Build around a GTX 960 (build started, see post #35)

[balloonshark]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
-General purpose, entertainment, photo, some gaming.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread.
-Best bang for the buck that won't bottleneck the graphics card.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
-USA

5. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
-No brand preference

6. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
-MSI GTX 960 2GD5T OC 2GB GDDR5
-Crucial BX100 128GB SSD

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
-Maybe a small OC if it's simple.

8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?
-1920x1080 or 1680x1050

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Note that it is usually not cost or time effective to choose your build more than a month before you actually plan to be using it.
-This is a feeler thread but I want to start collecting parts on sale.

10. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?
-No, I'm not sure if I'll run Windows 7 or 8 or Linux. I'll decide later.
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Thanks to nanaki333's kindness I will soon have a MSI GTX 960 2GD5T OC 2GB GDDR5. I'm wanting to do a budget build around the card. I also have a new BX100 128GB SSD for the OS partition. Later I may grab a 1TB HDD for storage. I also have a monitor, keyboard and mouse. I also have a Antec P182 case but I would like something smaller.

For now this is a feeler thread but I may start grabbing parts on sale. Should I grab this RAM tonight while it's on sale? http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231546

Or should I do a build with DDR4 ram?

What budget CPUs and MBs would you recommend that wouldn't bottleneck the GTX960? I'm wanting to get an idea of costs. I also would prefer a quad core if it's cost effective.

Also, am I right in assuming the GTX 960 is just a little slower than this 3GB 7970 Ghz edition?

 

[fourdegrees11]

There's always cheap DDR3 on sale, that's not even the best deal right now

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148719

DDR4 is only about $15 more. The difference between a cheap Haswell i5 and a Skylake i5 is also around $10-20 depending on which chips you're looking at. You can also get a cheap Z710 mobo for less then $90 and possibly OC your locked Skylake chip.

I just dont see the point unless you have to squeeze every cent and are going with a $40 H81 mobo with a $110 i3

 

[balloonshark]

I choose the G.Skill because it had better reviews. I don't mind paying a bit more for quality parts.

If a newer hardware build is only a bit more then I would be fine with that. Now that makes me wonder if I should put the 960 in my current rig and put the 7970 in a new gaming build to be upgraded later :hmm:. Would changing my graphics card and SSD in my current rig void my Windows license? I've already changed the SSD once due to failure.

I honestly don't know how my current PC stacks up against the newer stuff. If it's close then I'll just go with a decent budget build for the 960. If not I can always wait for prices to drop or new hardware releases if necessary. I will trust the advice of the forum members.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I choose the G.Skill because it had better reviews. I don't mind paying a bit more for quality parts.

There's nothing wrong with Crucial RAM. The Ballistix has been some of the least expensive for a while now, and has a lot of satisfied customers (although <$35 for 8GB RAM makes me cry a little anyways.)

For a new build (Haswell or newer), you should be looking for 1.35v RAM anyways.

If a newer hardware build is only a bit more then I would be fine with that. Now that makes me wonder if I should put the 960 in my current rig and put the 7970 in a new gaming build to be upgraded later :hmm:. Would changing my graphics card and SSD in my current rig void my Windows license? I've already changed the SSD once due to failure.

I honestly don't know how my current PC stacks up against the newer stuff. If it's close then I'll just go with a decent budget build for the 960. If not I can always wait for prices to drop or new hardware releases if necessary. I will trust the advice of the forum members.

Motherboards don't really bottleneck stuff. If you're overclocking, you'd want a motherboard that would support that, otherwise it's not a concern.

You mentioned having another gaming rig already? How many systems do you have and what do you use them for? A 960 is a good midrange card, and would probably be a good match for a higher-end i3 CPU unless you were planning on playing some heavily-threaded games. If you're more a Steam Sale kinda guy (like me) and generally are working with 3-to-5-year-old-titles, the i3 will be plenty of CPU.

But if you're intending to use the system for other general-use stuff (office tasks, media server, software development), I'd want to spend the extra money on an i5, but because I'm a prima donna and when I tell my computer to do something, I want it done NOW.

