Help with new Gaming PC

[victor_fernandes]

Hello,

 

since I'm knowing myself as a person I've always played games.

  I started with those old tetris machine, then went to my precious MegaDrive climbing up to Playstation 1 (not the rounded one, ew), Playstation2 and it 

ends here, when I received my first desktop computer.

 

  It wasn't a super machine but it was the first time that I had the opportunity to interact with a new system. 

 

  I don't want you to get bored to death reading my gaming life story but in conclusion, games was always part of my life and since I've change to the "PC

master Race" I couldn't be on the frontline of new games like I was every time a new game came out for a console system.

 

  Right now I have a laptop, I had to buy it for school (3 years ago) but it hurts me so much heading over steam and seeing, for example: MadMax, Fallout 4, GTA V, ARK, DayZ and many others and saying to myself "My laptop can't handle this" or "Will this game run on my laptop?" 

 

  And this is the reason why I'm here, to get your help in build my "nothing-to-worrying-about-pc" for a reasonable price.

 

  I understand a bit of computers, however there are some things that I'm completely unaware of, such as motherboards and CPU Ghz's. 

 

I've checked this guide: http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/7766-diy-pc/

 

1. I thought the Intel i7 were the beasts but I read wonder thing about that AMD CPU that can be overclocked to almost 5.0Ghz. Now, this is very pretty in theory but it will be the best quality/price choise to run such modern games without struggles? Because in a computer store near me, that CPU is really, really cheap, 177,90€ ( 132,16$, roughly).
   
    
2. The graphic card I have preference for Nvidia. The 780Ti , I read it is the best choice but it is unavailable in the store. What is the one that can run at almost the same performance?
   
    
3. Also I pretend to do recording, right now with my laptop I do it with OBS and IntelQuickSync encondig and I have no loss on fps or just 2/3fps drops, and playing at 1980x1080 (or in a lower resolution).
   
    
4. If I bought a full HD monitor, playing in with lower resolution such as 1440x990 it is a waste of money?

 

 

I hope you guys can help me. It's late in here, tomorrow I will place my components list so you guys can tell me if I finally will be able to be at the top again.

 

 

Laptop specs:

Asus K55VJ

Windows 10 x46

Intel i7 3630QM 2.40Ghz~3.40Ghz

Intel HD 4000

Nvidia GT 635M 2GB 

6GB DDR3

Toshiba HDD 500GB

 

[EarthboundHero]

@victor_fernandes

1: Just because they can get to 5GHz doesn't mean they perform better. Intel CPUs have a better IPC. They perform about twice as better at the same clock speed in single thread processes like gaming.

2: On the nVidia side I'd recommend a 970 or up for 780Ti performance. If you're willing to do AMD, the 390 is a great choice.

3: Not really a question.

4: Why would you want to? I mean you can, but why?

5: Follow your posts so you can get notifications when someone replies.

[Darth-Marius]

1: Just because they can get to 5GHz doesn't mean they perform better. Intel CPUs have a better IPC. They perform about twice as better at the same clock speed in single thread processes like gaming.

2: On the nVidia side I'd recommend a 970 or up for 780Ti performance. If you're willing to do AMD, the 390 is a great choice.

3: Not really a question.

4: Why would you want to? I mean you can, but why?

^rt and amd cores are much weaker, plus amd is lacking major features for their chipsets

[EarthboundHero]

^rt and amd cores are much weaker, plus amd is lacking major features for their chipsets

That's what better IPC means.

[Darth-Marius]

That's what better IPC means.

yeah, so im agreeing with you

[Paytend01]

Yah intel Processors have better performance per core, better power effeicency, etc

 

If you have the budget though go with the AMD r9 390 Gpu. It outperforms a gtx 970

[EarthboundHero]

yeah, so im agreeing with you

Just phrased a bit weird to me, but I understand what you mean.

[Egad]

There is no reason to buy an AMD processor right now.  You have absolutely no upgrade path as the current AMD socket has been pushed as far as it can and still ranks lower than Intel processors with fewer cores.  What you want is likely an Intel i5 that fits your budget.  Four cores right now is the sweet spot for most games and the i5 will handle it well.  

 

I don't know what your budget it, but typically you want to structure you build around:

 

• i5 Processor (4th, 5th or 6th are all fine, slight performance jumps with each gen but the 4th gens still remain very functional)
• Graphics Card: I recommend something with at least 4 GB VRAM.  The 750Ti is a good budget card, but with only 2 GB of VRAM it has one foot in the grave.  Right now generally speaking AMD cards are the better deal, although the nVidia GTX 980Ti is the king if you value pure performance over price to performance 
• 8 GB of RAM

 

In terms of getting nice stuff, you want to step your graphics card up first as an i5 can still feed even a powerful GPU.  Then you consider going to 16 GB RAM or an i7.  4th and 5th gen i7 prices are also dropping as 6th gen processors are released, so in the future going from an i5 to an i7 will be cheaper.  However you don't need an i7 right now unless you're looking at running other things along with the game (recording the game, streaming it, etc).  

