€700 PC

[nimitzpro]

So guys, I have picked parts for a €700 PC. What do you think?

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/the_astronomer/saved/#view=XPWH99

[HKZeroFive]

Don't need a Z97 motherboard since you cannot overclock - a B85 or H97 would be a perfectly fine cheaper alternative.

 

Better PSU. Preferably a 500W from SeaSonic or XFX.

[Najuno]

The PSU isn´t a big problem IMHO it is Bronze rated, but I´d exchange that Z97 mainboard for a H97 like stated above and go for a dual channel RAM and not a single DIMM. Make sure you buy 2x4GB or 2x8GB system memory.

[Aereldor]

12 minutes ago, Najuno said:

The PSU isn´t a big problem IMHO it is Bronze rated, but I´d exchange that Z97 mainboard for a H97 like stated above and go for a dual channel RAM and not a single DIMM. Make sure you buy 2x4GB or 2x8GB system memory.

It's 80+, but isn't 85% efficient. Bronze efficiency is not the lowest tier of 80+ efficiency, and it doesn't even say it's bronze rated. Furthermore, it's about the quality of the power supply and the components used- such as the capacitors on the main circuits. These components tend to be compromised upon when it comes to budget power supplies like the Corsair CX series, or the EVGA 'W1-KR' series, which results in a higher risk of failure- something you never want in a power supply.

 

I'd recommend picking up a Seasonic S12ii, as it's well worth the extra £20 or so. The XFX XT series appears to have the same circuit and sloppy craftsmanship as the rather suspicious Hydrance power supplies, so I don't know if I can recommend those either.

 

Refer to this useful whitelist @STRMfrmXMN created in the future.

 

Furthermore, dual-channel memory isn't going to make that much of a difference, and hurts upgradability if he goes with a cheaper motherboard (which he should) and it only has two RAM slots. 

[Najuno]

Just now, Aereldor said:

It's 80+, but isn't 85% efficient. Bronze efficiency is not the lowest tier of 80+ efficiency, and it doesn't even say it's bronze rated. Furthermore, it's about the quality of the power supply and the components used- such as the capacitors on the main circuits. These components tend to be compromised upon when it comes to budget power supplies like the Corsair CX series, or the EVGA 'W1-KR' series, which results in a higher risk of failure- something you never want in a power supply.

 

I'd recommend picking up a Seasonic S12ii, as it's well worth the extra £20 or so. In fact, the XFX XT power supplies share the same circuit and sloppy craftsmanship as the rather suspicious Hydrance power supplies, so I don't know if I can recommend those either.

True but the PSU is okay to begin with, with all his components he´ll be okay. I personally don´t think it would be an issue at all.  I´ve used for different builds Corsair CX PSUs and actually never had any issues. Of course when you have the money to spend it is always better to for something more reasonable. But with his budget I´d downsize from the mainboard in favor of the system memory. A single channel isn´t a real good plan TBH.

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, Najuno said:

True but the PSU is okay to begin with, with all his components he´ll be okay. I personally don´t think it would be an issue at all.  I´ve used for different builds Corsair CX PSUs and actually never had any issues. Of course when you have the money to spend it is always better to for something more reasonable. But with his budget I´d downsize from the mainboard in favor of the system memory. A single channel isn´t a real good plan TBH.

What gives you the impression single-channel memory hurts performance? From what I can tell, this is a gaming rig, so there isn't much performance faster memory will yield to begin with. Like I said before (albeit in an edit to my previous post), going with dual-channel memory if he has a cheaper motherboard will hurt upgradability, as he won't have a slot free for a future upgrade, should he hold onto the motherboard for a while.

[Starelementpoke]

4 minutes ago, Najuno said:

True but the PSU is okay to begin with, with all his components he´ll be okay. I personally don´t think it would be an issue at all.  I´ve used for different builds Corsair CX PSUs and actually never had any issues. Of course when you have the money to spend it is always better to for something more reasonable. But with his budget I´d downsize from the mainboard in favor of the system memory. A single channel isn´t a real good plan TBH.

