I've cross-referenced the B150M-D3H and B150M-D3SH just to be sure :
D3SH one (microcenter) has slightly worse sound card, and slightly worse LAN chip (irrelevant).
The only thing that worried me is why i was reluctant to recommend is the power delivery to the cpu, it probably will not make a difference, but it's step down, and there's a small chance it could cause problems with the 6700k.
As you pretty much have to buy the cpu cooler and the ram on Newegg because of the prices and availability i'd still advise to get the B150M-D3H without S on Newegg.
I almost forgot, if u do end up wanting to get something more at the microcenter, be sure to select the actual shop you are driving to on the website, just to make sure that they have those parts at that shop
So i guess technically if the microcenter had all of this in stock, and u wanted to get it all right away at the microcenter u could get it for $470-$475 with the worse motherboard and different ram (there's also some other nicer looking 2x8GB sticks for $3 bucks more)
Whew, that's a lot of effort. Thanks a bunch, man. I'll weight the pros and cons of getting the RAM from newegg vs having something ready to go. What would be the RAM you'd recommend?
And finally, any tips on putting the CPU into the motherboard and adding the cooler? I'll look up how to do it, but is there anything important I should look out for?
It's short so any CPU cooler will fit over it without the height being the problem, and it's high quality as well.
Always be careful with aligning the CPU properly before putting it in the socket to not bend the pins, orient the arrow on the cpu with the arrow on the motherboard and double/triple check (look up a video if you're not sure).
either be careful not to touch the silver IHS heatsink on top of the cpu to leave fingerprint smudges or simple clean the top of the cpu once you put in the slot with isopropyl alcohol and cotton wool u'd use for skin cuts (even toilet paper would be fine if it's smooth)
You can always fire up a video guide on your smartphone, linustechtips has a good one for sure.
And don't forget the golden rule : always read the manuals for everything even if you've done it before just read and re-read the manuals for mounting that come in the box.
Ok, so it looks like I'll be going for the following set-up. It will allow me to get a decent case.
The motherboard is cheap and only supports ram speed up to 2133, but apparently you can put in 2400 and it just caps it at 2133. I would just get 2133 sticks, but they only have 1 in stock.
Anyone see a problem with this? Let me know asap if you do because I'll be picking it up today or tomorrow.
Plan is to upgrade my GPU in a couple months. Maybe a 1070.
I'm a little concerned about the i7. It shows as a 3.5ghz in the bundle but 4.0ghz seperate. I'm going to call to make sure it's a 4.0 before buying. It is a very cheap price for a 4.0 so that's the concern.
Otherwise, I save 30 as it's automatically bundled with the motherboard which is really nice.
Got everything today from micro center. No real problems. The place itself is pretty cool and it's nice knowing of it now, since it's only 45 min away.
Put everything together. Putting the CPU in was scary and the cooler I got was absolute living hell to install, but I finally got it to work.
For $500, I ended up with:
i7 6700k cooler cheap but functional motherboard 16 g of ram a nice case
After getting a few things settled with drivers, I got into BDO and performance is greatly increased. It's totally smooth where it was very hitchy before (my old CPU was hitting 100% constantly, this one hovers around 30-50%).
With high textures and very high graphics I'm getting a stable 25-30 fps, even in cities. It's pretty amazing. Not a high number but the stability is pretty shocking. I think I've been so used to my old CPU hitching everything I play that smooth gameplay is like a brand new thing.
Looks like my "budget video card" can do the job well enough. Turns out MMOs are pretty CPU reliant after all.
I'll be upgrading the GPU in the future but for now I can play everything well enough.
I think upgrading the ram helped out too. I only had 6g before, now I have 18 and it's using over 6 with BDO going.
Anyway, super happy, thanks a bunch to everyone especially 13lake.
If you wish to upgrade your Motherboard, CPU, or Memory then you have to upgraded them ALL at the same time, which forces you to buy a new Windows license for the new motherboard.
Sure you can look for a single compatible piece that will work with your system, but just changeing that 1 piece is not going to give you any noticeable improvement because it will not be enough of an upgrade.
