Gaming PC Build Questions

[firey]

So I am looking for some guidance on a fresh PC Build.  I don't want to spend too much. I'd like to keep it below $1500 CAD.  I haven't built a PC from scratch in like 13 years. Last time I built I started with a Barebones kit off of Tiger Direct (Intel Q6700  ) and then went from there based on research.

 

That said, I am not even sure where to start looking. I am not as big of a gamer as I used to be, but I definitely want to set myself up to be somewhat future-proof and be able to play at least current gen games on High-Max (previous gen on Max).  I haven't really been keeping up with the hardware side so not sure if going Intel over AMD is still the way to go.. if so then do I look at the i5, or the i7.  If I go with Intel then I assume I'd be better off sticking with an Nvidia card.. but there's a bazillion different models from various manufacturers.

 

So I guess what I am asking is.

CPU wise do I go intel/amd and which one chip is the best bang for the buck?

CPU cooler guessing would just be whatever is a solid fan for the chip? I am thinking air-cooled will be fine for now, no need to go all out on water cooling.
Mobo wise obviously gotta match chipset, my last build was an intel mobo, but are asus and such decent?

GPU if I go intel do I go Nvidia or is AMD the way to go? If so should I go stock or something like EVGA and go for a modified card, and which one? 
Case will be up to what I think looks good, was considering going with a white clean design with LED's

HDD not sure what's best here if I go a smaller SSD for OS and HDD for the data or if that's an antiquated way of doing it

PSU modular/not what sort of wattage? 
RAM corsair? not sure if speeds are still a thing. Probably aim for like 16gb

Sound will just be whatever comes with the MOBO I think, don't need a dedicated sound card. Same with network I'll just go off the mobo. Case fans I will buy based on what is quiet and fits in the case.  I don't have a VR Set but would like the option if I do go that route.  Monitors/KB+M will be whatever I find that I like.  No need for a disc drive, no requirements for specific connections.

 

If I think of anything else I'll add to the responses.

 

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I'm a bit out of the loop on the AMD side myself but I can try and answer some of your questions on the Intel side.

 

for your price point I would go with an i5 and build around that. For gaming an i7 will not give you too much advantage over an i5 especially for the jump in price that it costs.

If you want to overclock at all then you will want a K model of the Intel CPU otherwise it doesn't matter much.

 

i5-9600K for overclocking would run you ~$399

i5-9400 would suit your needs for ~$249 if you don't care about overclocking

 

Once you have your CPU you can build around that; both the above are 9th Gen CPUs so they use the LGA 1151 (300 Series) socket.

 

I prefer ASUS for mobos personally so here's a couple example boards that would work well.

If you plan to overclock then you would want to get a Z series board otherwise it won't matter much for a non K CPU

 

ASUS Prime Z390-A LGA 1151 - ~$235.47

ASUS ROG Strix Z390-I Gaming Motherboard LGA1151 - ~$274.00

 

RAM is completely your choice; for standard gaming you won't notice much difference in different RAM offerings (at least in my experience)

I've always favored G.Skill for brand personally.

 

HDD/SSD I'd recommend going with a Samsung EVO offering either SATA or M.2 if available on the board you choose.

 

PSU I'd recommend going 800 Watts or more; 600 is usually the minimum for a gaming rig IMO but an 800 will give you wiggle room for if you decide to add anything extra down the line  modular or not is personal preference. I've gone with a semi-modular PSU in the past and that works well; the cords that don't come off are the ones you need to use in most cases with a semi-modular design

 

AMDs are slowing creeping past Intel in the CPU scene but Nvidia still reins king on the GPU side of things

 

for most components I usually browse a combination of rating and price on Newegg and decide based on that

 

This should help get you started though

[LaP]

49 minutes ago, firey said:

CPU wise do I go intel/amd and which one chip is the best bang for the buck?

