Completely New Gaming Rig

[Justforcause]

Hi All,

I would really appreciate your opinions and advice on a couple of setups I have put together during last couple of weeks. This PC will be mainly used as a gaming PC + Watching Twitch, Youtube, Movies.

Before I post the setups i would like to stress that I really don't understand what is sufficient as a gaming PC. My main concern is to have a PC that will last couple of years without the need to be greatly modified and upgraded and will run games on full details + 60 FPS. Also what is important to mention beforehand is that at first i will go for GTX960 that will be later on sold out and replaced with new GPUs that are suppose to come out.

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.
This PC will be mainly used as a gaming PC + Watching Twitch, Youtube, Movies.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread
$1100

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from.
Czech Republic

4. IF you're buying parts OUTSIDE the US, please post a link to the vendor you'll be buying from.
http://www.czc.cz/

8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?
1920x1080

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
in 2 weeks time



Here are the setups to get a general idea what I am aiming for:

1)
Intel Core i5-6500
MSI B150M NIGHT ELF - Intel B150
SilentiumPC Gladius M35
CRUCIAL Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 2400
Seasonic S12II-620 620W
SilentiumPC Fera 3 HE1224
GIGABYTE GV-N960WF2OC-4GD, 4GB
Kingston SSDNow V300 - 240GB

2)
Intel Core i5-6600K
MSI Z170A-G43 PLUS - Intel Z170
SilentiumPC Grandis XE1236
CRUCIAL Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 2400
Seasonic S12II-620 620W
SilentiumPC Fera 3 HE1224
GIGABYTE GV-N960WF2OC-4GD, 4GB
Kingston SSDNow V300 - 240GB

3)
Intel Core i5-4460
MSI B85-G43 GAMING - Intel B85
SilentiumPC Gladius M35
CRUCIAL Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 2400
Seasonic S12II-620 620W
SilentiumPC Fera 3 HE1224
GIGABYTE GV-N960WF2OC-4GD, 4GB
Kingston SSDNow V300 - 240GB

4)
Intel Core i7-6700
MSI B150M NIGHT ELF - Intel B150
SilentiumPC Gladius M35
CRUCIAL Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 2400
Seasonic S12II-620 620W
SilentiumPC Fera 3 HE1224
GIGABYTE GV-N960WF2OC-4GD, 4GB
Kingston SSDNow V300 - 240GB

Here are some of my builds. As you can see they only differ in processor and motherboard. And here comes the important part. Since i will replace GPU in the near future, I want to have a solid base processor vise for the future + new model of graphics card. Like this I believe i am set for couple of years and have a solid gaming PC.

Some additional questions:

• DDR3 vs. DDR4
• Processor with or without "K"
• Haswell or Skylake for gaming
• i5 or i7 for gaming

You can always suggest better other components (SSD, RAM etc.) but those are not so expensive and not making such a difference in the whole setup.

Thank you very much in advance for helping me.

 

[lehtv]

DDR3 vs. DDR4
Haswell or Skylake for gaming

No-brainer: DDR4 and Skylake. Why buy a 2 years old platform with almost 10 years old memory technology when the cost difference between the two is so small?

Build #3 wouldn't work anyway since i5-4460 needs DDR3 RAM.

Processor with or without "K"
i5 or i7 for gaming

i5-6500 will be fine for your next gen GPU upgrade. But the GPU after that (in 2 years for instance) is another question, and at that point you may wish you had an overclocked 6600K or any i7. In the end, the choice of processor depends on your budget and whether you're prepared to overclock at all.

Don't forget you can always upgrade the CPU. i5-6500 -> i7-6700(K) or next-gen (Kaby Lake) equivalent is not a bad upgrade if you can find someone who'll pay a decent price for your used i5 chip, and you're not overpaying for the i7.

To keep things simple, I'm just going to reply to your build #1.

