Opinion on prospective build

dreamer05

I am looking to build a new setup through Origin. (Please spare me the "build your own it's cheaper" comments because that's not going to happen.) First of all, does anyone have experiences with Origin? I looked through the other PC building companies and they seem to have the best customer service and reviews.

Here is the setup I'm looking to buy:

Configuration

• Orientation: Standard
• Standard Color: White
• Interior Color: Black
• Current Special Offers: Back to School Promo
• The ORIGIN Difference: ORIGIN PC Millennium- The Best Gaming Experience Guaranteed
• Variable Mounting: Standard
• Case Lighting with Sentinel: Remote Controlled Multi-Colored LED with ORIGIN PC Sentinel Software
• Case Fans with Sentinel: ORIGIN PC High-Performance Ultra Silent Fans
• Power Supply: 850 Watt EVGA SuperNOVA G2
• Power Supply Sleeved Cable Color: White Individually Sleeved Cables EVGA
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI
• System Cooling: ORIGIN FROSTBYTE 120 Sealed Liquid Cooling System for 1151 Socket
• Processors: Intel Core i7 6700K Quad-Core 4.0GHz (4.2GHz TurboBoost)
• Graphic Cards: Single 2GB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960
• Memory: 16GB ORIGIN PC DDR4 Powered by Kingston 2400MHz (2 X 8GB)
• Operating System: MS Windows 10 Home
• Operating System Drive #1 (Primary): 1TB Seagate Solid State Hybrid Drive
• Hard Drive Cage: 5 Bay Hot-Swap Cage
• Optical Drive One: 24X CD/DVD Burner
• Audio: On Board High Definition 8-Channel Audio
• Networking: ASUS PCE-AC68 Dual-band Wireless-AC1900 Adapter
• ORIGIN Maximum Protection Shipping Process: ORIGIN Wooden Crate Armor
• Warranty: Lifetime 24/7 U.S. Based Support and Lifetime Free Labor. 1 Year Part Replacement & 45 Day Shipping Warranty
• ORIGIN Recovery: ORIGIN Recovery USB3.0 Flash Drive
• Evolve Part Upgrade Service: No Part Upgrade Service
• Free ORIGIN PC T-shirt: ORIGIN PC T-Shirt Extra Large
• Apps: Battle.net Client
• Apps: Origin powered by EA
• Apps: Steam (The Ultimate Online Game Platform)
• Apps: Razer Synapse 2.0
• Extras: FREE Online Game: League of Legends
• Web Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer/*Edge
• Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox

I'm not looking for an insanely OP system that can overclock (whatever that means). I just want to play games on highest setting smoothly. Any opinions are appreciated!

dreamer05

Stizzled said:

I don't really see the need for the $350 I7 paired with just a $170 960. That 960 is probably not going to be getting you the highest settings either, especially with only 2GB of VRAM, depending on how new the game is of course.

I'd also suggest getting an SSD. I didn't see the need until I got one, now I can't go back to a HDD.

  I was trying to save a little money when I can eventually upgrade the gpu. Same thing with the SSD. They're extremely expensive and can go downhill without warning. Hybrids are cheaper and combine the strengths of the two.

Malabooga

Dont buy GTX960, new gen cards are out, AMD RX480 is ~70% faster than GTX960 and costs 199$ for 4GB model, RX470 should be out very soon, ~55% faster than GTX960 for 150-170$ and if you play in 1080p you wont have to upgrade for a long time.

And dont buy hybrid HDD, if you want to go that route much better is 60/120GB SDD and regular HDD (though i dont know what they have in offer in that area)

Quizzical

dreamer05 said:

Stizzled said:

I don't really see the need for the $350 I7 paired with just a $170 960. That 960 is probably not going to be getting you the highest settings either, especially with only 2GB of VRAM, depending on how new the game is of course.

I'd also suggest getting an SSD. I didn't see the need until I got one, now I can't go back to a HDD.

  I was trying to save a little money when I can eventually upgrade the gpu. Same thing with the SSD. They're extremely expensive and can go downhill without warning. Hybrids are cheaper and combine the strengths of the two.

You have it backwards.  "Hybrid" drives combine the weaknesses of a hard drive with those of an SSD.  Performance isn't much different from a plain old 7200 RPM hard drive.  Indeed, if the base hard drive in the "hybrid" drive is only 5400 RPM (as some of them are), that might actually be worse than a plain 7200 RPM hard drive.  A computer without a good SSD is slow, no matter what else is in it.