Think of it in MMO terms. An Iron Sword is made up of an Iron Hilt, Iron Guard, and an Iron Blade. Now to be an Iron Sword you can only use Iron. If you had a Low Iron Blade, Low Iron Hilt, and Low Iron Guard....sure...you can upgrade each piece one at a time with High Iron pieces. But that High Iron Sword is not going to be much better then the Low Iron Sword.
Now to make a sword worth upgrading too, you need a Gold Sword. You need the Low Gold Hilt, Low Gold Blade, and Low Gold Guard.
What you are trying to do is upgrade two pieces of your Low Iron Hilt, Low Iron Guard, or Low Iron Blade with Low Gold pieces, and then saying you will just buy the other Low Gold piece later. This does not work.
If I recall all the old I3's are Dual Core. In some cases they were Hyper-threaded and they called them Quad's, but they were not true Quad Cores.
If you only upgrade to the I5 you would see some noticeable improvements and save some cost.
If you must upgrade to the I7 then your $500 is not going to cover the Motherboard, CPU, Memory, and OS License.
You best bet right now would be to just save for a little bit and then upgrade all at once.
How long have you played BDO... It gets old really fast. I dumped over $300 into it on release and it got bad before the end of the first 30 days with all its problems. If you have been playing less then 30 days, just give it a couple more weeks..then see if you still want to upgrade.
Think you missed my last post. I already got the cpu, cooler, mother board, ram and a case for 500.
I thought I might have to get a new windows 10, but turns out my machine worked fine with the expired windows 7 trial version I have on it. This thing works better than some heavily updated windows OS's I've had, lol.
Microcenter had some great prices. I kind of lucked out because the i7s were all selling out today (for 309 it was a steal).
mobo was 70 but I got 30 off with a combo. Ram was like 60 and I got 10 off with a coupon. Case was about 70.
Anyway, I probably could've gotten an i5, but for 309 why not get the i7 and futureproof my machine better?
As for your analogy, it's not like I don't have a GPU. I have a 950 that's like a month old.
I'm glad it's all working properly , if u don't mind me asking, what motherboard and case did you end up getting, i'm curious
Also if u can endure the hassle, you can wipe the win7, install it again without properly activating it, and update to win10 and make a microsoft account (switch from the local account) and it should properly link it(it might ask your cd key at some point to convert it to win10). This might get you a free and fully activated licence.
But it could also cause problems with the updating, and afterwards, so only do it after backing up all the important stuff you have on the hard drive, and if u want to spend a couple of days troubleshooting it
Even though the "free upgrade" is expiring july 29th, if everything is working ok atm i personally wouldn't bother with the upgrade now, but would do it in a few months (microsoft might extend the free upgrade period anyway).
Super happy with it. It's steel, white, has a cool window and the fans are ridiculously quiet and it has great cable management. Even comes with cool sliding slots to slip in SSDs.
This is the one piece I'm not too happy about and may change in the future, although I dread moving the cpu to a new one. You advised against it, but it was the only one under like 120 that microcenter had available.
I could've sprung for spending more and ate some ramen this week, but they all come with extra slots and stuff I don't need and won't need, so I didn't want to spend money on stuff I won't use for a really long time.
It works although there was a problem- the USB3 connector pins had a bent one so I couldn't connect the usb3 ports from the case to it. This is not a big issue since there are like 8 usb ports on the back, but it is a troubling flaw for sure. However, if this is the biggest problem with the whole deal, I'm totally fine with that. I have no use for usb3 anyway.
As for the upgrade, I've always been really happy with 7. I don't think I'd bother upgrading until I need to. The reason it was a concern was people were saying in reviews of the mobo that installing windows 7 on this mobo was a nightmare. But the thing basically worked immediately just plugging my ssd in. I had downloaded drivers for the mobo beforehand so that might've helped.
Oh, also, one last thing. The computer doesn't beep when I start it up. Not an issue but it's weird.
It's ok about the motherboard, i was only really worried about this other one MSI B150M Pro-VD, the gigabyte one should be fine.