 

[balloonshark]

There's nothing wrong with Crucial RAM. The Ballistix has been some of the least expensive for a while now, and has a lot of satisfied customers (although <$35 for 8GB RAM makes me cry a little anyways.)

For a new build (Haswell or newer), you should be looking for 1.35v RAM anyways.

Ok gotcha. Some of the reviews had me a bit concerned.

Motherboards don't really bottleneck stuff. If you're overclocking, you'd want a motherboard that would support that, otherwise it's not a concern.

You mentioned having another gaming rig already? How many systems do you have and what do you use them for? A 960 is a good midrange card, and would probably be a good match for a higher-end i3 CPU unless you were planning on playing some heavily-threaded games. If you're more a Steam Sale kinda guy (like me) and generally are working with 3-to-5-year-old-titles, the i3 will be plenty of CPU.

But if you're intending to use the system for other general-use stuff (office tasks, media server, software development), I'd want to spend the extra money on an i5, but because I'm a prima donna and when I tell my computer to do something, I want it done NOW.

My current PC is in my sig. i5-4670K, Hyper 212 Evo, ASRock Z87 Extreme6, Sapphire Vapor-X Radeon HD 7970 Ghz Edition 3GB, 250GB Corsair BX100 SSD, 2x 1TB WD Blue HDD, Team Vulcan DDR3 1600 4x4GB, Corsair CX600 PSU, Asus 24x DVD Burner, Corsair Carbide 500R, Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit, Dell U2414H.

I use it for everything including gaming. I also have Steam with way too many games. The newest game I'll be playing is Mad Max but I normally adjust settings so I don't have to listen to the fans. What I'm wanting is a dedicated Windows 10 gaming machine and a normal everyday machine with Windows 7 or 8.1 and/or linux.

Not sure if it's best to do a budget build around the 960 or pop it in my current rig. Then I could build a newer gaming machine around 7970 and then replace that card in a year or two. I'm just not sure if it is worth it or not or if better hardware or prices are just around the corner.

 

[Charlie98]

I don't know if that GTX960 would be much of an upgrade over the HD7970. Personally, I would just keep with your current machine and upgrade the card to something more suitable, like a GTX970 or 980. (...and maybe replace that CX600 PSU.)

EDIT: Or, like in my case where I needed to separate my gaming rig from my main desktop, make your current rig the gamer, and build a budget PC as your main desktop.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I don't know if that GTX960 would be much of an upgrade over the HD7970. Personally, I would just keep with your current machine and upgrade the card to something more suitable, like a GTX970 or 980. (...and maybe replace that CX600 PSU.)

EDIT: Or, like in my case where I needed to separate my gaming rig from my main desktop, make your current rig the gamer, and build a budget PC as your main desktop.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1596?vs=1495

960's a downgrade.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I use it for everything including gaming. I also have Steam with way too many games. The newest game I'll be playing is Mad Max but I normally adjust settings so I don't have to listen to the fans. What I'm wanting is a dedicated Windows 10 gaming machine and a normal everyday machine with Windows 7 or 8.1 and/or linux.

Ah, I see.

Well, in that case, you might as well build another i5 rig around the 960, presumably without all those fancy overclockable parts. (lower-end motherboard, locked i5 CPU, etc.) Upgrade your existing gaming rig to Win10 and install multiple drives/partitions/OSes on your newer, slower machine.

 

[Charlie98]

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1596?vs=1495

960's a downgrade.

I wondered, but I didn't think it was THAT bad... D: I guess that's why I always scratch my head when people talk about the 950 and 960 as a gaming GPU. Oh, sure, it can be, buttttt.......

 

[dave_the_nerd]

I wondered, but I didn't think it was THAT bad... D: I guess that's why I always scratch my head when people talk about the 950 and 960 as a gaming GPU. Oh, sure, it can be, buttttt.......

The 950/960 are perfectly adequate for "casuals" and offer a lot of FPS/$ for people who are spending ~$200 to replace the ~$200 video card they bought a couple years ago, playing games at 1080 with medium settings and a 60 fps refresh rate.

