Support NeoGAF

[LilJoka]

For the most part yes, it will be a work machine, but I do quite a bit of gaming as well. I don't do a lot of rendering with the work I do as most of it is realtime 3d. Zbrush pushes large amount of polygons in realtime as it is a digital sculpting program. Large amounts of Ram and around 100 Gb of HDD space for a scratch disk are recommended, but I'm having a tough time finding out if it really benefits much from 4cores vs 6cores.

I'm sure high resolution filter applications in Photoshop would see a boost, but even in texture creation for games, I don't find myself in a position of waiting for filters to finish often if at all.

I'll most likely bump up the Ram to 32gb before all is said and done, but I'm just not sure which way to go right now.

Get the X99 even if there is no upgrade path (although 5960X ), the Z170 boards will only likely have 4 core CPUs which arent going to match the X99 either. If you dont upgade for about 2 years then itll be needing a new board for either build anyway.

 

[Vaettir]

Check the notes at the end of my post.

Didn't know Noctua would send one for that. I know it's bundled with the updated 14S.

 

[Corpsepyre]

Should I opt for Haswell or Skylake? Also, a 390x or 970? Help me.

 

[Crisium]

Should I opt for Haswell or Skylake? Also, a 390x or 970? Help me.

See the OP. Answer these:

[Basic Desktop Questions]

Your Current Specs: CPU / RAM / Motherboard / GPU (Graphics) / PSU (Power Supply) / Case / HDD (Hard Drive)
Budget: Price Range + Country
Main Use: Rate 1-5. 5 being Highest: Light Gaming, Gaming, Emulation (PS2/Wii), Video Editing, Streaming games in HD, 3D/Model work (and what program), General Usage (Word, Web, 1080p playback).
Monitor Resolution: What resolution will you be playing your games at? Are you going to upgrade later? Are you buying a new monitor?
List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well: Is 30FPS acceptable? 60? 120? How important is PhysX / SuperSampling / CUDA to you?
Looking to reuse any parts?: List make and model (e.g. Corsair 520HX, 640GB SATA HDD, Antec 900)
When will you build?: Do you have a deadline?
Will you be overclocking?: Yes, No, Maybe (This means yes!)

But to give you an answer, go Skylake unless you want a 6-core or 8-core then go Haswell-E. The 390X is faster than the 970, although it is more expensive.

 

[Corpsepyre]

See the OP. Answer these:

[Basic Desktop Questions]

Your Current Specs: CPU / RAM / Motherboard / GPU (Graphics) / PSU (Power Supply) / Case / HDD (Hard Drive)
Budget: Price Range + Country
Main Use: Rate 1-5. 5 being Highest: Light Gaming, Gaming, Emulation (PS2/Wii), Video Editing, Streaming games in HD, 3D/Model work (and what program), General Usage (Word, Web, 1080p playback).
Monitor Resolution: What resolution will you be playing your games at? Are you going to upgrade later? Are you buying a new monitor?
List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well: Is 30FPS acceptable? 60? 120? How important is PhysX / SuperSampling / CUDA to you?
Looking to reuse any parts?: List make and model (e.g. Corsair 520HX, 640GB SATA HDD, Antec 900)
When will you build?: Do you have a deadline?
Will you be overclocking?: Yes, No, Maybe (This means yes!)

But to give you an answer, go Skylake unless you want a 6-core or 8-core then go Haswell-E. The 390X is faster than the 970, although it is more expensive.

R9 270x (2 GB), 8 GB DDR3 RAM, Core i3 4130, MSI PC Mate motherboard, 500w PSU

Main use is intensive gaming. Mostly single player AAA games

No video editing or anything of the sort.

1080p/60hz monitor

Will not be overclocking.

I want good performance, and want to crank the settings up as well if I'm allowed.

My country is Pakistan. We pay a good deal of premium of parts here.

 

[Celcius]

Any idea on when they plan on releasing it, any info on price?

My hope is to buy a monitor in the next week during black-friday/cyber-monday sales.

