Hey there duders,

A friend of mine is building a new PC, and asked me to help him out selecting the parts. The budget shouldn't be higher than 800€ (~1100$).

Here are the parts (prices include online store discounts):

Now, I have two specific questions I'd like to see addressed.

• I'm under the impression this build should be able to run most modern games at very-high settings on a sub-1080p resolution with a steady frame-rate. Please let me know if I'm wrong here.

• With next-gen games beginning to be released now, and taking Watch_Dogs' monstrous recommended PC specs into consideration, is it better to wait out a few months for a new generation of PC hardware, better prepared for next-gen games?

Other than that, I would appreciate any sort of constructive input you have to give. If you are able to point out a component that has a better alternative for a similar price, or detected any rookie mistakes with this build, please point them out.

Essentially, what do you think?

Thanks in advance guys,
Snail

Don't have anything less than 8 gigs of RAM. Other than that the build looks OK, I'm more of an Nvidia guy. I would say wait for new hardware but you'd only be waiting for Nvidia's new cards that come out in the spring, AMD already put out new cards.

And if you're concerned about watch dogs then that CPU should be an i7 not an i5 but nothing is definite yet until the game is out and i7 would go over budget.

@colourful_hippie: It does have 8GB of RAM (4GBx2), but I'll edit so that it's more clear. And, yeah, an i7 would definitely go over budget.

The reason I recommended an AMD is because they seem to be the budget option. That's the impression I've gotten and seems to be the way people talk about AMD cards, at least in recent years. Am I wrong in this? How much would an equivalent Nvidia cost?

I think you CPU is too slow. I'd say try to get an i7 if you can. Better to get rid of the ssd and grab one a year from now when you can pay for a 500gb one. I dont have the full stats on the ram, but again, it seems like its slow. Look for some g.skill (crucial is a very bad brand) and make sure you look for a CPU that runs 1866 if possible, but specifically latency of 8 or 9. (7 or 8 if using 1600). Ultimately there is little to no price difference and it speeds up the entire process of the computer.

Last thing, dont buy gigabyte. I've had a board from them flat out stop working because of voltage issues. I'd recommend an MSI board that supports DrMOS or an asus board (in that order).

While there isn't anything wrong with that cpu or gpu, they aren't optimal, you should skip getting a ssd if it's going to compromise any other part of your build.

I bought a ssd for my current build and I probably won't bother to use it next time, I never turn off my computer and most of my games are on another drive anyway because of capacity issues, ssd drives are great in theory, but until capacity and price fall in line with traditional hdds, they really aren't worth the hassle, certainly not worth skimping on a gpu for.

I would consider upping the CPU to the i5 4670k. That'll give you the option to overclock in the future (though you'll probably need to get a CPU cooler when you do so). And like others have said, the GPU is decent, but might not last the next few years (then again, nothing is truly "future-proof").

Check out reddit.com/r/buildapc; the folks over there are pretty knowledgable.

Your processor is too slow. Spend the extra money on a i5 4670k. Even if you don't overclock it's still worth having. I am of the opinion that all new PCs should have an SSD in them but that being said you should wait on that. 120 is a tad bit too small. I got 250 and I'm already feeling a squeeze. Use that money and get a better GPU, a GTX 760, and then upgrade to an SSD next year.

How is it too slow? It won't bottleneck the 7870.

I'm hoping he picks a GTX 760 instead. Also it looks like some upcoming games are going to be a bit more CPU intensive. It would be better to have a stronger CPU for those games.

760 would be a good choice if it was going to be an interim card, like waiting for new video cards to come so that when someone does get a high end one it will most likely last for the whole generation (specifically PS4/X1 gen) versus having to upgrade again soon anyways. I would say don't settle for anything below a 770 if you're looking to use a card for a while.

Also I didn't look too much into that specific i5 model, get a faster one.

What are you putting on an SSD that you're feeling the squeeze on a 250 gig? I have 30 or so free gigs left on my 128 because I specifically only use it for some programs and the OS shit. Everything else can go on my HDD.

What are you putting on an SSD that you're feeling the squeeze on a 250 gig? I have 30 or so free gigs left on my 128 because I specifically only use it for some programs and the OS shit. Everything else can go on my HDD.

That build is fine for the price. Yeah, the cpu could be better but it'll be fine for a good while as long as you don't need to do ultra and 60fps for every game.