 

Just now, Aereldor said:

What gives you the impression single-channel memory hurts performance? From what I can tell, this is a gaming rig, so there isn't much performance faster memory will yield to begin with. Like I said before (albeit in an edit to my previous post), going with dual-channel memory if he has a cheaper motherboard will hurt upgradability, as he won't have a slot free for a future upgrade, should he hold onto the motherboard for a while.

What @Aereldor said. Dual channel won´t harm you in gaming.

[Najuno]

3 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

What gives you the impression single-channel memory hurts performance? From what I can tell, this is a gaming rig, so there isn't much performance faster memory will yield to begin with. Like I said before (albeit in an edit to my previous post), going with dual-channel memory if he has a cheaper motherboard will hurt upgradability, as he won't have a slot free for a future upgrade, should he hold onto the motherboard for a while.

 

1 minute ago, Starelementpoke said:

 

What @Aereldor said. Dual channel won´t harm you in gaming.

Sinlge channel and dual channel have significant differences in performance, that is out of the equation, and whilst it doesn´t really matter for gaming of booting the OS you will suffer big time with a lot of other applications.

 

So many people start and claim gaming only and before you know it they want to do something else as well. A PC should always be as good as possible for the budget. IMHO you are limiting yourself with single channel. And upgradability isn´t a real problem. He has on a mATX to eATX mainboard factor 4 DIMM slots for a customer grade board. I don´t see the issue. More than 16GB aren´t realistic for his machine anyhow. For everything else the machine lacks of enough power.

 

• Dual-channel configurations would exhibit no noteworthy difference in gaming use-case scenarios.
• Dual-channel configurations would exhibit no noteworthy difference in system boot and daily I/O use cases.
• Dual-channel configurations would show significant advantage in livestream previews for intensive render applications.
• Dual-channel configurations would show significant advantage in render, encoding, and transcoding applications (for video and incompressible audio).
• Dual-channel configurations would show significant advantage in compiling applications (data archiving).

 

So you can argue forever about it but I´d never recommend single channel system memory. Just because I share a different opinion than you doesn´t make mine obsolete. The OP needs to decide which path he wants to go.

 

[Aereldor]

1 minute ago, Najuno said:

Just because I share a different opinion than you doesn´t make mine obsolete. The OP needs to decide which path he wants to go.

Nobody's out to call your opinion rubbish. This is a forum that revolves around discussion and debate- not aimless cockfighting. I merely offered an alternative which I believe is a better route, and provided reasons for doing so which are relevant to OP's choice of RAM.

That being said, it's true that dual-channel RAM doesn't yield performance benefits in regular tasks. In fact, you'd be pretty far into development tools before you see any significant improvement yielded by a dual-channel kit of the same capacity as a single-channel stick. Furthermore, the whole point is that we're trying to recommend a cheaper B85 of H81 motherboard to OP, given his choice of a locked chip that doesn't need an overclocking motherboard. Many popular budget B85 and H81 motherboards, like the Gigabyte B85M-DS3H or the MSI H81M-P33/E34 only have 2 RAM slots, which means starting off with a dual-channel kit hinders his ability to upgrade later, as both of his RAM slots will be full, and he'd have to throw away a stick.

 

Unless OP wishes to use rendering, encoding, transcoding applications for video and audio, or compiling applications for data archiving, the advantages you provided aren't relevant to his case. Furthermore, he might go with 8 gigabytes right now (The logical choice) and choose to upgrade to 16 in a few years or so. In that case, he has a free RAM slot for an upgrade then, and still saves money by buying 8 gigabytes now instead of getting 16 straight away.

[Najuno]

2 minutes ago, Aereldor said:

Nobody's out to call your opinion rubbish. This is a forum that revolves around discussion and debate- not aimless cockfighting. I merely offered an alternative which I believe is a better route, and provided reasons for doing so which are relevant to OP's choice of RAM.