 

It depends what you want to do. If it's purely a gaming machine and you got enough money you should probably go with Intel. If it's for a workstation or a mix of the two then you should take a good look at AMD as usually you'll get the same workstation performance for less money (or better at an equal price) and you wont be that far in gaming performance.

 

If you plan to keep it for long i would avoid the i5 7xxx at all cost even if it's dead cheap as it's a 4c/4t only cpu and it is already starting to be a bottleneck in newer games on a decent gpu. The 7600k will constantly deliver lower minimum fps than pretty much any AMD Ryzen cpu (not APU) in newer titles because of its lack of hyper-threading and being limited to 4 cores only. That cpu just wont cut it 2-3 years from now.

Edited July 23, 2019 by LaP

[LaP]

30 minutes ago, Brandon H said:

 

AMDs are slowing creeping past Intel in the CPU scene but Nvidia still reins king on the GPU side of things

 

 

Depends how much money he wants to spend. The 5700 and 5700XT are very competitive cards if one doesn't care too much about RTX. Anyway i highly doubt any of the 2060 cards will be good enough for proper RTX down the road. If he's ready to spend more than 500$ on the gpu then yeah nVidia no doubt.

Edited July 23, 2019 by LaP

[Odom Member]

What monitor are you planning on getting? Or to put it another way, at what resolution are you planning to play at? This is going to be the million $ question which would define your GPU & CPU combo. Without knowing that, there is no point in suggesting a GPU that then won't be powerful enough if you plan on playing at 1440p or 4K, nor a CPU that won't be able to feed the GPU, or suggesting a high-end CPU and GPU if you then only plan on gaming at 1080p. You can save a lot of money that way.

[firey]

15 hours ago, Brandon H said:

i5-9600K for overclocking would run you ~$399

i5-9400 would suit your needs for ~$249 if you don't care about overclocking

 

Once you have your CPU you can build around that; both the above are 9th Gen CPUs so they use the LGA 1151 (300 Series) socket.

 

I prefer ASUS for mobos personally so here's a couple example boards that would work well.

If you plan to overclock then you would want to get a Z series board otherwise it won't matter much for a non K CPU

 

RAM is completely your choice; for standard gaming you won't notice much difference in different RAM offerings (at least in my experience)

I've always favored G.Skill for brand personally.

HDD/SSD I'd recommend going with a Samsung EVO offering either SATA or M.2 if available on the board you choose.

PSU I'd recommend going 800 Watts or more; 600 is usually the minimum for a gaming rig IMO but an 800 will give you wiggle room for if you decide to add anything extra down the line  

Thanks for the info.  Yea, I hadn't put much thought into over-clocking, that said though.. might make sense as it will eek a bit more shelf-life out of the CPU. So the big key is the CPU and picking the right one and building around that?

15 hours ago, LaP said:

It depends what you want to do. If it's purely a gaming machine and you got enough money you should probably go with Intel. If it's for a workstation or a mix of the two then you should take a good look at AMD as usually you'll get the same workstation performance for less money (or better at an equal price) and you wont be that far in gaming performance.

 

If you plan to keep it for long i would avoid the i5 7xxx at all cost even if it's dead cheap as it's a 4c/4t only cpu and it is already starting to be a bottleneck in newer games on a decent gpu. The 7600k will constantly deliver lower minimum fps than pretty much any AMD Ryzen cpu (not APU) in newer titles because of its lack of hyper-threading and being limited to 4 cores only. That cpu just wont cut it 2-3 years from now.

The plan is to go purely gaming. I have enough other machines that I can do dev work on. Now, the CPU that Brandon mention was the 9xxx which I am guessing is the 9th gen 7xxx being 7th gen? For longevity would the 9th gen make more sense? I'd like the machine to last and keep up with what is happening. With that said, I don't want to spend 500+ in the graphics card department. However, I guess it comes down to how much the other pieces end up costing.