You're really putting money in the wrong places, I think.  The CPU, memory, motherboard, and power supply look like they could have come from a $1500 self-built gaming rig, of the sort that would cost you over $2000 to get from Origin.  But the budget video card is the sort of sacrifice that you'd make to fit a $700 budget, while the lack of an SSD is completely unacceptable on a $600 budget.  SSDs used to be really expensive, but these days, you can get more than 4 GB per dollar.

If you're willing to wait a little bit, the Radeon RX 480 should soon be in stock.  The 4 GB version of the RX 480 is only slightly more expensive than a GTX 960, but it's a massively better card.  On a larger budget, the GTX 1070 is starting to show up in stock, and the GTX 1080 will do so eventually, too.

dreamer05

Quizzical said:

dreamer05 said:

Stizzled said:

I don't really see the need for the $350 I7 paired with just a $170 960. That 960 is probably not going to be getting you the highest settings either, especially with only 2GB of VRAM, depending on how new the game is of course.

I'd also suggest getting an SSD. I didn't see the need until I got one, now I can't go back to a HDD.

  I was trying to save a little money when I can eventually upgrade the gpu. Same thing with the SSD. They're extremely expensive and can go downhill without warning. Hybrids are cheaper and combine the strengths of the two.

You have it backwards.  "Hybrid" drives combine the weaknesses of a hard drive with those of an SSD.  Performance isn't much different from a plain old 7200 RPM hard drive.  Indeed, if the base hard drive in the "hybrid" drive is only 5400 RPM (as some of them are), that might actually be worse than a plain 7200 RPM hard drive.  A computer without a good SSD is slow, no matter what else is in it.

You're really putting money in the wrong places, I think.  The CPU, memory, motherboard, and power supply look like they could have come from a $1500 self-built gaming rig, of the sort that would cost you over $2000 to get from Origin.  But the budget video card is the sort of sacrifice that you'd make to fit a $700 budget, while the lack of an SSD is completely unacceptable on a $600 budget.  SSDs used to be really expensive, but these days, you can get more than 4 GB per dollar.

If you're willing to wait a little bit, the Radeon RX 480 should soon be in stock.  The 4 GB version of the RX 480 is only slightly more expensive than a GTX 960, but it's a massively better card.  On a larger budget, the GTX 1070 is starting to show up in stock, and the GTX 1080 will do so eventually, too.

So the CPU, memory, motherboard, and power supply are good, but I need SSD and a better video card? I know the gpu isn't the best, but I was concerned with getting the best cpu so that the computer will last longer, and I can upgrade the gpu eventually.

dreamer05

Also, a couple of people have suggested AMD, but I thought the consensus was Nvidia was always ahead as far as gpus go, is that no longer the case? I'm not extremely tech savy so really only going by what Google tells m

Quizzical

dreamer05 said:

Quizzical said:

dreamer05 said:

Stizzled said:

I don't really see the need for the $350 I7 paired with just a $170 960. That 960 is probably not going to be getting you the highest settings either, especially with only 2GB of VRAM, depending on how new the game is of course.

I'd also suggest getting an SSD. I didn't see the need until I got one, now I can't go back to a HDD.

  I was trying to save a little money when I can eventually upgrade the gpu. Same thing with the SSD. They're extremely expensive and can go downhill without warning. Hybrids are cheaper and combine the strengths of the two.

You have it backwards.  "Hybrid" drives combine the weaknesses of a hard drive with those of an SSD.  Performance isn't much different from a plain old 7200 RPM hard drive.  Indeed, if the base hard drive in the "hybrid" drive is only 5400 RPM (as some of them are), that might actually be worse than a plain 7200 RPM hard drive.  A computer without a good SSD is slow, no matter what else is in it.

You're really putting money in the wrong places, I think.  The CPU, memory, motherboard, and power supply look like they could have come from a $1500 self-built gaming rig, of the sort that would cost you over $2000 to get from Origin.  But the budget video card is the sort of sacrifice that you'd make to fit a $700 budget, while the lack of an SSD is completely unacceptable on a $600 budget.  SSDs used to be really expensive, but these days, you can get more than 4 GB per dollar.

If you're willing to wait a little bit, the Radeon RX 480 should soon be in stock.  The 4 GB version of the RX 480 is only slightly more expensive than a GTX 960, but it's a massively better card.  On a larger budget, the GTX 1070 is starting to show up in stock, and the GTX 1080 will do so eventually, too.

So the CPU, memory, motherboard, and power supply are good, but I need SSD and a better video card? I know the gpu isn't the best, but I was concerned with getting the best cpu so that the computer will last longer, and I can upgrade the gpu eventually.