That being said, it's true that dual-channel RAM doesn't yield performance benefits in regular tasks. In fact, you'd be pretty far into development tools before you see any significant improvement yielded by a dual-channel kit of the same capacity as a single-channel stick. Furthermore, the whole point is that we're trying to recommend a cheaper B85 of H81 motherboard to OP, given his choice of a locked chip that doesn't need an overclocking motherboard. Many popular budget B85 and H81 motherboards, like the Gigabyte B85M-DS3H or the MSI H81M-P33/E34 only have 2 RAM slots, which means starting off with a dual-channel kit hinders his ability to upgrade later, as both of his RAM slots will be full, and he'd have to throw away a stick.

 

Unless OP wishes to use rendering, encoding, transcoding applications for video and audio, or compiling applications for data archiving, the advantages you provided aren't relevant to his case. Furthermore, he might go with 8 gigabytes right now (The logical choice) and choose to upgrade to 16 in a few years or so. In that case, he has a free RAM slot for an upgrade then, and still saves money by buying 8 gigabytes now instead of getting 16 straight away.

And I never said I´m butt hurt or I don´t see your point. But I say this from personal expirience. I´ve got a 13 year old here that got his first gaming PC last year to his birthday... he saved up some money the whole year mowing the lawn helping with groceries and all that stuff. He ended up having 450 USD. Then he came to me and asked me to help building him a PC that´s as 'good' as a PS4 and just for gaming. I ended up not putting in anything but B85 and an i5 4440 with dual channel RAM and a GTX960, because he started to realize that there´s more than just gaming. Not to mention that this machine cost more than 450USD, but it was worth it.

So he wanted a YT channel, record and edit and render his recorded footage and thought about twitch streaming (which I denied him because of his age). He saved up meanwhile for a second monitor and does quite some multi tasking now.

The point what I´m trying to say is, I think people truly  start off with the idea of gaming but there´s so much more than just mere gaming with a PC these days. And it is very true the RAM is easier to upgrade than a PSU later, but many people don´t understand why their systems underperform, and RAM is always something to consider.

You are of course right to have a good PSU, heck if you intend to burn down your house or fry your hardware go buy cheap crap. But I don´t see that happening with the PSU he chose, that being said I´d never buy that, because I personally buy nothing under gold rated and higher.

[Aereldor]

41 minutes ago, Najuno said:

The point what I´m trying to say is, I think people truly  start off with the idea of gaming but there´s so much more than just mere gaming with a PC these days. And it is very true the RAM is easier to upgrade than a PSU later, but many people don´t understand why their systems underperform, and RAM is always something to consider.

The lack of dual-channel operation isn't going to cripple OP's computer performance, even while rendering videos. The performance improvement exists, sure, but it isn't going to give him a 50% improvement. The biggest gains I see here are a mere fraction of that. 

It's always good to have options, but saving money and keeping upgrades in mind is more relevant to OP as of now. If you replace the dual-channel kit in your son's PC with a single stick of equivalent capacity (and to a much smaller extent, speed and latency), he isn't going to notice it, and if, hypothetically, there are only two RAM slots on his motherboard, he will now have one slot left for an upgrade. With luck, adding a second identical stick later will result in dual-channel operation, and if not, consumers don't lose much. In fact, even in the most intense applications, you only start to see truly appreciable benefits when you have a lot more than two channels on your motherboard, such as servers full of Quadro M6000s and quad-channel RAM being used to pump out dozens of videos back to back.

 

41 minutes ago, Najuno said:

You are of course right to have a good PSU, heck if you intend to burn down your house or fry your hardware go buy cheap crap. But I don´t see that happening with the PSU he chose, that being said I´d never buy that, because I personally buy nothing under gold rated and higher.

If you've only used gold (or higher) rated PSUs, it's safe to assume that you've never faced the risk budget PSUs pose. Simply, if the chance of risk is small but the impact of the risk is reducing your house to cinders, I'd rather put 20 pounds into something with full high-quality Japanese capacitors like the Seasonic S12II, than go with something that has questionable components and craftsmanship, and a high failure rate. The Corsair CX series and, to a slightly lesser extent, the EVGA W1 series are guilty of all of these.

