Advice needed on gaming build

[iraz]

Is the below build a good set up? What modifications would you recommend?

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($355.00 @ IJK)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler  ($89.00 @ CPL Online)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste  ($11.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Motherboard: Asus Z170-P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($195.00 @ Umart)
Memory: Kingston FURY 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory  ($85.00 @ CPL Online)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($129.00 @ Centre Com)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($72.00 @ IJK)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card  ($499.00 @ Centre Com)
Case: NZXT Phantom 240 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($109.00 @ CPL Online)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($139.00 @ CPL Online)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer  ($18.00 @ IJK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home Full (32/64-bit)  ($153.00 @ IJK)
Monitor: Asus VE247H 23.6" Monitor  ($179.00 @ IJK)
Speakers: Logitech Z506 155W 5.1ch Speakers  ($83.00 @ CPL Online)
Total: $2116.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-06 12:43 AEDT+1100

 

Budget and location:

Entry level to mid range sweet-spot budget, around $2000 AUD, do not want to go too far over.

 

Aim

First ever PC build. Gaming and general computing. Need to run flight simulator x so must stick to intel and nvidia. Otherwise modern games such as witcher 3, fallout 4, AC4 etc. No need to go to ultra settings, but high settings. 1920x1080p. Want to overclock.

 

Monitors

Going for a standard 24 inch ASUS monitor, feel like anything above this is out of my budget but happy to take advice

 

Peripherals

Speakers – don’t know much about them and which ones to get, need advice

 

Why upgrading

Currently on i5 2400 Sandy Bridge, no graphics card, general computing build. Not adequate for games.

 

Other questions:

I am looking to overclock but do not know which cooler to get. Not looking to push the CPU to extreme ends just a stable mid-high clock, around 4.3-4.4 (4.5 if I can get it). I was deciding between the cooler master hyper212 x and the noctua listed, would the cooler master be adequate or should I go for the noctua? Water cooling is outside my budget.

 

Had difficulty deciding on the motherboard. Right now on the entry level Asus Z170-P. Strongly considered the Asus Z170-AR. Don’t know whether it would be worth it. Only thing I can think of is SLI in the future. Does anybody have advice on selecting a good board, don’t know much about this area.

 

Future SLI: don’t want to rule this out with increasing graphics requirements. Thing is, should I be investing in a SLI capable board (see above), and, should I be investing in an i7? Don’t know mulch about sli and the need for i7.

[Starelementpoke]

Obligatory 390 recommendation. Better psu.

[Guest]

What games are you playing?

[Pcinacan]

Not too bad, but do you really need sky lake? This may be a better deal for you http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369&cm_re=4970k-_-19-117-369-_-Product 

-edited-

[iraz]

Aim

First ever PC build. Gaming and general computing. Need to run flight simulator x so must stick to intel and nvidia. Otherwise modern games such as witcher 3, fallout 4, AC4 etc. No need to go to ultra settings, but high settings. 1920x1080p. Want to overclock.

 

[Pcinacan]

most people would say to get the 390, but I like the better driver and the features like shadow play for Nvidia 

[iraz]

Not too bad, but do you really need sky lake? This may be a better deal for you http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369&cm_re=4970k-_-19-117-369-_-Product 

-edited-

Sky lake is cheaper than Haswell in Australia

[fragment21]

if you're going with games such as CS:GO or anything reaction based i'd personally go with a 144hz monitor but thats up to you. you don't need an optical drive and windows for 100 bucks, get it off of g2a or kinguin or reddit.com/r/microsoftsoftwareswap for around 20 for windows 8 and you can just boot up windows to your USB. saves you around 120 ish. I'd recommend the hyper 212 evo but i'm not too familiar with cpu fans but I know the hyper 212 is good. r9 390 of course is better than 970 by far now, sapphire r9 390 is the best in my opinion. if you're gonna get a 100 dollar case, a phanteks enthoo pro is good as well

[HKZeroFive]

But why Intel and NVIDIA for Flight Simulator?

[iraz]

ATI is notoriously bad for flight simulator x, which is a major game I plan to play and puts limitations, otherwise I take the point about the R390

EDIT: Extensive guide on FSX builds highlighting difficulties with ATI by one of the FSX scenery add-on developers. Not sure about the detailed reasons why. Yes the r390 is far superior in price per performance though. http://www.simforums.com/forums/the-fsx-computer-system-the-bible-by-nickn_topic46211.html

[Savir]

Is the below build a good set up? What modifications would you recommend?

