VR ready Gaming PC (Budget €600-€700)

AirBiscuit · 04-02-2016 4:26pm #1

1. What is your budget? [€700 anything lower yet still good would be appreciated, If it ends up exceeding the budget then that's OK too.]

2. What will be the main purpose of the computer? [Gaming, Game Development, 3D modelling & rendering, Video editing, streaming, and Virtual Reality gaming.]

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? [No, although if I could get a second monitor for a low enough price I might consider it]

5a. If yes, what size do you need. [22"]

5b. If no, what resolution is your current monitor and do you plan to upgrade in the near future? [1080p] [No, 1080p is fine for me.]

6. Do you need any of these peripherals? [No]

7. Are you willing to try overclocking? [No]

8. How can you pay? [Credit Card, PayPal, Bank transfer]

9. When are you purchasing? [As soon as I've saved up the money for it, within 1 month probably]

My only stipulations are that:
It has to have a GTX 970,
8GB of RAM should probably be enough (unless the price difference for 8 and 16 is minimal),
a 500GB hard drive should do fine because I can always add another one later
A decent processor is a must for the game development and streaming (Quad core only please).

Digital Solitude · 04-02-2016 5:30pm

i5 4460 €180
H81M board €50
8gb RAM €40
Case €40
R9 390 €350
500gb HDD €30
500w PSU €60
Total €760

Best I can do. Low end VR build, class 1080p machine

AirBiscuit · 04-02-2016 5:57pm

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Best I can do. Low end VR build, class 1080p machine

Should do just fine for my VR needs which only really involve Euro Truck Simulator 2 and American Truck Simulator. If the budget was larger, what changes would you make?

ED E · 04-02-2016 6:49pm

1. Up to 16GB, video editing on 8 will be very tight nowadays.

2. SSD, once you go NAND you never go back, like night and day.

Eoinmc97 · 04-02-2016 7:44pm

Hmm, you're build is asking for a lot of power for €700. Whilst the build DS posted will no doubt play VR, you are inhibting future expansions in storage (which ED-E mentioned, SSDs are the best way for video editing.)
Streaming is another thing: What quality are you streaming at? Because not only will you need a very strong internet connection, your Core i5 4460 will be pushed, and will act as the bottleneck in your streaming and editing machine.

IMO, pick a solid baseline now, and then add on the less important features you want later. The current build will be strong for gaming, but not multi-threaded work loads like yours. Or you could build a multi-thread work machine and add gaming components later.

Eoinmc97 · 04-02-2016 7:45pm

Hmm, you're build is asking for a lot of power for €700. Whilst the build DS posted will no doubt play VR, you are inhibting future expansions in storage (which ED-E mentioned, SSDs are the best way for video editing.)
Streaming is another thing: What quality are you streaming at? Because not only will you need a very strong internet connection, your Core i5 4460 will be pushed, and will act as the bottleneck in your streaming and editing machine.

IMO, pick a solid baseline now, and then add on the less important features you want later. The current build will be strong for gaming, but not multi-threaded work loads like yours. Or you could build a multi-thread work machine and add gaming components later.

AirBiscuit · 04-02-2016 8:30pm

Eoinmc97 wrote: »

Hmm, you're build is asking for a lot of power for €700. Whilst the build DS posted will no doubt play VR, you are inhibting future expansions in storage (which ED-E mentioned, SSDs are the best way for video editing.)
Streaming is another thing: What quality are you streaming at? Because not only will you need a very strong internet connection, your Core i5 4460 will be pushed, and will act as the bottleneck in your streaming and editing machine.

IMO, pick a solid baseline now, and then add on the less important features you want later. The current build will be strong for gaming, but not multi-threaded work loads like yours. Or you could build a multi-thread work machine and add gaming components later.

To clarify then, the main focus of the day here is playing games, only streaming occasionally and editing a video about once a month. With the exception of playing and streaming, I'll only be doing one of these tasks at a time.

I'll live without an SSD in order to keep costs down, I'm not entirely fussed with loading times because my laptop at the minute needs a serious refresh with loading times of 5 mins plus, so even a small improvement will be noticeable. also, how am I limiting future expansions in storage? Surely it's just a matter of getting the right case and mobo then buying another HDD/SSD as needed?

As for the streaming I tend to adjust the quality based on which internet connection I'm on. If I'm at home it's at <1000Kb/s due to my crap internet at the moment but anywhere else it's 3500Kb/s. The CPU should be fine based on the fact that it's close enough to the i7 4700MQ in my laptop which I stream from without a hitch currently.
As for the multi threading, I'll either choose an i7 instead of the i5, or use my old laptop to do work at the same time as the new build

Eoinmc97 · 04-02-2016 10:41pm

Ah, so you have a laptop with a good CPU. Excellent. This is a good way to balance your work load, like storing videos on the laptop to edit later on the PC.
The reason why I'm saying you'll be unable to expand much, is that if you look at the H81 chipset: It's designed for cheap PCs. Ones where 3D applications go as far as watching Youtube. Where storage goes as far as maybe a small SSD boot drive and a HDD for storage. A PCI-E Gen 2.0 x16 is one of the only PCI-E lanes you get (so no Dual-GPU set-ups, and if Polaris/Pascal manage to saturate PCI-E 2.0 ((the Fury X is almost there) then you'll see bottlenecks)

IMO, put the money towards a H97 board. More SATA 3 options, M.2 possabilities, dual graphics support and more than 2 RAM slots that can support faster speeds.

