Finally building a new PC for my mom. Would love some input

[Stg-Flame]

Updated List

1. What YOUR PC will be used for - Gaming and playing online games from Pogo. When I say gaming, I mean she's been wanting to play Skyrim modded to the brim, Fallout 4, Witcher 3, Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin etc. etc. etc.

2. What YOUR budget is. - $1,500 max. I'd like to see this a lot lower, so here's hoping there's some decent deals right now.

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

5. IF YOU have a brand preference.: Nvidia and Intel, eVGA GPU/PSU, Mushkin/Corsair RAM, Logitech Mouse. Absolutely no Gigabyte.

6. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are. - Everything new.

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds. - Default

8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using? - 1080p for now. 1440p is the goal for later.

9. WHEN do you plan to build it? - Two to three weeks. Maybe a month if there's guaranteed to be something outstanding coming out or going on sale. If there's no great sales or new hardware to look forward to in the immediate future, then ASAP.

10. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software? - Windows 7 preferably, but Windows 10 will suffice.

Last little note: Some pieces I'm dead set on for brands (CPU/GPU/Mouse) while others are just preference. I've had extremely bad experiences with some brands (looking at you Gigabyte) and absolutely great experiences with others (eVGA customer support).

CPU - Intel Core i7-6700k Skylake 4.0GHz @ $339.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117559&ignorebbr=1

Heatsink - Cooler Master Hyper 612 @ $38.00
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103202

GPU - eVGA GTX 1070 @ $399.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod..._ACX_3.0_Black_Edition-_-14-487-265-_-Product

PSU - eVGA Bronze 600W @ $49.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438014&ignorebbr=1

RAM - G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2X8GB) DDR3 2400 @ $106.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231672&ignorebbr=1

Storage - WD Blue 1TB HDD @ $49.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236339&ignorebbr=1
Storage - Samsung 850 EVO @ $99.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147372&ignorebbr=1

Mobo - ASRock Z170 Pro4S LGA 1151 @ $89.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157636&cm_re=Z170-_-13-157-636-_-Product

Case - DeepCool Kendomen @ $51.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811853012&ignorebbr=1

Mouse - G500S Wired @ $55.97
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA9JN3G82628

Keyboard - Skip this for now until I can find out if she wants a mechanical or non mechanical keyboard

OS - Windows 10 64bit @ $99.99
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod...bbr=1&cm_re=Windows_10-_-32-416-892-_-Product

Total = $1382.88 At the moment

On a side note, if anyone has any ideas what we can do with her current PC (Vista 64, GTX 260, 4GB RAM, Wolfdale e8400 CPU), I'm open to ideas. She doesn't want to get rid of it and would rather put it to good use.

Any and all input is greatly appreciated.

Edit: A monitor might not be cost efficient at this time and I'll probably have to remove it from this build. I'd rather get a better computer and have her save up for a better monitor down the road. For now, she has a 1080p monitor that is old, but still in good shape.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Any interest in a G4560 custom pre-built? I've got a few of those. One with a R7 250X 2GB DDR3, one with a GTX950 2GB GDDR5, and one without a GPU. Bring your own Windows.

BTW, as posted recently in the OS forum, MS is no longer letting Win7 rigs with Kaby Lake get updates.

 

[Torn Mind]

Mmmhmm, Witcher 3 will bring many a system down to its knees. Quad core and decent GPU cannot be skimped on for this build.

Gamer mom. That reminds me of "The Guild"....lol

Make sure the case does not interfere with the GPU length. Think about whether you want microATX or plain old ATX. ATX is pig imo, but you get lots of expansion futureproofing.

 

[Stg-Flame]

No pre-builds.

As for Witcher 3, it's optimized incredibly well, so a decent system can run it perfectly fine at mostly maxed settings. The one thing people always had an issue with was the HairWorks, but when people turned it off, they went back to stable frame rates.

 

[escrow4]

If you are building Kaby Lake you need Windows 10. It won't update on a creaky OS from 2009.

That aside you could mate a 7700 non K with a Asrock H270 board to save cash matched with 16GB of DDR4 2400MHz (something with lowest latencies), a Seasonic G550w and a 1070 although new GPUs are coming. I am using a Strix OC 1070 and it has had no issues since I bought it last August.

 

[Newbian]

I wouldn't go for anything less then a gtx 1070 if you plan on playing some of those games at 1440p you listed as going for a 980 isn't recommended anymore these days as their prices are far too high because they are no longer being produced and people are scalping them because of it.

