PC GAMING MASTER RACE, ASSEMBLE!!!! First time PC builder here, how does this rig look? - UPDATE #4

[V da Mighty Taco]

Wireless is needed, since I will not be able to guarantee that the computer will be close enough to the router or modem for ethernet to be viable. It also just gives a degree of versatility that I'd like to have.

There's an option you might not have heard of called powerline ethernet [http://www.cnet.com/topics/networking/best-networking-devices/power-line-adapters/]. I didn't believe this magic at first, but it lets you sent your Internet though the powerlines of your house. It goes router to powerline box on a wall outlet, then another box on the same circut in your house then to the computer. I use it myself and its more stable than my laptop's wifi. Its also expensive, my set cost $60. But if you want it, its possible

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00B2HH7G0/ref=olp_product_details?ie=UTF8&me=

ASUS VG248QE 24-inch LED-lit Monitor 144Hz refresh rate 1ms pixel response time & 3D capable $264.99

I actually own this monitor. Its pretty good, not IPS but the color is balanced, and it can be upgraded to g-sync if OP desires using a kit from Nvidia along with 3D. Plus the 144Hz is divisible by 24 so its supposed to make movies and videos shot in 24 fps look better. If it matters, it also has speakers built in. I wanted speakers for watching youtube videos but didn't want more crap on my desk. They're not awful and they get the job done, if I want good sound I'd invest in headphones

But yeah, I'd second the 970 vga's if you want 120fps. According to Anand tech, they out perform the 780 on most games and run cooler to boot. MSI's 970 is about $350. The gigabyte supposidly has a better cooler, but its $380. Avoid EVGA's, its coolers isn't great

Yeah, powerline ethernet is out of the question with my living arrangement. It's gonna have to be Wi-Fi.

That is certainly a nice monitor, and I really like having built-in speakers too. Headphones can always be used for extreme sound quality, but for general use inbuilt speakers are more than enough.

As for the 970, it breaks the budget too much. A consistent 1080p 60fps is my main goal, with 120fps being preferable if possible. but dropping over $150 more on the GPU is kinda out of my range and I don't see too much that I could do to make such a thing fit into the budget. I'll take any recommendations you have on how to do so, nevertheless.

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

That is certainly a nice monitor, and I really like having built-in speakers too. Headphones can always be used for extreme sound quality, but for general use inbuilt speakers are more than enough.

If you do get it, make sure you turn the volume up in the monitor's settings menu. The default is 50% and it sounds like garbage. r/PCmasterrace also has a thread for calibrating the color, but its defaults are pretty good

As for the 970, it breaks the budget too much. A consistent 1080p 60fps is my main goal, with 120fps being preferable if possible. but dropping over $150 more on the GPU is kinda out of my range and I don't see too much that I could do to make such a thing fit into the budget. I'll take any recommendations you have on how to do so, nevertheless.

Yeah makes sense. Its a lot of money. I'm building a pc myself, but my budget is high. My main issue is finding a case I want and working out how to cool it. Most of the good looking case have covered vents and I don't want to water cool

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

I simply like the idea of having a bunch of paste around for future uses, including possibly helping others build their own rigs. It's not meant to be used all at once. Also, Pink pony is best pony (when written correctly, anyways <_<).

Even if you install a new cooler once per week you won't get through a tenth of it before it goes bad. Besides, when it comes to thermal paste, you should always stick with the well known brands. It has a big impact on CPU temperatures, and getting the cheap stuff can be even worse than not having any paste at all. In my opinion (and experience), getting 200 grams of thermal paste for 15$ is a very bad idea.

Good point, and something I wasn't aware of. What would you recommend for paste then?

Arctic Coolings "Arctic Silver" brand is a good bet. Read some reviews of the different types you can get.
Also, you don't strictly need to buy Windows. There's other ways of getting an OS.

How's this paste look?: https://pcpartpicker.com/part/arctic-cooling-thermal-paste-mx2r

There is nothing wrong with blu ray drives themselves, however you do need extra software to be able to play them most of which you have to pay for. Something like Windows Media Player or iTunes won't be able to play them.