1)
CPU - Intel Core i5-6500 5275 Kč
Mobo - MSI B150M NIGHT ELF - Intel B150 2349 Kč
Case - SilentiumPC Gladius M35 1399 Kč
RAM - CRUCIAL Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (2x4GB) DDR4 2400 1029 Kč
PSU - Seasonic S12II-620 620W 1949 Kč
Cooler - SilentiumPC Fera 3 HE1224 729 Kč
GPU - GIGABYTE GV-N960WF2OC-4GD, 4GB 5920 Kč
SSD - Kingston SSDNow V300 - 240GB 1899 Kč

Total for those parts: 20549 Kč / $858. Feedback:

CPU - Good. i5-6600 is also good for 10% more cost. i7-6700 is disproportionately expensive (+55%), can't really recommend it at that price. +40% would be okay.
Mobo - Good specs, not too expensive. :thumbsup: Wish we had that board here in Finland.
Case - I would rather get Gladius M45W (1509 K&#269 which comes with three 120mm fans and has a little more space inside to work with. Or the much cheaper Regnum RG1 which comes with one 120mm fan.
RAM - Get 2x8GB DDR4-2133 (1469 K&#269, costs less than 50% more.
PSU - I would buy the Corsair RM550x (2362 K&#269. It costs 22% more and has slightly less capacity, but you get a massive list of benefits: 80+ Gold efficiency, better voltage regulation (and better power quality in general), semi passive fan, much longer warranty (10 years directly to Corsair), fully modular cables.
Cooler - I'd get the Spartan 3 LT (439 K&#269, it's plenty for a non-K processor.
GPU - Get the cheaper and smaller version (5545 K&#269. GTX 960 doesn't need a big cooler to run cool and quiet.
SSD - V300 is pretty slow for an SSD. HyperX Fury 240GB (1999 K&#269 makes more sense. Are you sure 250GB is going to be enough capacity? You could consider MX200 500GB (4099 K&#269 or an additional 1TB hard disk (1435 K&#269.

= 21397 Kč / $893 (i5-6500, M45W, 240GB SSD)

And if you want overclockable parts:

i5-6600K 6863 Kč
Asus Z170 Pro Gaming 4075 Kč
A-DATA XPG 2x8GB DDR4-2800 1.2V 2071 Kč
Fortis 3 999 Kč

= 25423 Kč / $1061 (19% more cost, potentially up to 25% more CPU performance)

You can do 4.5GHz with these parts, maybe 4.6-4.7 GHz if you get a better than average chip.

 

[Justforcause]

Thank you sooo much. Well I have never overclocked anything in my life. And also heard that OC leads to warranty loss. Is it easy aret here any potential threats to look for?

Moreover, I would like to ask you if you know anything about secondhand licence of windows 7 being sold on ebay (also our czech auction websites) for around 20euros. Is it safe,can u get scammed? I mean I could save lots of money if I didn't have to purchase windows 10 for 3000,- CZK.

 

[lehtv]

Well I have never overclocked anything in my life. And also heard that OC leads to warranty loss. Is it easy aret here any potential threats to look for?

You can still RMA overclocked parts as long as whatever issue the component has isn't obviously caused by overclocking (i.e. too much power frying it or something like that). There's always a risk when overclocking but if you don't do anything stupid, the risk is negligible. What you need to know to get started with OC:

1. read some guides on overclocking, e.g. Overclock.net Skylake guide
2. get familiar with your motherboard's overclocking settings and what all the different variables do
3. increase clock speeds and voltages in small steps (e.g. +1 multiplier or 100MHz at a time, and 0.025V at a time) just to be safe, unless you absolutely know what you're doing
4. when stress testing for stability, always monitor temperatures (as well as all other important variables, e.g. VCore, fan speeds etc) and make sure you're keeping your max core temps around 80 Celsius or less

The Z170 Pro Gaming board has robust enough voltage regulation components that you can safely run even up to 1.45V core voltage. But you'll probably reach 80C core temperature during stress testing already at 1.4V.

It shouldn't be too much trouble to reach 4.5GHz stable with acceptable temperatures on that CPU, board and cooler.

 

[Justforcause]

Thanks a lot

Tried to reply to your private mesage but cannot do so until I reach 25 posts so thus replying here.

I even asked the seller and got this reply:

Licences we sell were already used (therefore secondhand). Used licences like these, OEM licence, can be activated again based on a decision of the EU from the year 2009. There are plenty of such licences and can be offer for favourable prices.

 

[Justforcause]

Coming back to my PC rig. Are you saying that if I buy i5 6500 now I will be able to just change it for new model in lets say 2 years? Will it have the same socked 1151?
I am not sure of overclocking though. I just think that technology doesn't like me so I don't even want to risk it. Would rather prefer if I didn't have to setup/adjust the computer in anyway as I might screw things up.

