Originally posted by Cramit845 Well, I am taking everyone's opinions into consideration into what I'm looking at. Some of the things that Gdemami is saying I can kinda understand but others I don't get because it doesn't go with my experience in building pc's at home and professionally.1.) I would go dual channel in this day and age. No question2.) I would get a MB with at least 4 DIMM slots for RAM. I understand his MB only has 2, but I would only do a build like that if I was building a home theater box where space is an issue.3.) The CPU choice seems unremarkable and not sure if I would necessarily spend the money for that, although still doing research on some of the suggested parts from this thread. At this point I am looking at parts suggestions. Price is a factor because if I can find a build I really like, I may start purchasing it this week once Christmas shopping is done or I may wait if I am still undecided. So post a build or not and just suggest specific parts, all of that is fine and much appreciated. I am terrible with hardware, currently, as stated above, this weekend is going to be my primary researching point. I keep finding reasons to keep the build cheaper from my original estimated price tag merely because, like one of the above posters suggested, not having $1000+ to spend on an i7 makes me feel like I'm out of the intel price point. Now that may not be true with an i5 so still playing with that idea, but haven't read anything stating that any of the other i5's are worth as much as the i5-4690(k) and that definitely pushes me to the brink of my original price tag. This all makes AMD more attractive and I'm going to be spending the day looking at their processors and trying to get more of a handle on it all. Hopefully I will also see if there are some other less expensive i5 models that are close to 4690 that may be worth it, which will also allow me to look at that one suggested by Gdemami.
I understand you fully, but desktops are not servers
1) The problem with Dual Channel for desktops is the scale of operation you do there. It might provide some benefit in performance, the scale is a key factor. ie. you can see some 3 or 4% better performance but how often are you compressing 9GB files or decrompress videos?
Read the link above I posted. Any other test you find will tell you the same.
2) The problem with intel MB is that any higher chipsets(more DRAM slots) are substantially more expensive. It is up to you to decide whether you actually find use for the features MB provides - 4 SATA slots and 2 DIMM slots, what else you need?
You could still go with H(Z)97 chipset though or just fill those 2 banks. 8GB of memory total will likely last you entire life cycle of the computer anyway.
Those are desktops, 4 DIMM slots is max you get
Although, you made me curious about how those 4 banks filled would perform, gonna look up something about it.
3) AMD isn't cheaper alternative.
Originally posted by Gdemami FX-8320 is at 130 USD at pricepicker. With 30 topped for cooler, you are at 160 USD.i5-4460 at pricepicker goes for 172 USD.
And FX-8350 cost even more. So no, AMD isn't really worthy to get at this price range.
If you really want to tighten your budget, go with FX-6300. At around 100 USD, intel counter part would be i3. And relying on Hyperthreading is somewhat controversial.
AMD chips remain competitive with intel and worthy only if you overclock them, so it is up to you if you want to go that route.
Look at the build posted on tomshardware - 130 USD worth CPU with 85 USD cooling!
Some people are truly enthusiastic but it is ill to expect others are sharing same passion
For boards the 8 core parts are more demanding and need a solid 970/990 board, I'd always recommend the Asus ones as they have by far the best reputation for the FX series.
I would also add AsRock to the mix. They used to have terrible reputation back in the day, but they've gone far and beyond to improve. The Fatal1ty series are really nice. They offer good motherboards with good features at sub-150$
I've no experience of ASRock. I was looking at the lower cost models, where many of them aren't really good enough for the 83xx CPUs. This one is absolutely fine and not at all expensive:
I concerne is just trolling trying to get a response. I even reported him, not that it appears to do any good.
The advice and reasoning are so bad it must be trolling. I am not even sure why Quiz even argues with him as even when proven wrong he just throws out insults.
He will end up costing people money with the terrible advice. The mods really should do something.
A lot of people genuinely are clueless about hardware. Furthermore, it's entirely possible that the mods could be clueless about hardware and not realize that there's a clear technical right and wrong side here, not just a different of opinion. As obviously terrible as Gdemami's hardware choices are, they're still better than more than a few prebuilt options that you'd find at Best Buy or Walmart.
Clueless most can handle. Being intentionally argumentative and insulting in every thread should be looked at by the site mods.
Threads like this one and many others he derails make it difficult for people actually looking for sound advice to get it.
That's just it though he is not completely clueless. The stuff he has been debating. His suggestion is not just bad but intentionally bad. I am genuinely surprised at how patient ya' ll have been. My concern, genuine concern is that he will cost someone more money fixing problems. I seriously doubt he follows his own advice. Then again maybe I'm wrong and give him to much credit overall.
Referencing earlier comments or agreements of mine. Its worse than the people in retail minus those working for commission. Most genuinely want to help. Mods haven' t been here I don't think. No "that a boy" award in my inbox yet.
For boards the 8 core parts are more demanding and need a solid 970/990 board, I'd always recommend the Asus ones as they have by far the best reputation for the FX series.
I would also add AsRock to the mix. They used to have terrible reputation back in the day, but they've gone far and beyond to improve. The Fatal1ty series are really nice. They offer good motherboards with good features at sub-150$
I've no experience of ASRock. I was looking at the lower cost models, where many of them aren't really good enough for the 83xx CPUs. This one is absolutely fine and not at all expensive:
For boards the 8 core parts are more demanding and need a solid 970/990 board, I'd always recommend the Asus ones as they have by far the best reputation for the FX series.
I would also add AsRock to the mix. They used to have terrible reputation back in the day, but they've gone far and beyond to improve. The Fatal1ty series are really nice. They offer good motherboards with good features at sub-150$
I've no experience of ASRock. I was looking at the lower cost models, where many of them aren't really good enough for the 83xx CPUs. This one is absolutely fine and not at all expensive:
They have top quality components down to the LAN card
I don't see any point in paying $150 for a motherboard for an AMD processor when the whole point of going AMD is to save money. You're paying a bunch of money for CrossFire support there, and that's never going to get used. Unlike Intel, AMD doesn't go out of their way to cripple their chipsets, so all that you lose by going with a 970 chipset is CrossFire/SLI support.
