Help with first PC build

[Saregon]

I've started planning my first PC build. I've been gaming on PC for years, but I've bought pre-built before. I've swapped out and installed parts before, so the installation is not really an issue, but knowing what to go for is. I've set up a build based on part packages and offers from retailers, and I was hoping you good people could take a look and give me some advise on whether it looks good or if I should swap something out.
Here is the build:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7vKX6h

I've already bought the case (Fractal Design Define R5) and an extra fan when they were discounted.

Now, I would like the finished product to be as quiet, and as powerful as possible, without bankrupting me. Unfortunately stating my budget won't really help, as PC parts are very expensive here, so it would translate to something like $1400, but it won't buy me a double GTX980 type monster like it might in the US.
I'm also not really into overclocking if that matters(never done it).

I'm taking the normal HDD as well as the optical drive from my current PC.

EDIT:

After reading your advice, and consulting Logical Increments, I've made some changes to the build. I decided to stick with OC-capable hardware just in case the CPU needs some more juice at some point (and also my main retailer sells the i5-4690k cheaper than the locked one). Still sticking with the plan to buy an SSD and port the HDD from my current computer. So here's the new setup:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tx647P

 

[nomotog_v1legacy]

You don't need that much presser (That is what people always tell me anyway.) If your not overclocking, then I don't think you will need the extra CPU fan. You might need more ram, but so long as you have the slots you can just buy more. A tip from when I built mine, don't go cheap on the power supply. Mine arrived DOA. Twice. Also 240 GBs is smaller then you think it is with games pushing 20 most of the time.

That is what I think, but I am no expert on this.

 

[Remus]

240GB is enough for Windows 10 and maybe half a dozen current gen games - less if you're into MMOs. I'd up that to 1TB minimum unless you plan on constantly having to delete games in order to install new ones like console owners. I agree, more ram would be better, to utilize the quad channel and because Win 10 requires 2gb of it recommended. Video card's good and you can always add another later if necessary - which it currently is not. And Radeons are notorious for high power consumption so adding another later would mean swapping out that 650w PSU. Overall though, not a bad build to start. I'm not a fan of overclocking either - IMO if you need the added pixel count, update your hardware. Don't risk breaking what you currently have.

 

[votemarvel]

A tip I would mention is not to fall into the trap of buying 'gaming' branded parts. They tend to be priced way too high for the benefits they actually provide.

A 250GB SSD is a good start in my opinion. Plenty of room for your OS and your most commonly played games. Since you are bringing across your old hard drive, use that one as a slave and put everything else on there.

I use a 250GB Sandisk SSD and have a 3tb regular hard drive for everything else.

 

[Saregon]

A tip I would mention is not to fall into the trap of buying 'gaming' branded parts. They tend to be priced way too high for the benefits they actually provide.

A 250GB SSD is a good start in my opinion. Plenty of room for your OS and your most commonly played games. Since you are bringing across your old hard drive, use that one as a slave and put everything else on there.

I use a 250GB Sandisk SSD and have a 3tb regular hard drive for everything else.

That's what I was thinking. My laptop has an SSD, and while it boots a lot faster than my desktop, I haven't noticed much of a difference in games, so I plan on having pretty much everything but the OS and programs that boot with the OS on the HDD.

About the RAM, those in the build are available for purchase in a set with the motherboard, CPU, CPU fan and RAM. I was originally thinking of using these because they're cheap: https://www.komplett.no/product/752764/datautstyr/minnebrikker/crucial-ddr3-ballistix-sport-16gb-kit

But they weren't compatible with the motherboard (wrong number of pins).

And Radeons are notorious for high power consumption so adding another later would mean swapping out that 650w PSU. Overall though, not a bad build to start. I'm not a fan of overclocking either - IMO if you need the added pixel count, update your hardware. Don't risk breaking what you currently have.

Would you say the 650W is enough for the build as is though? I went for 650 because it was somewhat affordable with 80 plus gold rating and being modular, and it's supposed to be fairly quiet. Might it be better to go for a 750W with a bronze rating for example?

 

[rgrekejin]

Couple of thoughts -

1. That CPU is somewhat overkill for this GPU. Not super-overkill, but you could probably drop down to a i5 4690k without seeing much difference and save yourself a hundred dollars or so. Keep in mind that this would also necessitate switching to a Z97 (or similair LGA 1150-supporting chipset) motherboard rather than an X99 one, and it would allow you to use the cheaper DDR3 RAM you were looking at earlier.

