Holiday 2014 Buyer's Guide - Full Component List

[Yoinkerman]

Pair it up with a real card and you'll see a difference in any threaded game.

And a 4460 is a decent bit better than a 6300 as well as being cheaper, giving you an upgrade path (should one want one), and runs more efficiently. Not to mention a 4460 won't bottleneck a SLI/XFIRE setup while a 6300 will.

And while the cooler master case + psu might not be awful, its still not likely to be as good as a separate purchase psu would be; and its not like the money saved was used in any meaningful way. The price point to be going for a case+psu combo is around the $300 mark.

Yes, Corsair makes solid PSUs, however there are other excellent PSUs that are cheaper. EVGA G2 750w psu is substantially cheaper and just as good.

Ummm...a a Blue is faster than a greeen. *cough* mister slightly faster loads times >>> visual fidelity *cough*

Uh, I fed my SLI 760s with my 4670k and g3258. If you're trying to suggest SLI 760s isn't a real setup, idk what to say.

I don't know where you live, but a 4 core Intel is as much as a 6300 and motherboard put together.

So get a evga psu then? Nowhere does a evga making the overall build slightly less expensive invalidate a corsair one. Saving $30 in a $2000 build is 1.5 percent. ONE POINT FIVE. It is not a significant amount.

Do you have any real experience with different drives and setups? Going from a green to a blue doesn't make a noticeable decrease in load times. Going from one blue drive to two in RAID 0 doesn't make a noticeable difference. I know because have(had, I moved drives around) 4 blues in RAID 0. Sure it's better on paper. Get a blue over a green if you feel it's important. It's not a big enough difference to make a green a poor choice.

That's all I'm getting at. These are solid builds and people are acting like Linus just burnt his house down to go live with the luddites. Having different opinions is great, but they're being presented poorly.

[79wjd]

Uh, I fed my SLI 760s with my 4670k and g3258. If you're trying to suggest SLI 760s isn't a real setup, idk what to say.

I don't know where you live, but a 4 core Intel is as much as a 6300 and motherboard put together.

So get a evga psu then? Nowhere does a evga making the overall build slightly less expensive invalidate a corsair one. Saving $30 in a $2000 build is 1.5 percent. ONE POINT FIVE. It is not a significant amount.

Do you have any real experience with different drives and setups? Going from a green to a blue doesn't make a noticeable decrease in load times. Going from one blue drive to two in RAID 0 doesn't make a noticeable difference. I know because have(had, I moved drives around) 4 blues in RAID 0. Sure it's better on paper. Get a blue over a green if you feel it's important. It's not a big enough difference to make a green a poor choice.

That's all I'm getting at. These are solid builds and people are acting like Linus just burnt his house down to go live with the luddites. Having different opinions is great, but they're being presented poorly.

Try games that actually use more than two threads then, as you will notice a difference; and if you don't see a difference then there is something else affecting your system. Heres an official benchmark between the two ( http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1265?vs=1261 ). And I know what you're going to say, those benchmarks were done at stock speeds....well, I've done similar tests myself by disabling two cores on my 4690k at 4.2ghz. (And yes, minimum fps is very important as it causes noticeable a very noticeable stutter)

 

A 4460 + h81 board is the same cost if not less than an FX6300 + overclock ready motherboard + cpu cooler. 

 

Thats not the point....The point is he ignored equally good parts in order to satisfy his sponsors (or so it appears -- which is just wrong). 

[Yoinkerman]

Try games that actually use more than two threads then, as you will notice a difference; and if you don't see a difference then there is something else affecting your system. Heres an official benchmark between the two ( http://www.anandtech.com/bench/product/1265?vs=1261 ). And I know what you're going to say, those benchmarks were done at stock speeds....well, I've done similar tests myself by disabling two cores on my 4690k at 4.2ghz.

A 4460 + h81 board is the same cost if not less than an FX6300 + overclock ready motherboard + cpu cooler.

Thats not the point....The point is he ignored equally good parts in order to satisfy his sponsors (or so it appears -- which is just wrong).

When you say notice a difference do you mean the paper fps will be different or that the experience of actually playing the game will be different? Because there's no difference on the second one.

And no, I just looked up a 6300 on Newegg, a 6300 + 970 mobo is $169, and a 4460 is $190. Still room for a cooler.

Let's say he was influenced by his sponsors, (which I don't believe happened in this video) corsair stuff is great at a great price. The Intel drives are fantastic drives and a decent price at time of filming. Are there other choices? Sure. Are there arguably "better" choices? Sure.

Nowhere does that mean these builds don't make a lot of sense.