Even if you are looking to overclock, you can just grab someone's top 970 chipset motherboard. Either of these will do the job well:
And if you aren't going to overclock, you can get something $20-$30 cheaper than those and it will be fine. You do want a 970 chipset rather than the ancient 760G chipset (I can't find the release date, but most AMD 700 series chipsets were 2007 or 2008) that some motherboard vendors decide to use for cheap junk motherboards.
Well I've been looking at things all night. It's late and lord knows how well I'm doing but I would love to have some critique's on this below i7 build. I was playing around with what I could do and I think there are still some places to save some money but I want to at least see if this pass at a build has any potential or not.
Now this is a k series processor so if I got ballsie I could OC this in the future to help with any lagging issues. ( As stated before never overclocked) So it would be a learning experience but the option is there. I think the power supply could be changed to save some money but that seems like a pretty good rig in my eyes. Although they are burning with tiredness, so what do you guys think?
My other thought was, if I wanted to do a AMD version, I would replace the following pieces:
Current total: $734.95 - 55.00 (rebates) = $679.95
Now one thing with this is the faster memory which seems to be standard on the AMD motherboard when compared to the i7 version. Unless I'm reading that wrong, I'd like to think that I'm not, OC wouldn't be needed. Now as some have stated in this thread, OC maybe necessary to get the performance I want out of the 8350. In this situation do you guys think it would be necessary?
Overall, I find it a staggering price difference. The AMD is $140 less expensive and provides faster memory and more cores of processing power. Now as has been debated in this thread and others on this site the past week, the extra cores doesn't mean extra performance, especially depending on the work load of the PC, I understand this. However I find that the AMD build would allow other purchases, for instance add a SSD on there, maybe a case and your at the same price as the i7 build and you have an entire PC minus a optical drive.
At this point the prices really are just to measure the difference between the two manufactorers. They change depending when I purchase and I realize that. Are these parts worthwhile? I do believe some are suggested here. Any flaws or anything I should be looking more indepth at, for instance the GPU?
Imo, you should post all your parts of your build so one can get better picture.
I guess your toughest decision will be whether saved money on CPU should go towards SSD or VGA. Those 145 USD you saved on FX do not allow to sqeeze in any larger SSD than 256 GB which is imo lower limit for a gaming rig but would probably provide some very nice upgrade for VGA.
Well I've been looking at things all night. It's late and lord knows how well I'm doing but I would love to have some critique's on this below i7 build. I was playing around with what I could do and I think there are still some places to save some money but I want to at least see if this pass at a build has any potential or not.
Now this is a k series processor so if I got ballsie I could OC this in the future to help with any lagging issues. ( As stated before never overclocked) So it would be a learning experience but the option is there. I think the power supply could be changed to save some money but that seems like a pretty good rig in my eyes. Although they are burning with tiredness, so what do you guys think?
My other thought was, if I wanted to do a AMD version, I would replace the following pieces:
Current total: $734.95 - 55.00 (rebates) = $679.95
Now one thing with this is the faster memory which seems to be standard on the AMD motherboard when compared to the i7 version. Unless I'm reading that wrong, I'd like to think that I'm not, OC wouldn't be needed. Now as some have stated in this thread, OC maybe necessary to get the performance I want out of the 8350. In this situation do you guys think it would be necessary?
Overall, I find it a staggering price difference. The AMD is $140 less expensive and provides faster memory and more cores of processing power. Now as has been debated in this thread and others on this site the past week, the extra cores doesn't mean extra performance, especially depending on the work load of the PC, I understand this. However I find that the AMD build would allow other purchases, for instance add a SSD on there, maybe a case and your at the same price as the i7 build and you have an entire PC minus a optical drive.
At this point the prices really are just to measure the difference between the two manufactorers. They change depending when I purchase and I realize that. Are these parts worthwhile? I do believe some are suggested here. Any flaws or anything I should be looking more indepth at, for instance the GPU?
I'm not sure why you:
1) Include a power supply with an Intel CPU but not AMD,
2) Picked a Mini ITX motherboard,
3) Picked different memory for an AMD CPU versus Intel,
4) Picked a Core i7 CPU for Intel or an FX-8350 for AMD.
On (2), the only reason to pick a Mini ITX motherboard is if you want to fit it in a really small case. If it doesn't need to fit in a tiny space, the smaller form factor is just going to be really cramped and leave you short on features.
On (3), you can justify faster memory if you need to feed integrated graphics. But apart from that, AMD versus Intel shouldn't affect your memory choice. You can get something perfectly good for cheaper than what you've picked:
and then see what it can do at 1.5 V. I wouldn't even try 2400 MHz; I'd probably just see if it can run at 1866 MHz and 9-9-9-24 timings and then loosen the timings a bit if that's not stable.
On (4), you're picking CPUs that are more expensive than makes sense for your budget. A Core i5-4690 gives you four fast cores, and it's going to be a long time before four fast cores isn't good enough for gaming. Meanwhile, you don't really need eight cores; you could save a lot of money by going with an FX-6300:
Or even if you do want eight cores, an FX-8320 is a lot cheaper than an FX-8350, in spite of being the same die except for the stock clock speed. There is some binning going on, so if you overclocked both, you'd probably get an extra 100 MHz or so out of the FX-8350 rather than the FX-8320. But it's not going to be a huge difference.
Current total: $734.95 - 55.00 (rebates) = $679.95
Now one thing with this is the faster memory which seems to be standard on the AMD motherboard when compared to the i7 version. Unless I'm reading that wrong, I'd like to think that I'm not, OC wouldn't be needed. Now as some have stated in this thread, OC maybe necessary to get the performance I want out of the 8350. In this situation do you guys think it would be necessary?
The 8320 and 8350 are identical, they just have different factory clock speeds. I wouldn't run either at their default clocks because they don't perform anywhere near as well as they can. You'd get the most out of the CPU by getting it to 4.3GHz or above, which they'll all do without any problem.
Memory speed isn't very important as long as it's 1600MHz or higher.
There's a huge difference in price between the 8350 and the i7 4970K, but the latter is definitely the more powerful processor and Intel can charge a huge premium because of that. That performance is important for SLI/Crossfire gaming systems, not so much for midrange systems.