I haven't heard anything further but I doubt it will be available this month

 

[opticalmace]

R9 270x (2 GB), 8 GB DDR3 RAM, Core i3 4130, MSI PC Mate motherboard, 500w PSU

Main use is intensive gaming. Mostly single player AAA games

No video editing or anything of the sort.

1080p/60hz monitor

Will not be overclocking.

I want good performance, and want to crank the settings up as well if I'm allowed.

My country is Pakistan. We pay a good deal of premium of parts here.

Budget? And what site(s) would you be buying from?

 

[Corpsepyre]

Budget? And what site(s) would you be buying from?

I haven't really totaled out my budget yet, but I'll most likely will be buying from one of our local shops here. The prices are inflated. Think 20-30 % more than the US prices at times. At times slightly less, but always inflated.

 

[opticalmace]

I haven't really totaled out my budget yet, but I'll most likely will be buying from one of our local shops here. The prices are inflated. Think 20-30 % more than the US prices at times. At times slightly less, but always inflated.

It's hard to recommend anything without having a rough idea of budget. I don't know if you're looking at i7s or i3s, for instance.

 

[Staccat0]

So, thinking of ugrading the gaming rig for Christmas. If you had to bump one thing up what would it be? Any opnions?

I was thinking that the video card is maybe the weakest link. I've never overclocked the i5, but I've been intending to learn. Now's the time?

Or do I just get another SSD?

I don't want to spend $$ that would make it feel like I was buying a new videogame console.

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler
Motherboard: MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Intel 520 Series Cherryville 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 280 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card
Case: NZXT S340 (White) ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 550W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

 

[Corpsepyre]

It's hard to recommend anything without having a rough idea of budget. I don't know if you're looking at i7s or i3s, for instance.

An i5, most definitely. I'm sorry if it's hard, but my budget isn't sketched out yet.

 

[Quotient]

I haven't heard anything further but I doubt it will be available this month

I might have to be a non-gsync monitor. Gsync monitors seem to be a good 40-50% more than non-gsync. Right now i am leaning between samsung and acer.

4k is higher priority than gsync, especially when ill probably do most of my gaming on my 55inch plasma.

 

[Blitzhex]

I want to order a 980ti hybrid and corsair ram and psu solely off Amazon. Should I bother waiting for cyber monday/black friday? I don't think these things would go on sale would they?

 

[opticalmace]

An i5, most definitely. I'm sorry if it's hard, but my budget isn't sketched out yet.

I think what you should do is price out the cost of these two builds to help you decide:

i5-6600K
Some decent motherboard from Gigabyte or Asus
8 or 16GB of DDR4-2800 ram (or 3000, or as low as 2400).

i5-4690K
Some decent motherboard from Gigabyte or Asus
8 or 16GB of DDR3-1866 ram

And then for 1080p/60, I'd look at the 970 or 390. If the prices are really nasty you could drop it down some and still get fine performance at 1080p (if you lower some settings).

 

[Giant Panda]

Is this rig from Newegg a pretty good deal?

It's a bit more expensive than the set up that RGM79 helped me out with earlier, but the better GPU and SSD are enticing.

 

[kirblar]

Heya, I had a quick Q on price/efficiency for two PCs I'm looking at. (I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I've had this one 5/6 years and it's fading out of viability, and I don't trust my ADHD to build one.) I've always gotten a store bought machine and then slapped an FX card/PSU in - in this case I'll just get a 750 GTX Ti and upgrade both later down the line if necessary.

The difference between the two options is only really the CPU.

$320 - i5-6400 http://www.microcenter.com/product/..._DDR3-1600_RAM;_1TB_7,200RPM_Hard_Drive;_Inte

$480 - i7-4790 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-in.../4606900.p?id=1219776510110&skuId=4606900

So it's a question of whether the i5 to i7 jump is worth the extra $160 (+ tax) or if that's just overkill for what I'd need it for (mostly lots of Blizzard games.)

 

[RGM79]

Is this rig from Newegg a pretty good deal?

It's a bit more expensive than the set up that RGM79 helped me out with earlier, but the better GPU and SSD are enticing.

I can help you analyze the costs. So, the prebuilt costs about $220 more.