The main problem will be it sounds like you need a monitor also and what kind would you want that is one of the main things you should not skimp on as it's what you stare at?

If you toss out $300 or so for a decent 1440p monitor without any bells and whistles that takes a big chunk of your budget and another $80 for win 10 to run the newer hardware so $1,200 may be a bit too little for including these two factors.

Also acer motherboards are not usually for desktops so did you mean asus?

 

[Stg-Flame]

I actually meant ASRock. I was tired when I was typing up the original post and it kinda shows considering my PC has a giant window that shows the motherboard which says ASRock in giant letters about one foot from my face...

For a monitor, I can probably go down to a 1080 if required, but I know she watched me play Witcher 3 on my setup and fell in love with the game. I'm going to edit the budget up to $1,500 max just in case some components don't mesh with pricing. From what I'm seeing right now, nothing is really on sale. I picked some pieces on my own, but I'm stuck on the CPU. It seems all the decent i7s are extremely expensive right now and I really don't want to go down to an i5 unless I absolutely have to. Her old PC has lasted almost a decade and given her financial situation, this won't be something we will be upgrading every few years so I need something solid for games on the market now.

 

[Newbian]

Well the current modern i7's will last a decent amount of time in all likelihood so grab a i7 7700 as the stock cooler will be enough or 7700k for a bit more if you can overclock it in a few years if this is something you are willing to do and a decent $35-$40 cpu cooler in this case for a mild overclock.

In either case look on sites like http://pcpartpicker.com for great build ideas and to find the parts for the prices you want or suggestions on it or something like: http://www.logicalincrements.com/ for a more general sense of what you can get for your money.

I would recommend you take her to a brick and mortar store to test out some items like the mouse and keyboard to get a idea of what she prefers and either get them there or online as that helps a lot for those types of things.

As for the monitor if you want an asus monitor there are a few decent choices for a decent amount such as this.

Otherwise if you plan on keeping this for a long time you might consider giving amd's new cpu r7 1700 a try as it's competitive price to the i7 7700k plus more cores may help it survive for a longer time.

 

[Valantar]

If you're willing to wait, the AMD Ryzen 5 CPU series is launching April 11th, and should deliver very good performance (i7-ish) at ~i5 7600k prices. They won't clock as high as Intel's chips, but you get 6 cores and 12 threads for the price of 4/4. Then again, that platform is brand new with all the teething issues brand new problems have. Motherboards are scarce, and generally buggy. Will probably take a few months for it all to be ironed out.

Other than that, I'd definitely recommend a 1070 for those games in 1440p, although you could get away with an RX 480 or GTX 1060 6GB if you lower the graphics settings some. 1440p high still generally looks better than 1080p ultra. It would be less future proof, but would be better value for money.

AMD's Vega GPUs are rumored to launch soon, but nobody knows when, how fast they'll be or how much they'll cost, so holding off for that for now doesn't make much sense.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I'll second waiting to see what Ryzen 1600X brings for $249 on April 11 when the NDAs lift and reliable benchmarks are available.

If it's a strong enough competitor intel might even drop the price on the i7-7700K which is what I'd recommend if you had to buy today since you want to run at stock.

Otherwise:
PSU - Seasonic has been my favorite for a decade now, they've never gonna give me up, never gonna let me down.
Keyboard - "Cherry MX Brown" are the switches for a mechanical keyboard that's good for both gaming and regular typing. (Red, blue can be better at typing-only or gaming-only.)

 

[Stg-Flame]

Unfortunately, I'm going to be using Windows 7, so Kaby Lake is out of the question it seems.

I tried to find my CPU on Newegg, but the closest I could find cost over $1,000. Why are the Ivy Bridge CPUs such ridiculous prices? It seems if I want to go with an Ivy Bridge, I'll have to settle for an i5 which I'd rather not do.

Looks like a 6700k Skylake is the cheapest at the moment for the i7 gens.

 

[DaveSimmons]

I realize using an old Windows 7 saves $100+, but it also means:
- You have to use an older slower CPU
- No DirectX 12 support
- Support ends in 3 years unless MS decides to extend it. No security patches for mom.

 

[Valantar]

Unfortunately, I'm going to be using Windows 7, so Kaby Lake is out of the question it seems.

I tried to find my CPU on Newegg, but the closest I could find cost over $1,000. Why are the Ivy Bridge CPUs such ridiculous prices? It seems if I want to go with an Ivy Bridge, I'll have to settle for an i5 which I'd rather not do.

Looks like a 6700k Skylake is the cheapest at the moment for the i7 gens.

