Looking at a new build - (amateur here, suggestions please!)

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erenaissance

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Wannabe Geek

#128764 22-Aug-2013 17:04

Hi everyone!

My name is Claire, I'm new to Geekzone. I'm looking at building my boyfriend a new gaming PC for his birthday soon.
I get a good discount at Global PC, so I have sought all my componentry prices from their website. Not sure of the discounted prices until I pursue my final choices.

Here's what I'm considering:

All prices GST inclusive, from Global PC website 22/8/13

CPU:
Intel Core i7 4770 3.40GHz 8MB (LGA1150) $479
Intel Core i7 3770 3.40GHz 8MB (LGA1155) $447.25

Motherboard:
Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H MATX (LGA1150) $199
ASUS B85M-G MATX VGA (LGA1150) $169
Gigabyte GA-H61MA-D3V MATX VGA (LGA1155) $164.25
Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H MATX VGA (LGA1155) $191.75

Video Card:
Nvidia Gigabyte GV-N660OC-2GD GTX660 2GB PCIE $389
Nvidia Gigabyte GV-N66TWF2-2GD GTX660 Ti 2GB PCIE $499
AMD Sapphire Radeon HD7850 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E HDMI/DVI/Dual mini DP $359
AMD Gigabyte GV-R7870OC-2GD HD7870 2GB PCIE $469

Hard Drive:
1TB SATA3 Western Digital 7200RPM Black Edition 64MB cache $140.75
1TB SATA3 Seagate 7200rpm Barracuda 64Mb Cache $119

RAM:
Adata 8GB DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz PC3-12800 DIMM 3yr wty $139
Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1333MHz Non-ECC CL9 DIMM Memory $149
Adata 4GB XPG DDR3 1600 CL9 DIMM 3yr wty $84.90

PSU:
Enermax ENP500AST
Tomahawk2 500W ATX PSU $79
Thermaltake Litepower 600W PSU $109

DVD Drive:
Asus DRW-24D3ST DVD
Writer SATA Black 24x DVDRW Retail $49
LG GH24NS95 24X SATA DVDRW OEM $49

Case:
NZXT Lexa Blackline Red LED Edition - No PSU $129
Raidmax Agusta Titanium Full Tower Gaming Case – No PSU $199

A few questions/notables:
1. Am I missing anything vital here?
2. Haswell vs Sandy/Ivy Bridge - worth paying more for the latest generation?
3. Motherboards - I don't know much about them. Only that Halswell goes with 1150 and Sandy/Ivy goes with 1155.
4. Video cards: Nvidia vs AMD?
5. PSUs - How many watts do you recommend?

Sorry for the essay... I just want to surprise my man with something good!

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Ultimate Geek
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#883107 23-Aug-2013 01:01

A SSD (solid state drive) would be an advantage, depending on what size you might be able to afford he might still have to install some of his games onto a HDD, but it's still worth it to have windows installed on.

Beyond that I'm not much up on the latest generation of hardware myself, sorry.

timmmay

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#883140 23-Aug-2013 07:32

SSD for OS makes things a LOT snappier. 60GB is enough, 120GB is nice to have.

PSU - modular if you can manage it. Fewer cables means better cooling. Calculator here.

Fans - put good quality quiet fans everywhere you can.

If budget is an issue go for the midrange CPU and higher end GPU, but the 4770 isn't really much more expensive so might as well get it. nVidia GPU IMHO, they work better with Photoshop and generally have worked well for me over the years.

Seagate/WD drives - either, get the cheapest. 2TB is probably only slightly more expensive.

Motherboard... no idea. Just buy a good brand that has enough ports (SATA) and USB (3).

Hope that helps. I build all my own PCs, but that's only every few years. I just choose the CPU and get good brand parts that fit together.