Originally posted by QuizzicalOn (4), you're picking CPUs that are more expensive than makes sense for your budget. A Core i5-4690 gives you four fast cores, and it's going to be a long time before four fast cores isn't good enough for gaming. Meanwhile, you don't really need eight cores; you could save a lot of money by going with an FX-6300:
Or even if you do want eight cores, an FX-8320 is a lot cheaper than an FX-8350, in spite of being the same die except for the stock clock speed. There is some binning going on, so if you overclocked both, you'd probably get an extra 100 MHz or so out of the FX-8350 rather than the FX-8320. But it's not going to be a huge difference.
I agree that the 6300 is great value and performance for the money, but more recent games are taking advantage of those extra cores, and this is a trend that isn't going away. Take Dragon Age Inquisition:
Well I've been looking at things all night. It's late and lord knows how well I'm doing but I would love to have some critique's on this below i7 build. I was playing around with what I could do and I think there are still some places to save some money but I want to at least see if this pass at a build has any potential or not.
Now this is a k series processor so if I got ballsie I could OC this in the future to help with any lagging issues. ( As stated before never overclocked) So it would be a learning experience but the option is there. I think the power supply could be changed to save some money but that seems like a pretty good rig in my eyes. Although they are burning with tiredness, so what do you guys think?
My other thought was, if I wanted to do a AMD version, I would replace the following pieces:
Current total: $734.95 - 55.00 (rebates) = $679.95
Now one thing with this is the faster memory which seems to be standard on the AMD motherboard when compared to the i7 version. Unless I'm reading that wrong, I'd like to think that I'm not, OC wouldn't be needed. Now as some have stated in this thread, OC maybe necessary to get the performance I want out of the 8350. In this situation do you guys think it would be necessary?
Overall, I find it a staggering price difference. The AMD is $140 less expensive and provides faster memory and more cores of processing power. Now as has been debated in this thread and others on this site the past week, the extra cores doesn't mean extra performance, especially depending on the work load of the PC, I understand this. However I find that the AMD build would allow other purchases, for instance add a SSD on there, maybe a case and your at the same price as the i7 build and you have an entire PC minus a optical drive.
At this point the prices really are just to measure the difference between the two manufactorers. They change depending when I purchase and I realize that. Are these parts worthwhile? I do believe some are suggested here. Any flaws or anything I should be looking more indepth at, for instance the GPU?
I'm not sure why you:
1) Include a power supply with an Intel CPU but not AMD,
2) Picked a Mini ITX motherboard,
3) Picked different memory for an AMD CPU versus Intel,
4) Picked a Core i7 CPU for Intel or an FX-8350 for AMD.
On (2), the only reason to pick a Mini ITX motherboard is if you want to fit it in a really small case. If it doesn't need to fit in a tiny space, the smaller form factor is just going to be really cramped and leave you short on features.
On (3), you can justify faster memory if you need to feed integrated graphics. But apart from that, AMD versus Intel shouldn't affect your memory choice. You can get something perfectly good for cheaper than what you've picked:
and then see what it can do at 1.5 V. I wouldn't even try 2400 MHz; I'd probably just see if it can run at 1866 MHz and 9-9-9-24 timings and then loosen the timings a bit if that's not stable.
On (4), you're picking CPUs that are more expensive than makes sense for your budget. A Core i5-4690 gives you four fast cores, and it's going to be a long time before four fast cores isn't good enough for gaming. Meanwhile, you don't really need eight cores; you could save a lot of money by going with an FX-6300:
Or even if you do want eight cores, an FX-8320 is a lot cheaper than an FX-8350, in spite of being the same die except for the stock clock speed. There is some binning going on, so if you overclocked both, you'd probably get an extra 100 MHz or so out of the FX-8350 rather than the FX-8320. But it's not going to be a huge difference.
Well right off the top, it was 3am, so I think I wasn't completely lucid at the time. I didn't notice the form factor so that is just a mistake on my part. To answer others questions, I was trying to say replace the intel CPU/MB/RAM and leave the rest was what I was trying to say. Not to mention I forgot CPU coolers in both of them. I think just chalk this up to staying up WAY too late trying to figure things out.
The faster memory point was just that the AMD seemed to have faster RAM capabilities right on the motherboard where the intel just went to 1600, but maybe I need to look at it again. I will check those links out though and see where I missed features.
The FX-6300 I was still going to see what a build would look like with that, but thanks for going over your reasoning, will help a lot when I look at everything later. this was just a first pass and will continue to look at things, hopefully when not as tired, and try a couple others.
Imo, you should post all your parts of your build so one can get better picture.
I guess your toughest decision will be whether saved money on CPU should go towards SSD or VGA. Those 145 USD you saved on FX do not allow to sqeeze in any larger SSD than 256 GB which is imo lower limit for a gaming rig but would probably provide some very nice upgrade for VGA.
Still, your choice of FX-8350 is mind boggling...
Yes, you are correct, like I said above, it was a late night last night lol.
To everything else, was trying to see what these kinda builds would look like, thinking I should see what a 8350, i7, i5, 6300 builds would look like this week to see what the price differences are as well as see what kinda of hardware would make sense with each build to see what features I would get for those price points.
Although I think it goes to show, that I shouldn't work on this towards the end of the night when I'm seeing double, LOL
Originally posted by Cramit845 To everything else, was trying to see what these kinda builds would look like, thinking I should see what a 8350, i7, i5, 6300 builds would look like this week to see what the price differences are as well as see what kinda of hardware would make sense with each build to see what features I would get for those price points.
Although I think it goes to show, that I shouldn't work on this towards the end of the night when I'm seeing double, LOL
TO be honest, your builds should be about 75% identical
The RAM, case, power supply, Windows license, and storage aren't going to change (or change by much). Yes, they "support" different RAM, but it's all DDR3, and what works in one will work in another (worst case, it gets downclocked to something supported).
If your looking at CPUs, you need to pick a compatible motherboard with them (but same form factor) - It would even be possible to pick parity motherboards from the same company if you wanted to (i.e Asus M5A97 vs Asus Z97-A are pretty similar, just AMD vs Intel, and about $15 difference).