Using Windows 7 at this point isn't really a good choice. You lose lots of important things (see @DaveSimmons's post above). DX12 in particular is going to be a big drawback in coming years.

Ivy Bridge is expensive because it's no longer in production. After all, it's four generations (and at least four years) old at this point. At the very least, get a Haswell i7. But you'll still be stuck with an old motherboard, old features, slow RAM, and no upgrade path. W10 and a modern cpu is the way to go.

 

[Stg-Flame]

All I can say is arguing for DX12 is rather pointless as she doesn't understand what 90% of all the graphics options mean anyways. When she installs a new game, I usually have to run her through the options before she starts playing and once she starts, she never touches the settings again.

If all else fails, I'll go with Win 10, but security updates aren't a huge deal for her. She spends 95% of all her time offline since she lives out in the middle of nowhere on a peninsula of canyons and uses my dad's work phone for internet access. Seriously, where I grew up, it takes about fifteen minutes just to get to the main highway then another half hour to the nearest town. Internet out there is pretty much non-existent so anything that revolves around the internet is pretty much a non-issue for her.

 

[VirtualLarry]

If all else fails, I'll go with Win 10, but security updates aren't a huge deal for her. She spends 95% of all her time offline since she lives out in the middle of nowhere on a peninsula of canyons and uses my dad's work phone for internet access. Seriously, where I grew up, it takes about fifteen minutes just to get to the main highway then another half hour to the nearest town. Internet out there is pretty much non-existent so anything that revolves around the internet is pretty much a non-issue for her.

Well, lucky for her, that web-based malware ads, facebook exploits, and internet worms, don't discriminate when it comes to rural folk. They can be infected just as easily as "city folk". Stick with a SUPPORTED OS, with security patches.

That said, I'm not 100% convinced that Windows 10 has inherently better security than Win7 does. There are some improvements, but ... given the amount of "new code" in Win10, in every new "Feature Update", that new code is potentially-buggy code, and potentially-exploitable.

Edit: If anything, if your Mom is in a semi-remote location, then perhaps it should be a priority to give her a secondary PC, of some type (not necessarily another desktop, maybe a tablet or laptop). Just in case the "main PC" does get infected, or has a malfunction, so that she's be able to still communicate with people, being that far away from civilization.

 

[Valantar]

All I can say is arguing for DX12 is rather pointless as she doesn't understand what 90% of all the graphics options mean anyways. When she installs a new game, I usually have to run her through the options before she starts playing and once she starts, she never touches the settings again.

That's not exactly the point now, is it? There will be DX12-only titles coming, that she then can't play. There will be titles where DX12 forms the basis of development, and any DX11 mode is a tacked-on, badly optimized mess. In a year or two, DX12 won't just be a fancy extra graphics feature, games will to a far larger degree be built from the ground up for it.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Well, lucky for her, that web-based malware ads, facebook exploits, and internet worms, don't discriminate when it comes to rural folk.

She doesn't use social media and as I said, she only goes online to check her e-mail (she only opens e-mails from immediate family) and play games on Pogo (which I took the time to disable ads with extensions). I know there are no 100% secure websites, but it would honestly be pretty hard for her computer to get infected when she only visits two sites.

Edit: If anything, if your Mom is in a semi-remote location, then perhaps it should be a priority to give her a secondary PC, of some type (not necessarily another desktop, maybe a tablet or laptop). Just in case the "main PC" does get infected, or has a malfunction, so that she's be able to still communicate with people, being that far away from civilization.

She doesn't use laptops and she refuses to use tablets or smart phones. She still has her old Nokia phone from the late 90s (complete with a pull-out antennae) and refuses to get a different one. She doesn't text. She doesn't snapchat. All she does is make phone calls with her phone. With her computer, she plays single player video games. She's been playing PC games since 1998 and hasn't ever ran into an issue (malware/adware/viruses) because when something pops up that she doesn't understand, she just exits out of it and calls me.

Now, would it be possible to steer away from the whole DX12 nonsense and just focus on hardware? As I said before, if a 1070 and Win10 is the more viable option, then that's what I'll go with.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

Buying an old used CPU and NOS motherboard just to eke a couple years out of Windows 7 is bad bang for the buck all around. Get a modern system and install Win10 on it.

Otherwise, just follow the directions in the Builder thread.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/attention-low-end-midrange-gaming-system-builders.2389797/

 

[Valantar]

Buying an old used CPU and NOS motherboard just to eke a couple years out of Windows 7 is bad bang for the buck all around. Get a modern system and install Win10 on it

Indeed. This is why we've been arguing against it. And OP, although you might think DX12 is "nonsense", I take it she doesn't upgrade her computer every 2-or-so years? And she'd still like to be able to play new games in a few years? If so, I'd say DX12 compatibility is a requirement. In 2-3 years, lacking support for that will be a limiting factor in her access to new games.