Inphinity

2780 posts

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#883146 23-Aug-2013 08:13

CPU:
Intel Core i5 4670K 3.40GHz 8MB (LGA1150)

Motherboard:
Asus Z87-C

Video Card:
Nvidia Asus/eVGA/Gigabyte GTX760 2GB PCIE

Hard Drive:
120GB Samsung 840 Series SSD
2TB SATA3 Seagate 7200rpm Barracuda 64Mb Cache

RAM:
G.SKill Ripjaws X DDR3 1600 CL9

PSU:
Corsair HX650

DVD Drive:
Asus BW-12B1ST Blu-Ray Writer

Case:
Cooler Master HAF

^^ My suggestions.

sidefx

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#883150 23-Aug-2013 08:17

For a gaming PC I would go i5 on the CPU, then use the saved funds to get a better GPU - GTX 760 seems to be quite a sweet buy at the moment. 660Ti is a waste of money at current prices and with the 760 available

SSD - Definitely go for an SSD! (Samsung 830 NON-pro seems like a good option)

TBH I wouldn't bother with Haswell unless the price isn't much different.

I recently put a 3rd party coolor on my i5 (just a Hyper 212 Evo, so not hugely expensive) and temperatures especially under load dropped a heap, so I'd consider one.

Some of those prices look very high, I hope you get a good discount!

(awww, I lost my 1337 post count)

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DravidDavid

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#883702 23-Aug-2013 23:10

Please, what ever you do...Stay away from Seagate. I wouldn't touch any other drive over Western Digital.

The NZXT Lexa Blackline looks like expensive shiny plastic...Just like the Phantom. I hate this case with a passion. I'd suggest you see the case in person before purchasing. Their fans like to break and make lots of noise. Two of mine did at least.

In terms of RAM and DVD drives, it is all pretty level. Anything DDR3 1600 is great. Intel can benefit from triple channel memory, but I'm not so sure exactly what that means in terms of real world performance, I suggest you look in to it. My only recommendation is that you get a 16GB kit. It might seem over-kill, but it really isn't. Your OS will use as much as it can get its hands on! It also lessens reads and writes on the SSD, which is always a good thing.

Bump the 650W PSU up to the 800W. I went from 500 to 800 for the headroom for upgrades later. I'm sure your boyfriend will appreciate it when the video card he wants consumes 300W by itself! Haha!

PaulBags

809 posts

Ultimate Geek
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#883706 23-Aug-2013 23:24

DravidDavid: Please, what ever you do...Stay away from Seagate. I wouldn't touch any other drive over Western Digital.

I'm curious why you say that.

nzkc

1572 posts

Uber Geek

#883759 24-Aug-2013 07:42

PaulBags:
DravidDavid: Please, what ever you do...Stay away from Seagate. I wouldn't touch any other drive over Western Digital.

I'm curious why you say that.

Likewise. I've personally had more failures with Western Digital drives but that doesn't matter - the reality is that all spinning rust fails eventually.

Maybe you should also consider a cloud based backup solution as part of your gift. I use Backblaze and couldn't recommend them high enough! $50/yr for as much as you like. It has saved my butt a couple of times when hard-drives have failed or started to fail and corrupted files.

Sharesies

Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

timmmay

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#883787 24-Aug-2013 10:00

DravidDavid: Please, what ever you do...Stay away from Seagate. I wouldn't touch any other drive over Western Digital.

The NZXT Lexa Blackline looks like expensive shiny plastic...Just like the Phantom. I hate this case with a passion. I'd suggest you see the case in person before purchasing. Their fans like to break and make lots of noise. Two of mine did at least.

In terms of RAM and DVD drives, it is all pretty level. Anything DDR3 1600 is great. Intel can benefit from triple channel memory, but I'm not so sure exactly what that means in terms of real world performance, I suggest you look in to it. My only recommendation is that you get a 16GB kit. It might seem over-kill, but it really isn't. Your OS will use as much as it can get its hands on! It also lessens reads and writes on the SSD, which is always a good thing.

Bump the 650W PSU up to the 800W. I went from 500 to 800 for the headroom for upgrades later. I'm sure your boyfriend will appreciate it when the video card he wants consumes 300W by itself! Haha!

Some people have had bad experiences with some brands, but in general Seagate as served me well. I've had about 8 of their drives and none have failed yet, but all hard drives fail at some point. I even had the drive model that had a potential firmware problem, but it was fine.

DDR3 speed isn't that important. Going from 1333 to 2100 (or thereabouts) makes something like 5% difference to benchmarks, and less in the real world.