If you added an SSD to the parts list I recommended before, it'd be be cheaper than that prebuilt PC. Think about it, a good 240~256GB SSD costs about $80~90 but the prebuilt PC costs over $200 more. For $150 you could get a decent 500GB SSD.

As for the graphics card.. the GTX 980 typically isn't recommended around here. Not because of it's a bad graphics card, but because the performance it offers is not really worth the cost. The GTX 980 costs around ~$430 at the cheapest and the GTX 970 costs around $300 at the cheapest, but the GTX 980 only outperforms the GTX 970 by roughly 10~15% according to TechPowerUp and Anandtech. Yeah, paying over 30% more money (from $300 to $430) for a 15% performance increase at best is not really something we'd recommend. If you're willing to read a bit and try some overclocking, it's possible to make a GTX 970 match the performance of a stock GTX 980, making the GTX 980 even harder to recommend. Sure, the GTX 980 can also be overclocked, but it's still not that big a difference to warrant the extra $130.

Also, prebuilt "gaming" PCs tend to have questionable negatives that are common. Look at this reddit thread, the person was contemplating buying the same PC, he contacted ABS (the company that assembles the prebuilt PC) and they were unable to tell him what model of power supply and motherboard was included in the PC because they don't know. That's kind of silly. If it were a good power supply and motherboard, you'd think they would advertise that, but it's probably some cheaper parts that you can't be sure about the quality. The power supply is important because it powers everything in your PC, you need higher wattage for overclocking and any future upgrades you'll be doing, and a bad power supply could ruin other components if it dies. The motherboard is important because it determines what it's compatible with and how well it can handle overclocking the processor. If it's a cheap motherboard, then it's kinda doubtful if it'll be totally stable when overclocked, or may not allow very high overclocking.

Heya, I had a quick Q on price/efficiency for two PCs I'm looking at. (I'm not a hardcore gamer, but I've had this one 5/6 years and it's fading out of viability, and I don't trust my ADHD to build one.) I've always gotten a store bought machine and then slapped an FX card/PSU in - in this case I'll just get a 750 GTX Ti and upgrade both later down the line if necessary.

The difference between the two options is only really the CPU.

$320 - i5-6400 http://www.microcenter.com/product/..._DDR3-1600_RAM;_1TB_7,200RPM_Hard_Drive;_Inte

$480 - i7-4790 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-in.../4606900.p?id=1219776510110&skuId=4606900

So it's a question of whether the i5 to i7 jump is worth the extra $160 (+ tax) or if that's just overkill for what I'd need it for (mostly lots of Blizzard games.)

The i7 won't really give you that much higher performance in most games. The i5 will deliver nearly the same or just slightly less performance, because both processors that you're talking about are quad core models. The main advantage of the i7 is hyperthreading which allows it to act like a octo core processor, but most games don't really need that. As far as I know, no Blizzard game requires an i7 processor just to get acceptable performance.

I think your first link is wrong? That goes to a PC with an i5 4460 processor, not an i5 6400 processor.

 

[kirblar]

Ah, you're right, I didn't realize that. I missed that cause I was in a rush to the gym.

i5-4460 - $320

i7-4790 - $480

edit2: This one was 410 w/ the i5-6400 - http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014QVM2KO/?tag=neogaf0e-20

 

[Antiwhippy]

So, question, should I still wait for black friday from newegg, or does it not apply seeing that I'm from australia?

Looking to upgrade ram, video card and migrate to a new case. Currently looking at a 960 2GB, HAF 912 and 16GB ram.

 

[Lys Skygge]

Just ordered the Dell 27" 4K monitor for $450 with free shipping. Just waiting until Black Friday to order the rest of the PC parts and I'll be ready to build!

 

[RGM79]

Looking to upgrade just after Christmas. This is in prep for VR be it Vive or Oculus, and will be used almost exclusively for gaming. Will be getting a gsync monitor in the future and possibly overclocking also.