U can try to straighten the pin, but you will only get 1 chance, maybe 2 before it breaks, so if u feel confident u can straighten on the first try, give it a go
U need a special little speaker, that's why it's not beeping, this specifically :
You plug it on on the lower right bottom of the motherboard, where the power and reset pins are, it should come with the case, but there is a chance that they just made it so the sounds go through the speaker instead, so the s340 doesn't ship with one
Yeah, dude, the case is crazy awesome. I look at it and smile every time. Really sophisticated looking.
I'll look into the beeper thing. There were some wires I didn't plug in from the case because I didn't think they were necessary, and I was fully expecting it not to work with my old OS so I didn't try to get it perfect. I'll do a once over now that it's done and confirmed to work. So it may be one of those or I may have to go get one- not a big deal.
Thanks again you were a super big help and I'm absolutely sure I wouldn't have gotten as good a deal as I did without your help!
Just in case anyone reading this thread is curious, my performance in BDO was increased by about 100%, not 20% like some were predicting. Keep in mind I upgraded RAM, too. The game was being bottlenecked by my CPU and my RAM.
It's now being bottlenecked by my GPU, but it looks fantastic to me. 42 fps running around in the wild on everything turned up except high-end mode.
Looking forward to upgrading my GPU, but the upgrade I did definitely improved performance in BDO and everything else.
The thing is, it's not fine. I'm playing BDO and my fps is locked at 30 if I play at medium, slightly-high, high, or very high graphics. Graphics look way different on the different settings, but fps is basically the same. This to me means my GPU is capable of putting in work but my CPU is not.
42 fps running around in the wild on everything turned up except high-end mode.
42 up from 30 is .... 40%. Sure, that's better than 20%, but most people are just going to think "Well, you still didn't hit 60 so what was the point"
For me, anything that is stable and above 30FPS is suitable, but I admit that I'm not as demanding as most people. For ~most~ people, the benchmark that gets applied is better than 60FPS. And that's the benchmark I assume most people are shooting for.
You still haven't quite hit that benchmark, and going from 30 to 60FPS would be your 100% performance increase.Ultimately, you are happy, and that's all that counts. Congratulations. It does remain to be seen if you had spent that same amount of money on just a GPU what it could have gotten you - so you may well have chosen the best course, I'm not saying you made a mistake.
The thing is, it's not fine. I'm playing BDO and my fps is locked at 30 if I play at medium, slightly-high, high, or very high graphics. Graphics look way different on the different settings, but fps is basically the same. This to me means my GPU is capable of putting in work but my CPU is not.
42 fps running around in the wild on everything turned up except high-end mode.
42 up from 30 is .... 40%. Sure, that's better than 20%, but most people are just going to think "Well, you still didn't hit 60 so what was the point"
For me, anything that is stable and above 30FPS is suitable, but I admit that I'm not as demanding as most people. For ~most~ people, the benchmark that gets applied is better than 60FPS. And that's the benchmark I assume most people are shooting for.
You still haven't quite hit that benchmark, and going from 30 to 60FPS would be your 100% performance increase.Ultimately, you are happy, and that's all that counts. Congratulations. It does remain to be seen if you had spent that same amount of money on just a GPU what it could have gotten you - so you may well have chosen the best course, I'm not saying you made a mistake.
Well, I kind of fudged those numbers a bit. On very high, I was getting about 22 fps. But more importantly, it was very unstable with lots of hitching. This is because both my RAM and CPU were being maxed out.
So while I may not be getting exactly double the fps on all the settings, the performance is actually dramatically better.
I would've experienced that same kind of unstable hitching if I got a 1080x, guaranteed. I suppose it's possible the fps number would've been higher, but the game wouldn't actually look or feel as good as it does now.
When I play now, nothing is maxed out. So if I encounter more things loading in (which is constantly in BDO), my comp has no problem keeping up with it.
With a crazy good GPU and my old system, I could stand still with no other people around and maybe get like 90 fps. But if I moved or two people moved into my screen, the game would hitch.
Moving around in a city was a total nightmare. I couldn't even stand to look at it and would auto-run through. Constantly stuttering everywhere (but my fps showed 22-30). Now it's smooth as silk.
I also experienced the same kind of hitching in BnS, despite getting decent fps. It is super annoying and immersion-breaking.
I think good GPUs are critical for getting very high FPS, but the rest of the computer is critical for smooth gameplay.