A lot is just a question of what you're willing to spend.  If you're on some fixed budget, putting too much money into the CPU and motherboard means you have to cut back further than you should somewhere else.  So if adding an SSD and a better video card means you have to cut back somewhere else, getting a cheaper motherboard, a lower wattage (but not lower quality!) power supply, a Core i5-6600K CPU, and perhaps 8 GB of memory (still as two modules, but 4 GB each) are the natural places to cut back.

If you're not on a fixed budget but could spend whatever it takes to get what you want even if it costs $3000, then yeah, get an SSD and get a faster video card.  You probably want one of the new generation cards (Radeon RX 400 series or GeForce GTX 1000 series) unless you absolutely have to buy it right now.  I don't know if Origin offers the new generation cards, as supplies are still very tight, but if they don't yet, they will soon.

If you're on a really tight budget, then buying from Origin is a waste of money.  But if you're the sort of person with plenty of spare money but not much free time to spend on assembling a computer, then buying from a boutique PC vendor like Origin makes perfect sense.

Malabooga

It was true for a period of time over a year ago. Ever since AMD has released 300 series unless you go to enthusiast level or bottom level AMD had better cards (R9 Fury/R9 390/R9 380x/R9380 than NVidias GTX980/970/960)

But new generation of video cards is out and RX480 is best midrange card by far. Its ~70% faster than GTX960 and costs MSRP 199$ for 4GB model while GTX960 still costs 160-200$.

dreamer05

Configuration

• Orientation: Standard
• Standard Color: White
• Interior Color: Black
• Current Special Offers: Back to School Promo
• The ORIGIN Difference: ORIGIN PC Millennium- The Best Gaming Experience Guaranteed
• Variable Mounting: Standard
• Case Lighting with Sentinel: Remote Controlled Multi-Colored LED with ORIGIN PC Sentinel Software
• Case Fans with Sentinel: ORIGIN PC High-Performance Ultra Silent Fans
• Power Supply: 850 Watt EVGA SuperNOVA G2
• Power Supply Sleeved Cable Color: White Individually Sleeved Cables EVGA
• Motherboard: GIGABYTE Z170XP-SLI
• System Cooling: ORIGIN FROSTBYTE 120 Sealed Liquid Cooling System for 1151 Socket
• Processors: Intel Core i7 6700K Quad-Core 4.0GHz (4.2GHz TurboBoost)
• Graphic Cards: Single 8GB AMD Radeon RX 480
• Memory: 16GB ORIGIN PC DDR4 Powered by Kingston 2666MHz (2 X 8GB)
• Operating System: MS Windows 10 Home
• Operating System Drive #1 (Primary): 1TB Samsung 850 Evo Series
• Hard Drive Cage: 5 Bay Hot-Swap Cage
• Optical Drive One: 24X CD/DVD Burner
• Audio: On Board High Definition 8-Channel Audio
• Networking: ASUS PCE-AC68 Dual-band Wireless-AC1900 Adapter
• ORIGIN Maximum Protection Shipping Process: ORIGIN Wooden Crate Armor
• Warranty: Lifetime 24/7 U.S. Based Support and Lifetime Free Labor. 1 Year Part Replacement & 45 Day Shipping Warranty
• ORIGIN Recovery: ORIGIN Recovery USB3.0 Flash Drive
• Evolve Part Upgrade Service: No Part Upgrade Service
• Free ORIGIN PC T-shirt: ORIGIN PC T-Shirt Extra Large
• Web Browser: Microsoft Internet Explorer/*Edge

How about this setup? I went for full SSD and the RX 480 wasn't much more. The SSD really is extremely expensive compared to the hybrid and mechanical standard. What benefits does the SSD bring?

dreamer05

Thanks for the input on the video card! The RX 480 was only a bit more in price. The second configuration I posted is about $300 more than the first one, but it sounds like the full SSD may be worth it. The only way I could cut back a little would be getting less than 1TB, but 500GB seems so low these days?

Malabooga

Looks good, im not sure what SSDs they offer but small SSD of 60/120 GB+regular HDD should not cost much more than hybrid if big SSD is too much

SSD increases speed of loading anything considerably over HDD. Its really night and day. Most important is to install Windows on SSD as it will load extremely fast. Thats first priority. Then whatever space you have left you can use for games.

Regular HDD OTOH is much better option for storage and large data files like pictures/movies/songs.....anything that doesnt really "load" (is not application).