4 hours ago, Odom said:

What monitor are you planning on getting? Or to put it another way, at what resolution are you planning to play at? This is going to be the million $ question which would define your GPU & CPU combo. Without knowing that, there is no point in suggesting a GPU that then won't be powerful enough if you plan on playing at 1440p or 4K, nor a CPU that won't be able to feed the GPU, or suggesting a high-end CPU and GPU if you then only plan on gaming at 1080p. You can save a lot of money that way.

I am definitely not aiming on anything fancy at this point. Likely go with a pair of 22-24" monitors, but nothing top of the line or with super fancy features. So I'd likely be in the 1080p range but again, if I can do better without it being some stupid amount of money. 

[Mockingbird]

My suggestion...

 

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: *AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 3.6 GHz 8-Core Processor  ($448.75 @ Vuugo) 
Motherboard: *Asus PRIME X570-P ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($212.75 @ Vuugo) 
Memory: *Team Dark 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($82.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Storage: *Team L5 LITE 3D 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($57.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Video Card: *XFX Radeon RX 5700 XT 8 GB Video Card  ($519.99 @ Memory Express) 
Case: *Corsair SPEC-04 ATX Mid Tower Case  ($49.99 @ Canada Computers) 
Power Supply: Rosewill Capstone 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-modular ATX Power Supply  ($99.99 @ Newegg Canada) 
Total: $1472.45
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
*Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-07-24 10:55 EDT-0400

[Mockingbird]

17 hours ago, firey said:

1.) CPU wise do I go intel/amd and which one chip is the best bang for the buck?

2.) CPU cooler guessing would just be whatever is a solid fan for the chip? I am thinking air-cooled will be fine for now, no need to go all out on water cooling.
3.) Mobo wise obviously gotta match chipset, my last build was an intel mobo, but are asus and such decent?

4. ) GPU if I go intel do I go Nvidia or is AMD the way to go? If so should I go stock or something like EVGA and go for a modified card, and which one? 
5.) Case will be up to what I think looks good, was considering going with a white clean design with LED's

6.) HDD not sure what's best here if I go a smaller SSD for OS and HDD for the data or if that's an antiquated way of doing it

7.) PSU modular/not what sort of wattage? 
8.) RAM corsair? not sure if speeds are still a thing. Probably aim for like 16gb

1.) Definitely AMD right now.

 

2.) I would use the Wraith Prism cooler that's included with the processor.

 

3.) So, you are looking at B450, X470, and X570 for chipsets. ASUS, ASRock, Gigabyte, and MSI are all great motherboard vendors.

 

4.) It depends on the price point. For example, the Radeon RX 5700 performs similar to the GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER while cheaper and the Radeon RX 5700 XT performs similar to the GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER while cheaper. Meanwhile, AMD currently has nothing to compete with NVIDIA's GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER and GeForce RTX 2080 Ti.

 

5.) I'll let you choose that on your own.

 

6.) I personally use all SSD, but that's up to you.

 

7.) Semi-modular or fully modular is good. 650W should be plenty.

 

8.) Memory brands don't really matter

Edited July 24, 2019 by Mockingbird

[Brandon H Supervisor]

If you plan to stick around 1080p range then I'd say go with one of the new GTX 16 series

 

I usually go for Asus, MSI, EVGA for my OEMs of choice on graphics cards

 

EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 XC Black (single fan) - will run you ~$299 as an example

EVGA GeForce GTX 1660 XC Ultra (double fan) - ~$339

 

ray tracing is still in its infancy I would say; not much makes use of it yet so no sense paying extra for the RTX range right now if you don't care about ray tracing yet

 

 

1 hour ago, firey said:

So the big key is the CPU and picking the right one and building around that?

Yes, the CPU is your brain so I've found it easiest when building my own rig in the past to choose the desired CPU first and then I can look at available mobos with the correct socket and go from there

[LaP]

If you plan to stick with 1080p60 gaming for a while and you are on a budget honestly any decent CPU will do the trick. For this usage i would probably look at the Ryzen 5 3600. It's very cheap and it supports hyper-threading (SMT) so it should age well like the 1600 did. It's cheaper than a Core i5 9600k so it will give you more money to spend on a good gpu.

