Anyone with PC building exp? Need some advice.

Xavier de Carvalho · Mar 20, 2014

Hey guys,

Looking for those who have some PC building exp. who can help me optimize these builds, maybe give some benchmarks if possible, and if you could help bring the price down without impacting the performance too much it would be much appreciated.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3cgOh

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/XdeC/saved/46XJ

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/XdeC/saved/46XS

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/XdeC/saved/472S

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...dia_GeForce_GTX_660_Zotac_AMP_Edition&ram=8GB

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...orce_GTX_650_Ti_EVGA_Boost_SC_Edition&ram=8GB

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...n_Frozr_OC_Edition&ram=8GB&game=Battlefield_4

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...igabyte_OC_Edition&ram=8GB&game=Battlefield_4

I put the first 4 together based on the reviews and prices of the components, as well as their apparent compatibility. It doesn't need to be future proof, but I would like to only have to upgrade in the next 3 years.

Looking for best performance on AC and rF2, at the lowest possible price.

Thanks in advance.

FerrariMan96 · Apr 2, 2014

Well I don't have any experience building a PC (yet, will soon) but I know a bit about parts. I think a better way to go about this is if I just ask some quick questions, rather than me commenting on all these various different combinations and all the different things you could do with them. So here goes:

1. What's your budget?
2. What do you need from that budget? (Just PC, or Keyboard/mouse/monitor/OS too)
3. Will you just/mainly be gaming or will you be doing other stuff too?

Just quickly about your proposed builds - well I frankly wouldn't go with any of them, for different reasons. So answer my questions and I'll get back to you

Daniel Green · Apr 6, 2014

Hi mate system looks ok but i would take a look at a few things
1. Intel i5 is very good but if you could find the k version if you ever needed a bit extra horse power you could get it and if you look around you will get it for not that much more.

Dont worry im gonna save you some money now.

2. If you do stick with the non k version cpu you will not need the big water cooler pointless just get a nice cheaper air cooler that will cool the cpu fine I have a i5 (760) running at 3.8 on air cooling 37oc idle and about 65oc full load

3. Amd 7870 not the best gpu, not the worst but I think we could maybe get one with a bit more power ( I not an expert on AMD but think it might struggle with 3 screens if you ever wanted to go with 3 screens in the future, I think we can do better amd 7950 maybe someone else might be able to help with this)

4.Blue ray player unless you really want to watch blue ray no need for this ( can watch them online if you really want to)

5.Cd/DVD writer player ur blue ray player does it any way but if i was dropping 1 i would drop the blue ray and keep this. (but really as long as you have internet you wont be using either of them much i dont even have a dvd drive in my pc and i have never once needed 1 all music games films there all online nowadays. "cds dvds what are them."

6.Sound card again unless there is some specific reason you need 1 i would leave it your mother board will have 1 i bet you wont even notice the difference

7. 16gig of ram again unless you need it specificly and if you have the money then 16gig of ram soundm, but i bet you will never use half of it u could get away with 8 or 12 and still have room left over

If you need to save some money then thats a bit in ur pocket if not put the bit u saved into a nicer gpu or 24" screen everything else seems fine.

I am persuming alot of things here and not 100% sure what ur gonna do with the PC so if you do need the parts for a specific reason let me no and I try and work out something else cheers Dan

Edit:
So sorry mate only looked at the first link but by ur 4th link it seems like you pretty much did what i said that build would be spot on gpu is the only thing i can see you needed to upgrade any time soon but the base system should last pretty good

Ravanor · May 13, 2014

Daniel Green has given you sound advice. I have been building PC's for 20 years and it always comes down to your budget first then what you are going to use the PC for. For racing I recommend the most money in your graphics card. I typically lean toward nVidia due to seeing a lot of problems with AMD in corporate environments. Your choice not trying to start an AMD vs nVidia war.

Dont get over 8GB memory. Windows wont use more than 3 and your apps (racing sims of choice) wont cache over 2GB unless you hex edit an exe. Storage is cheap but if you want a massive boost in performance get an SSD for your C drive and get it big enough to fit 1 or 2 of your favorite games on so they can run as fast as possible.

Lastly, if you are custom building dont be scared of scaling down in other components for a better\faster CPU. At his time an i5 is good for everything but an i7 really performs no matter which i7 you go after.

Hope that helps and have fun!

Alexander Rhodes · May 15, 2014

Ok, my 2 cents, it's not really relevant to the build, or the cost, but extremely relevant to the future.

Once you build a PC, any PC, you will constantly be popping PSU's, RAM and HDD's (excluding SSD). Investing in these areas will prevent constant drains, allowing you to save and upgrade as you like.

When I say invest, I don't mean get the biggest capacity or ratings that you can get, but get the best quality instead. For example, I blew 4 cheap 650W PSU's before buying a Coolermaster 600W, the Coolermaster is 6 years old, still going strong. The RAM I have now is the same age, made by Corsair as part of the Nvidia gaming range, lasted x3 longer than another RAM I've owned. Maxtor HDD's lasted me only months, I got a couple of years out of WD, Seagate have only failed me once out of 15 drives. I still have 3 with data on, from way back when 30GB was huge, do note that SSD cannot be broken though, only corrupted.

As for cooling, if you're worried about noise, try to get some tower heatsinks with large, low RPM fans, they're amazing. Water/Oil cooling is expensive and over-rated.

As for product tips, I'm not gonna suggest tips on model or specific products to buy, but as for brands, here goes:
Asus
Coolermaster
Corsair
Gigabyte (High end)
Seagate
Antec
Arctic cooling
Cisco
Kingston
IBM

Stick with these guys and you'll do well out of your machine.

FerrariMan96 · May 23, 2014

Alexander Rhodes said:
As for product tips, I'm not gonna suggest tips on model or specific products to buy, but as for brands, here goes:
Asus
Coolermaster
Corsair
Gigabyte (High end)
Seagate
Antec
Arctic cooling
Cisco
Kingston
IBM

Stick with these guys and you'll do well out of your machine.

I'd also like to add EVGA to that list, they make really good products too.

Leemstradamus · May 24, 2014

Xavier de Carvalho said:
Hey guys,

Looking for those who have some PC building exp. who can help me optimize these builds, maybe give some benchmarks if possible, and if you could help bring the price down without impacting the performance too much it would be much appreciated.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/3cgOh

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/XdeC/saved/46XJ

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/XdeC/saved/46XS

http://pcpartpicker.com/user/XdeC/saved/472S

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...dia_GeForce_GTX_660_Zotac_AMP_Edition&ram=8GB

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...orce_GTX_650_Ti_EVGA_Boost_SC_Edition&ram=8GB

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...n_Frozr_OC_Edition&ram=8GB&game=Battlefield_4

http://www.pc-specs.com/pc-builder/...igabyte_OC_Edition&ram=8GB&game=Battlefield_4

I put the first 4 together based on the reviews and prices of the components, as well as their apparent compatibility. It doesn't need to be future proof, but I would like to only have to upgrade in the next 3 years.

Looking for best performance on AC and rF2, at the lowest possible price.

Thanks in advance.

Have you purchased the components yet? I've built a bunch of gaming and normal desktop computers over the years. Building one for the wife at the moment. What's your overall budget and are you up for adding components later?