And to stay within your budget, the savings on the above two usually goes right to the GPU (and occasionally SSD size or some other "nice to have" feature).
So really, the only thing your really doing is sliding between a more powerful CPU or GPU. Most everything else is pretty much going to be about the same. Just going off the back of a napkin, it's about $130 difference between a Core i5 4690 vs FX6300 build (all other things roughly equal, the FX8320 is attractive at $40 more), and an additional $75 difference between a Core i7 4790 vs i5 4690. That could vary a good bit - I was seeing the FX6300 at $110, the FX8320 at $150, the i5 4690 at $225, and the i7 4790 at $300 - just spot price on Newegg, I didn't do any shopping around for sales.
If your budget is +/-$800, i can see going either way between Intel i5 and AMD - your at the point that $100+ is enough to slide a good bit in GPU capability without sacrificing too much on the CPU. And that is a tough decision, but I think either way your going to end up with a nice computer. If you can go over that by a bit, I would splurge on the Core i5, if you have to stay under, I may stay with the AMD build. I wouldn't really look at the i7 unless you are over around $1000 total budget, or have very specific needs that it directly affects (rendering, compression, video, etc).
With a budget max of $1000 an I7 would not be reasonable. You would have to cut corners to fit it in.
Having a badass CPU and a low end GPU is not the way to go.
An I5 is reasonable,but a 6300 is probably the way to IMO. A 6300 with a gpu like a Nvidia 970 or AMD R9 280x ( or above) will beat an I7 with a low end GPU in game performance.
Also going with a 6300 would allow you to allocate money towards overall better components ( better PSU, Bigger SSD, better GPU, Case, ect. )
Personally with a Max of $1000 I would go with an AMD build. $1200 + an I5 build. Either paired with a nice GPU will exceed most, if not all, of your needs.
Originally posted by Cramit845Yes, you are correct, like I said above, it was a late night last night lol. To everything else, was trying to see what these kinda builds would look like, thinking I should see what a 8350, i7, i5, 6300 builds would look like this week to see what the price differences are as well as see what kinda of hardware would make sense with each build to see what features I would get for those price points. Although I think it goes to show, that I shouldn't work on this towards the end of the night when I'm seeing double, LOL
Sleep is underrated, it makes wonders
I would suggest you creating something from where you want to start from.
I would go with i5-4440 for the base line setup and if willing to pay, you can get some extras.
No price include any rebate and prticular parts are subject to change, it was put together to help you follow the price point and get a better picture what you may get for your money
EDIT: Replaced FX-6300 with i5-4440 which you can get for same money while performance being an abysmall difference.
Replaced H97 with Z97. The price is about the same so I kept it even as an upgrade for i5-4440 if you desire to upgrade CPU later on.
There's been a lot of options and combinations given, but i dont think anyone really laid out all the core+extended paths that you can go with , so here goes
Your core build as mentioned by Ridelynn (everything is after rebates):
There's been a lot of options and combinations given, but i dont think anyone really laid out all the core+extended paths that you can go with , so here goes
Your core build as mentioned by Ridelynn (everything is after rebates):
U can add this cooler with any combination i listed and stay under $1000 except the most expensive nvidia+ intel.
Some of these parts can also be found up to $20 cheaper on ncixus and/or microcenter.
This is exactly what I was attempting to explain above with the post I did with the amd/intel items. I was trying to lay out the base items and then the changes, even though they were flawed from the start.
I'm going to start taking some of the linked parts (since every time I look at something I miss something) and seeing what I can put together from this entire thread. Although this post seems to lay out a good price range for a bunch of the proposed systems.
For instance, the proposed i5-4690k with the motherboard and the 290 for 840 seems like a real winner to me. I mean, as long as those base parts are good (not familiar with the RAM manufacturer), that seems right up my alley with the ability to overclock if needed in the future. Would anyone recommend a AMD build over that in that price range? Is the 4790k worth the 80 price increase?
Originally posted by Cramit845 For instance, the proposed i5-4690k with the motherboard and the 290 for 840 seems like a real winner to me. I mean, as long as those base parts are good (not familiar with the RAM manufacturer), that seems right up my alley with the ability to overclock if needed in the future. Would anyone recommend a AMD build over that in that price range? Is the 4790k worth the 80 price increase?
AMD does not have a competitive alternative to 4690k.
I got only 2 comments to build above:
1) That EVGA PSU does not seem...trustworthy to me. 2) 256GB SSD seems low. While you have additional storage of 1TB, many games these days use their distribution sw and won't allow you to download the installation files - ie. Steam, Glyph, Origin etc., thus you will need to store all direcetly on that SSD.
For motherboards, my go-to brand names are Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI. A lot of people recommend Asrock as well, and I wouldn't blame anyone for using one: they are less expensive, and I've not heard of any serious defects or malfunctions, but they are built noticeably less sturdy than most other brands.
I won't say that any of those 4 brand names are bulletproof and can do no wrong: you look hard enough you'll find fairly junky motherboards at the lower end of all of their product lines. But their mainstream boards are good, they all have very established and maintained drivers and support (important for BIOS updates especially), and they go all the way up to the very same motherboards that extreme overclockers are using to set world records.
As far as space goes - up until recently I was doing very well on a 128G SSD. Sure, I could only have 2-3 games installed at a time, but if I'm honest about it, that's all I usually played at any give time anyway. More is better, and I did eventually add in a 3T HDD for just bulk storage (and then just copied games back and forth as I played them, rather than re-download them), but 128 was enough working space if you manage it well. I won't say if you have more money that more space isn't very nice. You don't necessarily need to spend a ton of money on a single large SSD, it only benefits stuff you are actually using. If your just wanting space to stick stuff long term, less expensive (for the capacity) HDDs are better for that purpose.
For instance, the proposed i5-4690k with the motherboard and the 290 for 840 seems like a real winner to me. I mean, as long as those base parts are good (not familiar with the RAM manufacturer), that seems right up my alley with the ability to overclock if needed in the future. Would anyone recommend a AMD build over that in that price range? Is the 4790k worth the 80 price increase?
AMD does not have a competitive alternative to 4690k.