Edit: you edited in some benchmarks, and it appears only bf4 suffers from an impact to playability in SLI. That's one game. In SLI. A g3258 will crush a low end gfx card.

[Trentonxx]

mhn, for the 1000 build spending so much on the RAM and then getting a crappy PSU? why?

[79wjd]

When you say notice a difference do you mean the paper fps will be different or that the experience of actually playing the game will be different? Because there's no difference on the second one.

And no, I just looked up a 6300 on Newegg, a 6300 + 970 mobo is $169, and a 4460 is $190. Still room for a cooler.

Let's say he was influenced by his sponsors, (which I don't believe happened in this video) corsair stuff is great at a great price. The Intel drives are fantastic drives and a decent price at time of filming. Are there other choices? Sure. Are there arguably "better" choices? Sure.

Nowhere does that mean these builds don't make a lot of sense.

Edit: you edited in some benchmarks, and it appears only bf4 suffers from an impact to playability in SLI. That's one game. In SLI. A g3258 will crush a low end gfx card.

Yes, there was a noticeable difference. While average fps might be similar in some games, minimum fps vary quite a lot (which adds noticeably obtrusive stuttering).

Whoops, was thinking of a 4130 for a second as I was talking to someone about a 4130 vs a 6300.

And while he didn't recommend any bad parts, I don't think it's right to be sponsor biased, which these builds do appear to be.

[PatrikStar24]

-rational criticism-

 

 

-more rational criticism-

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($328.97 @ OutletPC)

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

Motherboard: MSI Z97-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($121.99 @ Newegg)

Memory: G.Skill Sniper Gaming Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($153.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Crucial MX100 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($202.86 @ NCIX US)

Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($227.99 @ NCIX US)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($349.99 @ Amazon)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI) ($349.99 @ Amazon)

Case: Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case ($99.99 @ Amazon)

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ NCIX US)

Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN822N 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($18.59 @ OutletPC)

Total: $1964.33

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-14 16:25 EST-0500

 

There is also this

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($328.97 @ OutletPC)

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

Motherboard: MSI Z97-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($121.99 @ Newegg)

Memory: G.Skill Sniper Gaming Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($153.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Crucial MX100 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($202.86 @ NCIX US)

Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($134.98 @ OutletPC)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($349.99 @ Amazon)

Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (2-Way SLI)  ($349.99 @ Amazon)

Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced ATX Full Tower Case  ($159.99 @ Newegg)

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($79.99 @ NCIX US)

Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN822N 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter  ($18.59 @ OutletPC)

Total: $1931.32

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-14 16:48 EST-0500

I could replace the MSI Twin Frozr V's with Gigabyte Windforce cards, but that might slightly go over budget it doesn't

I was going to put some response here, but I forgot. Will edit if I remember.

[Spiderloser]

i dont why everyone is moaning so much about the parts its a Guide!!!!  IE  linus is just saying here is some of the stuff you could buy BUT DONT HAVE TO its just suggetions  and also  everything is interchangeable just about ie you could buy diff ram diff mb diff cpu or whatever and if your a starter all of these builds are upgradble at a later date so i dont see the problem with any of them.  

 

 

@LinusTech keep up the good work i say

[Weak1ings]

Dear Linus,

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Weak1ings/saved/FRx2FT

$400 PC with better performance than your $600.

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Weak1ings/saved/kRNYcf

$1000 PC with better performance and DOUBLE the threads (no OC but unimportant to me) (mini-itx)

 

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Weak1ings/saved/34DmP6

$1000 ATX-PC with similar performance.  replace with i5 if you wish to OC and allot extra $$ to a cooler.

[Milky2507]

Long time watcher of the show and only recently joined the forum, i was having a think, as my slightly future proof system from about 4 years ago has been getting old without any recent upgrades, i was thinking about starting to rebuild it part by part, and i just watched this video, and did some research, and if you transfer the cost across straight from us dollars to pounds (UK) the whole $1700 system should cost roughly £1084, but it doesnt when i go throughy sites like amazon and ebuyer here in the uk, its closer to £1500, only a difference of about £200, i find that rather insulting to the UK market and was wondering if anyone in the uk knew any cheaper places to buy components online apart from amazon and ebuyer....

[79wjd]

Long time watcher of the show and only recently joined the forum, i was having a think, as my slightly future proof system from about 4 years ago has been getting old without any recent upgrades, i was thinking about starting to rebuild it part by part, and i just watched this video, and did some research, and if you transfer the cost across straight from us dollars to pounds (UK) the whole $1700 system should cost roughly £1084, but it doesnt when i go throughy sites like amazon and ebuyer here in the uk, its closer to £1500, only a difference of about £200, i find that rather insulting to the UK market and was wondering if anyone in the uk knew any cheaper places to buy components online apart from amazon and ebuyer....

the US has cheap electronic prices compared to the rest of the world; don't expect to match US prices. Without sales/buying used it won't happen. 