[victor_fernandes]

Hello again 

 

@victor_fernandes

1: Just because they can get to 5GHz doesn't mean they perform better. Intel CPUs have a better IPC. They perform about twice as better at the same clock speed in single thread processes like gaming.

2: On the nVidia side I'd recommend a 970 or up for 780Ti performance. If you're willing to do AMD, the 390 is a great choice.

3: Not really a question.

4: Why would you want to? I mean you can, but why?

5: Follow your posts so you can get notifications when someone replies.

4. Just because I went to Nvidia website and saw some graphic cards charts, with scores and performance and the settings in that chart was medium settings at 1980x1080, so if I play at lower resolution I could increase those settings. My laptop is 1366x768 so anything above this will be good to me.

 

 

There is no reason to buy an AMD processor right now.  You have absolutely no upgrade path as the current AMD socket has been pushed as far as it can and still ranks lower than Intel processors with fewer cores.  What you want is likely an Intel i5 that fits your budget.  Four cores right now is the sweet spot for most games and the i5 will handle it well.  

 

I don't know what your budget it, but typically you want to structure you build around:

 

• i5 Processor (4th, 5th or 6th are all fine, slight performance jumps with each gen but the 4th gens still remain very functional)
• Graphics Card: I recommend something with at least 4 GB VRAM.  The 750Ti is a good budget card, but with only 2 GB of VRAM it has one foot in the grave.  Right now generally speaking AMD cards are the better deal, although the nVidia GTX 980Ti is the king if you value pure performance over price to performance 
• 8 GB of RAM

 

In terms of getting nice stuff, you want to step your graphics card up first as an i5 can still feed even a powerful GPU.  Then you consider going to 16 GB RAM or an i7.  4th and 5th gen i7 prices are also dropping as 6th gen processors are released, so in the future going from an i5 to an i7 will be cheaper.  However you don't need an i7 right now unless you're looking at running other things along with the game (recording the game, streaming it, etc).  

First things first. It is possible to change the CPU? Like, if I buy now an i5 and when I have the chance to buy an i7, it would be possible to swap them if the motherboard support?

 

The Nvidia GTX 980Ti costs almost the same as my laptop    :lol:

 

Yes, I pretend to do some recording but I'm not that picky in that so I could just use my laptop as a recorder.

 

And as a CPU what are those currently at the top, both i5 and i7 so I could compare the prices or is there any website with charts , because the only thing I know it's the Ghz but I also know that, for example, an i5 with 3.40GHz is even or lower than an i7 with 3.00GHz

[Rian]

Hello again

4. Just because I went to Nvidia website and saw some graphic cards charts, with scores and performance and the settings in that chart was medium settings at 1980x1080, so if I play at lower resolution I could increase those settings. My laptop is 1366x768 so anything above this will be good to me.

First things first. It is possible to change the CPU? Like, if I buy now an i5 and when I have the chance to buy an i7, it would be possible to swap them if the motherboard support?

The Nvidia GTX 980Ti costs almost the same as my laptop :lol:

Yes, I pretend to do some recording but I'm not that picky in that so I could just use my laptop as a recorder.

And as a CPU what are those currently at the top, both i5 and i7 so I could compare the prices or is there any website with charts , because the only thing I know it's the Ghz but I also know that, for example, an i5 with 3.40GHz is even or lower than an i7 with 3.00GHz

Depending on the performance per core of each cpu.

Let's say you wanna test which cpu have better performance per core you would run them both at the same speed for example 4Ghz. So to have a fair comparison of "which cpu is better" you would have to run them at the same speed.

The current top of the line I5s are the 4690k and the 6600k(skylake).

For the i7s it would be the 4790k and the 6700k (skylake).

If you're not going to x99 this would be it

[Egad]

@victor_fernandes, yes CPUs are switchable within a chipset.  For example the H97 chipset supports Intel's Haswell Refresh and Broadwell CPUs which gives you a number of i5 and i7 processors to chose from.

 

When you buy a new CPU you just pop it in, clean the thermal paste from the old CPU off the cooler (just wipe it down with isopropyl alcohol), apply new thermal paste and you're in business.  

[victor_fernandes]

So, what you guys think about this:

 

Motherboard: I have no idea but something that I could upgrade both CPU and graphic card in the future.

CPU: Intel Core I7 4790K 4.0GHz (4.4GHz Turbo) 8MB Box or Intel Core I5 4690K 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) 6MB Box

Graphic Card: Nvidia GTX 970 or equivalent. I don't know if AMD can do tesselation or if has some features as nvidia does such as the shadowplay and physx

RAM: 16GB - No idea if DDR3 or DDR 4 and the voltage

HDD: 250GB SSD whichever brand or/and 500GB HDD.

[Egad]

I would recommend playing around with PC Part Picker: https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/  If you aren't located in the US, you can change the country in the upper right to get more accurate prices.

 

As for your build:

 

First some general questions:

 

What is your price range?

Do you intend to overclock?  

What do you intend to do with it?  I assume gaming, but anything else?  

