Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Advise on $800 PC Build
My current PC is around 6 years old now and its really falling holding me back on a lot of games. That said I'm looking to build something new for around $800 that will last me another 4 to 5 years. Here is what Ive come up with but I've been out of the loop on PC stuff for awhile now so all advise is welcome.
The Build:
CPU: i5-4690k
Mobo: ASROCK Z97 PRO4 LGA 1150
RAM: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR 3 - 1866
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1tb 7200 RPM
Vid Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280x 3GB
Case: Corsair SPEC-01
Power: Corsair 600w
Cooling Corsair Hydro Series H50 120mm
Atm this is looking to run me around $792... Anything I should change or replace?
Comments
It looks fine, but I would strongly suggest air-cooling instead of low-end water AIO. They tend to be noisy, because a single 120mm needs to work hard to push enough airflow through the water radiator to cool it off. Instead of getting a low-end H50 120mm, you can get a Noctua NH-U12P, which is superior in terms of cooling to everything but the higher end water AIO, is way more silent, and has the reliability advantage of air-cooling - no way it will leak and fry your MB. In water AIO, there are simply more things that can fail - tube connections can leak, water pump can fail. While in air - only the engine, or ball bearings can fail, and even then, you still have a massive radiator attached to your CPU that will provide enough passive cooling for you to safely shut down your PC.
Also, you can re-use your current HDD, and spend the freed up budget on a better GPU.
Where are you looking to buy parts? It's not just which parts you get, but how much you pay for them. You're completely missing an SSD, optical drive, and OS license. There are also no peripherals, though you're likely planning on reusing what you have now for those, which is fine.
The main red flag that I see from the parts themselves is that you're paying extra for a K-series CPU and especially a liquid cooler, but then going with a cheap motherboard that is inappropriate for overclocking. AsRock's "pro" lineup basically means "don't try to overclock on this".
You also don't say exactly which power supply you're getting. My guess is that you're probably looking at Corsair's CX or GS series, more likely the former than the latter. Neither of those are very good, and if you have the budget for some of the other parts you're looking at, then you have the budget for a better power supply. If the problem with a power supply is mediocre quality, then getting a higher wattage with the same mediocre quality doesn't fix it; the solution is higher quality.
Link your build to show the exact parts and prices.
He already has OS on his current PC. SSD is not a must, can be added later. Optical drive is as useless as it gets these days, and again, he already has optical on his old PC, can put it into new PC if he cant figure out how to install Windows from USB.
Can I inquire where did you get that idea about ASRock PRO series? It is perfectly fine for overclocking, has good caps, good 4+2 phase power design. The only thing it lacks is bling and blows and whistles of 100$+ MB. And SLI support. But as far as overclocking - with a good air cooler, and if you get lucky with a good chip, will break 4.0 GHz easy. The only thing on the motherboard that affects overclocking is VRM and power design, and both are top-notch on Pro 4. Check out the reviews. Of course, if you listen to marketing BS, then you might think that 150$ will overclock better - but that is completely wrong.
I do agree on PSU front. I always wondered how people can take a cheap PSU, and use it in a rig 20 times the cost. PSU is all that stands between your rig and death through surge. OP, I suggest you consult https://community.newegg.com/eggxpert/computer_hardware/f/135081/t/45344.aspx?Redirected=true#Tier1 - that list.
I'll concede that I hadn't looked at the particular motherboard, and upon further inspection, you might be right. But only maybe. For many years, AsRock's naming scheme on motherboards was that "pro" had ample power delivery for stock speeds but not overclocking, while "extreme" was built to handle overclocking. For example, compare the power delivery on the Z97 Pro 3:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157508
to an H97 motherboard that hard-disables overclocking through the chipset:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157511
Do you see a difference in power delivery? I don't. That's been typical of AsRock's "pro" motherboards for many years now.
But you're right that the AsRock Z97 Pro 4 does have more than that. So it might be better. Or it might not. AsRock's overclocking results haven't always been the best; the brand is cheaper for a reason. But it's often fine.
At work atm so I can't repost the build unless I rebuild it all; Tho I do believe the PSU will need to be changed out. To be honest $800 is my soft cap, hard cap is $1000 so there is room in the budget but not much.
Btw thanks for the help so far.