 

I have a Ryzen 7 1800x with a gtx 1070 and i can get around 80-90 fps at 2k in pretty much any games using high to ultra settings (or a mix of the two). Any decent CPU coupled with a gtx 1660Ti, RTX 2600 or RX 5700 should do the trick for a while at 1080p60.

[firey]

3 minutes ago, LaP said:

If you plan to stick with 1080p60 gaming for a while and you are on a budget honestly any decent CPU will do the trick. For this usage i would probably look at the Ryzen 5 3600. It's very cheap and it supports hyper-threading (SMT) so it should age well like the 1600 did. It's cheaper than a Core i5 9600k so it will give you more money to spend on a good gpu.

 

I have a Ryzen 7 1800x with a gtx 1070 and i can get around 80-90 fps at 2k in pretty much any games using high to ultra settings (or a mix of the two). Any decent CPU coupled with a gtx 1660Ti, RTX 2600 or RX 5700 should do the trick for a while at 1080p60.

So a mix of AMD and Nvidia then? I mean, yes I am on a budget.. but I don't think it's too limiting.  The big thing is I want to ensure longevity with what I get.  I mean, I know it won't be my forever computer, but I do want to be able to update pieces without the whole thing needing a full overhaul every 5 years.  

 

That's where I struggle a bit because I don't really know what hardware is the best bang for the buck that isn't buying top of the line, but also not skimping on important bits.

[LaP]

37 minutes ago, firey said:

So a mix of AMD and Nvidia then? I mean, yes I am on a budget.. but I don't think it's too limiting.  The big thing is I want to ensure longevity with what I get.  I mean, I know it won't be my forever computer, but I do want to be able to update pieces without the whole thing needing a full overhaul every 5 years.  

 

That's where I struggle a bit because I don't really know what hardware is the best bang for the buck that isn't buying top of the line, but also not skimping on important bits.

Ryzen 5 3600 is definitely a "budget" cpu but it's a good cpu. Personally i would not go any lower than a Ryzen 5 3600. You can find cheaper cpus but you get what you pay for ... if you can afford a Ryzen 7 3700 then obviously it's a better cpu but at this price point you should probably go with Intel if gaming is the main usage of the machine. If you go AMD a good b450 motherboard should do the trick. Try to buy one of the revised b450 motherboards for Zen 2 with an updated 32mb bios like the MSI MAX models. You could go with a b550 motherboard but i feel like it's going to be overkill. For the ram i would not go lower then DDR 4 3200. As for the gpu i would avoid the gtx 1550/1650 cards (or any pre-Navi amd cards). The minimum i would go is gtx 1660Ti, RTX 2600 or RX 5700. Any of these cards will be more than good enough for 1080p60 gaming. You can build a 1080p60 computer for less but you'll probably have to tune things down in your games very soon once the next gen consoles will hit the market.

 

If you plan to buy a 2k or 4k monitor you need to realize you'll need a very good computer. Likely a core i7 9700k or 3700x with a RTX 2070 Super or RX 5700XT minimum. If you buy a high refresh rate 1080p monitor and absolutely want to reach 120+ fps then you can get away with a core i5 9600k but you'll need a 2070 Super and maybe even a 2080 Super to be at 120+ fps at all time without reducing the image quality too much. My overclocked gtx 1070 is definitely a big bottleneck for high fps gaming at 2k (i own a 2k 144Hz monitor). It's simply not good enough.

 

Keep in mind that while Intel is still the "king" for gaming they pretty much get "destroyed" at everything else. Basically you'll get a slightly better fps in gaming at the same price point (probably around 10-15% on average as long as you are not gpu bound which you'll always be at 4k) but you'll get lower performance in almost everything else at the same price point. I don't know how old you are but if you start doing serious working with this computer in 2-3 years (4k editing, vm, rendering, ...) you'll regret buying a core i5. I had a core i5 before buying my Ryzen 1800x and they are wonderful cpus for gaming but for any serious work they are lagging behind in term of performance for $ spent. Lack of hyper-threading will be a big problem for productivity down the road.

