Light Gaming/Rendering Build

[Ethelu]

I currently have a budget of $1600 US with $530 left in the Provo, UT, USA area. (although I mostly shop online, typically newegg.com)

 

As I am a student, this build is mainly for light gaming, 3d rendering, and potential room for growth. (VR ready would be a nice touch)

- Games typically are: Assassins Creed (any), Starcraft, and I plan to try some higher end like Battle Field, Crysis, etc.

- 3D rendering: (varies) currently I use Blender 3d, but will be using others like Maya. (CAD might be in this PC's future once I get my hands on a 3d printer)

 

Currently this is what I have and what I think I need. (water cooling will probably be in the future, but not right now)

 

Have:

Graphics Card at least 2 GB ram and VR ready -> EVGA GTX 970 FTW

CPU at least quad-core @ 2GHz -> AMD FX-8350 Black AM3+

Case that supports Water Cooling -> Corsair Obsidian 750D Black

SSD at least 500 GB (boot drive) -> Samsung EVO 840 500GB 2.5"

HDD at least 500 GB -> HGST 500GB 5400RPM 500GB 2.5"

Mechanical keyboard with backlighting -> Razor Blackwidow Chroma

Mouse -> Logitec Laser wireless

Monitor at least 15” 16:1 aspect -> LG 29UB55-B 29” Black

 

Need:

Motherboard (AM3+ socket) -> MSI 970 or 970A-G46? Asus ROG Crosshair maybe.

Ram (DDR3 1600 Dual Channel 32 GB?) -> Corsair 4x8 GB DDR3 1600 (vengeance?)

Power Supply (Modular. 750 Watt?) -> Corsair most likely. SLI/Crossfire ready? (ATX Form Factor and up to 220 mm long)

 

I am new to PC Builds and as such this is probably overkill on price and less efficient. However, it has been an educational project for me.

 

There is a poll, but if you have a better idea of what I should use for those three pieces let me know. (Or if I am missing anything in my build.)

[Xaring]

a 970 is just BORDERLINE for VR. its minimum requirement. Dont expect it to do great. Im very happy with my MSI 970 Gaming 4 though, but ill get a SLI of them when i actually get a VR headset.

 

Also i'd go 2x8GB or DDR3 ram now, and upgrade to 4x8GB when you actually need them.

[TheRandomness]

The FX-8350 is very outdated and shouldn't be used in this kind of build. An i5-4460 would outperform it. Also, there are no AMD CPUs or motherboards that support DDR4 yet.

[Tytan64]

For DDR4 support it would be an i5 6400 or similar. 

You wouldn't benefit from choosing DDR4 over DDR3 in your use case in my opinion. So an i5 4460 might be the perfect CPU for you =)

[DocSwag]

1. Get at least a 1 tb hdd since it only costs a little more for double the storage.

2. Get the newer 850 evo for you ssd instead of the older one. However, if you don't need 500 gb the 250 gb version costs about half.

3. As others have said get at least an i5 4460. If you can afford it jump at a 4690k or 6600k.

4. 16 gb ram since you will be rendering.

5. If you are doing VR gtx 970 is bare minimum, so you should try to get something better. Also, if you can wait until the summer AMD and Nvidia are releasing new GPUs that will be a huge improvement, so you might want to wait for that, especially since VR won't be hitting the market until after those hit the shelves.

6. If you can't afford anything more than a gtx 970 the amd r9 390 is a better performer at the same price.

[DocSwag]

Here I created a build for you:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/Wb6YMp

I got a 6600k with a decent cooler so you can overclock that, got a watercooled r9 390x as well, so it performs better than gtx 970 and will run cooler and possibly have good overclocking headroom too. The Fractal Design Define R5 is decent and should be good. As well, this monitor has freesync (I have this monitor, and it is awesome!) so that will make your games look a lot better. However, if you plan on custom water cooling consider either the define s or a full tower case. The define s does have a lot of water cooling features, though. It is only above budget by 15 dollars and is vastly superior to your build. This build probably isn't perfect and so maybe other's will have some more suggestions. As well, if you can afford it and i7 5820k would be something to consider if you end up doing more intense CAD, as the HT and extra 2 cores will help. However this should be enough.