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Holiday Gaming Build - Advice
I'm building an entry level gaming computer for a friend of the family. He's 11 years old and wants to start playing online games. Minecraft and other First Person Shooters / MMO's. The budget is $700 w/ Monitor and Operating System - No peripherals needed.
I will be purchasing all parts in store at www.microcenter.com
The below system is $700 + Tax which works for the budget. Please let me know what you think and any suggestions you would make. I went with the 970 chipset to allow for upgrade options. I also choose the 600w power supply rather than something smaller to allow for video card upgrades in the future. There are certain parts listed that were purchased due to instore coupons being offered which are listed.
Thanks for your help!
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR3-1600 (PC3-12800) CL9 Dual Channel Desktop Memory K... $74.99 -$10 Coupon ($65 Total)
Toshiba Q Series Pro HDTS312XZSTA 128GB SATA 6.0Gb/s 2.5" Internal Solid State Driv... $94.99 - $10 Coupon ($84.99 Total)
Comments
My only comment is that a 128GB drive is a little slim. It will certainly perform, but you might be better served getting a less expensive 1TB mechanical drive and putting that $30 into a slightly more expensive video card or processor.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
My advice from building high-end PC's for years for family/personal use for under 1000 is as follows.
(Note: I consider a $800 PC build a "high" end build, where as a $2000 PC build is "enthusiast" and $500 is "low-end")
The core important pieces of a new build are:
-PSU
-CPU
-GPU
-Memory
-Storage
In that order of importance.
The speed of a CPU isn't really going to matter much as anything around 2 to 4ghz is fine, however what REALLY matters in a new CPU is the number of cores and their cache. Generally anything around 3.0ghz that is 4 or more cores is the best choice. However, steer completely clear of any AMD 6 or 8 core processors. They're so inefficient it hurts.
Your GPU is also ranked almost at the bottom of the higher-end GPU benchmarks that i've seen. I'd invest another $20 or so on a "Radeon HD 7850" since you're going the AMD route to pinch those quarters.
Everything else seems fine I guess?
That powersupply worries me though. You normally invest the most in a solid power supply so it doesn't die after constant use and eats up the rest of your PC with power starvation. People don't understand how dangerous power starvation is in a PC nowadays. It WILL kill your PC, or at least damage the components a bit, if you have a shoddy PSU.
Very good point and something I thought about myself. I can upgrade to a 6300 for $30 which is exactly what I'd save by going to a 500GB mechanical drive. The video card is already something we've talked about replacing over time and the only upgrade I could get would be a GTX 650 ti for $30.
I'd like to hear some more opinions on the Hard Drive vs CPU decision. A hard drive could be added later if additional space is needed, which I don't think it will be for a little while at least. With that being said an SSD could also easily be added later for faster speeds.
The CPU could also be upgraded later to any number FX series CPU's. It's really a difficult decision.
Thanks for the advice!
Microcenter doesn't carry the 7850 and the cheapest one I found quickly searching Newegg was $165.00. That would be pushing another $65 on the budget which I've already stretched with the tax. ($30 assuming I went with the cheaper mechanical hard drive.)
What did you not like about that power supply? It was Bronze Plus Certified and 552 volt combined on the 12v. Was there something else that you noticed or are you just worried based on the brand choice?
Thanks again for the advice.
Keep in mind that moving your Windows install from a mechanical drive to the SSD seems to involve starting over from scratch. That could be a good learning experience for an 11 year old. :-)
Windows 8 will use approximately 20GB of space, and games like Bioshock Infinite will each use 20 to 30 GB of space each. There's also some overhead on the drive itself, temp space that gets used, internet cache, etc. I have a friend who uses an 128GB drive and he installs and uninstalls games as he intends to play them. He also has a 1TB drive for media files and documents. I don't think there's any particular reason it can't be done, there are just some limitations that come with using just the SSD.
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I've been using an Intel Q6600 Quad Core processor for awhile now. I have to cut back on video settings that use the CPU, but for the most part it's fine. Your CPU is probably fine. I agree with above posters that if you were going to put $30 into something, it should be the video card.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Do you need that expensive case for your computer? While the case you've chosen is likely easier and faster to built the computer and later switch parts, you could save some money if you just bought some really cheap case instead.
What are your short-term and long-term goals? Do you want a system capable of being upgraded to today's best parts when they become more affordable, or do you just want something he can start gaming on and not worry too much about high-quality graphics?
You could build a system around the AMD APUs if you just want something cheap that plays games. It wouldn't be upgradeable much in the long-term, but it would play Minecraft and most MMOs at lower settings.
You could also build a system around the Intel socket 1150, starting with a cheap Core i3 and letting him learn to upgrade it when the time is right.
I'll say this about 120G SSDs.
I've used that size for a long while now.
Once you install Windows 7/8 - that takes about 20G of file space, plus you need to keep some room free for caches/virtual memory/storage - so figure on 40G right off the top for your base Windows install.
That leaves you with 80G to really play with. I have found, for me, that's usually 2-3 MMOs, plus 2-3 Steam single players games, and that's about it. Something like WoW (which is really freakin huge now) you may have to cut that down even further. But regardless, definitely room for a small handful of things.
No Video collections, large stash of torrents, large photo archives, or maybe even MP3 collections though - that stuff doesn't need to be on an SSD anyway.
For work, I use a lot of virtual machines, I have enough room for a couple of 30-60G VM's at a time on that laptop's internal SSD, the rest I keep archived on a USB drive and copy them on/off as needed.
Is 120G small? Yeah. But it's definitely workable. If it were me, I would definitely take the haircut on the CPU and/or GPU to keep an SSD - it makes that much difference in a computer to me.
Also, 600W is a bit much for that, could probably drop to a good 450Wish one and shave another $15-20 right there, I know Newegg has a basic Seasonic 400W for $40, and a Corsair 430W for $45, and with what your trying to build it would run it just fine. I don't know what Microcenter has that's comparable though.
That's pretty good.
It's easier to get an SSD now and add a hard drive later than it is to buy a hard drive today and move everything to an SSD later. So I'd go with the SSD for now unless you need more storage space today.
If it's a low budget system and not going to get upgraded in the future, you could save some money by going with a lower wattage power supply, like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139026
It's also pretty easy to find cheaper memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314
and a cheaper but still adequate case:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147060
MicroCenter tends to be the cheapest on processors, though they do require you to buy in person, with the idea that they get you into the store for one item and you buy other things while you're there. You might want to look into whether they offer some great deal on an Athlon X4 760K together with a cheap motherboard, as that would be a faster processor, though it would deny you a mild upgrade path.