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Advice requested on new PC build
Hello tech-savvy dudes 
My ~3,5 year old PC recently started dying down, so it's time for something new. Usually I've been fine with keeping my PC's inside strict budget builds, but as I've got some disposable savings & income I was looking for a PC along the mid-end prices.
I'm not too sure whether all my choices make sense though, so I'd definitely appreciate it if some of you veteran builders take a look at the parts list here: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wvqNsY
Not too sure about my choice of motherboard / powersource. I also decided to put that R 290 in over the R 280X I was eyeballing first because the price difference wasn't as big as I thought. At my local retailer it's 40 euros more expensive.
The case normally comes with 4 fans included (3 x 120 mm / 1x 140 mm), the total price over here is € 1387,69.
I'm European, so no Newegg etc. for me (yet).
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Comments
Heya, I did compare the prices between different retailers in Europe and ended up with more or less the same price across the board.
I'm looking to buy from a local retailer / webshop near me because:
1) They offer free assembly, which spares me several hours.
2) They offer free support afterwards + extended warranties.
3) I like supporting the local economy.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
That doesn't answer the question. There is no such thing as a generic local shop, but only particular shops. I want to see prices at the place you're looking to buy.
Often an inventory will have two parts that are basically identical except that one of them costs twice as much. Now, if you've got more money than you know what to do with but are merely short on time, maybe you don't care if you pay double what a computer is worth. But that doesn't seem to describe you.
That you think assembly, support, and extended warranties are "free" makes me think you're likely to overpay and badly. Nothing is free; at best, those things are paid for in the form of higher base prices on the parts. If it means the parts cost 10% more to subsidize costs of assembly and support, that might be worth it to you. If it means the parts cost double what they would elsewhere, that might not be such a good deal anymore.
Intel Core i5-4690K (3.5-3.9Ghz - 4C/4T - 6MB € 209,90
Asus Z97-A (Z97, 4xDDR3, 3xPCI-Express x16,4x SATA € 139,90
Kingston 16GB DDR3 HyperX Fury Black (1866Mhz) € 159,90
Asus Radeon R9 290 (4GB GDDR5 - 947 MHz / 6000 Mhz. € 389,90
Judge for yourself then, VAT is included on everything. I know that ordering from a nearby shop is often more expensive. But as long as there's no going massively overboard with prices I'm not too unhappy to have the added personal advice and service.
I'm not one to go searching for every single offer on Amazon or whatever. Kudos to those that do and succeed, but I simply don't have the time + bad experiences with that.
Before all, I'd like some rating / advice on the parts themselves and not the price
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Parts-wise, looks like a good build. It would work fine as-is.
You may or may not want an optical drive. DVD-RW drives are dirt cheap, although the only time a lot of people use them is to install the OS.
Also, your missing a copy of the OS. If you already have one, fine.
Your pairing a K-CPU for overclocking and some moderately high end components with one of Asus' lowest end motherboards. It's a solid motherboard for a more budget-minded and bare bones build: http://www.hardocp.com/article/2014/08/21/asus_z97a_lga_1150_motherboard_review/7, but it's a basic motherboard with not much in bells and whistles, and your in a moderate bells and whistles budget here. Nothing wrong with it, just pointing it out for your consideration.
K-level CPU you should at least get some basic aftermarket heatsink. The OEM Intel one is crappy. Anything with at least 4 heat pipes and a vertical fan will perform drastically better. They can be found fairly inexpensive ($~25 US) if you don't want to go all the way up to semi-pro level Overclocking options.
I'd also caution against 16Gb of RAM - 8 is overkill for most boxes, and you can always add another 2 sticks easily later on. But I won't fault you for it if you have plans to actually use it (RAM drive, some specific 64-bit application, etc).
Yeah, you could always do cheaper, but you have some solid brand names and items in here, it will build a solid PC with a minimum of hassle. I'm like you, I don't care about "the best" deal, as long as it's good enough price I'd rather support brands I trust from vendors I trust, and there is value in that for me.
I actually just went out of my way to copy the info from their webshop for you
It's in Dutch and they don't have permalinks, so it likely wouldn't do you much good visiting yourself.
Anyway, I did compare the prices to two other webshops and import from the Netherlands (it's usually cheaper there, I'm in Belgium) but it didn't turn out cheaper, in fact it was more expensive when you counted in the delivery.