Another update. I started playing SMITE again and I'm getting 150 stable fps on max settings (the most fps you can get). I'm not sure how much of it is the 950 and how much of it is the i7, but it's a huge improvement over my old 460 and i3 where I was getting around 30 unstable fps on mediumish settings.
Still very happy with my purchase here. It's really nice to have a good processor for the first time in my life. The whole computer experience is just better. My computer finally really feels like a modern computer.
Oh watch out with getting a Corsair closed loop liquid cooler. Their fans can get very loud. If the temperatures are find, it makes sense to just use stock coolers and case fans.
Comments
8gb is pretty light on RAM, you will be disk writing a lot. (12gb is about the minimum system memory)
Not saying you need to go elite and spend tons of cash, but waiting until you have another $60 will offer much better everyday use out of the machine.
It's about 45 min away from me, but being able to have it the same day I buy it is pretty appealing, especially if I save some money.
And noted, Nightlite. Looks like I can get a good amount of RAM if I can get a mobo for $100 or less at microcenter.
http://www.microcenter.com/product/452121/Z170M_Pro4S_LGA_1151_mATX_Intel_Motherboard
and this a second choice for $100 :
http://www.microcenter.com/product/452536/GA-Z170M-D3H_LGA_1151_Intel_Motherboard
but as u can see they are way more expensive than the newegg one for $68
this one is not that good of a choice, but u could get away with it it's $70 at microcenter :
http://www.microcenter.com/product/458730/GA-B150M-DS3H_LGA_1151_mATX_Intel_Motherboard
D3SH one (microcenter) has slightly worse sound card, and slightly worse LAN chip (irrelevant).
The only thing that worried me is why i was reluctant to recommend is the power delivery to the cpu, it probably will not make a difference, but it's step down, and there's a small chance it could cause problems with the 6700k.
As you pretty much have to buy the cpu cooler and the ram on Newegg because of the prices and availability i'd still advise to get the B150M-D3H without S on Newegg.
I almost forgot, if u do end up wanting to get something more at the microcenter, be sure to select the actual shop you are driving to on the website, just to make sure that they have those parts at that shop
For instance for the cpu cooler the Hyper T4 is also $30 and this thermaltake $35 http://www.microcenter.com/product/411580/HYPER_T4_CPU_COOLER
http://www.microcenter.com/product/457722/Frio_Silent_12_120mm_CPU_Cooler
but the cheapest ram is $12 more expensive :
http://www.microcenter.com/product/459105/16GB_2_x_8GB_DDR4-2400_PC4-19200_CL15_Desktop_Memory_Kit
So i guess technically if the microcenter had all of this in stock, and u wanted to get it all right away at the microcenter u could get it for $470-$475 with the worse motherboard and different ram (there's also some other nicer looking 2x8GB sticks for $3 bucks more)
And finally, any tips on putting the CPU into the motherboard and adding the cooler? I'll look up how to do it, but is there anything important I should look out for?
http://www.microcenter.com/product/461991/16GB_2_x_8GB_DDR4-2400_PC4-19200_Desktop_Memory_Kit
It's short so any CPU cooler will fit over it without the height being the problem, and it's high quality as well.
Always be careful with aligning the CPU properly before putting it in the socket to not bend the pins, orient the arrow on the cpu with the arrow on the motherboard and double/triple check (look up a video if you're not sure).
either be careful not to touch the silver IHS heatsink on top of the cpu to leave fingerprint smudges or simple clean the top of the cpu once you put in the slot with isopropyl alcohol and cotton wool u'd use for skin cuts (even toilet paper would be fine if it's smooth)
You can always fire up a video guide on your smartphone, linustechtips has a good one for sure.
Like this one for instance :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqjEXrlmUIQ
And don't forget the golden rule : always read the manuals for everything even if you've done it before
I'll update the thread with the results (as well as what kind of performance boost I get in BDO) for anyone curious.
The motherboard is cheap and only supports ram speed up to 2133, but apparently you can put in 2400 and it just caps it at 2133. I would just get 2133 sticks, but they only have 1 in stock.