[Milky2507]

the US has cheap electronic prices compared to the rest of the world; don't expect to match US prices. Without sales/buying used it won't happen. 

Just feels like we get forgotten some times, because technically im giving these companies a higher markup for their proucts.

[79wjd]

Just feels like we get forgotten some times, because technically im giving these companies a higher markup for their proucts.

Keep in mind that you're paying a VAT tax as well as import taxes (neither of which are applicable in the US). 

[xentric]

I asked my roommates who are the $500 pc buyers and none of them are interested in overclocking. 

 

I don't think a CPU at the $500 should based on how well it overclocks (I know there was other reason the intel cpu was picked) if most buyers in that range either have no interest or knowledge.

[Milky2507]

Keep in mind that you're paying a VAT tax as well as import taxes (neither of which are applicable in the US). 

do you not pay VAT in the US?

[79wjd]

do you not pay VAT in the US?

nope

 

Just a standard tax, which is like 7% in most states. which isn't applied to any purchase made out of state (or online where the company does NOT have an HQ or warehouse in that state). i.e. in NJ I pay a 7% tax on anything I order from Newegg as there is a warehouse in NJ; however in Illinois I pay no taxes from Newegg. 

[Shahnewaz]

I would say the GPU of the mid range configuration would be fine with an R9 280X or a GTX 770.

[Yoinkerman]

I would say the GPU of the mid range configuration would be fine with an R9 280X or a GTX 770.

No doubt it's something to think about if you want to save a few bucks

[JoaoPRSousa]

Linus' builds are all about YOLO :lol:

[Milky2507]

nope

 

Just a standard tax, which is like 7% in most states. which isn't applied to any purchase made out of state (or online where the company does NOT have an HQ or warehouse in that state). i.e. in NJ I pay a 7% tax on anything I order from Newegg as there is a warehouse in NJ; however in Illinois I pay no taxes from Newegg. 

Wow! VAT in the uk is 20% on most goods and services! i wish i could pay as little as 7%!

[MarioS]

Every green drive I've purchases has died in less than a year... I don't trust WD anymore

[Mr.Bison]

Hi all. I recently bought an Asus 1440p monitor for gaming. I currently run a gtx 570 that I bought 3 years ago. The rest of the system I got I will be leaving alone. I was considering before Linus posted this to upgrade my gpu  setup to gtx 970 sli. What he said is compelling. Am i still better off running that setup or buy a gtx 980 now then sli it later on next year? Thank you

[79wjd]

Hi all. I recently bought an Asus 1440p monitor for gaming. I currently run a gtx 570 that I bought 3 years ago. The rest of the system I got I will be leaving alone. I was considering before Linus posted this to upgrade my gpu  setup to gtx 970 sli. What he said is compelling. Am i still better off running that setup or buy a gtx 980 now then sli it later on next year? Thank you

970 SLI is still far more powerful than a single 980; and far cheaper than SLI 980s.

 

I'd consider holding off for the 300 series to see how the R9 390 performs (assuming your 570 performs well  enough for the games you play) 

[Mr.Bison]

970 SLI is still far more powerful than a single 980; and far cheaper than SLI 980s.

 

I'd consider holding off for the 300 series to see how the R9 390 performs (assuming your 570 performs well  enough for the games you play) 

Well right now it is barely holding out. 1gb of vram really isnt much these days. Any idea of when the R9 390 could come out? I would hope they will with that series make some much needed improvements to power efficiency which in turn could help it run less hot.

[79wjd]

Well right now it is barely holding out. 1gb of vram really isnt much these days. Any idea of when the R9 390 could come out? I would hope they will with that series make some much needed improvements to power efficiency which in turn could help it run less hot.

Not anytime soon -- last I saw, it was rumored to release around February.

[Fate]

I really disliked some choices, so here is my feedback!

 

Just game!

 

Please don't suggest the V300 SSD anymore.

They changed the NAND. Now it performs pretty bad and there are a lot of SSDs on the market around the same price that perform a lot better.

The kingston V300 gets a ~170 / 85 sequential read/write performance.

I believe you even talked about this in the WAN show. 

 

He even said to not get it in this video 

I love that Linus Media Group makes money off of sponsorship, I think it's a great thing, but I do not think recommending a SHIT product is a good idea. His rationale was "it's cheap" well, an Intel 530 is the SAME PRICE and an MX100 is $10 more.