@Ridelynn
Thanks for the advice, I do have the OS standing by (Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit) and I've already got a portable optical drive, so no problemo.
You're probably right on the memory, I went with 16 gb because I do have some plans for heavy duty applications, but it isn't going to be needed anytime soon.
Do you have any other advice or suggestions for the motherboard?
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
The motherboard probably wasn't the best choice, I was unsure about what to pick honestly.
I'll look into changing that part of the build. If you have suggestions, they're welcome!
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Check out these motherboards, staying inside the Asus brand:
Asus Sabretooth Z97
Asus Maximus VII Hero
Those are a bit snazzier, provide more features, and won't break the bank. There are also higher editions of the basic Z97 lineup (Deluxe, WS< Pro, WiFi, etc).
That being said, the basic Z97 you have picked will work fine, overclock a decent bit, and work ok. These other editions will just let you go a bit farther - better cooling, better overclocking, better built-in sound and LAN, more SATA options, etc.
Ugh, well im not much of an expert, but i would defo pick something else than a core i5.
I'd check out the i7 section. It is more expensive, but we all know, ghz isn't everything (overclock).
Ugh, well im not much of an expert, but i would defo pick something else than a core i5.
I'd check out the i7 section. It is more expensive, but we all know, ghz isn't everything (overclock).
All Socket 1150 Core i5/i7's are pretty much "APUs" -- although I hesitate to call them that.
For gaming, an i5 and i7 are virtually identical.
Ah I thought you meant integrated graphics.
I dunno, as Ridelynn said, most games have trouble taking advantage of multi-threading in my experience. So I don't really see the benefit.
Perhaps I'm wrong, I'm not an expert by any means (which is why I'm asking for advice). But that seems to be the consensus from what I gather, and it sort of adds up to my own experience.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
Yeah, you are right, i forgot to add, socket 2011 when i mentioned i7.
Whenever i talk about it, i forget that there are i7 apus as well.
But yeah, that means another motherboard as well.
My biggest gripe with this "new" digital age is companies not making (correct) use of it. Launchers that somehow are not able to use your full bandwith and always crawl at like 200 kb/s for a 20 GB game. Also, the need to update games immediately after installing, especially for MMOs. How difficult can it be to create an updated installer? Some games never recieve one, so you have to download like 10 patches with a total of 30 GB right after installing.
Combine that with the slow speed you need like a whole week before you finally can play it from the moment you press "install". Other games do like to switch between "downloading" and "patching" when updating. And while on "patching", it really will not download anything. So you may have to wait half an hour to download a few hundred MB, then you have to wait another half hour for it to apply the patch, then it will again download at a slow speed, again apply the patch..
Why can't it download everything in one go and patch afterwards? Or even better, start applying the patch while still downloading.
At least launchers that can not deal with interrupted downloads and begin at 0% even when you had 19,9GB out of 20 GB are (mostly) a thing of the past.
I'll wait to the day's end when the moon is high
And then I'll rise with the tide with a lust for life, I'll
Amass an army, and we'll harness a horde
And then we'll limp across the land until we stand at the shore
I think you meant to reply to the thread about steam and other platforms I replied to earlier as well mate
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I actually LIKE having an APU instead of a normal CPU.
If my gfx card dies (or I take it out for any other reason) it means I don't have to look for another graphics card, plug it in and all that to have my desktop running. If you have a few working graphics cards lying around or you don't use your desktop for anything but gaming, then you can consider an alternative. I still don't think it's worth the hassle.
The "New" Haswell-E Socket 2011's are out. They use the new Z99 Chipset, which is a bit newer than Z97. Haswell-E's do not have integrated GPU (that is pretty much what an APU is, CPU with integrated GPU, although Intel GPUs are beyond horrible).
That being said, the Haswell-E's are in 6 and 8 core varieties, they only support the new (and very expensive) DDR-4 RAM, and you are going to pay a premium for the CPU, the RAM, and the motherboards. If you do a lot of CPU-intensive work (Movie transcoding, rendering, etc), or you are planning to go with Tri/Quad graphics cards - then you can make a case for the Z99 and Haswell-E.