2. Are you planning on overclocking this at all? I notice that you've got an overclock-capable motherboard and CPU, but if you are planning on overclocking, that wimpy little reference fan you've got in the CPU cooler slot is just not gonna cut it. You need an after-market cooler. If you're not planning on overclocking, you can save yourself some money and get a locked processor (one without the "k" designation at the end) and a motherboard that doesn't support overclocking.

3. To answer you above question, 650W should be enough for your proposed setup. But if you ever plan to do Crossfire with two GPUs in the future, you're gonna need to swap out the PSU. 650W isn't near enough for two 390s.

4. Get a secondary hard drive for keeping older games/games you don't play that often on, so you don't have to manage your hard drive space compulsively. I know you say that you're bringing another HDD from your current computer. That should be good if it's a decent size (like, 500gb - 1 TB or so). Otherwise, 1TB drives from places like WD are pretty cheap.

 

[Rastrelly]

Second HDD was already mentioned - but I'd stick with 1 TB (better 2) to completely avoid wasting time on reinstalls and volume management.

Also I'd say you need an additional cooler on the back side of the case to remove hot air from within the case. Usually it's enough to guarantee impossibility of overheat on no-overclocked and lightly overclocked systems and generally helps for better air circulation inside the case.

 

[AgedGrunt]

If available, why not go for the Z170 chipset and new generation processors? Also, any time you see a "K" Intel chip, that's the unlocked version most sought after for overclocking (since you say that's not important) however they will be the fastest chips out of box anyway. I'm leaning against that CPU cooler, but only because it's Intel and the market is so rich with great products that usually embarrass Intel's coolers.

Oh, and overclocking is way easier than you might think. It doesn't take a computer science major to make things cherry, especially since the hardware you're looking at is designed with head room for it and even facilitates it. You won't need to do much more than change a few settings, assuming you can update your BIOS and you have good air flow in your system.

That said I also recommend a fan controller. It's amazing how quiet a system can get when the fans aren't always running at 100% (and unless under load they don't need to be anywhere near that).

Agreed on more RAM. I consider 2x4GB minimum today for serious builds; an i7 system with a beefy gaming card should not have a choke point, assuming what you will be doing.

If you are looking at a multi-GPU configuration, 650W PSU is definitely too light. Build for tomorrow, not today. Depends what you will be running and what your goals are. Whatever your needs, take nothing less than top quality here.

 

[Saregon]

I'm definitely not going to do crossfire any time soon. Very unsure about the motherboard and CPU though. For the i7-4790 the price is a bit higher, but that might be worth it if it will actually make the computer get higher fps on higher settings, or be more future-proof. I'm not really planning on overclocking, but at least for the cpu the price difference seems negligible (about $10 , and for the i5-4690 the k version is actually cheaper. The motherboard I know too little about unfortunately, so there I simply need a recommendation.

I've currently got 2x140mm fans in the front, and 1x140mm in the back, and the case has a built-in 3-speed fan controller.

 

[fix-the-spade]

Unfortunately stating my budget won't really help, as PC parts are very expensive here, so it would translate to something like $1400, but it won't buy me a double GTX980 type monster like it might in the US.

Unless you're planning to do home video editing, animation or 3-D work a X99 board and CPU is overkill for home use.

A Z97 or Z170 board and CPU will save you a nice chunk of money, which you can put into getting a GTX970. That would be a better combo for gaming (most games are GPU limited except for very big scale RTS like Total War) and has the bonus of using a fair amount less power than the x99/AMD card. That may or may not be important to you depending on who pays the electricity bill.

For your sanity it is also worth getting a better CPU cooler than the stock one. Even fairly budget CPU coolers are massively quieter and more effective than the jet turbine things Intel send out with it's CPUs.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

The CPU is overkill. If you aren't planning on overclocking I'd go with an intel i5 4590. You don't need more than an i5 for gaming right now. The extra processing power from the i7 is nice, but if you're building specifically for gaming I'd pass it buy and put the savings toward other components.

That cpu cooler also doesn't seem great.

I'd switch out that ram as well. Having a single 8gb stick of ram is always better than 2 4gb, especially if you ever want to upgrade to 16 or even 32 gigs (which is total overkill, but kind of nice).

