A good friend of mine refuses to sign up to this awesome forum. He told me his budget to build a desktop is between 1k and 1200 dollars. He wants to wait for Caby lake (sp?) but, besides that he is open to everything. He needs a monitor, tower, keyboard and everything else that comes. Is mildly interested in VR and will be using this for primarily gaming. His laptop that he uses over heats constantly. His desktop HAS to be cooled super efficiently. Would this be a midsize tower or a full? I know it depends on fan setup, the tower and what parts you stuff in there. So help me out here, i've been out of the game for a bit since I've built this pc in my signature. Must haves Very efficient cooling. Leans towards Nvidia for his GPU. Go green! Wants a Intel processor. Not interested in a sound card. What power supply should he have so cable management can be optimal? Also, how big of a power supply based on your suggestions of the GPU? Is it better to go way higher, more room for upgrades later, better able to handle GPU... OR, if he isn't too concerned with upgrading at ALL for at least 3 years then why buy a bigger PSU? See, I am a go big or go home. If you can squeeze it in to your budget, why not get a big azz PSU? I have a 800 watt. With my sound card, gtx770 and everything else in there. I am wondering how close to the limit am I? My soundcard has a built in AMP I believe. So I would rather spend the extra 50$ (if that's what we are looking at) then have to remove it and buy a new PSU ending up with a wasted 600 only to upgrade to a 700 watt or slightly bigger. He is a first time builder and I will help him. I am guessing that he will get the upgrade bug just like we all do after he builds it. He claims he won't want to upgrade bc this thing "should be good for 3 years at least for all games at max settings." We all know that likely won't be true, even if it is, I can totally see him replacing a GPU or CPU if he sees one that is way better for the right price in 2 years. Thanks for reading! Best Adam the cop who hates copping.
Hi there I would probably go with something like is this CPU: i7-6700k CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15,Cryorig R1 Ultimate or if budget allows then Swiftech H240 X2 Prestige,don't get Corsair AIO,those shouldn't be sold as they're prone to failure Motherboard: Asus ROG series I would choose,have used like MSI and Gigabyte and few others and Asus seems is best for me RAM: 32GB DDR4(16GB should be enough,but still think he will be future proof with 32GB RAM) GPU: GTX1080 can be bit more expensive,but GTX1070 should be great card too for his needs,but depends what resolution he is planning PSU: Silverstone or Seasonic or LEPA,Superflower those are best PSU and choose something what is fully modular,850W should be OK,although 750W should be OK too Regarding the case all depends on budget,if budget allows I would go with Phanteks Enthoo Pro or Luxe or Primo,those cases have best airflow,don't get Corsair,those cases use flimsy materials and if you will take same case like is Enthoo Primo which is nice and heavy and use nice materials and compare that to 750D you will be surprised how it feels and what materials are used With some cases you will need to optimize airflow and with some you don' need to much Hope this helps Thanks,Jura
Thanks for the reply! Thanks for the reply! Did a quick addition of parts over at PC parts picker and this was the total price. 1791 Anything we can take away to lower the price? My Custom Build for "The Bob" Edit Part List Edit Details Delete Component Selection Price CPU Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor $324.99 Buy CPU Cooler Noctua NH-D15 82.5 CFM CPU Cooler $88.49 Buy Motherboard Asus ROG MAXIMUS VIII HERO ALPHA ATX LGA1151 Motherboard $251.98 Buy Memory Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory $63.99 Buy Storage Samsung 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive $157.79 Buy Video Card MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card $449.94 Buy Case Phanteks Enthoo Pro ATX Full Tower Case $79.99 Buy Power Supply Silverstone Strider Plus 750W 80+ Silver Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply $132.00 Buy Operating System Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit $88.88 Buy Monitor Asus VE228H 21.5" Monitor $102.98 Buy Keyboard Rosewill RGB80 Wired Gaming Keyboard $49.99 Buy Total: $1791.02
Agree I would change motherboard to Asus TUF Sabertooth Z170 S or Z170-A or Pro Gaming,those boards have good reviews .. prices around $160-$200 PSU EVGA SuperNOVA 750W G2 should fit yours bill and EVGA usually are good PSU plus 10 year warranty should be enough plus price is around $99 About the monitor,I would suggest something like G-Sync or 144Hz monitor in size 24" Or you can replace i7-6700k for I5-6600k which will lower total price Hope this helps Thanks,Jura