The questions I have atm are, is it worth going with the 980ti with the new cards just round the corner or just go 970 and upgrade later? Are there any new chipsets arriving any time soon that will be worth holding off for and will they fit the mobo? Would I see an improvement from adding another 16gb ram or is 32gb overkill? And basically are there any improvements or changes that would be beneficial.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£338.11 @ PC World Business)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.95 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£110.99 @ Ebuyer)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (£75.49 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£59.99 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£29.99 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Video Card (£538.99 @ Aria PC)
Case: Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 ATX Mid Tower Case (£104.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£68.99 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer (£34.13 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) (£72.30 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1458.92

I can stretch the budget a bit more, say £1600. Just want to get the most bang for my buck and have it be as powerful as possible.

Thanks.

Here's what I'd recommend instead:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (£338.11 @ PC World Business)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (£24.95 @ Novatech)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£104.23 @ More Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory (£79.64 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£59.58 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Toshiba 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£31.19 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0+ Video Card (£499.98 @ Aria PC)
Case: Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 ATX Mid Tower Case (£104.99 @ Novatech)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (£62.91 @ Amazon UK)
Optical Drive: Pioneer BDC-207DBK Blu-Ray Reader, DVD/CD Writer (£34.13 @ CCL Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) (£72.30 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £1412.01
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-22 06:37 GMT+0000

For the UK, skinflint.co.uk is recommended. I found some slightly different prices and part choices there, you should go over the lists and see which parts and retailers work for you. There's not a lot of differences between the two builds, they're more or less equivalent in performance.

1 x Toshiba DT01ACA 1TB, SATA 6Gb/s (DT01ACA100)
1 x Samsung SSD 850 Evo 250GB, SATA (MZ-75E250B)
1 x Intel Core i7-6700K, 4x 4.00GHz, boxed without cooler (BX80662I76700K)
1 x Patriot Viper 4 Series DIMM kit 16GB, DDR4-2666, CL15-15-15-35 (PV416G266C5K)
1 x Gainward GeForce GTX 980 Ti Phoenix, 6GB GDDR5, DVI, HDMI, 3x DisplayPort (3484)
1 x Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI
1 x Pioneer BDR-207DBK black, SATA
1 x Scythe Kotetsu (SCKTT-1000)
1 x Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5 (MCY-005P-KWN00)
1 x XFX Pro Series modular Edition (Bronze) 650W ATX 2.3 (P1-650X-XXB9)
1 x Microsoft: Windows 10 Home 64bit, DSP/SB (English) (PC) (KW9-00139)
Total of all best prices: £ 1336.08

So, question, should I still wait for black friday from newegg, or does it not apply seeing that I'm from australia?

Looking to upgrade ram, video card and migrate to a new case. Currently looking at a 960 2GB, HAF 912 and 16GB ram.

You're ordering from the Australian section of newegg.com? You mean this? I have no idea if they are doing any specific black friday sales, but the front page already lists a "black november" sale. I have no idea what Australian prices are usually like so I can't say if they're any good or not.

What are your current system specs and budget for upgrades? Depending on how much you can spend, I'd recommend looking for a graphics card with 4GB of VRAM, a newer case, and adding to your existing RAM instead of buying a whole new set of 16GB RAM to replace whatever you currently have.

Recent triple-A games at 1080p can already go over 2GB of VRAM usage at high-ish graphics settings, so if you want something that will last longer into the future and not become bottlenecked as quickly, look for 4GB versions of the GTX 960, R9 380, and R9 380X. The HAF 912 case isn't bad, but it's somewhat dated. Some versions don't even have USB 3.0 ports.

 

[soco]

gaf, what's more important for ram performance, overall speed or latency timings? it seems as though as the frequency increases, so too does the latency, and somewhat significantly.

 

[RGM79]

gaf, what's more important for ram performance, overall speed or latency timings? it seems as though as the frequency increases, so too does the latency, and somewhat significantly.

Scroll down to "Remember the Order of Importance". The article is referring to DDR3, but I imagine DDR4's specs are important in the same way.