A Haswell-E build could easily cost you $1,000 US more than a similar Z97 build. If your going Tri/Quad graphics, that's not a terribly significant increase because your already spending 2-4x that on your graphics cards alone. But if your total budget is around $1,500-$2,000, that's a whole lot more for what basically amounts to very little when it comes down to gaming experience.
Yeah, I was still trying to stay below 1500 euro (it's usually a 1:1 conversion to dollar more or less).
So while I could go for the 2011 socket, I think that would put me beyond the "mid range" I was aiming for.
Dunno, I could do it but the most important thing for me is to just be able to play most of the stuff coming out. It isn't really important for me to be on the complete razor's edge of every program.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
I'd question why you're going to pay extra for a K-series overclockable CPU and then not get an aftermarket cooler. Overclocking on the stock cooler is a mistake. A simple $30 cooler with a few heatpipes would let you get a decent overclock if you want to go that route.
I don't see any real need for 16 GB of system memory. It certainly isn't needed for gaming, and it's easy to add more if you later discover that you need more. Memory has also gotten more expensive lately, with 8 GB today costing more than 16 GB did in late 2012; I'm betting that memory prices are due for a drop soon.
There's also no advantage to faster memory unless you need to feed an integrated GPU--which you don't. If the 1866 MHz memory that you're looking at is the same price as 1600 MHz, then go ahead and get it. But don't pay a significant price premium for faster memory that doesn't matter. This sort of thing is why I kept asking for a link to the web site.
The Samsung 840 Evo seems to be usually a budget-quality SSD without the budget price tag. I'm not sure why it's so popular. If it's the cheapest ~240 GB SSD that the shop has, then sure, buy it. But if you can get, say, a Crucial MX100 or Mushkin Chronos (two SSDs that are good but commonly cheap) of the same capacity for 20% less, then I see no reason to pay extra for the Samsung.
I also see no point in paying extra for a Western Digital Black hard drive over a cheaper hard drive of the same capacity. Several years ago, when you were going to run real programs on the hard drive because SSDs were so expensive, paying extra for a WD Caviar Black rather than a slower hard drive made sense. But today, anything performance sensitive is going to run off of the SSD.
Do note that Windows isn't typically transferable from one computer to another, even if you uninstall it from the previous computer. If you do happen to have a genuine Windows 7 Ultimate license laying around that you've never used before, then go ahead and use it.
You're completely missing an optical drive and have picked a case that doesn't have room to mount an optical drive. Windows comes on a DVD. It is possible to transfer it to other media and install it without an optical drive for the installation itself, but do make sure that you have some way to do that. Though if you're using your Windows license and paying someone else to put it together, I'd advise you to make sure that that's going to work somehow.
You could get a substantially cheaper case that will readily handle everything you need. But if you love that particular case, I'm not going to try to talk you out of getting it.
You don't actually need a 750 W power supply. I'd typically recommend 650 W for high end single GPU gaming rigs, and often less for lower end rigs. But the reason to get less wattage is to save money; sometimes prices line up such that getting a 750 W power supply is the same price as getting a comparable quality 650 W one, and then there's nothing wrong with getting the extra wattage. But I can't check if that's the situation without seeing their prices.
Also importantly, none of the parts you've picked out strike me as the sort of cheap junk "oh no you're going to fry something" variety. In particular, a lot of power supplies are like that, but you've picked out a quality one.
Just because a chip has a GPU built in doesn't mean that you have to use it. It also has a video encode block built in, and basically no one uses that. Sure, it's a waste of silicon, but CPUs are limited more by power than transistor count these days, and if you go out of your way to avoid chips that waste transistors on something you have no use for, you basically can't buy a CPU at all.
Are 16GB already necessary these days? I'm doing quite well with 8GB, but then again, RAM is not so expensive anyway.
I'd also make sure to have a second screen. And pay the 70€ to 80€ for a surround sound system.
Let's play Fallen Earth (blind, 300 episodes)
Let's play Guild Wars 2 (blind, 45 episodes)
Thanks again for the advice.
I'm toning down the 16 gb to 8 gb of a cheaper sort as I don't really need it right now. I'll slice a bit off the power source and I'll have a friend give me some advice on a motherboard that matches up with the processor better. Also getting an afftermarket cooler so I can overclock a little.
The optical drive doesn't matter, I was already using a portable DVD writer. I know how to put windows on a USB.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!