Can I get some opinions on this?

[shattered519]

So I have almost no real experience in the world of computer hardware, and I scraped together a few bucks to build my first gaming rig. This is a rudimentary parts list, and you guys'll probably find some glaring errors or problems with it. I'd be grateful for any opinions or suggestions, or even a plain old "this'll work fine you noob LOL." As a side note, I'm in college, so this will be used for moderate to heavy 3D gaming (2560x1080 ultrawide/future multi monitor setup), visual studio for C++, and other miscellaneous college lifestyle stuff, but no video rendering or anything like that. (Prices in USD as of time of posting, via PCpartpicker.com)

 

- Intel i5-6600K 3.5 ghz quad-core ($256.89)

- Gigabyte GTX 970 Xtreme 4gb ($339.99)

- Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8gb (2x 4GB) DDR4 2133Mhz kit ($42.99)

- MSI Z170A M5 ATX LGA1151 gaming motherboard ($165.99)

- WD Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM hard drive ($48.88)

- Kingston SSDNow V300 240GB 2.5" SSD ($69.89)

- Corsair H55 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($59.99)

- EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Full-mod ATX PSU ($84.99)

- GigaByte GC-WB867D-I 802.11a/b/g/n/ac PCI-E 1x WiFi adapter ($29.89)

- a single Cooler Master SickleFlow 69.7 CFM 120mm fan ($9.99)

- NZXT s340 white ATX mid tower case ($69.99)

  (comes with two 120mm fans for top and back vents, and can take 2x 120mm fans in the front; one for my CPU cooler, and one other random 120mm)

 

This build list is for the hardware only; I'll grab a copy of Windows 10 Home and a monitor and a keyboard and an etc. in the future.

 

As is it totals to a bit over $1000, and while I'd like to keep it as close to that mark as possible, I can (barely) stretch to $1.5k.

Alternatively, I have these parts listed in a build guide on pcpartpicker here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/JzKyjX

Like I said, any and all comments and recommendations are welcome, and thanks for reading this excessively long post.

 

 

 

[comicsansms]

Don't get the EVGA G, get the EVGA G2 or GS instead.

[HKZeroFive]

Your build added to about $1110 on PCPartPicker so I decided to build something that might suit your C++ visual studio work better:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($329.88 @ OutletPC) 

CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.4 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($34.90 @ Newegg) 

Motherboard: MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($139.88 @ OutletPC) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($89.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($84.34 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($48.88 @ OutletPC) 

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 390 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card  ($274.99 @ Newegg) 

Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($64.99 @ Micro Center) 

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.99 @ NCIX US) 

Total: $1127.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-24 04:30 EST-0500

[SXTC]

My recommendations to you with a little word of experience (well... more like a speech.. ^^)

 

1) I currently have 8GB Ram and I recommend you get at least 16GB.

I buy my games through the network Kinguin (online game downloads) and these games recommend 3 networks (Steam, Origin, Uplay). These boot up with windows to be able to play my games in the archive and use up a little memory. Ontop of that I like to listen to online music while gaming and while some tabs are open (websites) so I can repeat my search after I'm done gaming. Result = I've maxed out my 8GB memory just by doing some "average" multitasking wich made my system uber slow until I closed down some programs. Keep in mind windows 7 & 10 allready advice 2GB of RAM to work properly (so you basicly have 6GB for everything..) and if I can max it out just by having firefox open and some background programs on like steam, there's no way you'll be future proof with 8GB knowing that future games will be more demanding. My advice: http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-memory-cmk16gx4m2a2133c13

 

2) You appear to have a 1TB disk in your build, I would cancel it out and just get 2 SSD's (Linus does this too)... I recommend you resize your pictures to the resolution of your monitor and store them on a USB stick. I wouldn't store music on my disk but instead just store it into an online radio like Deezer (and that is where more memory comes in handy). Big disks are useless unless you are into video editting or architecture (work) but in that case you'd need 32GB ram (recommended!). I would use a 256GB SSD for windows & programs, and 1 SSD for games. If your gaming SSD ever fails, you won't lose your important data on your main SSD and because you've been using it less, it will easily outlive your gaming SSD by at least 4x the duration.

Face it, big disks are only good for servers, for work, and for people that can't let go of their garbage..

 

 

3) Also instead of the gtx970, get the R9 390x wich is slightly better. In betatesting it appears the R9 series of AMD outperforms the Nvidia cards during directx 12 testing and because it has 8GB, it is highly suitable for stable rendering, something you want to consider if you want to code, or go for 1440p (in 4k I'd recommend Crossfire or SLI).