 

[AmyS]

So, apparently the successor to Intel's high-end enthusiast Haswell-E is going to be Broadwell-E with upto 10 cores/ 20 threads, launching in 2016.

http://www.extremetech.com/computin...ore-broadwell-e-processors-with-25mb-l3-cache
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015...neup-rumoured-to-feature-monster-10-core-cpu/
http://wccftech.com/intel-2016-road...es-10-core-broadwelle-apollo-lake-processors/

I wonder why there's no Skylake-E for 2016

Broadwell is the current lower-power design, the die shrink of Haswell, for mobile PCs. Odd choice to take that and turn in into an enthusiast CPU.

So confusing, with Kaby Lake (Skylake's successor) also in the pipeline.

 

[Terbinator]

It has been like that since Westmere on the X platform. Broadwell is still an improvement over Haswell.

 

[Cheeseman Battitude]

Any chance of some new AMD CPUs any time soon?

 

[soco]

Scroll down to "Remember the Order of Importance". The article is referring to DDR3, but I imagine DDR4's specs are important in the same way.

awesome thanks. I'm looking at DDR3 anyway, as the jump to skylake doesn't seem worth the extra cost for yet.

 

[bigb0ss]

I'm having a really odd problem here. Any advise would be appreciated.

I have an Asus Rampage IV Extreme mobo and I had windows 7 installed. I used to keep the machine running 24x7 so I never noticed the problem. If I reboot the machine, my LAN works successfully. If I shut the machine down, and then turn it back on, LAN will not work at all (yellow exclamation mark in Win7 / red x in Win10). The solution is to just reboot from that point, and then it works successfully again.

I took this chance to upgrade to Windows 10 and updated the bios to the latest version (hoping the issue will be sorted out), but I'm still having the same problem. Is there a setting in the BIOS that's causing this issue?

Spoiler

or has the mobo gone bad and just have keep doing my current workaround?

Edit: The NIC light is off when I shut the PC down. I know there's supposed to be some activity light as long as the PC is plugged into the power outlet. Even if power is unplugged, I shouldn't have to turn on the PC, go into windows and reboot in order for the NIC to work properly.

Another thing I noticed is that my USB devices work even when I do a shutdown. I have these features turned off in the BIOS.

 

[Hickee]

Many thanks to those that have replied, much appreciated.

 

[Terbinator]

I'm having a really odd problem here. Any advise would be appreciated.

Have you installed the Intel NIC drivers?

From my expeirence with Asus boards (GENE-Z, Z170 ITX) Windows will not install generic NIC drivers and so won't work until you do so.

 

[j0hnny_385]

How do I boot from DVD/USB if I have SecureBoot (Windows 8.1) enabled and CSM disabled? Tried enabling CSM, didn't help. BIOS only sees SSD where Win is.
Can it be done somehow without messing SecureBoot and needing to reformat/reinstall Windows?

 

[Antiwhippy]

You're ordering from the Australian section of newegg.com? You mean this? I have no idea if they are doing any specific black friday sales, but the front page already lists a "black november" sale. I have no idea what Australian prices are usually like so I can't say if they're any good or not.

What are your current system specs and budget for upgrades? Depending on how much you can spend, I'd recommend looking for a graphics card with 4GB of VRAM, a newer case, and adding to your existing RAM instead of buying a whole new set of 16GB RAM to replace whatever you currently have.

Recent triple-A games at 1080p can already go over 2GB of VRAM usage at high-ish graphics settings, so if you want something that will last longer into the future and not become bottlenecked as quickly, look for 4GB versions of the GTX 960, R9 380, and R9 380X. The HAF 912 case isn't bad, but it's somewhat dated. Some versions don't even have USB 3.0 ports.

Yeah, the australian section. Just dunno if it's worth waiting till black friday if the australian section doesn't have any special discounts.

Currently rocking an i5 sandy bridge 2400 or 2500, 4gb of ram and a radeon 6850. Currently think of going with a NXT s340, a 960 (might spend a few more for the 4gb versions, though I've read there really isn't much performance gains from going to 4gb?) and 16gigs of ram.

 

[Blitzhex]

Sandisk 960GB Ultra II is $200 on a lot of online sites including b&h. That's a pretty good deal and speeds are similar to the 1tb 850 evo, which costs $150 more right now.

