@sombre:The second build is going to have longer legs. The i5-8400 is great performance of the money, along with the 1060; AMD cards are still overpriced because of mining. If you can find a full size 1060 with dual cooling for cheaper I would get that instead of the mini (and hell, preferable a 6GB if you can).
I would change the PSU - go for the EVGA Supernova G2 (I think the newer G3 is also top tier). Long story short the corsair power supplies use some pretty cheap components which offer the most minimal protection. The extra few bucks here could save components or your rig even. 650 watts and you should be right in the efficiency sweet spot.
If you can swing it, get a larger SSD and go for either Crucial or Samsung. Both perform at the top end in terms of real world consumer use tests. Crucial is definitely bigger bang for your buck though (assuming you can't find the Samsung on sale). If you want to save money to provide more room for a better GPU, then I would just cut the SSD and go for a SSHD instead of the HDD (hybrid drive that has a small amount of NAND flash with mass storage in the form of traditional platters). You can live without an SSD (contrary to what people are saying), especially if you're mostly just going to be gaming. Buy a hybrid drive instead of both an hdd and ssd and you'll save a hundred bucks or so (this is exactly what I'm doing with an i5, 1070, and 16gb ram rig). Your games will run just the same, you'll just have some inconsequentially longer load times. Just make sure your Windows Updates happen at night and leave your PC on. That OS is not non-SSD friendly when running updates haha.
Your ram is fine. You could get 16 GB if needed, but 8 is workable, especially since you have 1 stick, leaving you room to throw in another stick later.
And lose the CPU cooler - the stock one that comes with the 8400 is perfectly fine (unless you're planning on doing some overclocking, something I've done once or twice and realized was almost a complete waste of time/power/money in my 20 years pc gaming.)
Summary/tldr (in order of importance):
- replace your psu with a 650 watt EVGA Supernova G2
- lose the CPU cooler, use the stock one
- replace the 3GB 1060 with a 6GB 1060, perhaps dual cooling
- lose the SSD; replace the HDD with a hybrid drive from either Seagate or WD
- throw in 16GB of ram instead of 8GB
With the savings from getting rid of the cooler and SSD you should have room for both a better PSU and GPU (the latter of which will actually make a difference in game). The RAM is a luxury, hence it's last spot on the list.
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