I got only 2 comments to build above:
1) That EVGA PSU does not seem...trustworthy to me. 2) 256GB SSD seems low. While you have additional storage of 1TB, many games these days use their distribution sw and won't allow you to download the installation files - ie. Steam, Glyph, Origin etc., thus you will need to store all direcetly on that SSD.
Modern games takes easily up to 25-50GB of space.
2) 256/250GB SSD is the only option for the price range of $800-$1000, whether its enough or not is a personal opinion, because u could as simply delete, or move the games on the normal HDD as u stop playing them as much(and move them back to the ssd when u wanna play them), and just leave the core ones on it.
but it's either not available or refurbished models are available, so maybe ncixUS has some, the reason i put evga is because following johnnyguru's reviews of evga PSUs they're been getting much better later for lower price, for instance the Evga Supernova G1 650w is an absolute beast, it can run 2x970 with a intel cpu easily http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=97305&vpn=120-G1-0650-XR&manufacture=eVGA the Supernova costs $70 at ncixUS so its's the best choice and 600CX/M is the narrow second choice. As for the Evga 600 B has more amps on 12v then Corsair 600CXM, the parts inside are 95% the same quality , and the OEM for Corsair is CWT, compared to HEC for Evga, HEC is generally considered not as good as CWT.
@Cramit845 About the ram yeah, geting a gskill ram kit is def the safer choice so u can easily add ~$20 for ram and ~$20-30 for the PSU if ure going with i5+290 or 8350+290
@Ridelynn Even though i personally use Asus, i generally recommend Gigabyte more often, holding them to a higher quality standard for $90-$150 price range. Same with MSI, its just my experience that with mid range priced boards Gigabyte easily wins over Asus and MSI, while once u start going over $150 it's pretty much all the same.
For instance, the proposed i5-4690k with the motherboard and the 290 for 840 seems like a real winner to me. I mean, as long as those base parts are good (not familiar with the RAM manufacturer), that seems right up my alley with the ability to overclock if needed in the future. Would anyone recommend a AMD build over that in that price range? Is the 4790k worth the 80 price increase?
AMD does not have a competitive alternative to 4690k.
I got only 2 comments to build above:
1) That EVGA PSU does not seem...trustworthy to me. 2) 256GB SSD seems low. While you have additional storage of 1TB, many games these days use their distribution sw and won't allow you to download the installation files - ie. Steam, Glyph, Origin etc., thus you will need to store all direcetly on that SSD.
Modern games takes easily up to 25-50GB of space.
I don't know about Glyph, but both Steam and Origin allow you to install games wherever you want. It has been this way for a very long time and it's very user friendly on both platforms.
It is completely reasonable to go with a 250(ish) GB SSD along with a large storage drive.
Originally posted by 13lake 2) 256/250GB SSD is the only option for the price range of $800-$1000, whether its enough or not is a personal opinion, because u could as simply delete, or move the games on the normal HDD as u stop playing them as much(and move them back to the ssd when u wanna play them), and just leave the core ones on it.1) As for the PSU yes, this isn't my first pick, my first pick would be Corsair 600CXM ( It popped into stock on newegg as of 10 seconds ago @ [$55] after rebates before shipping :P ) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139048&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=but it's either not available or refurbished models are available, so maybe ncixUS has some, the reason i put evga is because following johnnyguru's reviews of evga PSUs they're been getting much better later for lower price, for instance the Evga Supernova G1 650w is an absolute beast, it can run 2x970 with a intel cpu easily http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=97305&vpn=120-G1-0650-XR&manufacture=eVGA the Supernova costs $70 at ncixUS so its's the best choice and 600CX/M is the narrow second choice. As for the Evga 600 B has more amps on 12v then Corsair 600CXM, the parts inside are 95% the same quality , and the OEM for Corsair is CWT, compared to HEC for Evga, HEC is generally considered not as good as CWT. @Cramit845 About the ram yeah, geting a gskill ram kit is def the safer choice so u can easily add ~$20 for ram and ~$20-30 for the PSU if ure going with i5+290 or 8350+290@Ridelynn Even though i personally use Asus, i generally recommend Gigabyte more often, holding them to a higher quality standard for $90-$150 price range. Same with MSI, its just my experience that with mid range priced boards Gigabyte easily wins over Asus and MSI, while once u start going over $150 it's pretty much all the same.
1) I have included 100 USD PSU in my list just above your post but that was only because OP picking this one himself, I do think it is overly expensive and something around 55 USD would be more fitting.
In this price range and and with no SLI demand, all PSU perform about the same and "multi-rail" is somewhat safer. I just wasn't sure about reliability of that EVGA.
2) Indeed personal choice.
I have suggested instead of spending 150 USD on SSD+HHD spending 50 USD more and have single 512 GB SSD.
Both options are definitely viable.
A bit akward time for buying a new computer with Skylake coming next year, hehe
Comments
I understand you fully, but desktops are not servers
1) The problem with Dual Channel for desktops is the scale of operation you do there. It might provide some benefit in performance, the scale is a key factor. ie. you can see some 3 or 4% better performance but how often are you compressing 9GB files or decrompress videos?
Read the link above I posted. Any other test you find will tell you the same.
2) The problem with intel MB is that any higher chipsets(more DRAM slots) are substantially more expensive. It is up to you to decide whether you actually find use for the features MB provides - 4 SATA slots and 2 DIMM slots, what else you need?
You could still go with H(Z)97 chipset though or just fill those 2 banks. 8GB of memory total will likely last you entire life cycle of the computer anyway.
Those are desktops, 4 DIMM slots is max you get
Although, you made me curious about how those 4 banks filled would perform, gonna look up something about it.
3) AMD isn't cheaper alternative.
And FX-8350 cost even more. So no, AMD isn't really worthy to get at this price range.
If you really want to tighten your budget, go with FX-6300. At around 100 USD, intel counter part would be i3. And relying on Hyperthreading is somewhat controversial.
AMD chips remain competitive with intel and worthy only if you overclock them, so it is up to you if you want to go that route.
Look at the build posted on tomshardware - 130 USD worth CPU with 85 USD cooling!
Some people are truly enthusiastic but it is ill to expect others are sharing same passion
Good luck!
