I'm currently planning on undertaking the task of my first PC build, and I know that now is the time that PC parts are often at their cheapest. Unfortunately, I haven't been keeping up with the state of parts for the past few years and I was looking for advice on what parts I should purchase now for my upcoming build. The computer will mainly be used for gaming, with some productivity on the side, and my budget is $1000 - $1300. And I have a monitor and software already purchased.
Parts that I'm considering:
Processor: Intel i5-4690k
Cooling: ??? (Air-Cooling preferred)
Motherboard: ??? (ATX)
Memory: ??? (16GB preferred, 8GB acceptable)
OS Hard Drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB SSD
Main Hard Drive: ??? (or larger SSD if possible)
GPU: ??? (Nvidia preferred, e.g. GTX 760)
Power Supply: ???
Case: Fractal Design R4/R5 Case
If you could offer me any suggestions for the parts I need, please let me know! Thank you!
ASUS Maximus VII Formula Motherboard with Watch Dogs $469, Intel Core i7 4790K $399, Antec Kuhler H2O 650 V2 Liquid CPU Cooler $69, G.Skill Ares F3-2133C9Q-16GAB 16GB (4x4GB) DDR3 $215, Samsung 840 EVO Series 1TB SSD $479, Aerocool Strike-X 800W $149, the combined price of these parts is around $1680 although i still havent inputted a gpu or case, nor fans, and i have upped some specs, these are only suguestion parts for each individual part, not a suguestion as a whole
Not sure if you want SLI upgradeability in the future. This one doesn't have any SLI support, but is well within your budget. Also, the GTX 970 is a beast - much stronger than the 760! This is mainly for games, but of course any computer can do productivity. If you do a decent amount of video rendering, then an i7 would be better.
This is what I have so far: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/fwrmWZ
This computer will be mainly devoted to gaming, so i5 is fine. I also want to use a 500GB SSD for everything, seeing as I do value quick load times and it is incredibly cheap at the moment. Personally, that amount of storage is enough for me and I can always add more. I did take the advice to upgrade to a more powerful graphics card in the 970 and I decided to use Corsair for the memory and power supply. The things that I'm not entirely certain about are the cooling and motherboard.
No real reason, I just didn't look into the prices closely enough there.
Here's the updated build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/pM8jLk
Do you think that the Cooler Master offers sufficient cooling, or is it worth spending a bit more? For context, I am not planning on overclocking at the moment. Also, is that motherboard dependable, because some people are claiming that their initial units were defective and that's something I would like to avoid. Thank you!