 

4) I recommend this mainboard, its appears to be the best if gaming is a little more important to you Asus Z170 PRO GAMING (known for their performance)

or a MSI gaming mainboard (these are PRIOR known for their stability)

http://hexus.net/tech/reviews/mainboard/85253-asus-z170-pro-gaming/?page=6

[shattered519]

Thanks a ton for the input, guys.

 

Don't get the EVGA G, get the EVGA G2 or GS instead.

 

While I realize that specs aren't indicative of much in the cases of PSUs, is the reason for choosing the GS something along the lines of track record or reliability?

And just to be sure, you mean this, right? https://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-220gs0650v1

 

 

 

Your build added to about $1110 on PCPartPicker so I decided to build something that might suit your C++ visual studio work better:

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

 

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($329.88 @ OutletPC) 

CPU Cooler: be quiet! PURE ROCK 51.4 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler  ($34.90 @ Newegg) 

Motherboard: MSI Z170A KRAIT GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($139.88 @ OutletPC) 

Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($89.99 @ SuperBiiz) 

Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($84.34 @ Amazon) 

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($48.88 @ OutletPC) 

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 390 8GB Double Dissipation Video Card  ($274.99 @ Newegg) 

Case: NZXT S340 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case  ($64.99 @ Micro Center) 

Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($59.99 @ NCIX US) 

Total: $1127.84

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available

Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-01-24 04:30 EST-0500

 

That actually looks....really well specced-out to my (admittedly untrained) eyes. You mind explaining how the changes affect my VS usage? Thanks for going to the trouble to completely rebuild my system, by the way.

[HKZeroFive]

Thanks a ton for the input, guys.

 

 

While I realize that specs aren't indicative of much in the cases of PSUs, is the reason for choosing the GS something along the lines of track record or reliability?

And just to be sure, you mean this, right? https://pcpartpicker.com/part/evga-power-supply-220gs0650v1

 

That actually looks....really well specced-out to my (admittedly untrained) eyes. You mind explaining how the changes affect my VS usage? Thanks for going to the trouble to completely rebuild my system, by the way.

 

For visual studio work, I'd recommend 16GB of RAM since it tends eat up quite alot. The i7 has hyperthreading in which Visual Studio utilises and it can help significantly.The CPU can still be overclocked using BCLK with the updated BIOS of the MSI board. Added a better SSD since the Kingston one is pretty poor.  The R9 390 will also perform equally to the GTX 970 at a lower cost, and I've provided a more reliable PSU.

 

If you want to save some money, you could go back to the 6600K and overclock that. The R9 390 will also perform equally to the GTX 970 at a lower cost.

[shattered519]

1) I currently have 8GB Ram and I recommend you get at least 16GB.

Right, I guess I was cheaping out when I picked the 2x 4GB kit.

 

2) You appear to have a 1TB disk in your build, I would cancel it out and just get 2 SSD's (Linus does this too)... I recommend you resize your pictures to the resolution of your monitor and store them on a USB stick. I wouldn't store music on my disk but instead just store it into an online radio like Deezer (and that is where more memory comes in handy). Big disks are useless unless you are into video editting or architecture (work) but in that case you'd need 32GB ram (recommended!). I would use a 256GB SSD for windows & programs, and 1 SSD for games. If your gaming SSD ever fails, you won't lose your important data on your main SSD and because you've been using it less, it will easily outlive your gaming SSD by at least 4x the duration.

Face it, big disks are only good for servers, for work, and for people that can't let go of their garbage.

I would definitely be considering a 2x 250GB SSD setup if they weren't so prohibitively expensive *sigh*. Unless I'm missing something, a 250GB Samsung 850 EVO goes for $89 apiece, almost doubling the cost for what amounts to half the storage of a 1TB WD HDD. Is there a way to go the dual SSD route for a little cheaper? (I have substantial difficulty letting go of junk files, though I suppose limited SSD storage would force me to change that.)

 

 

3) Also instead of the gtx970, get the R9 390x wich is slightly better. In betatesting it appears the R9 series of AMD outperforms the Nvidia cards during directx 12 testing and because it has 8GB, it is highly suitable for stable rendering, something you want to consider if you want to code, or go for 1440p (in 4k I'd recommend Crossfire or SLI).

Sounds good to me, adjustments have been made. However, how would I get 2 R9 390x's running in Crossfire with an i7-6700 that only supports 16x total PCI-E lanes? Thanks a lot for the feedback!

[RedBlack234]

 

 

Sounds good to me, adjustments have been made. However, how would I get 2 R9 390x's running in Crossfire with an i7-6700 that only supports 16x total PCI-E lanes? Thanks a lot for the feedback!

The two, gpus wold run at x8 and x8, it wouldn't hurt performance having less bandwidth