Build Improvements

[littlepigboy5]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/hqYsCJ

 

Trying to make the best budget build with the requirements of 16gb of ram, liquid cooling, and a haswell unlocked I7.  Suggestions?

[Warren Pnigel]

If you're using it for gaming I would have went with a 970 at the least. 

[Warren Pnigel]

You really should get a 600 watt power supply as well, I don't even know how you'd run it at 400 watts especially if you overclock. 

[littlepigboy5]

If you're using it for gaming I would have went with a 970 at the least. 

I don't feel that it's necessary for 1080p gaming.  The 960 does a fantastic job at 1080p, and is priced extremely aggresively.  the 960 also gets an avg fps of about 60 in the most demanding PC titles, gta V, bf hardline, etc.  And in a few years when games get more advanced, turn off some filters and push the monitor back lol, but the card should be able to handle 1080p gaming at 60fps for a few more years.

[littlepigboy5]

You really should get a 600 watt power supply as well, I don't even know how you'd run it at 400 watts especially if you overclock. 

The power efficiency of the 960 should keep, even when overclocking the cpu, below 400w and the psu is 430w.  Unless my math is really off, overclocking shouldn't raise the wattage more than 40w.

[Warren Pnigel]

Alright. But is this a gaming pc?

[littlepigboy5]

Alright. But is this a gaming pc?

focused on gaming, but obviously versatile enough for video editing/rendering.

[littlepigboy5]

Alright. But is this a gaming pc?

if ur curious about the 16gb of ram, its because 

1)  The price/gb for the kit is too good to give up in case of needing an extra stick in the future

2)  Because Virtual Machines and minecraft servers

3)  16 is > 8 which means yumm

[Delphi1662]

focused on gaming, but obviously versatile enough for video editing/rendering.

I'd say that bumping up the graphics if you want to round out the editing/rendering side of things

[Warren Pnigel]

Ohhh okay. I wasnt so much concerned about the ram, but why are you putting an i7 in the system? For gaming you should be looking at spending more on your graphics card then your cpu. You would find that the i7 would be bottlenecked by the 960 in gaming and doing next to nothing. You could either a) get an unlocked i5 (for example the 4690k) and keep the 960 or b) Get a 970 and keep the i7. 

 

The first option would save you like $200 and the second option would give you MUCH better performance. You should be buying a cpu that can drive the card you are getting, not something that will give you an extra 5 fps maximum

 

I would recommend getting a 970, an r9 290 or something instead, and downgrading that cpu (you probably wont need it, but keep it if you really want an i7). Anyway thats my 2 cents. 

[littlepigboy5]

I'd say that bumping up the graphics if you want to round out the editing/rendering side of things

Not as important and again the 960 is very aggresively priced and will last a long time.

[littlepigboy5]

Ohhh okay. I wasnt so much concerned about the ram, but why are you putting an i7 in the system? For gaming you should be looking at spending more on your graphics card then your cpu. You would find that the i7 would be bottlenecked by the 960 in gaming and doing next to nothing. You could either a) get an unlocked i5 (for example the 4690k) and keep the 960 or B) Get a 970 and keep the i7. 

 

The first option would save you like $200 and the second option would give you MUCH better performance. You should be buying a cpu that can drive the card you are getting, not something that will give you an extra 5 fps maximum

 

I would recommend getting a 970, an r9 290 or something instead, and downgrading that cpu (you probably wont need it, but keep it if you really want an i7). Anyway thats my 2 cents. 

Streaming, but I'll think abuot it because the bottleneck is a valid point.  I wouldn't really consider it a bottleneck in gaming though, which is the only place you would see it.  The game is being run on the graphics card and the gpu is not being limited by the processor.  So although you won't see a performance increase from going to an i5 you woudn't see a decrease either.

[Warren Pnigel]

Streaming, but I'll think abuot it because the bottleneck is a valid point.  I wouldn't really consider it a bottleneck in gaming though, which is the only place you would see it.  The game is being run on the graphics card and the gpu is not being limited by the processor.  So although you won't see a performance increase from going to an i5 you woudn't see a decrease either.

Exactly, but you would save 200 dollars which is nice if you're on a budget.