Yeesh. Looking up on good Blu-Ray programs leads to everything pointing to CyberLink PowerVD as the most practical option, and I really don't like that program. My laptop came with that installed and uses that as the default DVD player, and every time I try watching a movie it fucks with the computer's colors and just all around sucks. Maybe it's a crappy, outdated version of the program, but for now I'm probably going to bump things down towards a regular DVD drive until I know of a more reliable program for Blu-Rays or if I find out modern versions of PowerDVD aren't as crappy as my laptop's version. Fuk dat shit!

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Here you go dude. A PC rig with FX-8320 and GTX 970 for your money: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dbLDmG

This will play all of the upcoming games at 60 FPS 1080p. This card is good enough for 1440p gaming.

And think very carefully about the OS you want to purchase. Windows 10 will be released next year, together with Dx12. Games will begin to use Dx12 soon, probably, because the Xbox One will have it as well. There are rumors that Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 8 users.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Here you go dude. A PC rig with GTX 970 for your money: http://pcpartpicker.com/parts/partlist/

Uh, that list is completely blank.

It should work now. I forgot the permalink. Shame on me.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

If no one has mentioned it yet, if you with a normal heat sink so with a solid copper zalman(what I use for most biulds), I went with a enclosed water cooling system with my newest I7 rig its not bad but still 100$ for something that might not last as long as a normal heat sink for half the price.

ALso SDD is not worth it(I just leave my system running, fewer on/off cycles=less wear and tear), as in order to make full use of it you'll have to have all your programs and games on it, go with a 1 TB HDD for the OS(makes it eaier to get another 1TB HDD to copy data and or OS over when your HDD starts giving smart errors) and expand as needed with USB 3.0 4TB HDDS(I currently have 4 of them LOL).

Also go with arctic silver thermal paste its never done me wrong.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Updated the OP again with some improvements made to the rig. Most notably, the paste and BDR have been downgraded to more reasonable picks, which opened up room in the budget for a small SSD. How's the rig looking now?: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4n6XhM

That is certainly a nice monitor, and I really like having built-in speakers too. Headphones can always be used for extreme sound quality, but for general use inbuilt speakers are more than enough.

If you do get it, make sure you turn the volume up in the monitor's settings menu. The default is 50% and it sounds like garbage. r/PCmasterrace also has a thread for calibrating the color, but its defaults are pretty good

As for the 970, it breaks the budget too much. A consistent 1080p 60fps is my main goal, with 120fps being preferable if possible. but dropping over $150 more on the GPU is kinda out of my range and I don't see too much that I could do to make such a thing fit into the budget. I'll take any recommendations you have on how to do so, nevertheless.

Yeah makes sense. Its a lot of money. I'm building a pc myself, but my budget is high. My main issue is finding a case I want and working out how to cool it. Most of the good looking case have covered vents and I don't want to water cool

Sucks to hear about the audio levels being crap, but still seems like a good monitor regardless. If I ever have too many problems with the audio, I could always just by some speakers later on.

I also like the case I've found so far, even though I know fuck-all about how good of a case it actually is. What are your thoughts on my case, btw? Case is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517006

 

[Bombiz]

for key boards you can go with either the k70RGB or k95RBG

both are great but the k95 has a lot of macros.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

That card won't give you 60 FPS at 1080p in almost any of the newer games. Why do you insist on getting an Intel rig? Intel is good for an enthusiast build, but when you're on a tight budget, you should build an AMD rig and put the most money into the GPU.

The difference between those two CPU's in gaming will be maybe 5 fps, but the difference between an R9 270 and a GTX 970 is about 50 fps in most titles.

 

[Trinket to Ride]

Revison #2 is more or less what I built over summer, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I have a more powerful graphics card, but that's it. I can only get 120 fps on stuff like TF2, but 60 is more than fine for me.

Personally, I'd invest in an after-market cooler. It's not necessary, especially if you don't plan on overclocking, but my friend's CPU overheated and died, so I'm paranoid about that sort of thing. This one [http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-RR-212E-20PK-R2/dp/B005O65JXI/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1412530164] seems to be the best in terms of effectiveness for the price. Unfortunately, he wouldn't fit in my case, so I went with his little brother, [http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Hyper-TX3-RR-910-HTX3-G1/dp/B0028Y4S9K/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1412530748] who's served me well since. With the stock cooler, I topped out at 82° (playing Crysis 2 at max settings in the middle of summer,) and with this I have yet to go above 55°.