 

[ThanksVision]

Hey guys, quick question from someone who has never built a PC (but plans to one day). My brother is looking to upgrade his machine, and he needs a new graphics card. This would be the perfect Christmas gift, but I want to make sure I get it right. Here are his specs (his words) from the machine he built a couple of years ago:

-Asus Sabertooth P67 motherboard
-Intel i7-2600K processor 3.40GHz
-16 GB RAM DDR3
-Tons of storage/not solid state
-800 watt power brick
-GTX 580 graphics card
-Corsair badass tower

I'm thinking the 970 or the 980 Ti, and after a bit of googling, I think his PSU is able to handle both of those cards. I question whether he has to upgrade anything else. In short: what exactly does he need, if anything?

Thank you!!!

 

[LilJoka]

Hey guys, quick question from someone who has never built a PC (but plans to one day). My brother is looking to upgrade his machine, and he needs a new graphics card. This would be the perfect Christmas gift, but I want to make sure I get it right. Here are his specs (his words) from the machine he built a couple of years ago:

-Asus Sabertooth P67 motherboard
-Intel i7-2600K processor 3.40GHz
-16 GB RAM DDR3
-Tons of storage/not solid state
-800 watt power brick
-GTX 580 graphics card
-Corsair badass tower

I'm thinking the 970 or the 980 Ti, and after a bit of googling, I think his PSU is able to handle both of those cards. I question whether he has to upgrade anything else. In short: what exactly does he need, if anything?

Thank you!!!

No need t upgrade anything if he runs a GTX 970, with the 980Ti, the CPU maybe a bit of a bottleneck unless he can overclock it somewhat.

 

[Giant Panda]

I can help you analyze the costs. So, the prebuilt costs about $220 more.

If you added an SSD to the parts list I recommended before, it'd be be cheaper than that prebuilt PC. Think about it, a good 240~256GB SSD costs about $80~90 but the prebuilt PC costs over $200 more. For $150 you could get a decent 500GB SSD.

As for the graphics card.. the GTX 980 typically isn't recommended around here. Not because of it's a bad graphics card, but because the performance it offers is not really worth the cost. The GTX 980 costs around ~$430 at the cheapest and the GTX 970 costs around $300 at the cheapest, but the GTX 980 only outperforms the GTX 970 by roughly 10~15% according to TechPowerUp and Anandtech. Yeah, paying over 30% more money (from $300 to $430) for a 15% performance increase at best is not really something we'd recommend. If you're willing to read a bit and try some overclocking, it's possible to make a GTX 970 match the performance of a stock GTX 980, making the GTX 980 even harder to recommend. Sure, the GTX 980 can also be overclocked, but it's still not that big a difference to warrant the extra $130.

Also, prebuilt "gaming" PCs tend to have questionable negatives that are common. Look at this reddit thread, the person was contemplating buying the same PC, he contacted ABS (the company that assembles the prebuilt PC) and they were unable to tell him what model of power supply and motherboard was included in the PC because they don't know. That's kind of silly. If it were a good power supply and motherboard, you'd think they would advertise that, but it's probably some cheaper parts that you can't be sure about the quality. The power supply is important because it powers everything in your PC, you need higher wattage for overclocking and any future upgrades you'll be doing, and a bad power supply could ruin other components if it dies. The motherboard is important because it determines what it's compatible with and how well it can handle overclocking the processor. If it's a cheap motherboard, then it's kinda doubtful if it'll be totally stable when overclocked, or may not allow very high overclocking.

That is a good point. I'm a little wary of building a PC myself because I have no experience with it and none of my friends do either to help out. I don't know what I would do if something went wrong. But ensuring I got exactly the parts I want is a very good benefit. If I can't confirm the quality of the ABS parts I'll probably give building my own a try.

I looked through the reviews for the ABS machine and one purchaser mentions a Cougar SL600 power supply. From my googling, people seem conflicted on Cougar's quality, which isn't too comforting.

Also says his motherboard was "MSI pcmate". If that means it's this that's pretty good: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130779

 

[ThanksVision]

No need t upgrade anything if he runs a GTX 970, with the 980Ti, the CPU maybe a bit of a bottleneck unless he can overclock it somewhat.