A 1070 and W10 on a modern CPU is the way to go. For future proofing, it might be smart to wait for Ryzen 5 to launch (April 11th), as you could then get 6 cores (12 threads) for the price of an i5-7600k. Games are growing more multi-threaded, so for a PC that's going to be used for a few years, this might be a good choice. Then again, predicting future gaming performance is extremely difficult. And an i7-7700K will no doubt perform decently even in 3-4 years, even if games by then can make use of 6+ cores.

 

[Stg-Flame]

Buying an old used CPU and NOS motherboard just to eke a couple years out of Windows 7 is bad bang for the buck all around. Get a modern system and install Win10 on it.

Otherwise, just follow the directions in the Builder thread.

https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/attention-low-end-midrange-gaming-system-builders.2389797/

I've checked that thread quite frequently and I've been checking out hardware here and there. The problem is though, that I only build a new PC every five years or so and every time I get ready to build a new rig, everything has changed to the point where I feel like I don't even know a CPU is anymore. I always like to get opinions from people who do this kind of stuff for a living as well as a hobby. There's always people out there who know more than I do and I'd hate to pass up a chance to get some consultation on a new build, especially when it could potentially save me money and headaches down the road.

Indeed. This is why we've been arguing against it. And OP, although you might think DX12 is "nonsense", I take it she doesn't upgrade her computer every 2-or-so years? And she'd still like to be able to play new games in a few years? If so, I'd say DX12 compatibility is a requirement. In 2-3 years, lacking support for that will be a limiting factor in her access to new games.

I am pretty much just going by what she said to me. She waits for me to tell her about new games coming out or she will call me while she's at Walmart and ask me about "such and such game" she just saw on the shelf. I'm sure there will be future games that will interest her, but given her backlog and available time to play, it will take her years just to get finished with what she has waiting.

I have no problem with getting the hardware that's best for the build. I was simply hoping there would be a way to work around a Win 7 build simply because she spends almost all of her time offline. When she downloads a game from Steam, she goes offline because she is worried about someone trying to scam from her. My parents are hermits and have been their whole lives and they dislike interacting with others. It sounds odd in this day and age, especially considering my mom is a gamer and hates new technology, but it is what it is.

So, by the looks of it, a 1070 and a 6700 looks to be decent (unless someone can come up with a reason to spend a little extra on a Kaby Lake as opposed to a Skylake), so all I need is a decent PSU and a mobo to tie it all together. The rest should be fairly simple.

Edit: Updated current build. Don't have much left to play with. I might have to leave out a monitor for now and grab a new one later with a different budget.

 

[XavierMace]

With the price drop on the 1080's and the listed games which are vRAM hungry, I'd spend the extra $100 on a 1080.

 

[Stg-Flame]

With the price drop on the 1080's and the listed games which are vRAM hungry, I'd spend the extra $100 on a 1080.

Is there a list of which games will recommend higher VRAM? If it's most from genres she doesn't play, then I'd rather save the $100 for something else like a monitor down the road.

 

[XavierMace]

I was referring to your specific list. Modded Skyrim in particular can get very VRAM heavy. Example discussion: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/5135135-modded-skyrim-gpu-vram-usage/

Witcher 3 is also VRAM hungry IIRC. Given the $1500 budget, and the 1440p, I think the 1080 is worth usage of an extra $100.

 

[Valantar]

With the price drop on the 1080's and the listed games which are vRAM hungry, I'd spend the extra $100 on a 1080.

Let me translate that for you:
"Your selected games are VRAM hungry, so how about you pay $100-150 more for a GPU with an identical amount of VRAM?"
Sure, the GTX 1080 uses GDDR5X rather than GDDR5, and thus has a higher memory bandwidth. But that doesn't really matter for what you're bringing up - the raw amount of memory is the crucial factor here.

8GB is plenty even with modded games at 1440p unless you set out with maxing out VRAM usage as your goal. And typically you'll run into GPU bottlenecks before VRAM runs out. For that reason a 1080 might be a worthy upgrade given the cash, but from the OP's budget, that seems like a stretch. The 1070 is still a great card, and performs very well at 1440p.

 

[XavierMace]

Doh. I'm an idiot. I was thinking of the 970 for some reason. So, yes, I'd agree with you at that point.