The 7970 was a whole lotta card and was $500+ at launch. Based on market segment and price point, the proper comparison to a 960 would be a 7870 or similar.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1596?vs=1589 (compared to a 7850.)

Also, we've been stuck at 28nm forever and the GPU market really has stagnated something terrible.

 

[VirtualLarry]

The 950/960 are perfectly adequate for "casuals" and offer a lot of FPS/$ for people who are spending ~$200 to replace the ~$200 video card they bought a couple years ago, playing games at 1080 with medium settings and a 60 fps refresh rate.

The 7970 was a whole lotta card and was $500+ at launch. Based on market segment and price point, the proper comparison to a 960 would be a 7870 or similar.

http://anandtech.com/bench/product/1596?vs=1589 (compared to a 7850.)

Also, we've been stuck at 28nm forever and the GPU market really has stagnated something terrible.

Excellent post Dave.

OP, I might be getting rid of my G3258 + H81 (micro-ATX) mobos soon, depending on when I get my Skylake G4400 + Z170 (SKY OC) boards put together. PM me if interested.

 

[Charlie98]

The 950/960 are perfectly adequate for "casuals" and offer a lot of FPS/$ for people who are spending ~$200 to replace the ~$200 video card they bought a couple years ago, playing games at 1080 with medium settings and a 60 fps refresh rate.

The 7970 was a whole lotta card and was $500+ at launch. Based on market segment and price point, the proper comparison to a 960 would be a 7870 or similar.

Well... and I probably wasn't being fair to the 950/960... very often a budget gamer GPU is coupled with a lesser CPU, but when paired together do fine for casual gaming. :\

I did look the OP's current GPU up... it was quite the hot ticket in it's day!

 

[daveybrat]

The big question of the hour is......do you have a Microcenter near you??

 

[balloonshark]

Thanks for the input everyone. It sounds like I should go with a budget build around the 960. What would the price difference be between a dual core versus quad core system that wouldn't bottleneck the gpu?

I want to go smaller than a mid-tower system for this machine. I don't think I need any cards other than the gpu but it was nice to have an empty slot in my old Q6600 rig when lightning took out the NIC. Having USB 3.0 and a decent sound chip is also nice.

No micro center or any other type of PC stores here in hillbilly hell. If a combo deal was good and someone here stops by MC often and was willing to ship I could provide a finders fee for your trouble.

I can be patient and wait for things to go on sale. I guess I just need a cpu, heatsink, MB, RAM, PSU, dvd burner, case and any misc. cables. Or I could go with VirtualLarry's old dual core system but part of me really likes quad cores

 

[dave_the_nerd]

You'd probably want at least an i3 for gaming - Anandtech did a review of the G3258, and an i3 was still spanking it in a lot of tasks, even overclocked. Bigger cache and Hyperthreading, basically.

Difference between an i3 and an i5 will depend on the games you play. Cost difference between an i3 and an i5 is maybe $70.

 

[VirtualLarry]

You'd probably want at least an i3 for gaming

I agree wholeheartedly. The G3258 excels at web browsing, and emulators that need high single-threaded speed and aren't very multi-threaded (and don't need AVX).

 

[balloonshark]

You'd probably want at least an i3 for gaming - Anandtech did a review of the G3258, and an i3 was still spanking it in a lot of tasks, even overclocked. Bigger cache and Hyperthreading, basically.

Difference between an i3 and an i5 will depend on the games you play. Cost difference between an i3 and an i5 is maybe $70.

Kaby Lake isn't being release soon right? If so that narrows my options down to Skylake. That is unless AMD is feasible. Do their chips still use way more power?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Kaby Lake isn't being release soon right? If so that narrows my options down to Skylake. That is unless AMD is feasible. Do their chips still use way more power?

AMD chips still use more power and don't perform as well. You might be able to get something that will be comparable in multithreaded performance for a few bucks cheaper than the i3, but ST performance will be garbage, and that still matters.

Kabilake isn't due out next fall or something, I think.

 

[balloonshark]

AMD chips still use more power and don't perform as well. You might be able to get something that will be comparable in multithreaded performance for a few bucks cheaper than the i3, but ST performance will be garbage, and that still matters.