TerrorFirmer · 04-02-2016 11:15pm

Well you can't really say that H81 is a bottleneck and recommend H97 for dual cards - H97 only supports 16/4x crossfire...and that would be 4x pci-e 2.0 as well.

if you look at the H81 chipset: It's designed for cheap PCs. Ones where 3D applications go as far as watching Youtube.

That's a bit dramatic. H81M for a no-frills build is a perfectly fine gaming platform.

There's also no point recommending H97 because it supports faster ram because you will have to overclock to get that speed, otherwise it's just standard 1600mhz.

In this case I would whole heartedly recommend H81, allows you to invest more money in the cpu/gpu which are tenfold more important and your budget is limited.

Eoinmc97 · 05-02-2016 4:45pm

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Well you can't really say that H81 is a bottleneck and recommend H97 for dual cards - H97 only supports 16/4x crossfire...and that would be 4x pci-e 2.0 as well.

That's a bit dramatic. H81M for a no-frills build is a perfectly fine gaming platform.

There's also no point recommending H97 because it supports faster ram because you will have to overclock to get that speed, otherwise it's just standard 1600mhz.

In this case I would whole heartedly recommend H81, allows you to invest more money in the cpu/gpu which are tenfold more important and your budget is limited.

It's not about faster RAM for video editing and 3D rendering, it's how much you can dispend in quick succession. A H81 board caps out at 16GB maximum. What if games (I doubt but still) that use VR want 12 or even 16Gb to run? Arkhan Knight causes paging issues under 10Gb, the Division's load time is for some reason reduced above 12GB. The gaming industry can now move forward with 14nm GPUs, which may mean things like storage and RAM need to keep up. (Vulkan is exploring using RAM to store process effects)

I'm just saying this; VR is moving forward. H81 was never intended for a VR ready streaming/editing machine. Get a H97 from Gigabyte for €63 or from AsRock and get your value's worth.

AirBiscuit · 23-07-2016 3:59pm

Haven't done anything about this until now, not bothering with VR any more, just want a great 1080p machine for playing games only. Any updated recommendations?

Digital Solitude · 23-07-2016 4:06pm

Digital Solitude wrote: »

i5 6400 €170
H150 board €50
8gb RAM €40
Case €40
RX 480 €300
500gb HDD €30
500w PSU €60
250gb SSD €75
Total €765

Best I can do. Low end VR build, class 1080p machine

Small change to last build I posted, added SSD. Will plough through 1080p, if you don't mind second hand parts you can get 970s for about €250, or 290/290x cards for 150-250.

290/970=480 now, but the 480 will surpass both in the coming months, not sure about the 290X.

AirBiscuit · 23-07-2016 5:13pm

Digital Solitude wrote: »

Small change to last build I posted, added SSD. Will plough through 1080p, if you don't mind second hand parts you can get 970s for about €250, or 290/290x cards for 150-250.

290/970=480 now, but the 480 will surpass both in the coming months, not sure about the 290X.

I'll probably go the with the 480. Any recommendations on where to buy the parts?

Digital Solitude · 23-07-2016 7:33pm

Mindfactory or Amazon

AirBiscuit · 19-06-2019 4:21pm

It's almost 3 years on and I'm planning an upgrade to Ryzen.
The H81M has been a pain in the ass in general, with only 2 PCIe slots(1 of which has the GPU in all the time and the other has a Wifi card), no USB 3 header for the front panel and only 2 on the back. The i5-4460 is struggling in VR at times but has been acceptable in general, but is hopeless for anything over 20FPS in the likes of a flight simulator.
https://ie.pcpartpicker.com/list/QYG6kd
Any issues in this PCpartpicker list? CPU, Mobo and RAM are the potential new parts, everything else is either what's currently in it or something very close. Also getting this but can't add it on PCPP

Hoping not to need to upgrade the PSU as well because it's looking expensive enough as it is.

K.O.Kiki · 19-06-2019 4:42pm

CustomPC.ie have a very low reputation on here. Better to buy from UK.
Ryzen 3000-series is out on 7th July, you'd be mad not to wait and either buy those/wait for discounts on 2000-series.
Click on the "gear" icon besides the price & do "Manually Enter Price -> Mark as Purchased" so we know which parts you're carrying over.
What's the budget for your upgrade?

AirBiscuit · 19-06-2019 4:53pm

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

CustomPC.ie have a very low reputation on here. Better to buy from UK.

Ryzen 3000-series is out on 7th July, you'd be mad not to wait and either buy those/wait for discounts on 2000-series.

Click on the "gear" icon besides the price & do "Manually Enter Price -> Mark as Purchased" so we know which parts you're carrying over.

What's the budget for your upgrade?

I just picked the specific parts, ignore the prices and sellers for now
Good point.
Done
Ideally under 500, but will spend as needed.

K.O.Kiki · 19-06-2019 7:20pm

AirBiscuit wrote: »

I just picked the specific parts, ignore the prices and sellers for now

Good point.

Done

Ideally under 500, but will spend as needed.

Yeah that's much easier to read.

I'd suggest for motherboard, go MSI: B450 Tomahawk (ATX) or Gaming Pro Carbon AC, as they have better VRMs than the Asus & also support USB BIOS updates.

With the Tomahawk, the price difference should be enough for the 3700X & 3200MHz RAM.

VR ready Gaming PC (Budget €600-€700)

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