Thank you for the quick response! What if I were to get him the regular 980?

Also, there are a ton of variations of these cards put out by different companies... Is there a definitive version of these cards that most people choose?

 

[opticalmace]

Thank you for the quick response! What if I were to get him the regular 980?

Also, there are a ton of variations of these cards put out by different companies... Is there a definitive version of these cards that most people choose?

The 980 is a poor value, either go 970 or 980 Ti.

My favourites are the MSI Gaming 4G 970 and the MSI Gaming 6G 980 Ti. The Gigabyte Gaming G1 cards are also really good.

If he plays at 1080p/60 then a 970 would be fine. Depends on how much you want to spend I suppose.

 

[Samaritan]

Heads up for anyone in the market for a high-capacity SSD. Newegg's got the 500GB Samsung 850 EVO SSD with a free copy of Assassin's Creed Syndicate for $134.99 after using coupon: EMCKKNN28

https://t.co/dTa31vepTp/s/8H2D

 

[forrest]

Our family is outgrowing our house, so it looks like I'm going to have to move the gaming PC from out of the office into the living room.

Any recommendations for a good wireless keyboard/trackpad combo thing? I pretty much exclusively play games with a gamepad these days, and Big Picture will work for almost everything I need, but I want something to be able to navigate the Windows interface when I need to.

Look up controller companion on steam. It has worked great for me with my 360 pad when navigating Windows from the couch. Before that I used a networked pc remote control app on my smartphone called Unified Remote.

 

[ThanksVision]

The 980 is a poor value, either go 970 or 980 Ti.

My favourites are the MSI Gaming 4G 970 and the MSI Gaming 6G 980 Ti. The Gigabyte Gaming G1 cards are also really good.

If he plays at 1080p/60 then a 970 would be fine. Depends on how much you want to spend I suppose.

Okay, cool. Definitely interested in the 970 then. Sounds like the right choice, versus me incorrectly purchasing the 980Ti AND a CPU for him for like 1 grand lol.

Just to clarify, with the 970, he shouldn't have to upgrade again for a little while, right?

 

[Kenzodielocke]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (€244.03 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (€35.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (€114.00 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€49.43 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€52.75 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (€354.89 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (€62.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€89.83 @ Mindfactory)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer
Total: €1003.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-22 17:17 CET+0100

How is this build ? Where could I improve ?

 

[Kezen]

Can I connect an SSD to the Marvell ports on my MB (Gigabyte Z87 UD3H) ? I've checked device manager and my Marvell drivers are installed.
I've heard pretty bad stories about using those posts in the past hence why I'm asking, some say it's better to leave them alone or only connect optical drives.

 

[Oare]

I'm a little wary of building a PC myself because I have no experience with it and none of my friends do either to help out. I don't know what I would do if something went wrong. But ensuring I got exactly the parts I want is a very good benefit.

The problem with prebuilt PCs, aside from having potentially bad motherboards, is that makers cheap out on every single part that you could re-use for upgrades in the long term, such as case, fans, and power supply.
A shitty case is going to have poor airflow. Shitty fans are going to be noisy. Shitty PSU is going to waste a lot of energy and be underpowered.

You already have a PC that you want to retire. So buy some cheap thermal paste, grab a screwdriver, and lock down a couple of days. Take your old PC apart until you have separated every single piece of hardware (including CPU, CPU cooler fan, memory sticks and HDD/optical drive cables), documenting the whole process with pictures at every step. Keep different screws duly separated. Take your time. Use all the available documentation you have at hand (or that is accessible on the Internet) to ensure you understand what every part is and what it does.
Then rebuild. Then take things apart again, and rebuild. Then do it again, and again, until you feel like you know what you're doing.
After three or four times, you should be able to build homemade PCs for the rest of your life without thinking about it twice.

And if you break anything, the loss won't be too bad.

 

[opticalmace]

Okay, cool. Definitely interested in the 970 then. Sounds like the right choice, versus me incorrectly purchasing the 980Ti AND a CPU for him for like 1 grand lol.

Just to clarify, with the 970, he shouldn't have to upgrade again for a little while, right?

