First Gaming PC Build - Coming from a Mac

[HarrisonC]

So I am wanting to put together my first PC for as cheap as possible but still have decent parts that will not go out of date in the near future. I am coming from a Macbook Pro with a Quad-Core i7 which I am keeping but I want to be able to play games above 1 FPS. As I said this is my first build so I am not looking to do anything fancy but I want a beefy machine that can deal with FPS-killing games such as ArmA and DayZ.

 

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus VI Formula 

CPU: Intel i7 4770K

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz 

Heat-sink: Stock but will change to H100i in future (some thoughts on whether this will be adequate in the beginning?)

SSD: Kingston ssdNow 300 120GB

HDD: WD Blue 1TB

GPU: EVGA 780 Superclocked ACX Edition

Power Supply: Corsair RM650

Case: Define R4 but I have found out this may be too small for such a large mobo so likely to go for 650D, ideas?

 

Total Cost: £1250/$2000 but room for movement

 

As I said this is my first build but want something that wont become outdated by future games (i.e. Tom Clancy's The Division which will probably be very GPU intensive)

 

Cheers

[venturizhou]

You can save some money and get a Core i5-4670k instead, realistically 4770K isn't going to produce any FPS gains over a 4670K

 

Stock cooler isn't going to give you any headroom to overclock. It may be noisy under load if that is something that concerns you.

 

Just FYI Kingston changed the NAND in their V300 and resulted in a much slower product than originally released. 

 

The motherboard is ATX format which is a standard so Define R4 is fine. Unless you like the motherboard for aesthetic purposes. I would recommend using the money from getting an i5 instead of an i7 and getting a less expensive Z87 motherboard to get that H100i instead. 

[antoainb]

Any reason to justify that mobo? That seems a bit overkill, with the money saved you can get a bigger and better ssd, or a bigger hdd or even the cooler right away. Also get an i5 if you're not doing video editing.

[madscientist56]

Keep the define r4, its a great case and is plenty big, get a 4670k not a 4770k unled you think you will be doing workstation stuff too such as heavy editing or 3d modeling

 

Also welcome to the good side of pc gaming

[nixproducer]

So I am wanting to put together my first PC for as cheap as possible but still have decent parts that will not go out of date in the near future. I am coming from a Macbook Pro with a Quad-Core i7 which I am keeping but I want to be able to play games above 1 FPS. As I said this is my first build so I am not looking to do anything fancy but I want a beefy machine that can deal with FPS-killing games such as ArmA and DayZ.

 

Motherboard: Asus ROG Maximus VI Formula 

CPU: Intel i7 4770K

RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600MHz 

Heat-sink: Stock but will change to H100i in future (some thoughts on whether this will be adequate in the beginning?)

SSD: Kingston ssdNow 300 120GB

HDD: WD Blue 1TB

GPU: EVGA 780 Superclocked ACX Edition

Power Supply: Corsair RM650

Case: Define R4 but I have found out this may be too small for such a large mobo so likely to go for 650D, ideas?

 

Total Cost: £1250/$2000 but room for movement

 

As I said this is my first build but want something that wont become outdated by future games (i.e. Tom Clancy's The Division which will probably be very GPU intensive)

 

Cheers

i would switch to the i5 4670k and get the H100i off the bat because if you use the stock you would have to take of the thermal paste on the processor but if you do not find that a problem everything looks fine from there

[CoolBeans]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($154.99 @ NCIX US) 

CPU Cooler:  Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC) 

Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($143.84 @ NCIX US) 

Memory:  A-Data XPG V2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($68.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($155.99 @ Amazon) 

Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.16 @ Amazon) 

Video Card:  Asus GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card  ($499.99 @ Newegg) 

Case:  Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($119.99 @ Mwave) 

Power Supply:  SeaSonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($100.98 @ SuperBiiz) 

Total: $1250.07

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 18:24 EST-0500)

 

If you want to spend the extra 100-200$ for 10FPS, then get a 780Ti

[antoainb]

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  AMD FX-8320 3.5GHz 8-Core Processor  ($154.99 @ NCIX US) 

CPU Cooler:  Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($29.98 @ OutletPC) 

Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard  ($143.84 @ NCIX US) 

Memory:  A-Data XPG V2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($68.99 @ Newegg) 

Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($155.99 @ Best Buy) 

Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.16 @ Amazon) 

Video Card:  Asus GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card  ($499.99 @ Newegg) 

Case:  Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($99.99 @ Microcenter) 

Power Supply:  SeaSonic 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($100.98 @ SuperBiiz) 

Total: $1230.07

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 18:23 EST-0500)

 

If you want to spend the extra 100-200$ for 10FPS, then get a 780Ti

 

 

This is a good option, unless you want to do video editing, then go for a 4770k.

[venturizhou]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

 

CPU:  Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  (£161.99 @ Aria PC) 

Motherboard:  MSI Z87-G43 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  (£77.06 @ Aria PC) 

Memory:  Avexir MPOWER Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  (£53.90 @ Overclockers.co.uk) 

Storage:  Crucial M500 240GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  (£87.98 @ Aria PC) 

Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  (£54.98 @ Aria PC) 

Video Card:  EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB Video Card  (£533.50 @ Ebuyer) 

Case:  Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case  (£79.99 @ Amazon UK) 

Power Supply:  EVGA SuperNOVA 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  (£64.96 @ Amazon UK) 

Total: £1114.36

(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)

(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 23:30 GMT+0000)

[HarrisonC]

Any reason to justify that mobo? That seems a bit overkill, with the money saved you can get a bigger and better ssd, or a bigger hdd or even the cooler right away. Also get an i5 if you're not doing video editing.

 

Well thinking about it I could go with a Hero instead of a Formula which would save me about £60/$100. I don't know if I will be doing video editing in the future but I will most likely be doing 3D modelling as that is something I want to get into and I know that is something quite CPU intensive.

[antoainb]

Well thinking about it I could go with a Hero instead of a Formula which would save me about £60/$100. I don't know if I will be doing video editing in the future but I will most likely be doing 3D modelling as that is something I want to get into and I know that is something quite CPU intensive.

 

Then ok, get the i7, but the cheaper mobo is good, it will still last you for a very long time.

[HarrisonC]

Then ok, get the i7, but the cheaper mobo is good, it will still last you for a very long time.

 

Yep, I put all my parts into PCPartsPicker and I am now under budget. Thanks for the advice