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Hey everyone.  I'm specing out a build for a friend and want to make sure everything looks good and will be compatible.   He's reusing his 1920x1080 monitor for now but planning on going 2160x1440 in the future.

The PC will be used primarily for gaming.  I'm about 100 dollars over budget but think the M.2 drive that pushes over 2 gigs a second is worth the extra price.  Should I make the case for spending the extra hundred dollars and going over budget?

 

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He's going to want more than 256Gb of storage if he's a gamer surely? A lot more I would say with the size of some of the newer games.

 

Personally I would drop the M.2 drive and just get a normal SSD. You will lose some speed (which he doesn't really need tbh), it will be cheaper and you will get more Gb's for your money. I think M.2 drives are still a bit too expensive to be considered at the moment unless you really need the speed.

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So I was reading over at Tom's hardware and a review for the drive I just posted came up.

 

Full review if interested:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-sm951-ssd-128gb-256gb,4119.html

 

TL;DR

Verdict : The best all around SSD on the market today with nearly every box checked. You can use it in several Ultrabooks and any 9-Series chipset desktop without hassle. This level of performance is a luxury so expect to pay.

 

Looks like I have my answer.

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i would ditch the Asrock motherboard and the Cooler Master cooler. I highly recommend Asus motherboards and closed-loop coolers.

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Question, does it have to be an intel build?

 

I only ask as you can save a bundle on your budget if you were to swap out the motherboard and processor (possibly a suitable psu might cost more)

(My rig is an Asus ROG crossfire v formula z, running an amd 6350, the 8 and 9 series have come down considerably in price also and are compatible with my board... stay with me for a sec)

 

 

The reason I'm suggesting this is because of price only, I game on my rig on ultra or extreme settings running an inferior card (GTX760, but that's because my budget didn't stretch to a 9 series card)

And please, before anyone decides to tear me a new one for suggesting OP consider amd, benchmark figures mean more to enthusiasts than they do to regular consumers

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So I was reading over at Tom's hardware and a review for the drive I just posted came up.

 

Full review if interested:

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/samsung-sm951-ssd-128gb-256gb,4119.html

 

TL;DR

Verdict : The best all around SSD on the market today with nearly every box checked. You can use it in several Ultrabooks and any 9-Series chipset desktop without hassle. This level of performance is a luxury so expect to pay.

 

Looks like I have my answer.

 

It is the best SSD on the market today, but does that mean this build needs one? You said that the main purpose of this build is for gaming, but SSD's offer no improvement in FPS. You may get slightly faster startup times, but even that may prove negligible compared to cheaper SSD's. If he installs GTA 5 then nearly half the drive is filled up already along with the OS.

 

So basically you are going to need another drive whatever. That alongside the SM951 is going to push you well over budget.

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He's looking over the specs today and will let me know.  As far as the i7 being too expensive... I don't think it is.  What's an extra hundred bucks to double the amount of threads you can process at once.  I picked the 2600k over the i5 and am glad I did.  Future Proofing and all that...

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I would say better CPU cooling, hexa core warms up fast. Apart from that everything else looks great. Also not sure about the seasonic PSU, had a lot of bad PSU experiences lately and just landed an enermax platimax which seems to be great.

 

The CPU cooler he picked is one of the best in it's price range, it preforms much better then the included Intel one and the Intel one is certified for the CPU, hexacore has nothing to do with it. The die process is 22nm and it's TDP is only 140W, idel these chips depending on room temp sit around 90F and under full load not overclocked hover around 150F, it's nothing to worry about even with the Intel cooler.

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I have the 5930K and before that the X79 series one these CPUs run hot and water cooling is recommended especially with a motherboard and chipset configured to run overclocked

 

TJMax on that CPU is like 100C that's 212F, unless you are running with the cooler not seated properly or no cooler at all, air cooing will keep it well below this temp. If water cooling was recommended Intel wouldn't sell the CPU with a stock cooler certified for that CPU. The OP says nowhere about overclocking. The CPU cooler he has for this build is perfect.

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I would also suggest to replace the M.2 SSD. You'd be better off getting a 500GB SSD. 256GB for gaming is filled up quickly today. With the average modern game taking up 30GB-40GB you'll manage to install 2-3 games at most.

 

Also, SSD do not improve the FPS performance in a game, only loading the game itself or loading levels in it.

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So the same CPU with a stronger GPU would be worse?

What a stupid question seeing as he's over budget.

 

He's looking over the specs today and will let me know.  As far as the i7 being too expensive... I don't think it is.  What's an extra hundred bucks to double the amount of threads you can process at once.  I picked the 2600k over the i5 and am glad I did.  Future Proofing and all that...

So it's not a primarily gaming build then (unless he's planning on running multiple games/instances simultaneously).

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I'll throw in my few cents. I used to be a pro AMD'er for many years. my last intel was a 133mhz system. fast forward to last year, I just purchased a Qosmio system (intel CPU with an intergrated intel GPU but uses a discrete Nvidia system.

 

now, if this is for a gamer, there are some bonuses to having an intel nvidia rig. nvidia bought the proprietary technology AGEIA physX(excellent explosions and phyics effects). its now integrated in all new cards and drivers.

 

As a former AMD owner and now on the intel/Nvidia bandwagon, I would recommend a CPU just under cutting edge if on a budget and a top end(newest) GPU if not, get just under the best because you'll be in the upper bracket for gaming quality.

 

as for storage. I'd stick with a large SSD or HDD. I don't own an SSD because I just couldn't fit one in my budget. strorage should be a secondary thought to a CPU and GPU.

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