You're also going to want another HDD in there. 240 gigs isn't much considering a lot of modern games push upward of 50 gigs (lots of uncompressed textures and audio). Toss a 1TB HDD in there for an extra $50, you'll want the space.

 

[Albino Boo]

Ok the start advice for any new build is unless you are planning to overclock don't use a k model CPU, a overclock capable motherboard and and non stock CPU cooler. The next point look at http://www.logicalincrements.com/ it great guide to the best hardware for the price point. You can select Norway from the country list at the top of the page to get the price in NOK.

Down to the nitty gritty. The i7 5820K on marginally outperforms the i7 4790K on multi core operations and is less powerful on single core operations. If your priority is gaming then the single core performance is more critical due to poor optimisation for multi core machines. At nearly 1000 Kr cheaper the i7 4790K offers better value for money with only a few % lost in all round performance. If you want to run sli you will need roughly an 860w PSU to be on the safe side.

 

[Saregon]

Thanks for a lot of great advice. Any thoughts on the GPU? My current machine runs a Radeon 5850, which has been very good, so I was thinking about going with an R9 390, 8GB. However, I know the GTX970 has higher clockspeed, but only half the VRAM. Thoughts?

 

[Remus]

Stick to the higher vram. It'll become increasingly noticeable the longer you have it. Next to no texture popin, overall faster game loads, I was an nvidia fan but the ridiculous pricing of their titan series steered me towards radeon and the 970 really is their last holdout for budget gaming.

 

[mad825]

Ideally for the CPU cooler you want the conductive material to do most of the job of disbursing the heat

Spoiler: my CPU cooler for I7-4770

****with 120mm fan

It's big and can be a pain in the arse to install but will fit in any ATX case although it won't fit with high profile RAM. Yes, if you want to change ram sticks you would have unmounted this thing.

If you're willing to spend a bit extra on the HDD to provide better performance then I would suggest going for WD black or an SSHD (I recommend).

Having a single 8gb stick of ram is always better than 2 4gb, especially if you ever want to upgrade to 16 or even 32 gigs (which is total overkill, but kind of nice).

Eh, it's more convenient but large single sticks tend to have higher CAS latency than those with multiple sticks. While the difference is negligible, ideally you want it as low as possible.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Thanks for a lot of great advice. Any thoughts on the GPU? My current machine runs a Radeon 5850, which has been very good, so I was thinking about going with an R9 390, 8GB. However, I know the GTX970 has higher clockspeed, but only half the VRAM. Thoughts?

Whether the extra vram will help depends on what resolutions you'll be playing at. If you intend to play at 1080p the extra vram isn't going to benefit you as much, but if you're playing on 2560x1440 or higher than the extra vram helps quite noticeably.

Usually if you're going with an intel processor nvidia is the way to go (the two perform better together).

I don't have any experience with the R9 390, but the Nvidia 970 is a great GPU, and nvidia has some really nice effects that AMD doesn't. Really though either GPU will work great.

 

[mad825]

Usually if you're going with an intel processor nvidia is the way to go (the two perform better together).

Because they are considered to be higher quality.

It's possible that you might be locked out from some features (although it's always a good to check-up the requirements on the features that you want)there shouldn't be any performance loss per se.

 

[Albino Boo]

The only games that need 8gb of Vram are ones on Ultra settings at 4k resolution. At 2.5k on Ultra you will just hit the 4gb Vram limit meaning that that 8gb you might gain 10-20 fps. At 1920 you won't need more than 4gb. So the choice is largely down to what your monitor will handle.

 

[Saregon]

After reading your advice, and consulting Logical Increments, I've made some changes to the build. I decided to stick with OC-capable hardware just in case the CPU needs some more juice at some point (and also my main retailer sells the i5-4690k cheaper than the locked one). Still sticking with the plan to buy an SSD and port the HDD from my current computer. So here's the new setup:
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tx647P

 

[Albino Boo]

There is nothing wrong with that build and it will work well. I'm going to give you another option. Going with a i7-4790K and a GTX970. Its upfront performance will no be as good but the extra CPU horsepower with future proof your build more. Its easier upgrading a GPU than a CPU so getting a less powerful GPU in the short term and upgrading in 18 months or so will give you longer shelf life. It rather depends on how long you plan on keeping this rig before upgrading again. My i7 3770k is rarely pushed despite its age.