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New gaming build - thoughts welcome

N

nihilo

Junior Member
I'm looking to build myself a new gaming machine, my old faithful machine is well past her prime. Answers to basic questions:

1) Use: gaming. AAA games, new and greatest. I want this thing to run Total War: Warhammer maxed out, for starters.
2) Budget: $1000 CAD with taxes and shipping. Some flexibility there.
3) Shopping in Canada
4) Vendors: Newegg Canada, NCIX.com, Amazon.ca
5) No brand loyalties
6) I have a couple TB HDDs that I'm planning to use. Mouse, keyboard, monitor I'll be keeping.
7) No plans to OC
8) Monitor is 1080p
9) Able to buy today
10) Going to buy Windows 10 Home ($120 CAD)

This is what I'm thinking so far:
CPU Intel Pentium G4560 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor $77.50
Motherboard MSI B250M PRO-VDH Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard $115.98
Memory Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory $87.99
Storage ADATA Premier SP550 240GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive $99.99
Video Card Gigabyte Radeon RX 480 4GB G1 Gaming Video Card $244.99
Case Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case $99.99
Power Supply SeaSonic S12II 620W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply $69.98
OS Windows 10 Home $120

Total: $916.42

I figure with shipping and taxes that will be ~$1000 CAD

I'd welcome any input. Reading around the site, the consensus seems to be that for gaming the G4560 is basically all you need for gaming at 1080p. Is the RX480 then overkill? My thought was to go cheap on the CPU and put it all into the GPU. I was looking at the i5 7500 / upcoming Ryzen, but budget wasn't working and I figured that the G6450 would do.
 
What's your current CPU? It might be close enough to the G4560 that you'd be better off just getting a new GPU now and waiting until you can spend more on the rest of it.
 
I wonder how much you could save if you went with cheaper ram, a lower tdp rated 500w~ psu and a less fancy case, since a dual core cpu does not seem like a good idea for a gaming build when we now will have mainstream cpu's with 8 and 6 cores. I'd think you should go with a 4 core part at least.
 
The old CPU is an Intel Core i5-750. (The old gaming rig was built in 2009.) My mobo from back then doesn't support PCIe 3.0, so I think a full update is necessary (and overdue).

It sounds like the G6450 will be holding me back, and it would be worthwhile to up my CPU budget. Using Ken g6's $1000 USD budget build as a template, an i5 6500k is more fitting for the machine? A core i5 6500k goes for $310 plus cooler ($25). Shaving 300 off the rest of the machine doesn't really seem doable, but I also can up my budget if its money well spent. At that point I also wonder if I should just wait for Ryzen 5 releases, if only to see if Intel responds with price cuts.
 
@nihilo I'd suggest not buying Windows. You can still download it, install it and even use it indefinitely for free (howtogeek.com). Essentially, Windows is a free software and its activation is optional as long as MS allows, and so far, there's no reason to assume it will not stay free. You'll get all the updates as normal, too. This gives you an extra $120 to spend on components.

Also if you do want to activate it, you don't need an actual Windows 10 key. Windows 7 and 8.1 keys work just fine as well.

TW: Warhammer is a pretty CPU intensive game - G4560 will struggle to run it smoothly. Granted, you don't necessarily need high fps in this game to enjoy it, but you don't want <30 fps minimums either. In this chart, G4560 is comparable to i3-4330:


Meanwhile, you can see the 8-threaded FX processors easily outperforming the i3. Many slow cores outpace few fast cores, so the game is well threaded.

Knowing how much faster AMD Ryzen processors are clock-for-clock compared to the old Vishera (FX) processors, you can expect the upcoming 6-core (12-thread) Ryzen 5 1600 to be near the top of the above graph (especially if you OC it abit), probably about as good as the higher clocked FX-9000 processors. The cheaper 4-core ones (Ryzen 5 1400 and 1500X) would be more suitable for your budget, and they still have SMT to compensate for having fewer physical cores. Plus, Ryzen's performance will probably only improve as game developers optimize their games for Ryzen (DigitalTrends).

I don't know exactly how much DX12 improves CPU performance in this game, but I would expect the pecking order to be roughly the same. And for the sake of longevity, and of other games where many CPU cores matter, Ryzen is just a smarter buy than Pentium if you can afford it.

As for the graphics card, RX 480 is pretty good. It'll run TW:Warhammer near max settings and 40-50 fps. As far as I know, DX12 support is better in this game with AMD.

The old CPU is an Intel Core i5-750. (The old gaming rig was built in 2009.) My mobo from back then doesn't support PCIe 3.0, so I think a full update is necessary (and overdue).
Click to expand...

Actually, PCIe 3.0 support is almost irrelevant. You only lose a few % of performance when running an RX 480 class PCIe 3.0 card in a PCIe 2.0 slot - not nearly enough to justify buying a new board. But a new CPU does justify a new board.