I've no experience of ASRock. I was looking at the lower cost models, where many of them aren't really good enough for the 83xx CPUs. This one is absolutely fine and not at all expensive:
http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M5A97_EVO_R20/
One thing that's important with these boards is having a good VRM heatsink - and you can see the big chunky one here (just around the CPU socket).
That's just it though he is not completely clueless. The stuff he has been debating. His suggestion is not just bad but intentionally bad. I am genuinely surprised at how patient ya' ll have been. My concern, genuine concern is that he will cost someone more money fixing problems. I seriously doubt he follows his own advice. Then again maybe I'm wrong and give him to much credit overall.
Referencing earlier comments or agreements of mine. Its worse than the people in retail minus those working for commission. Most genuinely want to help. Mods haven' t been here I don't think. No "that a boy" award in my inbox yet.
I certainly hope that's the case this year if I decide to make the purchase afterwards!
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157479&cm_re=asrock_990fx-_-13-157-479-_-Product - sub 150$ motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157358&cm_re=asrock_990fx-_-13-157-358-_-Product - if you find this one on a discount you'd be golden.
They have top quality components down to the LAN card
I don't see any point in paying $150 for a motherboard for an AMD processor when the whole point of going AMD is to save money. You're paying a bunch of money for CrossFire support there, and that's never going to get used. Unlike Intel, AMD doesn't go out of their way to cripple their chipsets, so all that you lose by going with a 970 chipset is CrossFire/SLI support.
Even if you are looking to overclock, you can just grab someone's top 970 chipset motherboard. Either of these will do the job well:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130790
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128651
And if you aren't going to overclock, you can get something $20-$30 cheaper than those and it will be fine. You do want a 970 chipset rather than the ancient 760G chipset (I can't find the release date, but most AMD 700 series chipsets were 2007 or 2008) that some motherboard vendors decide to use for cheap junk motherboards.
Well I've been looking at things all night. It's late and lord knows how well I'm doing but I would love to have some critique's on this below i7 build. I was playing around with what I could do and I think there are still some places to save some money but I want to at least see if this pass at a build has any potential or not.
Intel i7
Power supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139012 - $99
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314 - $75.99
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132123 - $113.99
Processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813132123 299.99
Current total: 879.95 - 55.00 (rebates) = $824.95
Now this is a k series processor so if I got ballsie I could OC this in the future to help with any lagging issues. ( As stated before never overclocked) So it would be a learning experience but the option is there. I think the power supply could be changed to save some money but that seems like a pretty good rig in my eyes. Although they are burning with tiredness, so what do you guys think?
My other thought was, if I wanted to do a AMD version, I would replace the following pieces:
AMD FX8350
Processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284 - $169.99
Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131873 - $94.99
RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231460 - $79.99
Current total: $734.95 - 55.00 (rebates) = $679.95
Now one thing with this is the faster memory which seems to be standard on the AMD motherboard when compared to the i7 version. Unless I'm reading that wrong, I'd like to think that I'm not, OC wouldn't be needed. Now as some have stated in this thread, OC maybe necessary to get the performance I want out of the 8350. In this situation do you guys think it would be necessary?
Overall, I find it a staggering price difference. The AMD is $140 less expensive and provides faster memory and more cores of processing power. Now as has been debated in this thread and others on this site the past week, the extra cores doesn't mean extra performance, especially depending on the work load of the PC, I understand this. However I find that the AMD build would allow other purchases, for instance add a SSD on there, maybe a case and your at the same price as the i7 build and you have an entire PC minus a optical drive.
At this point the prices really are just to measure the difference between the two manufactorers. They change depending when I purchase and I realize that. Are these parts worthwhile? I do believe some are suggested here. Any flaws or anything I should be looking more indepth at, for instance the GPU?
Your Intel CPU and MB are the same link.
I guess it is suposed to be Intel i7-4790k?
Imo, you should post all your parts of your build so one can get better picture.
I guess your toughest decision will be whether saved money on CPU should go towards SSD or VGA. Those 145 USD you saved on FX do not allow to sqeeze in any larger SSD than 256 GB which is imo lower limit for a gaming rig but would probably provide some very nice upgrade for VGA.
Still, your choice of FX-8350 is mind boggling...
I'm not sure why you:
1) Include a power supply with an Intel CPU but not AMD,
2) Picked a Mini ITX motherboard,
3) Picked different memory for an AMD CPU versus Intel,
4) Picked a Core i7 CPU for Intel or an FX-8350 for AMD.
On (2), the only reason to pick a Mini ITX motherboard is if you want to fit it in a really small case. If it doesn't need to fit in a tiny space, the smaller form factor is just going to be really cramped and leave you short on features.
On (3), you can justify faster memory if you need to feed integrated graphics. But apart from that, AMD versus Intel shouldn't affect your memory choice. You can get something perfectly good for cheaper than what you've picked:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233180
If I were buying today, I'd probably just get this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231667
and then see what it can do at 1.5 V. I wouldn't even try 2400 MHz; I'd probably just see if it can run at 1866 MHz and 9-9-9-24 timings and then loosen the timings a bit if that's not stable.
On (4), you're picking CPUs that are more expensive than makes sense for your budget. A Core i5-4690 gives you four fast cores, and it's going to be a long time before four fast cores isn't good enough for gaming. Meanwhile, you don't really need eight cores; you could save a lot of money by going with an FX-6300:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113286
Or even if you do want eight cores, an FX-8320 is a lot cheaper than an FX-8350, in spite of being the same die except for the stock clock speed. There is some binning going on, so if you overclocked both, you'd probably get an extra 100 MHz or so out of the FX-8350 rather than the FX-8320. But it's not going to be a huge difference.
The 8320 and 8350 are identical, they just have different factory clock speeds. I wouldn't run either at their default clocks because they don't perform anywhere near as well as they can. You'd get the most out of the CPU by getting it to 4.3GHz or above, which they'll all do without any problem.
Memory speed isn't very important as long as it's 1600MHz or higher.
There's a huge difference in price between the 8350 and the i7 4970K, but the latter is definitely the more powerful processor and Intel can charge a huge premium because of that. That performance is important for SLI/Crossfire gaming systems, not so much for midrange systems.