Well, to be fair - its not ideal MB. I have 2 compaints about it - first is that they implemented the additional PCI-E through the chipset rather than CPU, which means the 2nd PCI-E is only 2.0 x4 - hence no SLI support. And the heatsinks on chipset are rather small - so if you are gunning for 4.5+ GHz clocks, chipset will get a bit hot. But other than that, it uses Intersil ISL95820 PWM which is pretty good. And I've seen reports of i5/i7 reaching 4.7-4.8 GHz on that MB. But again, OC results depend more on your luck with CPU, as well as having a good cooling and PSU with low ripple on 12v lines.
EDIT : After looking into the current prices, I guess I am conceding too - Asus Z97-P costs the same, and Asus Z97-E is only about 10$ more expensive,and has SLI support. Both are superior choices to Pro 4.
That's way too much money for a not that good power supply. Here's Hard OCP's take on Corsair's RM line:
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2013/11/13/corsair_rm750_750w_power_supply_review/9
You can get something better than that for cheaper:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182073
Or if you like modular:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151118
-----
That's way too much money for that video card when you can get something much faster for essentially the same price:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150697
-----
There's still no SSD. Any computer without an SSD is slow. Period. No matter what else it has. But it doesn't have to cost a lot to get a decent SSD:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820721108
If you need to cut back somewhere to make room in the budget for an SSD, the liquid cooler is an obvious choice, and you may be able to skip a hard drive entirely in favor of just an SSD.
Over all the SSD is the last upgrade as it is only going to decrease loading time and some dynamic rendering. The gain are not worth the cost when they could be placed on better item. Tho you are right on the graphics card because it does seem that the R9 290 is now the same price as the R9 280x and it is a far better card.
Also the review you posted on the RM750 is a known issue. Corsair has made a statement that this issue affects only the 750 and 850 due to a design issue.
Also for some reason the links you provided just take me to the newegg page.
For the SSD, it's a matter of priorities. Personally, I like computers to do what I ask immediately, rather than just getting around to it eventually. And for nearly everything except gaming, the only hardware that really matters much in a gaming desktop is having an SSD versus not having one. But if you're fine with constantly having to sit and wait on the computer so that you can turn some lighting setting a little higher, then go ahead and skip the SSD, as you're the one who has to live with the consequences.
-----
The Corsair RM line isn't flawless apart from the fan doing goofy things. It's also got some mediocre internal components and various other build quality issues in review units:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=363
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=369
But the real question is, if you can get something that doesn't have those problems for cheaper, why wouldn't you?
I would seriously consider the Gigabye "UD3" series motherboard. Its reasonably cheap, rock solid, and overclocks perfectly fine. I've been using gigabyte ultra durable boards for the last 6 years or so, when i had a bunch of consistent problems with asus boards. My current setup ive had a littler over 2 years is an i7-2600k that i've been running at 4.3ghz since i purchased it with absolutely zero issues, i'm also REALLY bad about blowing dust out of my computer (just this weekend i blew enough dust out of my CPU cooler to fill a pillow case... slight exaggeration, but you get my drift).
Anyways, just my 2 cents.
Also, i would *seriously* consider a 960gtx, that card is a seriously nice piece of kit for the price, fast, extremely cool running, only has a 130w TDP. Your system will perform well, be stupid quiet, and not melt the back of your wall while sounding like a jet engine taking off, like that r9 280 will. You will be hard pressed to find a better value on a card (the R9 might be a bit better price/performance, but when you factor in your electricity costs over the next couple years, you will EASILY make up that with the nvidia card, not to mention its quieter)
Edit: Also, i FULLY support quizzical's recommendation on getting an SSD, even if its only a 256gb. I've been building my own pc's since the pentium 1 days, and my first computer i did my own tinkering on was a 486dx2 50 mhz (66mhz turbo!). That being said, no upgrade that i have made has had more of an impact on my overall computing joy, than adding an ssd to my system. Strictly for gaming, yeah its not gonna affect framerates, levels will load a bit faster, but as far as EVERYTHING else you use a computer for, its a night and day difference. I can't express in words how much happier you will be.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Did a little search and came up with something like this
Looking at the UD3 series, also I did find a very cheap r9 290 that is rate as one of the quietest.
The power supply there isn't as good as the ones I linked earlier, but it's not bad, either, and if you regard rebates as "free", then at that price, go ahead and get it.
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/05/16/evga_supernova_nex650g_650w_power_supply_review/9
It's also easy to save a little bit of money on memory:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231550
That's better specs than what you were looking at for $11 cheaper.
-----
What are you planning on doing for an operating system?