Many people overprovision power supplies, but big video cards can consume a lot of power. My (i7 2700K, 3 hard drives, 2 SSDs, DVD, small nVidia video card) consumes 120W when under heavy load doing photoshop work at 100% CPU usage using two disks. The only real downside to buying big supplies is cost though.

LazyDr

262 posts

Ultimate Geek

#883813 24-Aug-2013 11:52

While timmmay is correct, most people do go overboard with all computer parts (and any tech for that matter), i would still go for a modular PSU with the highest wattage that fits into your budget

P.S. your boyfriend needs to get a ring on your finger asap, not many significant others out there that would build a PC for their partners!

Batman

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#883881 24-Aug-2013 14:35

Is this for real? ... Who's the lucky guy!

erenaissance

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#883907 24-Aug-2013 16:00

Thanks for all your input guys!

I think I have narrowed it down a bit.

Currently thinking the following:

i5 4670k 3.4ghz Haswell CPU
Gigabyte GA-H87M-D3H MATX LGA1150 motherboard
Gigabyte Overclocked GTX760 2gb DDR5 PCIE video card
Samsung 120gb 840 series SSD
1TB SATA3 WD 7200RPM Black Edition HDD
Adata 8gb DDR3 1600Mhz RAM
Enermax 650w Tomahawk2 ultra silent fan PSU
Raidmax Agusta titanium tower case
Samsung 24x DVDRW drive

But after reading you posts maybe I should look at more juice for the processor. Pretty happy with the SSD/HDD as he doesn't seem to be a document hoarder. All of our downloaded music/movies are kept on a portable HDD.

P.s. He definitely should put a ring on my finger! He is almost finished his fitter/welder apprenticeship and he deserves a "Feck yeah, you did it!" prezzie.

timmmay

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#883936 24-Aug-2013 16:44

What does the PSU calculator I linked to earlier on say you need?

Also I'd go 16GB of RAM since you've highly spec'd everything else. It helps cache more stuff in RAM so it hits disk less often. Helpful for some things like image processing, maybe games with lots of textures too? 2x8GB sticks so he can add more later, not 4x4GB. If you stick with 8GB (which is still plenty really) 2x4GB not 2GB or 8GB modules. Memory's faster in pairs (not triples as someone suggested earlier, that was just one older generation of processors).

erenaissance

10 posts

Wannabe Geek

#883940 24-Aug-2013 16:56

Ooh, sorry, just did the calculator and it came out as 430w. Pretty sure I filled it out properly, it was a little fiddly on my S3!

Inphinity

2780 posts

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#883944 24-Aug-2013 17:03

Haswell i5's are pretty low power, and unless you're looking at going for dual cards or heaps of powered peripherals (like 3 SSDs, 3 or 4 mechanical drives, etc), I don't really see a need for anything over 650W tbh as long as it's a decent quality PSU. A GTX 760 will draw ~150W under load, the i5 4670 is in the same range, so there's 300W, and the motherboard / RAM / SSD / HDD / DVD will be about 150W again total. So 450W, and a 650W supply gives you good headroom for safety (and a GPU upgrade next year if desired). You could even throw in a Titan or 7970 and still be fine, they're both around 210W load draw.

I have an 800W PSU in my PC, with an i5 3570K, GTX 660Ti OC, 2 SSDs and an HDD and a blu-ray player, and I'm yet to see a draw of over 520W, even in a 48 hour full-load benchmark.

insane

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#883945 24-Aug-2013 17:03

erenaissance:

But after reading you posts maybe I should look at more juice for the processor. Pretty happy with the SSD/HDD as he doesn't seem to be a document hoarder. All of our downloaded music/movies are kept on a portable HDD.

P.s. He definitely should put a ring on my finger! He is almost finished his fitter/welder apprenticeship and he deserves a "Feck yeah, you did it!" prezzie.

Honestly these days the CPU is not so much of an issue on a gaming rig. Put the $$ into the GFX card. Also with a present like this he's not going to be spending much time with you, so don't go too hard out!

Lastly will you be friends with my wife? I feel you have much to teach her :)

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