I agree that the 6300 is great value and performance for the money, but more recent games are taking advantage of those extra cores, and this is a trend that isn't going away. Take Dragon Age Inquisition:
http://gamegpu.ru/images/remote/http--www.gamegpu.ru-images-stories-Test_GPU-RPG-dragon_age_inquisition-test-DragonAgeInquisition_proz_amd.jpg
The 8350 there is performing alongside the i7, while the 6300 is quite a bit behind. Overclock the 8320 to 4.4GHz and you'd get the 9370 performance.
Well right off the top, it was 3am, so I think I wasn't completely lucid at the time. I didn't notice the form factor so that is just a mistake on my part. To answer others questions, I was trying to say replace the intel CPU/MB/RAM and leave the rest was what I was trying to say. Not to mention I forgot CPU coolers in both of them. I think just chalk this up to staying up WAY too late trying to figure things out.
The faster memory point was just that the AMD seemed to have faster RAM capabilities right on the motherboard where the intel just went to 1600, but maybe I need to look at it again. I will check those links out though and see where I missed features.
The FX-6300 I was still going to see what a build would look like with that, but thanks for going over your reasoning, will help a lot when I look at everything later. this was just a first pass and will continue to look at things, hopefully when not as tired, and try a couple others.
Yes, you are correct, like I said above, it was a late night last night lol.
To everything else, was trying to see what these kinda builds would look like, thinking I should see what a 8350, i7, i5, 6300 builds would look like this week to see what the price differences are as well as see what kinda of hardware would make sense with each build to see what features I would get for those price points.
Although I think it goes to show, that I shouldn't work on this towards the end of the night when I'm seeing double, LOL
TO be honest, your builds should be about 75% identical
The RAM, case, power supply, Windows license, and storage aren't going to change (or change by much). Yes, they "support" different RAM, but it's all DDR3, and what works in one will work in another (worst case, it gets downclocked to something supported).
If your looking at CPUs, you need to pick a compatible motherboard with them (but same form factor) - It would even be possible to pick parity motherboards from the same company if you wanted to (i.e Asus M5A97 vs Asus Z97-A are pretty similar, just AMD vs Intel, and about $15 difference).
And to stay within your budget, the savings on the above two usually goes right to the GPU (and occasionally SSD size or some other "nice to have" feature).
So really, the only thing your really doing is sliding between a more powerful CPU or GPU. Most everything else is pretty much going to be about the same. Just going off the back of a napkin, it's about $130 difference between a Core i5 4690 vs FX6300 build (all other things roughly equal, the FX8320 is attractive at $40 more), and an additional $75 difference between a Core i7 4790 vs i5 4690. That could vary a good bit - I was seeing the FX6300 at $110, the FX8320 at $150, the i5 4690 at $225, and the i7 4790 at $300 - just spot price on Newegg, I didn't do any shopping around for sales.
If your budget is +/-$800, i can see going either way between Intel i5 and AMD - your at the point that $100+ is enough to slide a good bit in GPU capability without sacrificing too much on the CPU. And that is a tough decision, but I think either way your going to end up with a nice computer. If you can go over that by a bit, I would splurge on the Core i5, if you have to stay under, I may stay with the AMD build. I wouldn't really look at the i7 unless you are over around $1000 total budget, or have very specific needs that it directly affects (rendering, compression, video, etc).
You are looking at things the wrong way I think.
With a budget max of $1000 an I7 would not be reasonable. You would have to cut corners to fit it in.
Having a badass CPU and a low end GPU is not the way to go.
An I5 is reasonable,but a 6300 is probably the way to IMO. A 6300 with a gpu like a Nvidia 970 or AMD R9 280x ( or above) will beat an I7 with a low end GPU in game performance.
Also going with a 6300 would allow you to allocate money towards overall better components ( better PSU, Bigger SSD, better GPU, Case, ect. )
Personally with a Max of $1000 I would go with an AMD build. $1200 + an I5 build. Either paired with a nice GPU will exceed most, if not all, of your needs.
Sleep is underrated, it makes wonders
I would suggest you creating something from where you want to start from.
I would go with i5-4440 for the base line setup and if willing to pay, you can get some extras.
i5-4440 - 170 USD
GIGABYTE GA-H81M-DS2V - 50 USD
Mushkin 2x4GB DDR3 1866 - 68 USD
Sapphire R280 185 USD
Corsair CX600 - 66 USD
Seagate 1TB - 55 USD
594 USD total for the baseline with no case.
From there you can replace the parts and:
Pay 40 USD more and get
MSI Z97 PC Mate
Pay 140 USD more and get
i5-4690k
MSI Z97 PC Mate
Cooler Master 212 EVO
Pay 85 USD more and get
Asus R290
Pay 110 USD more and get
Crucial MX100 256GB
Pay 150 USD more and get
Crucial MX100 512GB
No price include any rebate and prticular parts are subject to change, it was put together to help you follow the price point and get a better picture what you may get for your money
EDIT:
Replaced FX-6300 with i5-4440 which you can get for same money while performance being an abysmall difference.
Replaced H97 with Z97. The price is about the same so I kept it even as an upgrade for i5-4440 if you desire to upgrade CPU later on.
i5-4690k indeed needed an aftermarket cooler.
Added 256Gb SSD.