What kind of resolution are you looking for in games (1080p, 1440p, 4K)?

 

MoBo:  Asus is pretty standard (largest manufacturer).  I also like Asrock and EVGA.  MSI and Gigabyte are the other big names.  

CPU:  Both are good choices.  

RAM: 8 GB is good, 16 GB is better.  However I'd put money into other places (CPU or GPU) before going to 16 GB of RAM, unless you have specific programs that benefit from the RAM (ex: video rendering)

GPU: So PhysX is overrated.  Only a couple of games have ever really amazingly benefited from it, a couple others get some nice eye candy out of it.  Overall though it had a low adoption rate with developers and is pretty meh.  Now Shadowplay is very nice, as is Shield Streaming and both are pretty good reasons to go nVidia if you plan to make use of those features.  The 970 itself is a bit an odd design in that it is functionally only a 3.5 GB card, the last 0.5 GB is slower.  It's a bit more complex than that, but yeah.  AMD has cards that are superior to the 970 in terms of delivering frames per second.  If you really want Shadowplay and such and your budget allows it, a 980 or 980Ti, an i5, and 8 GB of RAM would be better than say an i7, 16 GB of RAM, and a 970.

Drives: I tend to recommend starting with a single small SSD for just the operating system, general applications (Word, web browser, etc).  So a 120 or 240 GB would be great.  Then consider higher grade and larger SSDs in RAID 0, if your budget allows it, for putting your games on.  Or just a single larger drive instead of a RAID.  That way you have one drive handling all your operating system read/writes and another drive or RAID Array handling the game.  

[victor_fernandes]

I would recommend playing around with PC Part Picker: https://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/  If you aren't located in the US, you can change the country in the upper right to get more accurate prices.

 

As for your build:

 

First some general questions:

 

What is your price range?

I don't have any, I just want to see how much it will be having a good quality/price PC, because I know in way or another it will be expensive, something around at 800€-1100€ (713$ - 990$)

 

Do you intend to overclock?  

Probably not, I will not risk it since I'm not that into that

 

What do you intend to do with it?  I assume gaming, but anything else?  

Mostly gaming since I will keep my laptop for editing or recording (Photoshop, SonyVegas, Corel, Premiere,etc)

 

What kind of resolution are you looking for in games (1080p, 1440p, 4K)?

1080p only , to be honest I don't know if it's perceptible the change from 1080p to 1440p but this is something that can wait.

 

[Egad]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor  (€230.07 @ Mindfactory) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (€35.89 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  (€142.22 @ Mindfactory) 

Memory: Crucial 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  (€101.44 @ Mindfactory) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€54.59 @ Mindfactory) 

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card  (€361.32 @ Mindfactory) 

Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  (€49.90 @ Caseking) 

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€98.03 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Total: €1073.46

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-05 17:58 CEST+0200

 

This build on the higher end of the price range, using German prices to get them in Euro.  Typically for pure gaming you'd go with the R9 over the GTX 970, but you did mention some professional type things like SonyVegas that benefit from CUDA so the 970 might make some sense if you ever want to use the tower for work.  You could also game on 8 GB of RAM, but again the 16 GB has some benefit for professional work.  Since you're on Skylake, DDR4, etc this gets a little pricier.  

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  (€225.85 @ Mindfactory) 

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  (€35.89 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Motherboard: Asus H97M-E Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (€89.33 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory  (€54.84 @ Mindfactory) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (€97.54 @ Mindfactory) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (€54.59 @ Mindfactory) 

Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 390X 8GB Video Card  (€451.09 @ Mindfactory) 

Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case  (€39.99 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (€98.03 @ Amazon Deutschland) 

Total: €1147.15

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-05 17:56 CEST+0200

 

This is more of a pure gaming rig.  The Intel i5 is an older generation, but that is fine as Skylake doesn't have a huge gain and it remains a good choice.  I went slightly above your budget just to kind of set a slightly higher end standard.  You could save money by:

 

• Using the stock Intel CPU Cooler (delete the Hyper 212 Evo).  If you aren't overclocking the stock cooler is fine, just nosier.  I tend to go aftermarket to reduce noise personally.  
• Delete the SSD or go down to 120 GB in size and save a few euros.  
• Step down your graphics card to a 390 instead of a 390X.  The 390X is a bit overkill for 1080p gaming, a 4 GB 290X would also get the job done.  

You could also do the Skylake build with a 390/390X/etc instead of the 970.  

[victor_fernandes]

Thank you so much @Egad for taking your time to help me with this build! 

 

It's been a while since I came here and right now I've found an article from "PCGamer" that I find it curious and since I know I can rely on you, what do you think about this?

http://www.pcgamer.com/pc-build-guide-budget-gaming-pc/

 

CPU: Intel Core I3 6100

GPU: AMD R9 380 4GB

RAM: 8GB DDR4 2666MHz

 

It is much more economical which at this time it is better for me. I've decided that I will not do any editing, just pure gaming, so I guess I can save some more by decreasing in RAM in in CPU. However, someone said it's not very good a dual core CPU along with the GPU R9. What do I do?