Kabilake isn't due out next fall or something, I think.

Thanks for your help Dave. When do you think the bugs will be worked out of Skylake and its MBs? I'm leaning towards a Skylake i3 or i5 build and I have a feeling I'll talk myself into an i5.

Also, how do they overclock compared to the last couple of gens? My current chip got hot in a hurry so I gave up ocing. Did they happen to fix that issue on the 5th and 6th gen chips? It was something about not using solder under the heatspreader if I remember correctly.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Thanks for your help Dave. When do you think the bugs will be worked out of Skylake and its MBs? I'm leaning towards a Skylake i3 or i5 build and I have a feeling I'll talk myself into an i5.

I haven't read about anything buggy.

Also, how do they overclock compared to the last couple of gens? My current chip got hot in a hurry so I gave up ocing. Did they happen to fix that issue on the 5th and 6th gen chips? It was something about not using solder under the heatspreader if I remember correctly.

Same story - there are lots of other threads re: TIM. Every generation for the last few has decreased overclockability a bit, but increased per-clock performance and it's kind of a wash all things considered. Temps have risen a bit, but newer chips are perfectly happy at temps (70-80C) that would have cooked older CPUs. So part of the problem is curmudgeonly overclockers that freak out if they see a temperature north of 60C.

But you probably wouldn't be overclocking an i3 build anyway.

The 6320 looks pretty sexy.

http://techreport.com/news/28957/the-skylake-core-i3-6320-is-the-gamer-new-best-friend

 

[balloonshark]

Thanks. The 6320 does look pretty good.

It appears I picked a bad time to build. Stock is low to non-existent and prices are high on the new chips. If the 6600k was about the same price as my 4670k it would be a no brainer.

I guess I'll wait for a bit and see if the prices drop. If not I'll grab a new or used Haswell system. In the meantime I'll keep an eye out in this forum so I can keep up with what folks are building.

Thanks again

 

[balloonshark]

I've been thinking about a few non-k chips. The i3-6320 or 6300, i5-6600 or a like new i7-4790 for $230. The latter seems to be better according to cpubenchmarks but if I compare it to a 6600k (they don't list the non-k ver.) at anand's benchmarks they seems similar for the most part.

If I went with an i3-6320 and windows 8.1 pro oem and later swapped the cpu would it void my windows license?

 

[VirtualLarry]

The 6320 looks pretty sexy.

http://techreport.com/news/28957/the-skylake-core-i3-6320-is-the-gamer-new-best-friend

Interesting article. Perhaps most interesting, is that they claim to have gotten the info for their charts from Intel, and yet, the G4400 is listed as having a 3.4Ghz base clock, when in reality, it is 3.3Ghz.

Did Intel change their binnings on their Pentium chips at the last moment, due to parametric yield issues with 14nm?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Interesting article. Perhaps most interesting, is that they claim to have gotten the info for their charts from Intel, and yet, the G4400 is listed as having a 3.4Ghz base clock, when in reality, it is 3.3Ghz.

Did Intel change their binnings on their Pentium chips at the last moment, due to parametric yield issues with 14nm?

Hanlon's Razor - probably a typo by a marketing intern.

 

[balloonshark]

I've been thinking about a few non-k chips. The i3-6320 or 6300, i5-6600 or a like new i7-4790 for $230. The latter seems to be better according to cpubenchmarks but if I compare it to a 6600k (they don't list the non-k ver.) at anand's benchmarks they seems similar for the most part.

If I went with an i3-6320 and windows 8.1 pro oem and later swapped the cpu would it void my windows license?

1. Any input? Would the i3's be good enough to process photos and videos occasionally?

2. Will all of these chips be adequate in 5 years? I'm thinking yes.

3. Is windows tied to the cpu or mb? A quick search says an OEM key is tied to the MB. Is this true in practice? I was thinking about getting an i3 and if it isn't adequate then I could swap to a quad core.

4. Should I be considering other chips?

i3-6300 = $150
i3-6320 = $160
i5-6600 = $220
i7-4790 = $230 (used maybe)