First Custom Gaming PC Build, $1500 Budget

[NarimaanV]

Hi,

        I am planning for my hopefully first custom PC build, mainly for gaming as well as everyday schoolwork. The purpose of the computer is largely gaming, including most big games like Hitman, GTA V, Battlefield, Rocket League, and so on, but I'd also like to use it for day-to-day schoolwork and the occasional 3D modeling (I use Inventor at the moment). My budget is between $1400 and $1500 and I'm located in the Virginia, in the United States. My current monitor is a standard, kind of old, Samsung 1080p 60Hz monitor so I won't be looking at any 4K gaming for now (considering 1440p with down-sampling but that's after everything's setup). And I've got good-enough peripherals for now, and can always add those later in the coming months. This budget is purely for the desktop. I have a PCPartPicker List already made (the bolded prices manually set are from local store deals like micro center), but here's a list of each part and why I chose each as well:

• CPU: Intel i7 7700K. Currently the gaming king of processors. Was considering the freshly released 1600X, but since Ryzen is still in it's infancy, I'd rather use an already optimized Intel chip and maybe consider Ryzen a few months or year down the road when it's settled into the market nicely.
• Cooler: Cryorig H7. Originally was going to go with the Hyper 212 Evo, but for $10 more the reviews say this performs slightly better and is quieter.
• Motherboard: Asus Z270E Gaming. Provides what I need, isn't crazy expensive, has onboard Wifi and Bluetooth, and the overclocking seems decent with the 10-phase VRM.
• RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB) DDR4-3000. Corsair is the only brand I know of with really low-profile RAM, which I'm using in planning on upgrading the cooler to a much bigger air cooler in the future, so I want to save myself from any compatibility issues ahead of time. Also went with a 2x8GB kit on the off chance I want to double the memory in the future (why I would need 32GB of ram, I have no idea, but it's dual channel so 2 sticks vs 4 doesn't really matter).
• Storage: Samsung 840 Evo 1 TB (own already), WD Black 1TB. System is going to be a dual boot system with two drives. I have an 840 Evo from my Macbook Pro which recently killed itself and am willing to deal with HDD speeds in the beginning on one of the OS's. Still not sure which OS will go on which but that's a future-me problem.
• GPU: MSI Geforce GTX 1080 Gaming X. Heard nothing but good things from MSI's cards lately, and it isn't super long to have an issue with sag. Plus fits a future red-black theme nicely.
• Case: Zalman ZM-Z9 U3. Cheap case, has SOME kind of filters for the PSU, has decent ports on the front and a window, which is all I need for now.
• PSU: Corsair CXM 650W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular. Got lots of headroom for upgrading components and I found a rebate-deal on it at the moment, so that's nice. Also a 5 year warranty on a bronze PSU isn't half bad either.
• OS: Windows 10 Home Retail 64-Bit USB, Linux. Yes I know I could save money on the OEM version of windows, but I'd like to be able to transfer my install to another motherboard should I upgrade that (without annoying hassle).

An important note about my choice of parts here: I know this build looks all over the place with some super cheap parts and other overkill parts. My goal is to slowly upgrade the stuff that's not so expensive to upgrade (like case, cooler, maybe even PSU) over the next 6 months to a year, but invest in the top of the line parts that are the most expensive (CPU, GPU, motherboard kind of) now. Also I'm going for a red-black themed build for the final version so that's why I really liked something like the MSI card, besides the performance of course. One last note is that I know many of the expensive parts are absolute overkill for my current plan of 1080p/possibly 1440p gaming. I absolutely know that something like an i5 7600k paired with a 1070 or even 1060 would more than suffice, but this desktop is intended to last me years without needing to upgrade those parts, so that's why I'm going overkill now, since in 5 years those parts might barely manage the job. Plus who knows, maybe I'll try my hand at 1440p/4K gaming in the near future . But yeah that's my build plan, please give me any constructive feedback you can think of. Appreciate it greatly everyone!

[Guest]

nothing i would change honestly

[Droidbot]

Nothing I would change. Maybe lower end PSU (550w) but that's a solid build. 

[Zando_]

You can try a Corsair SPEC-02 for the case, they're around $60, have to front USB 3.0 ports, and are a nice black finish with a red LED fan and bar under the front I/O. Or the SPEC-01, which is about $10 cheaper, but only has 1 USB 3.0. And the SPEC-02 has got dust filters on all the intakes. And a nice window to keep drool from falling on your components when a console peasant comes over*.

 

 

 

 

*DISCLAMER: I play PS2, so I'm a bit of an outdated peasant myself. Battlefront 2 for the win!

[genexis_x]

Looks good. Maybe can go for a nicer case and a tier 1/2 PSU if you have money left to spare.

[NarimaanV]

Thanks for the feedback so far, I'm glad my hours of research wasn't in vain!

