Building a living room PC - could use a 2nd opinion

[Dukanater]

Hey guys so i haven't built a computer in about a year so i haven't really been paying attention to whats best on the market right now for low budget gear iv come up with a list i just threw together of stuff that seemed like a good value and it should do what i need it to do its probably even alittle over kill but for the amount of money im willing to spend on this little project i was wondering if you guys  could come up with a better build or maybe help me edit myn a bit

 

Budget 500$ can go over if the performance boost is justifiable 

Must have wifi and im kinda set on the case i have selected in the link below

basically going to be a steam machine simple games like rocket league nothing fancy or AAA 

in addition to light gaming duty it will be used for social media netflix and chill you know the works simple stuff

 

so here is my list plz give me some opinions =]

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Dukanater/saved/qtPxrH

[skimmilk5]

I don't see many problems with it (and THANK YOU for not including an optical drive...that annoys me )

[DisconnectedYT]

2 minutes ago, Dukanater said:

Hey guys so i haven't built a computer in about a year so i haven't really been paying attention to whats best on the market right now for low budget gear iv come up with a list i just threw together of stuff that seemed like a good value and it should do what i need it to do its probably even alittle over kill but for the amount of money im willing to spend on this little project i was wondering if you guys  could come up with a better build or maybe help me edit myn a bit

 

Budget 500$ can go over if the performance boost is justifiable 

Must have wifi and im kinda set on the case i have selected in the link below

basically going to be a steam machine simple games like rocket league nothing fancy or AAA 

in addition to light gaming duty it will be used for social media netflix and chill you know the works simple stuff

 

so here is my list plz give me some opinions =]

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/Dukanater/saved/qtPxrH

That pc's CPU will be way to weak to do any streaming above 480p, You would need a 4Core 8Thread from Intel.

 

AMD Cpu's like Quad Cores dont compare at all to Intel Quad Core Cpu's.

I bet my Pentium G3258 4.6Ghz could do a better job..... just saying

[Dukanater]

yea i just realized the only thing i didnt add to the list was the OS its self which will be windows 10 and im not counting that in the 500$ 

[skimmilk5]

Just now, DisconnectedYT said:

That pc's CPU will be way to weak to do any streaming above 480p, You would need a 4Core 8Thread from Intel.

 

AMD Cpu's like Quad Cores dont compare at all to Intel Quad Core Cpu's.

I bet my Pentium G3258 4.6Ghz could do a better job..... just saying

I agree, get yourself a Z97 board and a G3258 and you'll be well on your way to a quite powerful little rig. And did anyone mention that the MSRP for that Pentium is $79 or so? It's dirt cheap, and it's unlocked!

[paddy-stone]

2 minutes ago, DisconnectedYT said:

That pc's CPU will be way to weak to do any streaming above 480p, You would need a 4Core 8Thread from Intel.

 

AMD Cpu's like Quad Cores dont compare at all to Intel Quad Core Cpu's.

I bet my Pentium G3258 4.6Ghz could do a better job..... just saying

Streaming?  where did the OP mention that?

[Dukanater]

1 minute ago, DisconnectedYT said:

That pc's CPU will be way to weak to do any streaming above 480p, You would need a 4Core 8Thread from Intel.

 

AMD Cpu's like Quad Cores dont compare at all to Intel Quad Core Cpu's.

I bet my Pentium G3258 4.6Ghz could do a better job..... just saying

Just saying is great thats the type of insider info im looking for from people more experienced than myself id like to be able to stream to my tv at 1080 of course so if you think that processor is going to bottle neck that that's exactly the type of info i was looking for ill do some homework on it thank you =]

[DisconnectedYT]

Just now, kimsejin5 said:

I agree, get yourself a Z97 board and a G3258 and you'll be well on your way to a quite powerful little rig. And did anyone mention that the MSRP for that Pentium is $79 or so? It's dirt cheap, and it's unlocked!

however its not great for streaming! I wouldnt reccomend it. Get AT LEAST an i3 with HT

[Dukanater]

1 minute ago, paddy-stone said:

Streaming?  where did the OP mention that?

netflix is technically streaming correct? i think thats what he ment? that how i took it anyways

[Beeeyeee]

only thing I'd add is a cooler so its actually bearable to listen to:P

[asdf2061]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/yzBQ6X

 

This build is a little bit over, but I can explain.

 

The Skylake i3-6300 is a new-gen CPU that is over 30% better than the Athlon that you have according to User Benchmark. Since it is a Skylake CPU, it can take advantage of DDR4 memory, which offers a performance gap over the old DDR3 RAM.