There's been a lot of options and combinations given, but i dont think anyone really laid out all the core+extended paths that you can go with , so here goes
Your core build as mentioned by Ridelynn (everything is after rebates):
1. A 1TB HDD Seagate [$55] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148840
2. A 256GB SSD Crucial [$110] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148820
3. 2x4GB RAM Team Vulcan [$59] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313344
4. 600W PSU EVGA 600w B [$50] http://newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438014
These 4 component types ain't changing regardless of AMD/INTEL/NVIDIA and they are: $274
From here u choose either AMD or Nvidia GPU:
5a. AMD Asus 290 [$240] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121842&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
5b. Nvidia Zotac 970 [$330] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814500362
Which adds to either $514 with the AMD GPU or $604 with Nvidia GPU
And Finally u add the Mobo+CPU
6a. Intel 4690k [$219] or 4790k [$300] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117372
7a. Gigabyte z97x-SLI [$125] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128714 (for crossfire/sli)
7a'. MSI z97 Pc mate [$80] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130779
Though i would personally go for atleast the Gigabyte z97x-D3H [$113] if not previous gigabyte one
which comes to $814 - $855 with 290 + 4690k + z97 Mobo and $904 - $945 with 970 +4690k + Z97
or $894 - $948 with 290 + 4970k + z97 and $984 - $1025 with 970 + 4970k + z97
If u go AMD processor route its:
6b. AMD 8320 [$150] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113285&cm_re=8320-_-19-113-285-_-Product
7b. Asus M5A99X evo [$103] http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131874&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
Which comes to $767 with 290 + 8320 + M5a99X or $857 with 970 + 8320 + M5a99X
In the end u got basically:
i5+290=$840 i5+970=$930 8320+290=$770 8320+970=$860
i7+290=$930 i7+970=$1000 8350+290=$790 8350+970=$880
8 Simple choices , and all under $1000
, i'm not even listing cpu cooler because for all moderate overclocks all u need is a [$20] Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065
AMD stock coolers are way better than Intel stock coolers, and u can do minimal-moderate overclock at stock AMD while u cant do the same with stock Intel. For bigger overclocking, a Cooler master Seidon 120v watercooler will do the trick it costs only [$50] http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=seidon&N=-1&isNodeId=1
U can add this cooler with any combination i listed and stay under $1000 except the most expensive nvidia+ intel.
Some of these parts can also be found up to $20 cheaper on ncixus and/or microcenter.
This is exactly what I was attempting to explain above with the post I did with the amd/intel items. I was trying to lay out the base items and then the changes, even though they were flawed from the start.
I'm going to start taking some of the linked parts (since every time I look at something I miss something) and seeing what I can put together from this entire thread. Although this post seems to lay out a good price range for a bunch of the proposed systems.
For instance, the proposed i5-4690k with the motherboard and the 290 for 840 seems like a real winner to me. I mean, as long as those base parts are good (not familiar with the RAM manufacturer), that seems right up my alley with the ability to overclock if needed in the future. Would anyone recommend a AMD build over that in that price range? Is the 4790k worth the 80 price increase?
AMD does not have a competitive alternative to 4690k.
I got only 2 comments to build above:
1) That EVGA PSU does not seem...trustworthy to me.
2) 256GB SSD seems low. While you have additional storage of 1TB, many games these days use their distribution sw and won't allow you to download the installation files - ie. Steam, Glyph, Origin etc., thus you will need to store all direcetly on that SSD.
Modern games takes easily up to 25-50GB of space.
For motherboards, my go-to brand names are Asus, Gigabyte, and MSI. A lot of people recommend Asrock as well, and I wouldn't blame anyone for using one: they are less expensive, and I've not heard of any serious defects or malfunctions, but they are built noticeably less sturdy than most other brands.
I won't say that any of those 4 brand names are bulletproof and can do no wrong: you look hard enough you'll find fairly junky motherboards at the lower end of all of their product lines. But their mainstream boards are good, they all have very established and maintained drivers and support (important for BIOS updates especially), and they go all the way up to the very same motherboards that extreme overclockers are using to set world records.
As far as space goes - up until recently I was doing very well on a 128G SSD. Sure, I could only have 2-3 games installed at a time, but if I'm honest about it, that's all I usually played at any give time anyway. More is better, and I did eventually add in a 3T HDD for just bulk storage (and then just copied games back and forth as I played them, rather than re-download them), but 128 was enough working space if you manage it well. I won't say if you have more money that more space isn't very nice. You don't necessarily need to spend a ton of money on a single large SSD, it only benefits stuff you are actually using. If your just wanting space to stick stuff long term, less expensive (for the capacity) HDDs are better for that purpose.
2) 256/250GB SSD is the only option for the price range of $800-$1000, whether its enough or not is a personal opinion, because u could as simply delete, or move the games on the normal HDD as u stop playing them as much(and move them back to the ssd when u wanna play them), and just leave the core ones on it.
1) As for the PSU yes, this isn't my first pick, my first pick would be Corsair 600CXM ( It popped into stock on newegg as of 10 seconds ago @ [$55] after rebates before shipping :P ) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139048&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=
but it's either not available or refurbished models are available, so maybe ncixUS has some, the reason i put evga is because following johnnyguru's reviews of evga PSUs they're been getting much better later for lower price, for instance the Evga Supernova G1 650w is an absolute beast, it can run 2x970 with a intel cpu easily http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=97305&vpn=120-G1-0650-XR&manufacture=eVGA the Supernova costs $70 at ncixUS so its's the best choice and 600CX/M is the narrow second choice. As for the Evga 600 B has more amps on 12v then Corsair 600CXM, the parts inside are 95% the same quality , and the OEM for Corsair is CWT, compared to HEC for Evga, HEC is generally considered not as good as CWT.
@Cramit845 About the ram yeah, geting a gskill ram kit is def the safer choice so u can easily add ~$20 for ram and ~$20-30 for the PSU if ure going with i5+290 or 8350+290
@Ridelynn Even though i personally use Asus, i generally recommend Gigabyte more often, holding them to a higher quality standard for $90-$150 price range. Same with MSI, its just my experience that with mid range priced boards Gigabyte easily wins over Asus and MSI, while once u start going over $150 it's pretty much all the same.
I don't know about Glyph, but both Steam and Origin allow you to install games wherever you want. It has been this way for a very long time and it's very user friendly on both platforms.
It is completely reasonable to go with a 250(ish) GB SSD along with a large storage drive.
1) I have included 100 USD PSU in my list just above your post but that was only because OP picking this one himself, I do think it is overly expensive and something around 55 USD would be more fitting.
In this price range and and with no SLI demand, all PSU perform about the same and "multi-rail" is somewhat safer. I just wasn't sure about reliability of that EVGA.
2) Indeed personal choice.
I have suggested instead of spending 150 USD on SSD+HHD spending 50 USD more and have single 512 GB SSD.
Both options are definitely viable.
A bit akward time for buying a new computer with Skylake coming next year, hehe