[firey]

18 minutes ago, LaP said:

Ryzen 5 3600 is definitely a "budget" cpu but it's a good cpu. Personally i would not go any lower than a Ryzen 5 3600. You can find cheaper cpus but you get what you pay for ... if you can afford a Ryzen 7 3700 then obviously it's a better cpu but at this price point you should probably go with Intel if gaming is the main usage of the machine. If you go AMD a good b450 motherboard should do the trick. Try to buy one of the revised b450 motherboards for Zen 2 with an updated 32mb bios like the MSI MAX models. You could go with a b550 motherboard but i feel like it's going to be overkill. For the ram i would not go lower then DDR 4 3200. As for the gpu i would avoid the gtx 1550/1650 cards (or any pre-Navi amd cards). The minimum i would go is gtx 1660Ti, RTX 2600 or RX 5700. Any of these cards will be more than good enough for 1080p60 gaming. You can build a 1080p60 computer for less but you'll probably have to tune things down in your games very soon once the next gen consoles will hit the market.

 

If you plan to buy a 2k or 4k monitor you need to realize you'll need a very good computer. Likely a core i7 9700k or 3700x with a RTX 2070 Super or RX 5700XT minimum. If you buy a high refresh rate 1080p monitor and absolutely want to reach 120+ fps then you can get away with a core i5 9600k but you'll need a 2070 Super and maybe even a 2080 Super to be at 120+ fps at all time without reducing the image quality too much. My overclocked gtx 1070 is definitely a big bottleneck for high fps gaming at 2k (i own a 2k 144Hz monitor). It's simply not good enough.

 

Keep in mind that while Intel is still the "king" for gaming they pretty much get "destroyed" at everything else. Basically you'll get a slightly better fps in gaming at the same price point (probably around 10-15% on average as long as you are not gpu bound which you'll always be at 4k) but you'll get lower performance in almost everything else at the same price point. I don't know how old you are but if you start doing serious working with this computer in 2-3 years (4k editing, vm, rendering, ...) you'll regret buying a core i5. I had a core i5 before buying my Ryzen 1800x and they are wonderful cpus for gaming but for any serious work they are lagging behind in term of performance for $ spent. Lack of hyper-threading will be a big problem for productivity down the road.

Hmm okay. I kind of figured i'd be around the 700$ mark for CPU+MOBO, 500$ or so for RAM/PSU/HDD/Case, then 300$ or so for GPU. Basically a 1500$ budget, now obviously some things may be cheaper and I can tweak where the money goes. Monitor wise, I am not looking for anything fancy I don't really care if it has the fancy sync stuff, doesn't need to be 4k by any means.

 

I am 30, and so this would be purely for gaming. I have other machines for work that do just fine. I work as a developer and have for 10+ years so this isn't a "one day I might do work" sort of deal. The budget is more due to what I can justify spending as opposed to something like "my mom said I can build a pc".

[Mockingbird]

5 hours ago, firey said:

Hmm okay. I kind of figured i'd be around the 700$ mark for CPU+MOBO, 500$ or so for RAM/PSU/HDD/Case, then 300$ or so for GPU. Basically a 1500$ budget, now obviously some things may be cheaper and I can tweak where the money goes. Monitor wise, I am not looking for anything fancy I don't really care if it has the fancy sync stuff, doesn't need to be 4k by any means.



  

I am 30, and so this would be purely for gaming. I have other machines for work that do just fine. I work as a developer and have for 10+ years so this isn't a "one day I might do work" sort of deal. The budget is more due to what I can justify spending as opposed to something like "my mom said I can build a pc".

In a gaming PC, the most expensive component is usually the video card.

 

Anyway, I still think my build above, which allocated around 500 CAD to the video card, is still the way to go.