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($355.00 @ IJK)

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S 55.0 CFM CPU Cooler  ($89.00 @ CPL Online)

Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste  ($11.00 @ PCCaseGear)

Motherboard: Asus Z170-P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($195.00 @ Umart)

Memory: Kingston FURY 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory  ($85.00 @ CPL Online)

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($129.00 @ Centre Com)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($72.00 @ IJK)

Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card  ($499.00 @ Centre Com)

Case: NZXT Phantom 240 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($109.00 @ CPL Online)

Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($139.00 @ CPL Online)

Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer  ($18.00 @ IJK)

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home Full (32/64-bit)  ($153.00 @ IJK)

Monitor: Asus VE247H 23.6" Monitor  ($179.00 @ IJK)

Speakers: Logitech Z506 155W 5.1ch Speakers  ($83.00 @ CPL Online)

Total: $2116.00

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-06 12:43 AEDT+1100

 

Budget and location:

Entry level to mid range sweet-spot budget, around $2000 AUD, do not want to go too far over.

 

Aim

First ever PC build. Gaming and general computing. Need to run flight simulator x so must stick to intel and nvidia. Otherwise modern games such as witcher 3, fallout 4, AC4 etc. No need to go to ultra settings, but high settings. 1920x1080p. Want to overclock.

 

Monitors

Going for a standard 24 inch ASUS monitor, feel like anything above this is out of my budget but happy to take advice

 

Peripherals

Speakers – don’t know much about them and which ones to get, need advice

 

Why upgrading

Currently on i5 2400 Sandy Bridge, no graphics card, general computing build. Not adequate for games.

 

Other questions:

I am looking to overclock but do not know which cooler to get. Not looking to push the CPU to extreme ends just a stable mid-high clock, around 4.3-4.4 (4.5 if I can get it). I was deciding between the cooler master hyper212 x and the noctua listed, would the cooler master be adequate or should I go for the noctua? Water cooling is outside my budget.

 

Had difficulty deciding on the motherboard. Right now on the entry level Asus Z170-P. Strongly considered the Asus Z170-AR. Don’t know whether it would be worth it. Only thing I can think of is SLI in the future. Does anybody have advice on selecting a good board, don’t know much about this area.

 

Future SLI: don’t want to rule this out with increasing graphics requirements. Thing is, should I be investing in a SLI capable board (see above), and, should I be investing in an i7? Don’t know mulch about sli and the need for i7.

 

Get the R9 390. It is a better GPU. You should never SLI unless you have top tier GPUs. 

 

EDIT: Just sell your card in the future and buy a better one. For gaming an i7 is not needed 

[fragment21]

i'm not too sure about MOBO's or anything

[HKZeroFive]

How about something like the 980 then?

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($355.00 @ IJK) 

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 57.5 CFM CPU Cooler  ($54.00 @ CPL Online) 

Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste  ($11.00 @ PCCaseGear) 

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170-HD3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($184.00 @ CPL Online) 

Memory: Kingston FURY 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2666 Memory  ($85.00 @ CPL Online) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($129.00 @ Centre Com) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($72.00 @ IJK) 

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 980 4GB WINDFORCE 3X Video Card  ($715.00 @ CPL Online) 

Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case  ($84.00 @ CPL Online) 

Power Supply: SeaSonic 550W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply  ($105.00 @ Umart) 

Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer  ($18.00 @ IJK) 

Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit)  ($40.00 @ MicrosoftSoftwareSwap) 

Monitor: Asus VE247H 23.6" Monitor  ($179.00 @ IJK) 

Speakers: Logitech Z506 155W 5.1ch Speakers  ($83.00 @ CPL Online) 

Total: $2114.00

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-06 12:59 AEDT+1100

[iraz]

Thanks HKZeroFive

Only problem is the power supply . Is 550 enough for a 980 and i5 overclock? Also seasonic looks so bad lol, but overall awesome

[HKZeroFive]

Thanks HKZeroFive

Only problem is the power supply . Is 550 enough for a 980 and i5 overclock? Also seasonic looks so bad lol, but overall awesome

 

The 550W should be more than enough. I know it looks ugly but SeaSonic PSUs are one of the most reliable you can get. I'll see if there might be another option.

 

EDIT: There is an XFX PSU but it costs $25 more if you don't mind?

 

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/xfx-power-supply-p1650gts3x

[iraz]

Yeah, the variation on the powersupply isnt a huge deal i am willing to go up to 2200 especially after fitting in the GTX980.

Thanks for the PSU advice

Prices for the ASUS monitor have gone up a bit, these are all minor fluctuations.

http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/3CW2XL

 

This is what I am at currently. Changed the card to ASUS Strix, Found a slightly cheaper case and decked the big speaker kit as dont need it. Investing the money into a better motherboard, I just feel its a better idea - has SLI JUST in case and is a slightly better build. Is that worth it?

[iraz]

http://www.frozencpu.com/products/3784/thr-26/Coollaboratory_Liquid_PRO_Thermal_Interface_Material.html

Also, this TIM, no idea but seems hectic instead of the standard stuff. Heard of it/rate it?