Need advice on Budget Gaming PC (max. 700€)

My little sister gets her first Gaming PC and I need to build it.

She mostly plays Minecraft and ARK now (on her 6yr old 500€ Laptop...) and I want to bring her more into the depths of real gaming, if you know what I mean :P

Absolute max. Budget are 699€.
Preferred Budget are 600€.
No peripherals/screen etc. needed.
Intel/Nvidia preferred.
Future upgrade-ability would be great :)

Here is my list: https://geizhals.at/?cat=WL-658670&wlkey=3b77c9fbb9f3eba6566e8ffed56d5084

i3 6100
16GB RAM (hm...)
240gb SSD
GTX 960
400W PSU

Thanks in advance!

Foreword: You didn't really ask for any specific advice, so I just spoke my mind as long as much as I could.

If you would be willing to drop the Intel part, I can help you.

I can understand why people would want Intel, I personally would love it for emulation, but my X4 860K was, together with a mobo, CHEAPER than an Intel motherboard.

I build my PC for CZK 13600 (just about 500 €). My build:

X4 860K Black Edition
GTX 950 2GD5
ASUS A88XM-A
8GB Kingston RAM (2 more memory slots for 2 more sticks in the future)
520W Corsair PSU
1TB Seagate HDD 7200

Now this may seem like a very low-end build, and it is. I currently use it for catching up with gaming, my only monitor is 1080p, so I don't really need all the horsepower of, say, a Titan X. This said, your experience may vary. My budget was also really constrictive.

My thinking is that the miniITX build format kind of cuts your wings. I'd suggest a mATX, just because SLI support. On the other hand, you can stuff an mITX board into most cases no problem.

For RAM, I personally am a proponent of the cheapest possible. My Kingstons have no heatspreaders and because my case has good airflow, I don't worry about it.

I like the SSD, but I think that's the first upgrade option. Although they are silent, the price/GB is not really great. Get a nice HDD, 1TB or more, down the line. My games boot quickly even from that, keep the SSD for the OS.

The corner-cutting I'm doing right now is purely optional, you don't have to take any piece of advice I give you, it's just my thinking.

PSU: Nice and quiet (be quiet), but still, 400W might give you trouble if you want to upgrade to a more hungry card down the line (who knows what will happen with Pascal and later).

I don't see a CPU cooler in your build plan. Since you're Austrian, Noctuas may be a little cheaper where you live. But if that doesn't fit your plans, any larger CPU cooler will do. I have a Fera2 from SilentiumPC, and it made my PC much much better. I can sleep next to it, now!

So yeah, to sum up: AMD is cheaper, could free up your budget, bigger PSU == bigger upgradability down the line.

Viel Glück mit dem Bauen!

First off, thanks for your help!

My big problem with AMD is that I have no idea of their pricing (what would be equivalent to an i3/i5/i7/Pentium/Celeron etc.)...

As for the CPU I am just concerned that it's going to bottleneck the awesome GTX 960.

In my experience 400W are plenty as GPUs power consumtion got heavily reduced in the last years and she is not planning to get a 970 or above any time soon.

For RAM, I don't see a problem on paying 2-5€ more for a heat spreader. Maybe 16GB are too much for an entry but idk how a single 8GB stick will decrease performance (if it does)...

The SSD is mandatory - I am fighting against the idea of buying a standard PC from Aldi/Hofer/your local food store - so speed is key!

And to clear things up, Noctua is as expensive as anywhere else (sadly) ;)

Danke und Servus!

Well, when buying my PC, I went from the power of each. So my X4 860 has 4 cores @ 3.7 GHz, which is plenty for me.
If you want to compare CPUs, I'd use cpuboss.com. For GPUs, there is gpuboss.com. I don't know about any program/website that suggests optimal CPU/GPU combos.
By buying 16GB now, you'll be able to upgrade later down the line, rather than earlier (my build is 4 months old and I'm already thinking about an upgrade in the RAM department). If the difference between RAM with/without heatspreaders is 2-5€, go for it! Although if you plan on a big, quiet cooler, you may run into some trouble with them.
SSD is a good idea for quick boot times, but I'd say the price/GB is really good for HDDs. You can make a combo of the two, or buy an M.2 SSD (the mobo you picked supports it) Just found out that in Austria, an M.2/SSD combo would be expensive af.
Try Redux Noctuas, they're a little cheaper and quiet as hell.
Lastly, the PSU: "She is not planning to get a 970 or above any time soon". That still falls under upgradability, it may be limiting her further down the line. But how far down the line is fully beyond me and it may be well worth to just buy a 400W.

Servus! Ich hoffe, dass meine Noob-Ansichten dir helfen!

Intel/Nvidia preference...
Cheapest i5 you can get your hands on, that would be 4430... Cheapest H81 motherboard you can find... Some dual channel 2x4 1600 DDR3 dirt cheap ram... I can buy some adata for around 30€..
Don't be stupid and get 120GB ssd for the Windows and get 1TB hard drive for the storage...
Get yourself a Seasonic 430W psu for 40€... You don't want something to happen to the system because you saved 5€ on the power supply. And what you have left invest in a GPU....
Done...

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You changed the signature!

I was expecting a real Don... and it was much nicer-sounding in my mind :-)

It's a 240GB SSD and a BeQuiet PSU.

Quality DDR4 RAM and ASUS Motherboard.

240 is to much for OS drive and not enough for storage nowadays. My suggestion stays... I have 64 gigs for OS drive and 500 gigs for games and stuff... I am recommending to anyone, get yourself an SSD. The system works noticeably better, and you still have your hard drive for storage. Speed and space... Don't overkill...
BeQuiet is fine for the PSU...
Don was actually "Don't", that was accidentally cut in half by my sausage fingers taping the wrong square on my smartphone...

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Thanks, you have a point...

So that's what you ment with Don, now I know ^^'

Motherboard https://geizhals.at/gigabyte-ga-h81n-a1042494.html?hloc=at
CPU https://geizhals.at/intel-core-i5-4460-bx80646i54460-a1050218.html?hloc=at
Ram https://geizhals.at/crucial-ballistix-sport-dimm-kit-16gb-bls2cp8g3d1609ds1s00-a739120.html?hloc=at
Ssd https://geizhals.at/patriot-blast-120gb-pbt120gs25ssdr-a1301931.html?hloc=at
HDD https://geizhals.at/western-digital-wd-blue-1tb-wd10ezex-a795106.html?hloc=at
And you can use the case and psu...

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This guy gets it. Trust him, I have 1TB of space and that's half full.

(pr0nz take a lot of space)

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