I agree totally, which is why I rebuilt the list . http://pcpartpicker.com/list/8prd9W The motherboard was a gross overkill, the one I selected in that list is more in line with the system, following the same brand and taking into account the final price. I didn't want to go any lower or else with Asus of that price, seeing as they don't have good sound chips in them (they still use the very budget Realtek ALC887 on many of their boards). The PSU I chose is a good platinum one. I would never, ever recommend a PSU with just a silver rating now, that's very poor by todays standards. The monitor didn't make sense for a gaming system either, you would want at least a 25 inch, if not 27, for gaming. Yes, the monitor I selected is 1920x1080 which will get a lot of people moaning and griping, but it's not as bad as they make it out to be, and their alternative is usually recommending one that costs twice as much, or is somewhat risky (those cheap Korean monitors made from Samsung seconds for example). The only thing I didn't include is a keyboard as that can be very subjective, however I wouldn't just get any old keyboard or mouse (that you didn't include) either. It's a gaming system, not an old folks once a day email system, so you want a decent keyboard and mouse. The RAM is a big thing. People are still skimping on this for Skylake. The reviews that Hilbert did were with DDR4-3200 RAM, and that is the key price/performance point for Skylake. The RAM I selected is DDR4-3200 with Cas Latency of 14. Keep in mind that CAS and other latencies are as-important as the RAM frequency, so getting that particular RAM I selected is important. There is almost identical looking RAM from GSkill that has worse latencies like 15 and even 16, so don't just select another one just because it is a few dollars cheaper . You should probably allow an extra $100 for keyboard and mouse, and maybe even more if they need a mechanical hard drive. Unfortunately you won't be able to do much cheaper than that without taking compromises. If the budget can't be stretched just that little bit extra, it might be advisable to just wait and save up a bit more for a couple of months. Alternatively, if your friend can wait a couple of months I would highly suggest putting aside a few extra dollars a week and going for a Kaby Lake system (only recommending Kaby Lake since it seems your friend wouldn't go for Zen even if it were hypothetically twice as fast at half the price!).
The Z170 S doesn't seem to exist, and the Z170-A only has older ALC892 audio. I know he said he didn't want an external sound card, so you would probably want decent onboard sound, or at least ALC1150.
Z170 S is Asus TUF Sabertooth there https://www.asus.com/uk/Motherboards/SABERTOOTH-Z170-S/ Regarding the audio,yes agree with you Thanks,Jura
Ah my mistake! I see that now. It's the way Asus names their current motherboards that threw me. Yes, that Sabertooth is a good choice as well, it is much more cost-appropriate for the intended use compared to the OP's original choice. The key point on building any system is to use the most ideal parts for the budget and intended use, and also in conjunction with the other components. Basically that means if you have to compromise on parts to save say, $100 overall on the build (sometimes even less than this), then it would just make more sense to save up a bit more than going for parts that you don't really want or aren't as appropriate just to save a few dollars. We've pretty much reached the time threshold though for Intel CPU's. That means you don't really want to buy current stuff unless it is absolutely necessary to do so as in this case, the i7-7700K i7-6700K replacement, along with the associated Z270 chipset based motherboards, are due in the next couple of months. Kaby Lake isn't a huge gain (it's just effectively a Skylake Refresh as a result of Cannonlake being delayed, delayed further resulting in Ice Lake, and finally scraped for desktop), but no point paying full price for stuff that is about to be superseded.
Thanks all for the awesome responses. My friend is following along in this thread even though he can't post. We chatted about it briefly last night. Thanks again! I will be making the changes later tonight and post a refresh of the new parts. I will also bargain shop (rather I will make him do it since it's his build) and see how much closer we can get to the original budget of 1000-1200 dollars. As stated, it seems like he wants to wait for the new CPU's from Intel as well. Thanks so far. Adam
Recently built 2 systems with this board : MSI Z170A SLI Plus . Have no issues and lots of features. ALC1150 as well.
