Hey everyone,
A friend of mine asked me to build a gaming pc for him and I wanted to check with you guys before ordering any parts. I don't think there's anyone wrong with it, but a second opinion is always a good thing I recon.
Budget: 1500€ ( + 200€ on monitor + ? on good value mouse/keyboard)
Area: Belgium
Prefered retailer: Alternate
Required peripherals: mouse + keyboard (both not included in budget, just looking for good value. So sugestions are very welcome) + monitor
Use: mainly non competitive gaming. Fps, rts, mmo, moba... everything.
Overclock: he really does not know much about what makes a computer tick, so not yet. But I might do it for him later on, after installing non-ref CPU cooler etc. (No gpu overclocking, cause I don't have any experience myself with it)
*** Gaming ***
- System ment to last a couple of years running games with ease on 1080p monitor at 60 fps (he did not care for a high refresh monitor). But I definitively want to keep the option to add a second GPU down the road.
*** Pheripherals ***
Just looking for a good value mouse and keyboard. Nothing fancy. He did not understand my explenation about the benefits of mechanical so just a standard one will do.
Monitor: An additional budget of about 200€ is free for the monitor. I enjoy the 1080p 24inch PLS monitors from Samsung so was planning on getting him one of those. The model I'm looking at is the LS24E390HL, but could not find it on PCpartpicker.
** The built **
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tfs7jX
note: I could not find the famed EVGA SuperNOVA 850 G2 at any of my regular retailers so I want for the corsair 760, which should be able to handle 970 SLI.
** Questions **
All in all I've got three main questions for you guys.
- Advise on the system
- Good value mouse and keyboard
- If any of you would advise a different monitor for a gamer with no interest in high refresh or bigger resolutions.
Thx a lot in advance!
I would say to look at the R9 390 instead of the 970, a cheaper psu (platinum isn't really necessary, gold can be had for much cheaper), but other than that, looks like a really nice build.
I'd suggest you shoot for the i5 4460, and use the funds to upgrade the GPU to the 390, since it performs a bit better and has double the VRAM at around the same price.
As for the monitor, check out the 1440p korean monitor situation in that area
As for keyboard/mouse combos coolermaster has a combo, dunno if it's available over there, the devistator combo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823129030
And that power supply is pretty overkill.
Wait, are you building the rig in the US and shipping it to Belgium?
Nope he's going to buy from alternate. which is a Dutch shop.
His original build looks basicly fine to me, But that platinum psu is ofc too expensive for what it is.
a 750W / 850W gold psu is probably cheaper, and will be just as good.
I would say, its better for his friend to go with a unlocked i5, since he is an mmo player.
mmo´s do like high clockspeeds on just a few cores, so going with an i5 and overclock the shit out of it, will make some sense.
the 6600k from skylake would be even more nice, but atm the Z170 boards are rediculous expensive.
If these benchmarks are vallid, then im realy impressed with how skylake shines.
It'll do better sure, but it's not the 4460 is going to be any real bottleneck for a while, especially with DX12
Those test seem to stand out, aren't most other reviewers reporting that skylake doesn't do much on the CPU side of things over haswell? Maybe that's just the i7s
yeah well i guess we have to wait for more "reliable" benchmarks and reviews.
But still it looks optimistic.
The thing i mean to say, if you have €1500,- to spend on a new setup for gaming.
He might concider skylake, however like i said the Z170 boards are a bit pricy.
So im not sure if its €1500,- in total for the build + peripherals,
or just €1500,- for the build only.
Of course a Haswell i5 would be totaly fine aswell.
First of all, thx a lot to you guys for taking the time to review and comment on the built. Really awesome to get some feedback.
Build
After some back and forth I eventually went with the 390, due to it outperforming the 970 in some games and there apparently being even more rome for improvements with newer drivers.
Some other changes occured as well for the sake of not spending money just because it was available: µATX mb and the mini version of the fractal R5. I also went with a gold 750W (still from corsair though, because seasonic ones weren't readily available)
I considered skylake for a while but I got the impression that the increased performance just wasn't worth the additional cost, especially considering good value DDR4 is pretty damn hard to find atm. Therefor I just sticked with the Haswell one. On top of that I did use some of the opened up budget to already get an aftermarket cooler because the system is probably going to sit under his desk for I don't know how long till he asks me to come and "fix" something. (more an aquintance than close friend)
Pheripherals
The bundle is available in the Belgian version of Alternate so I think I'll go for that one then!
Korean monitor wise I'm not entirely sure how the situation over here is, because I've never had the balls to go through with it myself. So I wouldn't really want to "risk" it with someone else his money, eventhough from what I've read here the 99% of the cases it just works out fine
Round-up
I'm looking forward to putting this little machine together. It's my first pc build that's not for personal use, so if all goes well I might get more requests! Thanks a lot for the advise.
I will try to remember to post a picture here of the final product, or is there a more suitable place for that? Don't want to clutter the wrong thread.
Cheers
Yes we have a build log section on the forum, in which you could create a build log thread of this little cool project.
cant wait to see it.