So I'm building my 16 year old daughter a gaming PC for XMAS. I'll be using some lightly used parts as well as some new. She likes blue so some choices were made simply for aesthetics. Right now, it's looking like this: CPU: i5 4670K (my old cpu, 9 months old) BOARD: MSI Z97 U3 Plus RAM: 8GB HyperX Fury 1866 (2x4gb) GPU: EVGA GTX 970 (my current card, I'll get another one) OS SSD: Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300 HDD: Western Digital 1TB Black (her current drive, to be replaced later) Optical: LG DVD Burner (her current drive) PSU: Seasonic 550w G-Series 550RM Gold (Her current PSU, 2 years old) CASE: NZXT Phantom 630 Black (her choice) I think that should all work fine (which is why I'm posting, just to be sure...). I'm hoping to re-use her power supply and 1TB hard drive (and add another, larger drive later). She currently uses a 24" 1080p monitor @75hz. I'm thinking that ought to keep her happy for a couple years... (she has an e8400 dual core with gtx260 right now) I think it needs a blue CPU cooler of some sort.
Thats a nice rig for a 16 year old. My 10 year old got my old qx9650 rig with a 580. He just plays minecraft. Watches netfix and you tube vids. He is going to inherit whatever I upgrade on this rig.
If your going to OC, get a new PSU. If not, it should be ok. Otherwise, fantastic build for a 16 year old.
My kids usually just get old parts from my upgrades so it gives a bit of a leeway from the wife when I want to make changes to my machines. My girls (7 and 10) currently have a 5970 and a 680. I also have an extra 5970 and an extra 680 but neither power supply will handle crossfired 5970s so I didn't SLI the 680s in my 7 year old's machine to keep performance fairly close. I recommend making sure your wife knows that your old parts = upgrades for everyone else. Right now my kids are asking for SSDs for Christmas. The geek in me is in heaven
On the PSU, this is the one component I'm slightly concerned about. The online PSU calculator says this build is gonna need 79 more watts (than the previous build) and claims 450w as bare minimum for the new build. That 550w Seasonic is gold rated though and actually delivers what it claims. Still, a bit close for comfort as I like headroom. If this can get her by until next year, I may replace my own 750w PSU and give her mine. I'm mainly trying to save money now so I can spend it on the other components. ...and yeah, it's a bit over-board for a kid but that's my intent so I'm glad to hear it. Typically, my kids get my old stuff too but I'm really proud of her this year. After going through the typical teenager BS, her attitude has been fantastic for nearly 2 years; she recently paid for getting her own driver's license (nearly $800 her mom and I saved there). I also recently gave her younger brother (9) an i7 860/8gb/gtx560 rig (that I slapped together out of the blue) and she's never once begrudged him that. She turns 17 in February and is way overdue for an upgrade to her 6 year old PC. She mainly plays RPG and survival/horror games.
This system will draw around 300W out of the power socket. i5 slightly above 100W in linpack with avx instructions GTX 970 around 180W 2*HDD 25W SSD 5W
I think anyone commenting on the PSU is clearly quite stupid and has no idea what they are talking about. That system even with Overclocks will pull 450w if lucky. My Overclocked sig rig uses way more power if you read into specs yet only pulls 500w at most if that from a wall read it measured 480w. Great Choice of parts i'm sure she will enjoy it new hardware is always good.
About that Seasonic 550W 80 Plus Gold.... Single +12V rail with 45Amps / 540W available on it. You should be more than fine with even with with a bit of OC on that 4670K and GTX 970, I can guarantee you that. Seasonic is Rolls-Royce among PSU's, expencive like mistress, but you get what you've paid for, every single cent My favorite PSU brand, no doubt about that.
That PSU is better than the 550w OCZ ZS I have, and I'm running a rig that pulls comparable power to the one you're building with a 4.4ghz OC on the CPU and the GPU running a mild/medium OC. You'll be absolutely fine with what you're planning, cracking rig for a 16 year old.