[skimmilk5]

2 minutes ago, DisconnectedYT said:

however its not great for streaming! I wouldnt reccomend it. Get AT LEAST an i3 with HT

Personally, I haven't seen significant performance gains with an i3 over the G3258 that justify the price increase but YMMV. I run a G3258 at stock, and she is great under pressure, with YT [experimental] 4K 60FPS...

 

It's worth noting that I'm not an authoritative source on Skylake and Kaby Lake chips, so I'm not sure what the Skylake Core i3 processors bring to the table.

Edited September 7, 2016 by kimsejin5

[paddy-stone]

OP, that build should be fine for light gaming and watching netflix and the like.... it's only if YOU want to stream YOUR games that you would need better CPU for IMO.

[DisconnectedYT]

OH! By streaming i thought u meant Streaming to Twitch well in that case make a build with the Pentium G3258 and just use the stock cooler and give it a overclock to 4.2Ghz

[paddy-stone]

Damn, if we needed a lot of CPU power to stream films then that would kill off pretty much any PC over 5 years old that isn't an i7 or similar... <<-- exagerating, but you get the point I hope??

[cpuwaiy]

I would wait for Kaby Lake.  Better GPU plus HEVC.

[GDRRiley]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/bhnk9W that would be what I would do 

[Dukanater]

7 minutes ago, I_IHaveNoLife_l said:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/yzBQ6X

 

This build is a little bit over, but I can explain.

 

The Skylake i3-6300 is a new-gen CPU that is over 30% better than the Athlon that you have according to User Benchmark. Since it is a Skylake CPU, it can take advantage of DDR4 memory, which offers a performance gap over the old DDR3 RAM.

 

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/bhnk9W that would be what I would do 

you both have very similar ideas and i see benefit in this build with the possible upgrade paths in the future i could step up to a better skylate cpu or what ever or more ram on concern with the i3- 6300 is its 2 cores do you think thats enough for what id be playing i mean i know rocket league is demanded but say i wanted to toss on the forest or something i know the standard nowadays seems to be at least 4 cores for best performance?

[GDRRiley]

Just now, Dukanater said:

 

you both have very similar ideas and i see benefit in this build with the possible upgrade paths in the future i could step up to a better skylate cpu or what ever or more ram on concern with the i3- 6300 is its 2 cores do you think thats enough for what id be playing i mean i know rocket league is demanded but say i wanted to toss on the forest or something i know the standard nowadays seems to be at least 4 cores for best performance?

yes it should be. 

 

[Dukanater]

6 minutes ago, cpuwaiy said:

I would wait for Kaby Lake.  Better GPU plus HEVC.

im sure i could answer my own question with a google search but whats kaby lake & HEVC? and when would the be rolling out? i kinda planned on building this before the end of the month

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, Dukanater said:

im sure i could answer my own question with a google search but whats kaby lake & HEVC? and when would the be rolling out? i kinda planned on building this before the end of the month

kaby lake is intel's new cpus coming out in a few months 

[paddy-stone]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/MGs6r7

 

$508. better CPU/RAM upgrade path if needed too.... much better PSU. GPU was undecided about, but think an rx460 would suit you fine, has HDMI 2.0 and DP1.4 for 4K as well for film watching etc... hope that helps

[paddy-stone]

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/zCBQ6X

 

Same build as my above selection but with an i5 4 core... just under $600

[asdf2061]

6 minutes ago, Dukanater said:

 

you both have very similar ideas and i see benefit in this build with the possible upgrade paths in the future i could step up to a better skylate cpu or what ever or more ram on concern with the i3- 6300 is its 2 cores do you think thats enough for what id be playing i mean i know rocket league is demanded but say i wanted to toss on the forest or something i know the standard nowadays seems to be at least 4 cores for best performance?

It is definitely good enough as most games out there can't take on more than 2 cores at one time, let alone 4 threads, as AI is too unpredictable. This build should be equal to a gaming PC 2-3 times its price.

[cpuwaiy]

"a Kaby Lake system will be able to decode 4K video at 60 frames per second—or up to eight 4K streams at 30 fps".  This is with onboard video.

 

The other important aspect of Kaby Lake is Intel’s transition to a new video engine. According to Chris Walker, the general manager for mobile client platforms at Intel, the web’s content platforms are moving to HEVC and VP9 for video encoding and decoding—and at higher resolutions. Skylake accelerated 1080p HEVC encoding and decoding natively in hardware, but it lacked dedicated support for 4K HEVC encoding/decoding at 10-bit depths, or VP9 decoding—two things that Kaby Lake does natively in hardware.

 

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC)

 

Plus Zen will be out(Don't hold your breath) and will help drive Intel prices lower(we hope)