Hello all,
I just purchased all the parts for this HTPC project that I have been wanting to tackle.
See parts here:
https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Lfyhm8
My question to you all is:
What GPU should I go with?
I'm between the 470, 480 (8GB), 1060 (6GB), and the R9 Fury.
This build will be used in my living room only for mundane tasks and light gaming; however, if I get a 4k TV in the future I would hope to not have to upgrade GPUs.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
To be honest, I would go with the 1060. I just dumped my 660's that I was running in sli for the EVGA 1060 SC. It does 4k video and outperforms my old sli setup in 1080. I don't foresee having to update for 5 years or better. Keep in mind I do have a gaming setup that currently has MSI 1080 in it, so I don't use my HTPC for gaming. I use it for viewing video content only.
You'll need a titan XP to do 4k gaming, the 470 is about the best performance per dollar GPU ATM unless you find a 480 at $200, so I'd say grab one of those, whenever you upgrade to a 4k TV just grab whatever is better between the 1080ti and Vega GPUs
best to wait on a 4k capable GPU
a 4gb 470 is only $169
https://pcpartpicker.com/product/FgBrxr/xfx-radeon-rx-470-4gb-triple-x-video-card-rx-470p436bm
Also you'll need to upgrade to kaby lake I guess I to 4k netflix streaming or whatever
Fury if you can get it cheap, else the 1060 is the next best bet. 4K Gaming though is going to require something like a GTX 1080 or a Titan XP for new titles at great settings, I am cutting it tight these days on 1440p with some new games.
Fury doesn't have HDMI 2.0 for 4k tvs in the future though
Thats a mid tower case, not a htpc form factor pc. SO your making a typical PC that is future proofed not a HTPC system
There is no such thing as "future proof"...
But for what you are doing, go with the 470/480 8GB
When I originally chose the parts for this system I was going to build it in a node 202; I bought the cpu and mobo from microcenter which they have the cheapest cpu prices and were giving $30 off when you bought a motherboard. I still may get a micro atx board; but I'm not looking to SLI or overclock.
When I saw the price of the master 5 case on sale I couldn't resist ($45 after rebate and the 80+ gold PSU for $40 after rebate), I couldn't resist. I just like the air flow of this case much better; however I like that I could have put the node 202 in my entertainment center and very few people would realize it was a computer.
Again, this is my HTPC, I'm not looking to dump a ton of money into it for light gaming (when friends come over) and streaming consumable media. This will not be my main rig as I have a i7-4770k OC'd and a GTX 1070 with a 1440p monitor.
Thank you to everyone for your suggestions so far!
I'd even be open to a 980 ti for the right price...
what is... "the right price"? I might have a couple >.>
oof... vengeance ram... you still have the receipt? fail rate is almost 20% in 1st year
I just bought it from Newegg yesterday. Just tried to get decent ram that was compatible with the board. Didn't know about the failure rate. :(
Depending if it was new or used; my offer would be around the $250 mark. PM me if you want to discuss further.
FYI Mushkin has a lifetime warranty on their memory and they are usually comparable on price.
OC's well too if you care about that.
Depends on light gaming definition. For HTPC the I5 is kinda futureproof. The skylake intergrated graphics are awesome compared to skylake and a vast improvement over Haswell. They should handle 4k video.
After a while you can decide what if any graphics card depending on your lifestyle. That way your not wishing you put 200 bucks towards your main gaming rig or it may become your goto rig and you will want a killer GPU.
Mid-tower case for mini-itx MB....I'm thinking one of those big fanless cpu coolers perhaps? And you may wish to chose the quietest GPU over the fastest.
I got the cpu from microcenter for $170; which I thought was a worthwhile upgrade from the 6400 which is around that price online. Didn't think the i3 was worthwhile at dual core; even though the workload for this machine isn't intended to be all that intense. I had looked at youtube to see what creators were building for $500 and I just couldn't build a machine with only a dual core processor despite the clock speed being high at 3.7 ghz and I also didn't want to have to upgrade later for dual channel memory. For $30; it didn't make or break me to buy the extra memory.
I thought of your idea too about using the intel 530 chip that was on board and deciding what card to buy; I may do that as well. I used the integrated graphics on my i7 for a while when I lived with my then girlfriend which wasn't bad as far as consumable media was concerned; but lackluster at best for gaming. I'm sure there is an option in the bios to dedicate some ram as video memory; if I go that route I would just dedicate a GB or two if possible to the graphics processing.