Go with an unlocked i5. I'm not sure what the latest model is that is unlocked but that's the one you want. When I built my latest PC in 2011, I did a little research and went with an i5 2500k. Since it was unlocked it allowed me to overclock it from 3.3GHz to 4.0 and I just bought an aftermarket heatsink like this one and just installed it when I did the build. I had never overclocked anything before and this was by far the best decision I made. I had to jigger around with the BIOS and some testing software to overclock it, but since the day I set it up I have never had any problems with it, and cleaning the huge heatsink is actually easier than having a little dinky one. When the PC is just doing basic tasks it stays down at 1.6GHz or so, and then under load it kicks up to 4.0GHz and stays cool.

Just a couple superstitious things but I will say them anyway. I always recommend an ASUS board. My last 3 PC's have all used ASUS boards after I had problems with Gigabyte and MSI in the past and they have never failed me. Same with NVidia cards. I used to use AMD cards but now I'm all in on NVidia, their drivers are just better.

I just build an Mini-ITX PC. Which is an option you should explore. It is really nice to have a small case. Check out my blog for some infos. It's more expensive though. But mini-ITX allows fore many different builds as well.

And yeah. Skip the SSD for now. With 120 GB you will shuffle around a lot. I speak from experience. Also this is literally the easiest thing to add later.

Agreed about the CPU. Unlocked i5 at the minimum, i7 is preferred. The number of threads are beginning to make a difference, or at least look like they will, in the upcoming games, with watchdogs being one of the most notable examples. At least with an unlocked i5 you could compensate with clock speed.

You can also probably wait on the SSD, and just get a 1tb hybrid drive for now, and save yourself some money. Then when you add one in the future, you will have some faster storage as well.

I would also try to go with one of the new R series cards instead of the 7870. The R9 270x is slightly better than the 7870, and can be found sub-200 bucks. This gives you the mantle API, which looks at the very least intriguing, and offers the possibility of some significant performance gains if they hold true to AMD's statements.

Either way, it's a better card at not really too much of a price premium.

@shaggydude the drivers bit is a big point of contention. My experience has been the exact opposite. This is very much a YMMV sort of thing.

@snail: Consider both storage options and getting one Solid State Hybrid drive. an SSHD has the storage of an HDD and most of the speed of a SSD. I just got a 2Tb one for about 100 bucks.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178380

or

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822178381

2TB for 129, or 1TB for 80. Either way, gonna be faster than a standard drive, and a better option than a lower end CPU. Hard drives are much easier to upgrade later, and cheaper too.

Alright, thanks so much for all the input so far!

The considerations I've decided to take from this thread are:

• Ditch the SSD;
• Get a hybrid drive instead of a standard HDD (for about the same price);
• Use savings from step 1 to get either:
• A better, unlocked i5 (or an i7 - not likely because of cost);
• A better graphics card (I'm considering an R9 270x or an Nvidia in the 250$ range);
• Or both, if money allows.

I guess the thing with the CPU is that with next-gen and whatnot, games will finally start to take advantage of (and demand) all of those cores.

yeah if you're gonna go with AMD i'd go with a R9 270 or equivalently priced Nvidia 700 series. Also, there's so many iterations of the i5 out there that i'd be leery of suggesting that vs a good i7 or AMD fx 8350 for cheaper.

@oldmanlight: Apparently AMD is discontinuing the fx series, so that would basically give my friend a dead CPU socket in the not-even-that-long run.

I'll look into the CPU a bit more, but a slight upgrade to an unlocked i5 should be good enough, while perhaps leaving enough money left for a better graphics card.

You should be able to swing both the unlocked i5, as well as the R9 270X (MAKE SURE YOU GET THE X ONE) with the savings from the SSD and not much more. I honestly don't know if the performance gains going from the R9 to a 760 are gonna be worth the extra 50 bucks. That's something you'll have to decide after looking at benchmarks. Then you fall down the slippery slope of "well, for only 50 more than that, I could have an R9 280x", so you're just gonna have to come to your own conclusion about that.

@snail:

I'd apply the savings to the CPU first, video cards are constantly improving and they are a lot easier to swap out than a CPU. 2-4 years down the road you may want a new Video Card anyway and there will likely be new ones optimized for ports of the new gen of console games.

@colourful_hippie: Some really big programs and some of the games I have are pretty big. I also have another drive for storage.

@mikey87144: I don't bother with having games on the SSD. Games already load fast enough off my HDD that I don't see a huge benefit in having them sit on the SSD just to load even faster.

@colourful_hippie: I completely disagree. It's a few seconds but after a while they really add up. I can't imagine playing games off of a standard HDD on PC anymore.

Your friend can save $30 on Windows 8 if he is a student (or still has his student email address). Then he could put that towards a better GPU.

You can probably get a tad better graphics cards. 7950s are cheap right now.