 

6 minutes ago, Zando Bob said:

You can try a Corsair SPEC-02 for the case, they're around $60, have to front USB 3.0 ports, and are a nice black finish with a red LED fan and bar under the front I/O. Or the SPEC-01, which is about $10 cheaper, but only has 1 USB 3.0. And the SPEC-02 has got dust filters on all the intakes. And a nice window to keep drool from falling on your components when a console peasant comes over*.

 

 

 

 

*DISCLAMER: I play PS2, so I'm a bit of an outdated peasant myself. Battlefront 2 for the win!

I saw those cases and they do look nice, but the only reason I would say I probably won't switch to them is because the case is literally going to be the first thing I change a month or two after, that and I really can't go much over the current $1500 price . Currently set on a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Tempered Glass Black for the upgraded case. Fun fact, the original build plan had the phanteks case included but instead used a 1070 card. Then I realized that since the cost of the phanteks case was about the difference between the 1070 and 1080, I thought "hey dummy, instead of having to spend 500 bucks on the 1080 later, spend 130 bucks in a month or two on the better case!". Hence now going with a super low end case and saving up for the much nicer case in the hopefully near future .

 

Also no shame, I'm a console peasant too! As much as I find the console-PC war amusing to watch, I like both as fun ways to play games (controller for life though ).

[NarimaanV]

8 minutes ago, ZM Fong said:

Looks good. Maybe can go for a nicer case and a tier 1/2 PSU if you have money left to spare.

Definitely will if I can find a better deal anywhere. Worst case (no pun intended) scenario, upgrade in a month or two

[dragoon20005]

something to look at for team Ryzen 5

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($218.88 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME X370-PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($119.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($73.77 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB ARMOR Video Card  ($700.00)
Case: Corsair SPEC-02 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($54.98 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($88.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1416.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-12 01:17 EDT-0400

 

If the prices of the 1080Ti is around 700 USD

 

then this is a killer deal on the 6 core 12 treads Ryzen 5 with a 1080Ti

[NarimaanV]

24 minutes ago, dragoon20005 said:

something to look at for team Ryzen 5

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 1600 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor  ($218.88 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Asus PRIME X370-PRO ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($119.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  (Purchased For $0.00)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($73.77 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB ARMOR Video Card  ($700.00)
Case: Corsair SPEC-02 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($54.98 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($88.89 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1416.39
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-04-12 01:17 EDT-0400

 

If the prices of the 1080Ti is around 700 USD

 

then this is a killer deal on the 6 core 12 treads Ryzen 5 with a 1080Ti

Hehe oh and there's an example of the struggle I've been having the past week. Yeah, because Ryzen 5 is a fair bit cheaper and assuming I don't get an Asus Crosshair VI, there's enough room for the 1080ti. And that's where the dillema comes into play: better cpu for gaming but slightly less powerful gpu? Or slightly less gpu for gaming but second most powerful gpu on the market (only to the upcoming re-release of the titan Xpp)? I have only two problems with ryzen as it is now: a). I think it will be at least 6 months until all the kinks are worked out and optimization is complete. Heck RAM speeds are still being sorted out. And b). I'm not a workstation user or a streamer, I'm a gamer, a programmer, and a 3d modeller. All of those are more in favor of of higher clock speed than many cores. So with all that in mind, would Ryzen serve me well, especially considering I'd be gaming at 1080p for the foreseeable future? The only "trick" i was thinking to equalize the 7700k and the 1600x I'm gaming is to downsample 1440p to my 1080p monitor, which would be childsplay for a 1080ti. But I'm not even sure if that would force the games to be more GPU bound

[dragoon20005]

1 hour ago, NarimaanV said:

Hehe oh and there's an example of the struggle I've been having the past week. Yeah, because Ryzen 5 is a fair bit cheaper and assuming I don't get an Asus Crosshair VI, there's enough room for the 1080ti. And that's where the dillema comes into play: better cpu for gaming but slightly less powerful gpu? Or slightly less gpu for gaming but second most powerful gpu on the market (only to the upcoming re-release of the titan Xpp)? I have only two problems with ryzen as it is now: a). I think it will be at least 6 months until all the kinks are worked out and optimization is complete. Heck RAM speeds are still being sorted out. And b). I'm not a workstation user or a streamer, I'm a gamer, a programmer, and a 3d modeller. All of those are more in favor of of higher clock speed than many cores. So with all that in mind, would Ryzen serve me well, especially considering I'd be gaming at 1080p for the foreseeable future? The only "trick" i was thinking to equalize the 7700k and the 1600x I'm gaming is to downsample 1440p to my 1080p monitor, which would be childsplay for a 1080ti. But I'm not even sure if that would force the games to be more GPU bound

so far the Ryzen 5 1600 and the 1500X are the bang for the buck CPUs as they priced the two CPU squarely against the i5 Core 7500 and i5 7600K which are more expensive given the Z270 board a must for the 7500K and you need to buy a 212 Evo cooler while the Ryzen 5 1600 comes with a stock cooler bundled. Only the 1600X does not come with a box cooler

 

the benchmarks and reviews are out now for most major youtubers and they agree the Ryzen 5 is the CPU to give Intel mainstream i5 and i7 a run for their money. The average fps may be higher than AMD, but tests show the Ryzen 5 are able to maintain the minimum fps. So you have lesser fps drops and stuttering issues.