[Najuno]

2 hours ago, Aereldor said:

If you've only used gold (or higher) rated PSUs, it's safe to assume that you've never faced the risk budget PSUs pose. Simply, if the chance of risk is small but the impact of the risk is reducing your house to cinders, I'd rather put 20 pounds into something with full high-quality Japanese capacitors like the Seasonic S12II, than go with something that has questionable components and craftsmanship, and a high failure rate. The Corsair CX series and, to a slightly lesser extent, the EVGA W1 series are guilty of all of these.

Well personally I´ve never used any cheaper PSU, but I build also PCs for other people and some live on a tight budget and they can´t afford something like a highly efficient gold or platinum fully modular PSU. So yeah I´ve worked with some cheaper PSUs... can´t say I like it. But the point is I´ve done quite a few builds with CX PSUs and up to the present day never had a single one failing.

I think it´s safe to say that there are way worse PSUs on the market and actually getting sold than EVGA´s W1 or Corsair´s CX series. Many people like us here in such a forums are enthusiasts that read, research and try a lot of stuff. My personal experience for the average Joe is a complete different one. Most people end up going to a store like BestBuy and get 'highend' PCs that people like us wouldn´t even want to use even if it was the last PC on the planet.

The OP´s choice, as I pointed out already, is okay, but I´ve never stated this was good. Maybe it´s just my perspective of how I look at something like that. I always recommend the clients that I build PCs to rather safe up more money for a month or two before cheaping out on stuff. I.e. it doesn´t have to be a R9 Fury X if you´re playing in 1080p but if you want Ultra settings the R9 390 is the safer choice than going with a more budget orientated solution such as the R9 380.

I think it is safe to say we both have a very good perspective how to look and recommend hardware just our opinion differs.

 

[Aereldor]

19 minutes ago, Najuno said:

I think it´s safe to say that there are way worse PSUs on the market and actually getting sold than EVGA´s W1 or Corsair´s CX series. Many people like us here in such a forums are enthusiasts that read, research and try a lot of stuff. My personal experience for the average Joe is a complete different one. Most people end up going to a store like BestBuy and get 'highend' PCs that people like us wouldn´t even want to use even if it was the last PC on the planet.

In short, better than the anonymous bundled junk power supplies you'll find in the aforementioned pre-built systems does not correlate to good enough.

 

The difference is that you aren't considering the magnitude of the risk. Power supply quality could very well determine the difference between keeping your system and frying it. To me, when a part failure could take down the rest of your system, even a marginal improvement in the stability and reliability of said part is worth a substantial investment. While when strapped for cash, one might consider the EVGA W1 or Corsair CX series 'good enough', one need only seek out information and realize that when a failed power supply can kill the rest of your system, the money you save is not worth the risk that comes with it. About saving and allocating more money towards better hardware, I can only quote you on this-

22 minutes ago, Najuno said:

I always recommend the clients that I build PCs to rather safe up more money for a month or two before cheaping out on stuff.

If you're going to grab something off a shelf and be done with it, you wouldn't post on this forum to begin with. But if you're going to take a step in the direction of an enthusiast, you might as well go all the way, and consult a variety of sources. Needless to say, not everyone has directly experienced a Corsair CX or EVGA W1 PSU failing on them, but the reported failure rate is abnormally high. If enough people have negative opinions of a product even without a direct negative experience, you know something's up. If OP's paying attention, he's doubtless learned to invest more in a reliable power supply already.

[STRMfrmXMN]

5 hours ago, nimitzpro said:

So guys, I have picked parts for a €700 PC. What do you think?

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/the_astronomer/saved/#view=XPWH99

Switch out the PSU for something like an Antec HCG, EVGA B2/GS/GQ/G2, Seasonic G-series/M12, probably more options in there. Just don't pair a W1 or B1 with the system you have at hand.

[nimitzpro]

BTW guys, I have another 8GB ram stick which I bought already that I'll use as well. Sorry for not saying.

I chose the Z97 board to overclock my ram.