If you're going to feed integrated graphics from system memory, then you do need more memory bandwidth than that. There are also some corner cases where a program just doesn't get that many cache hits and needs a ton of memory bandwidth. But for consumer use (including games), the difference between 1600 MHz DDR3 and 1866 or 2133 MHz usually amounts to a rounding error.
That said, if you can get 1600 MHz memory or 1866 MHz for the same price, why not get 1866 MHz? When I looked for cheaper memory, I found a nice 1600 MHz kit for one price, and 1866 MHz for $1 more, so I linked the latter. Had it been $5 more, I'd have said to save the $5 and get 1600 MHz. But for $1? I'd spend an extra dollar (singular) for 20% more memory bandwidth.
Good to hear. As far as the 290, even a quiet 290 is going to be loud compared to a maxwell 2 series nvidia card. Its all about physics, the TDP on a 290 is 275 watts, the TDP on a 960 is 130w's. That means that the r9 has to dissipate more than twice as much heat. Also, think about electricity costs. yeah, it may only add up to 2 or 3 dollars difference a month, but that adds up over time, so while you might save a bit of money as far as price performance now, after 2 or 3 years you came out WAY ahead, had a quieter, cooler running card, etc.
Just some things to chew on. R9's are not bad cards, they perform well, but they're very inefficient, which is why i primarily don't recommend them. In the long run they end up costing more money, they're louder, they create a ton more heat inside your case which doesn't help with the life of your other components and can affect potential overclocks of your cpu, etc.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
@Hrimnir ;
No, absolutely wrong, you're pulling stuff that provides such mediocre difference to suggest a highly inferior product.
First of all your increased electricity cost assumption is ignorant, you never once pointed out that amount of time the gpus spend using their TDP is extremely small in 24 hours, you forget to point out that for an overwhelming amount of games and programs, the gpu usage will not even warrant half of that wattage usage for prolonged periods of time.
You forget to mention that idle wattage difference is not as big, and that the increased cost is negligible, and would take up to 10 years to mount to a money difference worth mentioning, and the kicker is that you would lose more money due to inflation for how long it would take.
The second part of the coin, hypothetically ignoring everything i wrote above and acknowledging that there is some money to be saved, in comparison to how much W your other house appliances use, and how much the cost of electricity is compared to the purchasing power parity of your country, and your specific paycheck, the amount is so negligible again, that a runaway burger or soda, or buying of a finished meal instead of ingredients at the cheapest store around will be more money "wasted" that the "wrong gpu electricity cost"
Unless you plan on 24/7 high intensity gaming where your gpu is maxxed out constantly all month long then the power bill will not change much if any.
For the average person who uses a PC an average amount of time monthly the cost of a fast food meal will be more than any increase in the electric bill o.O
Not something I would consider when buying a GPU.
Electricity costs tend to be mostly driven by idle power consumption, not load power consumption. And all modern GPUs clock way down at idle. It's not like he's considering a GTX 480 that could burn over 100 W at idle if you plugged in a second monitor.
Furthermore, even at load, dissipating 200 W while playing a relatively intense game in a desktop isn't hard to do. So the Radeon R9 290 isn't really going to be a problem unless you're unusually sensitive to noise or trying for a very small form factor.
Also, never underestimate the ability of stupid fan designs to make massively more noise than they ought to (see, for example, Intel's stock CPU coolers). Yes, lower power makes it easier to be quiet, but that's not the only factor.
You would, of course, prefer lower power consumption over higher. But the difference between 200 W and 150 W in a desktop isn't a very big deal--and it's much less of a big deal than the difference between, say, 400 W and 600 W.
Part of the reason why the Radeon R9 290 uses more power is that it's faster. If the only goal were low power, you could get a Socket AM1 system and might be able to get away with completely fanless if you had a big heatsink. Of course, that would come at the expense of poor performance.
@Hrimnir
also want to touch on the loudness part:
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_290_Vapor-X/24.html
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Gigabyte/GTX_960_G1_Gaming/27.html
Average 960 is 0 dB of noise at idle, and 27 dB on full load, a 290 is 27 dB on idle, and around 37 dB on full load, mind u in anywhere around 50% to 75% gpu usage, the 290 will be under 37 dB, and accounting for how much faster it is than 960 the 960 will be at full load a hell ot a lot more than the 290 making the acoustic different between them less than 10 dB, and probably more something like 5 dB.
The number of people who can discern this sound difference (assuming all other factors are same, fan bearing quality, etc, ...) is extremely small, and the number of them for whom it is a problem is even smaller.