 

AMD and many board manufacturers are updating and improving the BIOS almost weekly to bi-weekly

 

Asus are known to provide timely updates to the BIOS and their recent BIOS fixed the RAM speed which does affect CPU bound tasks by a few percent but it slowly coming.

 

also AMD has a patch to fix the power management to prevent Cores and Treads parking which affect Windows 10 so

 

Zen is a new platform and slowly but surely, game devs are patching their games to support Ryzen CPU.

 

 

[Zando_]

9 hours ago, NarimaanV said:

Thanks for the feedback so far, I'm glad my hours of research wasn't in vain!

 

I saw those cases and they do look nice, but the only reason I would say I probably won't switch to them is because the case is literally going to be the first thing I change a month or two after, that and I really can't go much over the current $1500 price . Currently set on a Phanteks Enthoo Luxe Tempered Glass Black for the upgraded case. Fun fact, the original build plan had the phanteks case included but instead used a 1070 card. Then I realized that since the cost of the phanteks case was about the difference between the 1070 and 1080, I thought "hey dummy, instead of having to spend 500 bucks on the 1080 later, spend 130 bucks in a month or two on the better case!". Hence now going with a super low end case and saving up for the much nicer case in the hopefully near future .

 

Also no shame, I'm a console peasant too! As much as I find the console-PC war amusing to watch, I like both as fun ways to play games (controller for life though ).

Sounds like a plan!

[NarimaanV]

5 hours ago, dragoon20005 said:

so far the Ryzen 5 1600 and the 1500X are the bang for the buck CPUs as they priced the two CPU squarely against the i5 Core 7500 and i5 7600K which are more expensive given the Z270 board a must for the 7500K and you need to buy a 212 Evo cooler while the Ryzen 5 1600 comes with a stock cooler bundled. Only the 1600X does not come with a box cooler

 

the benchmarks and reviews are out now for most major youtubers and they agree the Ryzen 5 is the CPU to give Intel mainstream i5 and i7 a run for their money. The average fps may be higher than AMD, but tests show the Ryzen 5 are able to maintain the minimum fps. So you have lesser fps drops and stuttering issues.

 

AMD and many board manufacturers are updating and improving the BIOS almost weekly to bi-weekly

 

Asus are known to provide timely updates to the BIOS and their recent BIOS fixed the RAM speed which does affect CPU bound tasks by a few percent but it slowly coming.

 

also AMD has a patch to fix the power management to prevent Cores and Treads parking which affect Windows 10 so

 

Zen is a new platform and slowly but surely, game devs are patching their games to support Ryzen CPU.

 

 

True true, they are the best value by far. But, and as dumb as I may sound saying this, because I'm looking to not have to touch the CPU or GPU for amother few years at least, I'm more focused on max raw power than value. Even if I got the 1600x, chances are I'd only get it to 4.0Ghz, which is the below the base clock of the 7700k, which doesn't scream "absolute raw performance" . Let me be clear, I'm not trying to argue here for argument sake, this is literally the debate I've had with myself for a week now. Even though Ryzen 5 is more value oriented, I'm worried I don't gain from the 6 cores what I lose in core frequency and IPC .

[NarimaanV]

Question, does PSU efficiency affect overclocking? In my case, would a CX650M that's 80+ Bronze for my 400W system be able to let me overclock the 7700k half decent to something like 4.7GHz for at least the first few months until I saved up for a better power supply? Or would I need at least an 80+ gold power supply to attempt any stable overclocks?

 

EDIT: Or would something like a SeaSonic G Series SSR-550RM 550W 80+ Gold PSU be better for for overclocking at the cost of 100 Watts but better efficiency?

[TheDankKoosh]

4 minutes ago, NarimaanV said:

Question, does PSU efficiency affect overclocking? In my case, would a CX650M that's 80+ Bronze for my 400W system be able to let me overclock the 7700k half decent to something like 4.7GHz for at least the first few months until I saved up for a better power supply? Or would I need at least an 80+ gold power supply to attempt any stable overclocks?

It isn't too much about efficiency rather than quality components, and the cxm units are pretty good.

[NarimaanV]

17 minutes ago, TheDankKoosh said:

It isn't too much about efficiency rather than quality components, and the cxm units are pretty good.

Gotcha, makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up