Anyone see a problem with this? Let me know asap if you do because I'll be picking it up today or tomorrow.
http://pcpartpicker.com/list/m3Pqqk
Plan is to upgrade my GPU in a couple months. Maybe a 1070.
I'm a little concerned about the i7. It shows as a 3.5ghz in the bundle but 4.0ghz seperate. I'm going to call to make sure it's a 4.0 before buying. It is a very cheap price for a 4.0 so that's the concern.
Otherwise, I save 30 as it's automatically bundled with the motherboard which is really nice.
Put everything together. Putting the CPU in was scary and the cooler I got was absolute living hell to install, but I finally got it to work.
For $500, I ended up with:
i7 6700k
cooler
cheap but functional motherboard
16 g of ram
a nice case
After getting a few things settled with drivers, I got into BDO and performance is greatly increased. It's totally smooth where it was very hitchy before (my old CPU was hitting 100% constantly, this one hovers around 30-50%).
With high textures and very high graphics I'm getting a stable 25-30 fps, even in cities. It's pretty amazing. Not a high number but the stability is pretty shocking. I think I've been so used to my old CPU hitching everything I play that smooth gameplay is like a brand new thing.
Looks like my "budget video card" can do the job well enough. Turns out MMOs are pretty CPU reliant after all.
I'll be upgrading the GPU in the future but for now I can play everything well enough.
I think upgrading the ram helped out too. I only had 6g before, now I have 18 and it's using over 6 with BDO going.
Anyway, super happy, thanks a bunch to everyone especially 13lake.
Sure you can look for a single compatible piece that will work with your system, but just changeing that 1 piece is not going to give you any noticeable improvement because it will not be enough of an upgrade.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Think of it in MMO terms. An Iron Sword is made up of an Iron Hilt, Iron Guard, and an Iron Blade. Now to be an Iron Sword you can only use Iron. If you had a Low Iron Blade, Low Iron Hilt, and Low Iron Guard....sure...you can upgrade each piece one at a time with High Iron pieces. But that High Iron Sword is not going to be much better then the Low Iron Sword.
Now to make a sword worth upgrading too, you need a Gold Sword. You need the Low Gold Hilt, Low Gold Blade, and Low Gold Guard.
What you are trying to do is upgrade two pieces of your Low Iron Hilt, Low Iron Guard, or Low Iron Blade with Low Gold pieces, and then saying you will just buy the other Low Gold piece later. This does not work.
If you only upgrade to the I5 you would see some noticeable improvements and save some cost.
If you must upgrade to the I7 then your $500 is not going to cover the Motherboard, CPU, Memory, and OS License.
You best bet right now would be to just save for a little bit and then upgrade all at once.
How long have you played BDO... It gets old really fast. I dumped over $300 into it on release and it got bad before the end of the first 30 days with all its problems. If you have been playing less then 30 days, just give it a couple more weeks..then see if you still want to upgrade.
I thought I might have to get a new windows 10, but turns out my machine worked fine with the expired windows 7 trial version I have on it. This thing works better than some heavily updated windows OS's I've had, lol.
Microcenter had some great prices. I kind of lucked out because the i7s were all selling out today (for 309 it was a steal).
mobo was 70 but I got 30 off with a combo. Ram was like 60 and I got 10 off with a coupon. Case was about 70.
Anyway, I probably could've gotten an i5, but for 309 why not get the i7 and futureproof my machine better?
As for your analogy, it's not like I don't have a GPU. I have a 950 that's like a month old.
Also if u can endure the hassle, you can wipe the win7, install it again without properly activating it, and update to win10 and make a microsoft account (switch from the local account) and it should properly link it(it might ask your cd key at some point to convert it to win10). This might get you a free and fully activated licence.
But it could also cause problems with the updating, and afterwards, so only do it after backing up all the important stuff you have on the hard drive, and if u want to spend a couple of days troubleshooting it
Even though the "free upgrade" is expiring july 29th, if everything is working ok atm i personally wouldn't bother with the upgrade now, but would do it in a few months (microsoft might extend the free upgrade period anyway).
http://www.microcenter.com/product/438351/S340_ATX_Computer_Case_w-_Side_Window_-_White
Super happy with it. It's steel, white, has a cool window and the fans are ridiculously quiet and it has great cable management. Even comes with cool sliding slots to slip in SSDs.
