Saving up for a new gaming computer, Have recent experience building, but just want additional input.
-Budget: $1000 including monitor and OS -I live in the US -I have my reasons and would not like to use Newegg, Or Superbiiz as my retailers any others are fine. -As mentioned before, need monitor as far as peripherals go -This will be a gaming computer -No I would not like to Overclock -Windows 8 please!
-I will be playing at 1080p -I play all kinds of games and would like 60 FPS
+1 Then an ssd if you want one and 8gb of ram, a decent psu, whatever case you like, and then the rest to a gpu. You might want to bump the cpu down to an i3 though. Not much difference between the two in-game. I can find some benchmarks if you want, but you can just as easily look them up yourself.
Knocking out those retailers hurts the build spec but this> http://pcpartpicker.com/p/F36crH or a 280 instead of the gtx960. Has a red/black theme. Could do with out the afm cpu cooler but it will look better than the stock cooler.
I agree. Most people wouldn't see an improvement from a decent gpu (because most people aren't pc gamers) or a faster processor. Even the entry level, <$100 cpus are several times faster than high end cpus from 8 years ago. Meanwhile, the daily tasks' requirements haven't really gone anywhere. Meanwhile, storage has been a bottleneck for daily use for forever. Case in point, I recently built a rig for a non gamer friend of mine. $100 apu mini itx build. The most expensive component? The SSD. And that machine flies through anything that he does. I really wish that SSDs would become more universal. They likely wont until after the price per gig gets better though. It is on that track for sure. HDDs are becoming archives.
Well I just always had problems with newegg, and Superbiiz, last time I checked out, they took the money out of my account and after the fact told me none of the stuff I wanted was in stock and it'd be a few weeks before it was sent out. So yea, not doing that again.
If you want top CPU performance and don't want to overclock I suggest 4790K. Now you might say that you don't need an unlocked processor, but this processor is 'overclocked' out of the box with 4GHz base and 4.4GHz turbo boost (everything is with default settings). Just make sure that you MB supports this chip. But if you don't need this kind of performance you'd better off with highest end locked i5. (i5-4690) Or you could pickup a Xeon (ex. E3-1231V3), you would get i7 performance just with a lower clock and no iGPU for a price of i5.
Also buy at least 120GB SSD for your system it will make a HUGE difference compared to a standard hard drive (boot times, app install/uninstall times, app load times, Win updates will install much faster and system will be more responsive in general).
Thanks for the additional input everyone. I may stretch the budget to fit in the i7. Just means saving for a bit longer, which My impatient ass will have to deal with..
Totally disagree. Been using a Hannspree one about that size as my primary monitor for years, and 1080p is still freaking beautiful. I really feel that it's still a perfectly valid entry point. Sure, 1440p is better, and 4K better still, but the prices climb more or less appropriately, so value for dollar, I feel 1080p is a perfectly fine choice.
And keep in mind you can get a perfectly legitimate Windows key on Reddit for <$30. I did! Just be careful, of course, and note seller reviews before you put money down.