You wouldn't need to replace the CPU if you get him a 980 Ti. It's true that he could gain a bit if he were to overclock his 2600K but it's still a pretty potent processor.

If he's sticking with 1080p the 970 (or if you wanna go AMD, 390) should last him maybe 3 years comfortably. Keep in mind that doesn't mean everything on ultra in every game.

I use a 970 at 2560x1440 144Hz and have a very good time, but I don't plan brand new releases.

 

[InvertedComposer]

Hey everyone, after years of waiting I decided to finally upgrade my scrubby "gaming lappy" especially with sales coming this Black Friday/ Cyber Monday. But I'm not sure about up and coming good parts that will come out soon...

Just going off the Haz PC Build For "Excellent-Best Overall" on the OP...
But a few questions
- Is this PC necessarily Quiet? I keep my computer on overnight a lot and I seriously don't Engines revving while I'm sleeping. I'm not sure what factors determine that but I refuse to use a water cooler since I screwed up and have nightmares to this day.
- Still stressed over the GTX970 vs. the AMD R9 290 because of the 3.5 vRAM meme, the games I run are Phantasy Star Online 2, Killing Floor 2, and TERA. I still plan on getting the GTX970 but how devastating would that be for the games I play (I have intention of playing GTA5 on 4k or anything like that)

I'll probably have more questions along the way but thats about it for now.

 

[Shaldome]

So I need some help with a computer for my nephew. He has a laptop right now which seems to not cut it any more. My siter in law wants him t buy a new one for Christmas. She wants to spend around 700 Euro for the PC inlcuding a TFT. My nephew turns 12 at the beginning of next year and uses the computer mainly for Youtube and Minecraft (who would have thought).

I used the budget build in the OT as a template but I am having some problems with the GPU and TFT. Maybe someone can help me out with this.

Here is what I have so far.
And for people who want to check Links:

Alternately https://www.caseking.de would be another shop. The GPU section there is somewhat more limited as the "old" AMD GPUs are not available there.

 

[Corpsepyre]

I think what you should do is price out the cost of these two builds to help you decide:

i5-6600K
Some decent motherboard from Gigabyte or Asus
8 or 16GB of DDR4-2800 ram (or 3000, or as low as 2400).

i5-4690K
Some decent motherboard from Gigabyte or Asus
8 or 16GB of DDR3-1866 ram

And then for 1080p/60, I'd look at the 970 or 390. If the prices are really nasty you could drop it down some and still get fine performance at 1080p (if you lower some settings).

Appreciated. Will look up prices for the components you've mentioned and come back.

 

[bigb0ss]

Have you installed the Intel NIC drivers?

From my expeirence with Asus boards (GENE-Z, Z170 ITX) Windows will not install generic NIC drivers and so won't work until you do so.

No dice. I was pretty sure I had the latest drivers from Intel. I even installed the Intel driver update utility to be sure and it looks like all the drivers are up to date.

Edit: The NIC light is off when I shut the PC down. I know there's supposed to be some activity light as long as the PC is plugged into the power outlet. Even if power is unplugged, I shouldn't have to turn on the PC, go into windows and reboot in order for the NIC to work properly.

Another thing I noticed is that my USB devices work even when I do a shutdown. I have these features turned off in the BIOS.

 

[Kezen]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (€244.03 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (€35.55 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97N-WIFI Mini ITX LGA1150 Motherboard (€114.00 @ Mindfactory)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (€49.43 @ Mindfactory)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€52.75 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB Twin Frozr V Video Card (€354.89 @ Mindfactory)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case (€62.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (€89.83 @ Mindfactory)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer
Total: €1003.37
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-22 17:17 CET+0100

How is this build ? Where could I improve ?

Your PSU is fairly low end, I would advise something more premium for the same price.
http://www.amazon.de/Seasonic-SSR-550RT-Stromversorgung-550-Watt/dp/B00FW6EICS/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1448216900&sr=8-1&keywords=Seasonic+S12G-550
Regarding storage 1tb is going to be filled fast, but your MB should have enough Sata ports for you to add more.