Almost ready to buy: System without graphics card

[UnknownSentientBeing]

Budget/Location:

Im in Canada with a budget of around 1250  Canadian Yen Rupees Rubles monopoly monies (no higher than 1500 including the graphics card.. even though initially I thought no higher than 1250, but you know).

 

Background:

This will be my first build after a long time spent window shopping/watching personally irrelevant pc videos.

 

Aim:

I plan to use the pc for media consumption, storage and gaming.

 

Part list:

 

Already have a mediocre microsoft keyboard, 100 dollar PlayStation 3d display and 5 dollar ebay mouse so, to save money I probably will just use these for now (please dont hurt me mechanical keyboard community)

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($299.42 @ DirectCanada) 
Motherboard: MSI B150M BAZOOKA Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($133.34 @ Vuugo) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory  ($60.45 @ Vuugo) 
Storage: A-Data Premier SP550 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($84.72 @ DirectCanada) 
Storage: Western Digital Blue 3TB 3.5" 5400RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($145.75 @ DirectCanada) 
Case: Thermaltake Core V21 MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($91.21 @ DirectCanada) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($100.37 @ Newegg Canada) 
Case Fan: BitFenix Spectre LED 43.5 CFM 120mm  Fan  ($9.45 @ DirectCanada) 
Total: $924.71
Prices include taxes

 

Reasons behind choices:

CPU:Processor seems reasonable enough for gaming, costs significantly less than the k skew and doesnt require more money for a cpu cooler. Also, given this would be my first build it makes assembly much easier.

 

MOBO: Has usb 3.1 on the back, led lighting and no brown or green pcb.

 

SSD: Originally was looking at the 850 evo, but this is much less expensive for performance that isnt too much worse from what recommendations/reviews say.

 

HDD: I want a reasonable amount of space. Later when I can Il probably try to get 2 more to add redundancy and space through raid.

 

CASE: Its one of the few cases that show the graphics card the way it looks best, I love how minimalistic and cute the front looks, and the orientation will cover up the view of the stock cpu heat sink.

 

POWER SUPPLY: I was initially looking to save a little money by going with one of the cheaper but reputable non modular power supplies (500b), but boy do ketchup spaghetti cables look bad. If there was a good power supply with black cables for less money id be interested in finding it.

 

CASEFAN: I know airflow doesnt matter too much (unless your computer case is filled with carpet), but  I just wanted a little more light for the graphics card so the plan is to get this one fan to give the inside a dim level of illumination. Cheapest one I could find.

 

Future additions:

 

GPU: I guess Il be playing on integrated graphics for a while, but I dont want to get a 28nm graphics card when rumours have it that polaris cards are around the corner. Not sure which gpu il be getting but around 400-500 cad seems reasonable. Something equivalent to a 970/390 or in between the 390 and 380

 

Hard drives: Id really hate to lose data, as it would be a huge hassle so in the future id like to maybe upgrade this to 3 - 3 terabyte drives in raid 5 so that a drive can fail without data loss. I dont imagine too much important info will be on the ssd so I dont care too much about that. 

 

Monitors: Eventually id like a secondary monitor of some sort. Probably a smaller display  off to the side for things like team speak. Actually thinking something like one of those inexpensive portable monitors would work.

 

 

before coming up with this, here was my first parts list.

[EarthboundHero]

Fix your partslist. Just paste the permalink.

[UnknownSentientBeing]

Just now, EarthboundHero said:

Fix your partslist. Just paste the permalink.

Fixed with both links and permalink

[Shahnewaz]

As long as you have good reasons behind the parts you choose, it's all fine and dandy!

[FourCorners]

PSU:

NCIX has a good deal this week on the EVGA 650W P2 for $105 after mail in rebates which is a really good deal if that tickles your fancy. You'll get more wattage, higher 80+ rating and from a reputable brand (I think these units are super flower or seasonic rebrands too)

 

HDD:

when considering a second or third hard drive down the road to RAID, just remember that you will need to format the drive when RAIDing, so have somewhere to offload 3TB of data to. Just a early heads up

 

Second monitor:

If you only plan on using the second monitor for thing like teamspeak and monitoring things like your PC's temps, take a look at your local thrift store (ie Value Village, or Goodwill) for a cheap 4:3 LCD monitor that you could pick up for less than $10 CAD/Rubles. Sure they will be lower resolution and use VGA, and are possibly dirtier, but they can save you a lot of money for what you're doing if you give a good cleaning.

 

 

Edit:

Link to the PSU

http://www.ncix.com/detail/evga-supernova-650-p2-80-85-114120-1101.htm

Edited April 3, 2016 by FourCorners

[UnknownSentientBeing]

10 minutes ago, FourCorners said:

NCIX has a good deal this week on the EVGA 650W P2 for $105 after mail in rebates which is a really good deal if that tickles your fancy. You'll get more wattage, higher 80+ rating and from a reputable brand (I think these units are super flower or seasonic rebrands too)

Thanks for the tip, but at over 20 bucks more (the price here includes taxes), I cant really see enough benefits especially with the chore of the mail in rebate given Il never have sli/crossfire (board doesnt even support it).

[UnknownSentientBeing]

Question about my choice of motheboard. Ive been alerted to the fact this MOBO cannot overclock memory or the cpu. That shouldnt matter too much, but is it worth getting a more expensive motherboard with the z170 chipset over this one with the b150 chipset?

 

For reference, Im now comparing 

 

This (current) with This 

Edit: and now this (since it has 3.1)