Also I can't recommend putting the OS on a SSD highly enough. Once you try it, you'll never want to go back.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Here you go dude. A PC rig with FX-8320 and GTX 970 for your money: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/dbLDmG

This will play all of the upcoming games at 60 FPS 1080p. This card is good enough for 1440p gaming.

And think very carefully about the OS you want to purchase. Windows 10 will be released next year, together with Dx12. Games will begin to use Dx12 soon, probably, because the Xbox One will have it as well. There are rumors that Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for Windows 8 users.

Bookmarked. It's certainly worth keeping that list in mind (dat 970), though I am concerned that the power-per-core on the CPU might be a bit low (especially with all the games that only run one core or two at most). It also does push the budget a bit. Nevertheless, thanks for the tips.

As for Windows, I'm definitely gonna stick with Win7 for now. I hated 8 with a passion, and at the moment 10 is looking to have many of the same issues that irritated me with 8. Maybe Windows 10 will be just fine, but until I know that for certain I'm not going to plan on getting it over Windows 7.

 

[Adam Jensen_v1legacy]

Bookmarked. It's certainly worth keeping that list in mind (dat 970), though I am concerned that the power-per-core on the CPU might be a bit low (especially with all the games that only run one core or two at most). It also does push the budget a bit. Nevertheless, thanks for the tips.

You have to keep in mind that games that only require 1 or 2 cores tend to be older games, and they're not very CPU intensive anyway. That means that you gain nothing with either Haswell or AMD's FX series. You'll still be able to get that 60 fps or more. But for future titles, an octocore is a solid choice, and it's so much cheaper than Haswell. You can overclock it easily to 4.0Ghz and then it's basically an FX-8350.

If it breaks the budget, don't buy an SSD. You can always get one at a later date. For now, focus on gaming performance.

 

[The White Hunter]

Hmmm odd. I find that it's well worth having one, just makes windows so much snappier to load that it's worth it. Blu-ray is much less worthwhile unless you havea crazy pile of BD drives and you can guarentee the ongoing support for new releases (most of them do not keep support going).

Can you explain that to me? I don't get it. Do Blu-Ray drives have some sort of whitelist on what movies they'll accept or something? How would Blu-Ray writing work then, if other BDR's wouldn't recognize the discs? I'm confuddled.

I simply like the idea of having a bunch of paste around for future uses, including possibly helping others build their own rigs. It's not meant to be used all at once. Also, Pink pony is best pony (when written correctly, anyways <_<).

Even if you install a new cooler once per week you won't get through a tenth of it before it goes bad. Besides, when it comes to thermal paste, you should always stick with the well known brands. It has a big impact on CPU temperatures, and getting the cheap stuff can be even worse than not having any paste at all. In my opinion (and experience), getting 200 grams of thermal paste for 15$ is a very bad idea.

Good point, and something I wasn't aware of. What would you recommend for paste then?

Basically the firmware support tends to be shockingly poor. Like after a year it will stop being updates and films released on newer standards won't play. Or they'll try to charge you for updates after a year, or the software won't come packaged. Generally I just watch stuff on amazon video or netflix rather than bother with physical stuff, I have my PC seperate from where I watch movies and stuff though.

You can kinda think of it as a whitelist yeah, it's very strange and very annoying, I have a friend with a pair of £40 BD drives that are useless unless he buys firmware upgrades.

 

[Stillgard]

I spent about 1.1k on my rig Not including the GTX 760 I bought as well as a new power supply a SSD and a myraid of other upgrades. But Regardless I'm playing Shadows of Mordor on High mode with little FPS drops. So I'm happy. Next Upgrades well be a cooling unit for the Graphics card and a bump on the ram to 16 gigs.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Updated the OP yet again, this time with an alternate build that manages to fit the GTX 970 in via going with an AMD CPU and motherboard, though the SSD might have to go to bring things back into budget. What's everyone's thoughts on this new rig, and would you favor it over the most recent Intel rig?