Hybrids have very small SSD in them just for cache purposes, and while those speed up things somewhat, generally its not worth it really.

So if you want the best compromise you go small SSD (60/120GB to use for windows and games that have lot of loading)+regular HDD for everything else. IF you dont mind spending a lot of money you can go full SSD.

Quizzical

At a high level, the advantage of an SSD is that when you tell your computer to do something, it just does it, rather than taking its sweet time before getting around to it eventually.  I can give a longer explanation of why in a bit.

Even if you need 1 TB of storage, it doesn't follow that you need a 1 TB SSD.  It's common to get 256 GB or 512 GB SSD as well as a larger hard drive for bulk storage.  Install your real programs on the SSD and bulk media on the hard drive.

There's also the question of just how much space you need at all.  Check how much you're actually using on your current computer.  If you double that, you'll have plenty of capacity.  There's no need to get 1 TB of storage if you're only using 100 GB now.  If you get an SSD only and run out of space later, it's easy to add a hard drive later.

Personally, I have a 480 GB SSD and no hard drive.  A year ago, it was a 240 GB SSD and no hard drive.  Three years ago, I had a 120 GB SSD and no hard drive.  Hard drives have been purely backup drives for me since 2009, as once you get used to the performance of an SSD, you can never go back to hard drives.

Quizzical

Malabooga said:

So if you want the best compromise you go small SSD (60/120GB to use for windows and games that have lot of loading)+regular HDD for everything else. IF you dont mind spending a lot of money you can go full SSD.

That used to be the case, but now that you can get 240 GB for $60, I don't see any real need to go smaller than that on an SSD.

Malabooga

oh, and you really really dont need 850W power supply. You can save few $ and go for 650W, and use that money to get bigger SSD.

as a recommendation

dreamer05

I had read about using HHD as secondary storage, but I don't think I'm savvy enough to keep things separate or know how to. I could save $213 by going down to 480, but I'm using about 700 GB right now, although I keep a lot of games around that I don't really play.

Malabooga

Its not a biggie, youll had disk (C) which will be SSD and disk(D) which will be HDD. Install games/programs/applications on (C) and pictures.....media files, general storage, backups on (D).

I just went through origin and it seems

480GB ORIGIN PC Approved Solid State Drive  [+$84]
+
1TB ORIGIN PC Approved Hard Drive

is a winner

ANd yes, RX480 is a no brainer, it performs in between r9 390 and r9 390x and you can see how much those cost heh

mbrodie

Malabooga said:

oh, and you really really dont need 850W power supply. You can save few $ and go for 650W, and use that money to get bigger SSD.

as a recommendation

cutting pack on the PSU is a great option and an i5 is still a highly respectable CPU if you're on a budget, between the PSU and CPU if you downgraded them you'd probably save $150 and then you could invest some money back into a storage HDD without comrpimising much...

the benefits of the i7 over the i5 are only really going to show up if you plan on doing a bunch of multitasking or using applications that actually use that many multicore processes as it stands barely any games actually have true multicore support and those that do will run amazing on an i5.

dreamer05

Malabooga said:

oh, and you really really dont need 850W power supply. You can save few $ and go for 650W, and use that money to get bigger SSD.

as a recommendation

Would 650 be enough for a single video card use, even with a possible upgrade to a higher end gpu later on?

Malabooga

Yes, your system wont use more than 300W, you can even throw in another video card and youd still have watts to spare

video card: 155W
CPU: ~120W
Fans and stuff: max 30W

full load ~305W

plenty of Watts left if you want to upgrade, add another GPU... ... ...

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dreamer05

I actually built a system through Digital Storm that allowed for the 1TB SSD AND the GeForce GTX 1070 for almost $300 less than Origin. Think I found my system! About $2200.

Malabooga

Well the Origin one comes out at 1852$ with 480GB SSD and RX480

Getting GTX1070 thats ~40-50% faster than RX480 is another 300$

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Malabooga

Mtibbs1989 said:

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/HpyyXH

Okay, if you want to save nearly 700.00 USD with better overall performance and if you want to build it yourself I've priced the parts for you.

First post

"(Please spare me the "build your own it's cheaper" comments because that's not going to happen.)"

dreamer05

Malabooga said:

Well the Origin one comes out at 1852$ with 480GB SSD and RX480

Getting GTX1070 thats ~40-50% faster than RX480 is another 300$

Hmm the Origins one I had built was at $2578.

EDIT: I was building the Millennium, but it's around your price when building the Neuron, which doesn't have the same motherboard options like the Asus Pro.

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