PC Parts Review

EDITED

Hello Everyone!

I'm planning on making a brand new gaming PC for the first time. I'm very new to this but I did a little research before creating a few options for myself. I've decided to go with the following specs, however I'd like some constructive feedback telling me whether or not it will be a good system or whether I should try to invest in a better option. My price range is around $600.00 USD - $700.00 USD.

Specs:

CPU - AMD FD6300WMHKBOX FX-6300 6-Core Processor

Power Supply - EVGA 600 B1 80+ Bronze

Graphics Card - EVGA GeFore GTX 960 SuperSC ACX

Hard Drive - WD Blue 1TB SATA 6Gb/s 7200rpm Internal Hard Drive

RAM - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB Kit (4GBx2) DDR3 1600

Case - Corsair Carbide Series Black 300R Mid-Tower

Motherboard - ASUS M5A99FX PRO R2.0 AM3+ AMD 990FX SATA 6Gb/s

CPU Cooling Unit - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo

Thermal Compound (If of any importance) - Arctic Silver 5

Let me know if all of these parts will work well together, and feel free to leave suggestions for some better options. Thank you!

A few quick questions. What will you be doing with this machine? If gaming, what resolution, what games? If other, then what programs? How important is gaming vs whatever else this is for? Do you live in the US (need to know for pricing)?

Yes, I will be using this machine for gaming. I'm planning on playing near the 1080p resolutions for games such as Counter Strike Global Offensive and Elder Scrolls. I game quite a few hours a day and its a decent portion in my everyday life. I do live in the U.S.

Here you go. You can get the price down some if you go with 8gb of ram. This build will give you the best performance in the widest range of games. Intel for poorly optimized games and MMOs. i5 for dat quad core. Cheap mobo which has all the essentials but doesn't cost too much (don't need an expensive one since you won't be overclocking that cpu since it is locked). 16gb of ram because I personally have been running out with 8gb lately, so I would go with 16gb if possible. No ssd because of budget, but can be easily dropped in later on. 600W gold rated psu because it is efficient and should be able to handle any single card set up, and you will only have one card in there at a time because that mobo doesn't support sli/crossfire (though multi-card configs are a pain in the ass and best avoided). Cheap case, but does its job well. No aftermarket cooler necessary since the cpu is locked. That gpu should be good for maxing basically everything at 1080p, aside from the most demanding games (Crysis 3 and Witcher 3 for example).

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BVgrQ7

Alright, thank you for your suggestions!

So I have made my own list for ya. Comes in around $695. Kept with the AMD cpu, but the 8320 because it is almost the same as the 8350, just a slower clock speed. Went with the corsair 200r because it is a quality part. No SSD because of the budget, but the 1Tb of WD black should be fine unless you want to store all the things. Similar card to what @1920_1080p_1280_720p but the XFX matches the motherboard better (looks wise). Either will do. You can get another 8gbs of RAM later if you want, and the power supply has headroom for a new video card. Hope this helps.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qMdGgs

Thank you for your suggestion!

Solid build, but I would advise going with the psu that I listed instead of the Corsair unit as the lower end Corsair units aren't the best, and $4 will get you a much better efficiency rating (so why not?), but the sale on that psu ends soon so the price difference will go back to normal. Buy by the sales.

As for the ram, I would suggest going with a single 8gb stick instead of 2 4gb sticks. The difference in speed should be irrelevent in-game and would allow for better upgrades later on.

Other than that, a very good option.

Overall, do you think my build is decent enough or does it need quite a bit of changing?

  • am3 cpu + intel 1150 motherboard. ---- not compatible - intel to intel cpu, am3+ motherboard for amd cpu

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/CCn9dC - 6core cpu + cooler, gtx960, 250gb samsung ssd, 1tb hdd, nice case, gold psu, 8gb ram.
No need to buy TIM (like arctic silver) the stuff that comes pre-applied or bundled with any cooler is just fine. Save the money.