AMD rig with GTX 970: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/TNvVLk

Intel rig with R9 270: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/4n6XhM

 

[themyrmidon]

Do NOT get an EVGA GTX970 w/ ACX. I'm RMA'ing mine for coil whine, an issue that has plagued the ACX 1.0 model and has been known to occur on the ACX 2.0 model as well. EVGA has very good support, but this shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. Go EVGA blower-style or get a different brand.

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

Do NOT get an EVGA GTX970 w/ ACX. I'm RMA'ing mine for coil whine, an issue that has plagued the ACX 1.0 model and has been known to occur on the ACX 2.0 model as well. EVGA has very good support, but this shouldn't have been an issue in the first place. Go EVGA blower-style or get a different brand.

How does this look, then?: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/KNxY23

ASUS is the manufacturer for that one, though the price increase guarantees the loss of the SSD. How would you compare it to the Intel rig, as well?

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Sucks to hear about the audio levels being crap, but still seems like a good monitor regardless. If I ever have too many problems with the audio, I could always just by some speakers later on.

I also like the case I've found so far, even though I know fuck-all about how good of a case it actually is. What are your thoughts on my case, btw? Case is here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811517006

To be clear the audio is fine, it just needs needs to be turned up all the way. Once I figured that out, it sounded pretty good. I think the rule is you want the source to be low (the volume controller on your computer) the output (monitor/speakers) to be high.

Your case is a little over the top for me, but upon inspection I like that side fan and the way the glass sits on the outside. Its vents are also nice and unobstructed. Big fans are usually quiet so that 200mm fans on the side and top should be great for cooling while not making a lot of noise. The fan controller is neat, but it doesn't control every fan and only has 2 settings and the only fans with dust filters are on the bottom. And the esata on top is pretty cool, but that's mostly been replaced by usb 3.0 (they transfer data at about the same speed, but 3.0 does more) which this case doesnt have on top, that would be a deal breaker for me, though usb 2.0 ports are also important for compatibility reasons. It also appears to be very plastic, and you can get a metal one at that price point. And the side fan limits the size of cpu cooler you can use, though it will fit most. And finally, the cable management holes don't have rubber grommets to protect the cables and keep them from moving and the cable management on the back is tiny

There are some other cases around that price point. Phantek is a company I've had my eye one. Their cases keep winning "best of the year" awards. Their enthoo pro [http://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-Pro.html] is nice and its $10 dollars cheaper than the AZZA. Its not very flashy but their cases have everything, smart cable management with Velcro straps, the whole thing can be taken apart, if you want to water cool down the road it comes with the brackets, all of them have case windows, and most if not all of the vents have easy to remove dust filters. If it matters, you can always add lighting in the form of fans or led strips later. If you want something fancy, their Luxe [http://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-Luxe.html] model has a led strip around the outside of the case than change to about 8 different colors. Its $150 on newegg so I'd assume its out of your budget. For my sense of style, I love the EVOLV [http://www.phanteks.com/Enthoo-EVOLV.html]. Metal with straight edges and nothing on the front. Sexy, but the front and top vents are blocked

NZXT [http://www.nzxt.com/category/products/1-cases] also makes some quality cases with a lot of color options with smart cable management and looks, built in fan controllers, and most of them are within your budget. I'm also partial to Corsair's cases [http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cases], but most except for their Carbide series [http://www.corsair.com/en-us/cases/carbide-series] are over your budget, but carbide cases are still nice and have glowing fans and the works. There's one thats a giant cube that would be super easy to build in if you have the space

Other thoughts: 5.25" drive bays are useful for disk drives and expansions, but there's alway a way around using them. Fast external blu-ray drives for example, and fans can be controlled from the case or through software. If you want a smaller case, Micro AXT cases are usually very spacious. The one I highlighted can fit a 318mm graphics card. That was a big info dump. I've been planning this since May and I've put a lot of thought into this :/

 

[V da Mighty Taco]

*Snip*

Don't worry about being an info dump - info dumps are precisely what I need as a newbie to this.

This is what the AMD rig looks like now: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/sRwVLk

It shaved off about $5 from the price of the whole thing. Not a phenominal amount, but handy nonetheless. It does seem like the cooling might be a bit worse due to having less fans, but what do I know about cases? Anyways, it does seem like it was designed with more functionality in mind than the previous case, so I'm gonna roll it for now.