560 is that in CPU killing games like BF1 it is very weak, so you have to be careful to take into account exactly what the person will be playing.

For me for example, I'd much rather a Ryzen 1400 + RX550 than something like a G4560 + GTX1050Ti.

Billy86

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I think the best budget gaming chip ever was the E2160/2180, they were a similar price to the G4560 and they could literally overclock from 1.6ghz to 3ghz pretty easily - and this was when dual cores were king, so for €50 you literally had the same performance as a €500 cpu in games.

My only problem with the G4560 is that in CPU killing games like BF1 it is very weak, so you have to be careful to take into account exactly what the person will be playing.

For me for example, I'd much rather a Ryzen 1400 + RX550 than something like a G4560 + GTX1050Ti.

RX550? *Shudders*

Would that GPU not struggle to get up to the mid 40s on BF1 on it's own, though?

TerrorFirmer

Nope, it's pretty OK for 1080p low settings @ 60fps or close enough, which doesn't really look so bad, similar to console levels.

The problem with the G4560 is that in 64p conquest you will see framerates hit the high 20's or early 30's more than infrequently.

Also for most people the card is far easier to replace than the CPU down the line

BloodBath

No doubt that Pentium has insane price/performance.

Probably higher than the 1600 even but we're talking 2 cores / 4 threads vs 6 cores / 12 threads.

There's only 1 winner unless the budget is close to €500.

The Ryzen 1400 4 core/ 8 thread is definitely an option if you want to save a few beans though but I think the 1600 is worth the extra €50.

Billy86

1600 would cost about 130 more (approx 70 vs 210), but still - definitely worth it if in budget as it would be here. Really is grat for first time buyers etc though how they make it an easy and automatic buy for anything below €1200 or so.

Edit: Nevermind, misread bloodbaths post.

Laighleas

Thank you everyone for the amazing advice and recommendations, I've ordered my components and hopefully will post up a wee finished build picture (unless I balls up putting it all together). Thanks again!

BloodBath

What did you order?