Build for a Friend

[EarthboundHero]

So, my friend was gonna get this pre-built for his birthday. (Can't find the link. It was an FX4300 and a GT610 for just over $400.) He showed it to me, and I said no. So, I put this together and want your opinions. He'll be using it for gaming, right now he mainly plays LoL, but once he gets a good PC he's gonna play a lot more things. The budget is around $750 including OS and monitor. Here's the build http://pcpartpicker.com/p/cZ9mTW, thanks guys.

[TheSLSAMG]

For the price, it looks great. You could always get a lower end motherboard and a GTX 960 but it still looks great.

[EarthboundHero]

For the price, it looks great. You could always get a lower end motherboard and a GTX 960 but it still looks great.

I was thinking that mobo in case he wanted to upgrade to a Haswell Refresh i5 later. I wanted to do an i3 Skylake, but they don't have them on desktop yet.

[Ridorii]

Is he AMDphobic? You could rearrange that and get a much better system using an AMD cpu like an 8320/6300, and in the 6300's case, you can get a 390 as well.
Does he really need a boot ssd?

[EarthboundHero]

Is he AMDphobic? You could rearrange that and get a much better system using an AMD cpu like an 8320/6300, and in the 6300's case, you can get a 390 as well.

Does he really need a boot ssd?

I'm going AMD for a CPU. There's no upgrade path, and Intel simply performs better. I'd prefer him to have an SSD, just because it's going to be better for boot times, as well as more reliable. 

[manikyath]

going out from league of legends, this is a pretty good build actually. when we ignore AA and shadows, it'd probably be able to max out every settings at a royal 100+ FPS

 

(may sound a bit too precise to be true, but i did potentially a bit too much testing with LoL on a GT640)

[Speedyv]

Get rid of the SSD... and get a better graphics card.

An SSD isn't a necessity it's a luxury and I wouldn't put one in a build that could use that money on major components.

[Ridorii]

I'm going AMD for a CPU. There's no upgrade path, and Intel simply performs better. I'd prefer him to have an SSD, just because it's going to be better for boot times, as well as more reliable. 

SSDs unlike hard drives actually have a predefined limit to when their operation stops, and currently hard drives still edge them out when it comes to reliability.

I doubt he'll mind a few extra seconds on his boot time to better gaming performance.

Since hes gaming, youre going to want to throw some extra money at his card, and the comparable AMD cpu performs better in real world games compared to the i3 in the build you posted, so I made this adjustment.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6Lng7P

With a high end card, and a pretty solid fx cpu, he wont need to upgrade for quite a while. The GTX X50 cards usually run out of gas a year later, and to run new games at decent detail, youll want to upgrade. With the 390, you wont have that problem for at least 3 years.

Also, he'll be able to max out games to their full details now, and later down the line. Something the 950 cannot do for most triple A titles.

[EarthboundHero]

SSDs unlike hard drives actually have a predefined limit to when their operation stops, and currently hard drives still edge them out when it comes to reliability.

I doubt he'll mind a few extra seconds on his boot time to better gaming performance.

Since hes gaming, youre going to want to throw some extra money at his card, and the comparable AMD cpu performs better in real world games compared to the i3 in the build you posted, so I made this adjustment.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6Lng7P

With a high end card, and a pretty solid fx cpu, he wont need to upgrade for quite a while. The GTX X50 cards usually run out of gas a year later, and to run new games at decent detail, youll want to upgrade. With the 390, you wont have that problem for at least 3 years.

He's coming from a shit PC and a PS4, he'll be happy enough with what a 950 can do. And again, not going AMD on the CPU side.

[MrSpeed]

Keep in mind promos end today, so both builds are around 750 without promos

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($112.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($54.00 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($41.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($41.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 2GB PCS+ Video Card  ($185.89 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($32.40 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($54.00 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro OEM (64-bit)  ($15.00)
Monitor: AOC i2267Fw 60Hz 22.0" Monitor  ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $707.74
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-07 02:17 EDT-0400

OR

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($166.95 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($54.00 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($41.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card  ($203.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($32.40 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($39.99 @ NCIX US)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro OEM (64-bit)  ($15.00)
Monitor: AOC i2267Fw 60Hz 22.0" Monitor  ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $723.80
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-07 02:21 EDT-0400

[EarthboundHero]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor  ($112.99 @ NCIX US)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($54.00 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($41.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($41.99 @ NCIX US)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.49 @ OutletPC)

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 2GB PCS+ Video Card  ($185.89 @ SuperBiiz)

Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($32.40 @ SuperBiiz)

Power Supply: EVGA 600B 600W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($54.00 @ SuperBiiz)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro OEM (64-bit)  ($15.00)

Monitor: AOC i2267Fw 60Hz 22.0" Monitor  ($119.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $707.74

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-07 02:17 EDT-0400

OR

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($166.95 @ SuperBiiz)

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B85M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($54.00 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($41.99 @ Newegg)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($49.49 @ OutletPC)

Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 380 4GB PCS+ Video Card  ($203.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($32.40 @ SuperBiiz)

Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply  ($39.99 @ NCIX US)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 Pro OEM (64-bit)  ($15.00)

Monitor: AOC i2267Fw 60Hz 22.0" Monitor  ($119.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $723.80

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-07 02:21 EDT-0400

Damn, nice job on that. Much better build there. Actually worth getting rid of the SSD for that.

[MrSpeed]

Damn, nice job on that. Much better build there. Actually worth getting rid of the SSD for that.

Keep in mind promos end today, so both builds without promos are around 735 (i3) and 750 (i5)