This is the motherboard:
http://www.microcenter.com/product/458730/GA-B150M-DS3H_LGA_1151_mATX_Intel_Motherboard
This is the one piece I'm not too happy about and may change in the future, although I dread moving the cpu to a new one. You advised against it, but it was the only one under like 120 that microcenter had available.
I could've sprung for spending more and ate some ramen this week, but they all come with extra slots and stuff I don't need and won't need, so I didn't want to spend money on stuff I won't use for a really long time.
It works although there was a problem- the USB3 connector pins had a bent one so I couldn't connect the usb3 ports from the case to it. This is not a big issue since there are like 8 usb ports on the back, but it is a troubling flaw for sure. However, if this is the biggest problem with the whole deal, I'm totally fine with that. I have no use for usb3 anyway.
As for the upgrade, I've always been really happy with 7. I don't think I'd bother upgrading until I need to. The reason it was a concern was people were saying in reviews of the mobo that installing windows 7 on this mobo was a nightmare. But the thing basically worked immediately just plugging my ssd in. I had downloaded drivers for the mobo beforehand so that might've helped.
Oh, also, one last thing. The computer doesn't beep when I start it up. Not an issue but it's weird.
It's ok about the motherboard, i was only really worried about this other one MSI B150M Pro-VD, the gigabyte one should be fine.
U can try to straighten the pin, but you will only get 1 chance, maybe 2 before it breaks, so if u feel confident u can straighten on the first try, give it a go
U need a special little speaker, that's why it's not beeping, this specifically :
You plug it on on the lower right bottom of the motherboard, where the power and reset pins are, it should come with the case, but there is a chance that they just made it so the sounds go through the speaker instead, so the s340 doesn't ship with one
I'll look into the beeper thing. There were some wires I didn't plug in from the case because I didn't think they were necessary, and I was fully expecting it not to work with my old OS so I didn't try to get it perfect. I'll do a once over now that it's done and confirmed to work. So it may be one of those or I may have to go get one- not a big deal.
Thanks again you were a super big help and I'm absolutely sure I wouldn't have gotten as good a deal as I did without your help!
It's now being bottlenecked by my GPU, but it looks fantastic to me. 42 fps running around in the wild on everything turned up except high-end mode.
Looking forward to upgrading my GPU, but the upgrade I did definitely improved performance in BDO and everything else.
Just checking your math though:
42 up from 30 is .... 40%. Sure, that's better than 20%, but most people are just going to think "Well, you still didn't hit 60 so what was the point"
For me, anything that is stable and above 30FPS is suitable, but I admit that I'm not as demanding as most people. For ~most~ people, the benchmark that gets applied is better than 60FPS. And that's the benchmark I assume most people are shooting for.
You still haven't quite hit that benchmark, and going from 30 to 60FPS would be your 100% performance increase.Ultimately, you are happy, and that's all that counts. Congratulations. It does remain to be seen if you had spent that same amount of money on just a GPU what it could have gotten you - so you may well have chosen the best course, I'm not saying you made a mistake.
So while I may not be getting exactly double the fps on all the settings, the performance is actually dramatically better.
I would've experienced that same kind of unstable hitching if I got a 1080x, guaranteed. I suppose it's possible the fps number would've been higher, but the game wouldn't actually look or feel as good as it does now.
When I play now, nothing is maxed out. So if I encounter more things loading in (which is constantly in BDO), my comp has no problem keeping up with it.
With a crazy good GPU and my old system, I could stand still with no other people around and maybe get like 90 fps. But if I moved or two people moved into my screen, the game would hitch.
Moving around in a city was a total nightmare. I couldn't even stand to look at it and would auto-run through. Constantly stuttering everywhere (but my fps showed 22-30). Now it's smooth as silk.
I also experienced the same kind of hitching in BnS, despite getting decent fps. It is super annoying and immersion-breaking.
I think good GPUs are critical for getting very high FPS, but the rest of the computer is critical for smooth gameplay.
Still very happy with my purchase here. It's really nice to have a good processor for the first time in my life. The whole computer experience is just better. My computer finally really feels like a modern computer.