 

[lehtv]

Kaby Lake processors will be released later this year and they should work on current LGA1151 boards (after BIOS is updated). Cannonlake will presumably be released a year after that, I don't know if they will still work on current motherboards. Probably not. But even after Cannonlake is out, I think i7-7700(K) (or whatever it will be named) will still be available in stores for some time, just like Haswell processors are still available even though Skylake has been out for a good 6+ months. When Kaby Lake is no longer available you can still try to hunt for a suitable i7 in the used market.

 

[Justforcause]

This assured that at least one more generation of CPUs i won't have to buy a new motherboard. Basically I will go for i5 6500 now and after Cannonlake (2 years) is out i will be still able to buy Kabylake i7 and go for another 2 years (Plus new generation of GPUs). is my theory correct?

 

[lehtv]

Yes, that should work. i7 will probably last even longer than that though, given that people with 5 years old i5-2500K are still playing modern games just fine, and may continue to do so for another 1-2 years in well optimized DX12 games.

 

[Justforcause]

So then I am thinking why not go for i7 6700 now regardless the unproportional price increase and not change anything "forever"? Or is my initial proposed idea better?

 

[lehtv]

why not go for i7 6700 now

It's a bit expensive IMO. I would rather wait for a good deal on it (or other i7), or buy a used i7 later. In any case there's no real benefit to the i7 until years from now, so why pay for it now instead of when you actually need it?

But if you want i7, buy i7. Who am I to stop you

 

[Justforcause]

Well you are the person who is helping me to do the right choices. Such as now with your last advice

 

[Justforcause]

So basically here it is http://www.czc.cz/9r9rkilickhmua11055se00kdc/seznam it's a list of the components including w10 (still have to decide). Can either go for 16GB RAM or 8GB which would make the setup 800,- cheaper. The whole set is for 25 045 CZK.

 

[lehtv]

Buy the Crucial RAM. 400,- cheaper, does the job just as well. 2x4GB is not worth considering when 2x8GB is that cheap.

The rest looks very good.

 

[Justforcause]

Last small addition users claim that the GPU when fully loaded is quite noisy and also some claim that the fans are going full to low in 10s intervals.

But overall thank u very much.

 

[lehtv]

Hm, it does seem there's some weird fan behavior in this card. But. From Newegg user reviews:

"When first installed, the fans constantly powered up and down, even at an idle desktop. Had to upgrade the VGA Bios to get that to stop."
"Installing MSI's Afterburner works great for overclocking and controlling the fan speed of the Gigabyte cards. Setting the low speed at 46% stops the cycling and wakes the fans whisper quiet. "

So just upgrade the card's BIOS if you get this issue. Use MSI Afterburner for a custom fan profile (as long as you're below 75C at full load you're more than fine).

Not all users report this, so it's probably not a common issue. But if this is a deal breaker for you, spend a few hundred extra korunas on the Asus Strix card.

 

[Justforcause]

Buy the Crucial RAM. 400,- cheaper, does the job just as well. 2x4GB is not worth considering when 2x8GB is that cheap.

The rest looks very good.

And it doesn't matter that these don't have the cooling cover? They "look" not so great compraed to other ones, but i suppose I should not be concerned by that.

 

[lehtv]

RAM don't need cooling unless you're heavily overvolting them.

 

[Justforcause]

Hello once again,

I would also like to ask you about proper airflow and how how significant it is for a case such as mine (SilentiumPC Gladius M45W). It comes with 3x120mm fans.

What I've read so far is that front IN and back OUT. Thus I would place 2x120mm in front, 1x120mm back and 1-2x120mm on the top. Thus, I have to buy 2 more fans. Which ones should I go for to supply those that are already within the case? Should I have 1 or 2 at the top of the case for exhaustion, what is already enough?

Technical question, speed of the fans can be adjusted via BIOS or installed program, I assume?

Hopefully you can spot my reply

Thank you one again.

 

[DigDog]

masterwork from lehtv once again.

 

[Justforcause]

Hey lehtv,

I would really appreciate your help once again with my PC setup.

I am certain it would be one of the last ones.