It sounds like the G6450 will be holding me back, and it would be worthwhile to up my CPU budget.
Click to expand...

Yes, the G4560 will hold you back. Compared to i5-750, it's actually a sidegrade in terms of multi core performance. Normally, when you upgrade a CPU, you want both better performance per core and more threads.

Shaving 300 off the rest of the machine doesn't really seem doable, but I also can up my budget if its money well spent. At that point I also wonder if I should just wait for Ryzen 5 releases, if only to see if Intel responds with price cuts.
Click to expand...

I think you should definitely wait. Intel i5 isn't a very good buy at this day and age where hexacores with 12 threads are becoming equally affordable and 4 core / 8 thread CPUs are becoming cheaper. I would expect Intel CPU price drops when Ryzen 5 gains a foothold in the market, but that probably wouldn't deter me from buying a hexacore anyway. If you want your new CPU to last as long as your old one has lasted, don't buy a quad core 🙂.

Here's a rough outline, though if you wait until Ryzen 5 is released, the list may need some modifications.

CPU: Ryzen 5 1600 6c/12t 3.2-3.6GHz +100MHz XFR (estimated $270, based on USD $219 MSRP and current Ryzen 7 prices)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Pure Rock Slim 35.1 CFM CPU Cooler ($23.97 @ DirectCanada)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-AB350-GAMING 3 ATX AM4 Motherboard ($149.75 @ Vuugo)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($87.99 @ Amazon Canada)
Storage: Crucial MX300 275GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($118.98 @ DirectCanada)
Video Card: Asus Radeon RX 470 8GB ROG STRIX GAMING Video Card ($216.00 @ Vuugo)
Case: BitFenix Neos ATX Mid Tower Case ($44.68 @ DirectCanada)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($64.98 @ NCIX)
Case Fan: ARCTIC F12 PWM 74.0 CFM 120mm Fan ($7.50 @ Vuugo)

Total: $984 before taxes and shipping

I picked the Asus RX 470 because you save $30 after rebate compared to the Gigabyte RX 480 which runs much hotter, and you gain 4GB VRAM (probably not that useful but hey, the 4GB model costs the same).
 
16 GB RAM could also be worth waiting a month and saving up an extra $50? CAD for. Games are just starting to benefit from more than 8 GB so it's hard to recommend only 8 GB when you might use this for 5+ years.

At a minimum you should wait until after the April 11 Ryzen 5 launch to see how they perform and to see if Intel responds with price drops.
 
DaveSimmons said:
16 GB RAM could also be worth waiting a month and saving up an extra $50? CAD for. Games are just starting to benefit from more than 8 GB so it's hard to recommend only 8 GB when you might use this for 5+ years.
Click to expand...

In terms of future proofing that's a moot point since RAM is pretty much the easiest component to upgrade. You can even buy 1x8GB and add another 1x8GB in a year or two.

16 GB can be useful even in current games... But I think it depends a lot on how much RAM your other processes are using. If you tend to leave a dozen Chrome windows in the background while gaming, 8 GB is much more limiting than it would be with just the game running.
 
Sad truth appears to be that I really need to wait for Ryzen. This is going to be a long couple weeks I can tell 🙂

I'm very appreciative of all the feedback, thanks all! I had no clue that I could put a new card in my old PCIe 2.0 slot. Would have upgraded the card by now, probably, had I known that. Live and learn.

It will be worthwhile to try to future proof this one as much as possible, given I'm unlikely to tinker once it's together. Extra RAM is super easy to put in, but also maybe worth the $50 right now (that's already cheap, and couldn't really be getting that much cheaper, no?).

I'm going to be watching prices and tinkering with my purchase list for next couple weeks. I can already tell it's going to be a struggle not to buy anything 🙂
 
nihilo said:
Extra RAM is super easy to put in, but also maybe worth the $50 right now (that's already cheap, and couldn't really be getting that much cheaper, no?).
Click to expand...

RAM is actually expensive right now, and it's probably going to stay expensive. As far as I'm aware based on limited research, the reason behind the current prices is increasing demand for LP-DDR4 in mobile devices. The mobile market is much more important than the PC market so the PC market suffers from low supply and prices rise. Samsung Note 7 battery fire fiasco probably didn't help - Samsung had to recall and exchange all sold Note 7 units.

Here's a price trend graph for 4x4GB DDR4-2133 (no graph for 2x8GB available):

(PCPartPicker)

The average price was about $50 lower 6+ months ago, and you were able to buy 16 gigs on sale for as low as $50-60 after rebate.

I can already tell it's going to be a struggle not to buy anything 🙂
Click to expand...
Hang in there... 😉
 
^ one reason it's worth waiting for is to see if Intel decides to drop prices because of the 1600X selling for $100 less than the 7700K.
 
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