[firey]

Just looking through hardware, I am seeing more and more that support the M.2 ssd drives, are they viable? How would the preform for a gaming setup? Would there be read/write issues over time?

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

23 minutes ago, firey said:

Just looking through hardware, I am seeing more and more that support the M.2 ssd drives, are they viable? How would the preform for a gaming setup? Would there be read/write issues over time?

M.2 is great over regular SSD's.

 

Here's a good comparison:

 

http://www.thessdreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/M.2-NGFF-Transfer-Speed-Chart.png

 

BUT, you would want a normal HDD for storage. As SSD's do die faster.

 

(dunno why that picture won't show up on here...)

[Jim K Global Moderator]

28 minutes ago, firey said:

Just looking through hardware, I am seeing more and more that support the M.2 ssd drives, are they viable? How would the preform for a gaming setup? Would there be read/write issues over time?

They are worth it. Faster than regular SSDs, reliable ... not sure of any read/write issues. Though, as with regular SSDs if it does fail ... it just fails (whereas a HDD might give some indication prior).  Cost difference between a m.2 PCIe and SATA is shrinking too...so if you can afford the slight price difference...go for the m.2 PCIe.

 

Please note that m.2 comes in either SATA or PCIe.

 

Regarding that they "fail faster" ... that really depends. You'll probably replace the drive for a newer drive/updated technology well before TBW/MTBF, P/E cycle.  As with any drive...it is important to keep backups...because electronics fail.

[firey]

3 minutes ago, Jim K said:

They are worth it. Faster than regular SSDs, reliable ... not sure of any read/write issues. Though, as with regular SSDs if it does fail ... it just fails (whereas a HDD might give some indication prior).  Cost difference between a m.2 PCIe and SATA is shrinking too...so if you can afford the slight price difference...go for the m.2 PCIe.

 

Please note that m.2 comes in either SATA or PCIe.

 

7 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

M.2 is great over regular SSD's.

 

Here's a good comparison:

 

http://www.thessdreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/M.2-NGFF-Transfer-Speed-Chart.png

 

BUT, you would want a normal HDD for storage. As SSD's do die faster.

 

(dunno why that picture won't show up on here...)

So would it make sense then to go with a smaller one for say OS then standard drive for game installs?

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

2 minutes ago, firey said:

 

So would it make sense then to go with a smaller one for say OS then standard drive for game installs?

What you mean by smaller? As in GB size?

 

A 250/256GB should be plenty for you. I personally have a 510/512GB that I use as my OS drive.

[adrynalyne]

11 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

M.2 is great over regular SSD's.

 

Here's a good comparison:

 

http://www.thessdreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/M.2-NGFF-Transfer-Speed-Chart.png

 

BUT, you would want a normal HDD for storage. As SSD's do die faster.

 

(dunno why that picture won't show up on here...)

M.2 is just a form factor/connection type. When it comes down to it, there is no advantage over a 2.5” sata SSD unless it’s PCIe. It’s important to make that distinction because not all m.2 are created equally. I’d hate someone to get a sata m.2 and expect differences from a 2.5. 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

1 minute ago, adrynalyne said:

M.2 is just a form factor/connection type. When it comes down to it, there is no advantage over a 2.5” sata SSD unless it’s PCIe. It’s important to make that distinction because not all m.2 are created equally. I’d hate someone to get a sata m.2 and expect differences from a 2.5. 

Well, for speed with SATA, no. But the SATA M.2 is phasing out now. So SATA M.2 will be a thing of the past.

 

Are M.2 made with different chips than 2.5" SSD's? just wondering...

[adrynalyne]

3 minutes ago, Mindovermaster said:

Well, for speed with SATA, no. But the SATA M.2 is phasing out now. So SATA M.2 will be a thing of the past.

 

Are M.2 made with different chips than 2.5" SSD's? just wondering...

I don’t think so. If you tear open a 2.5 enclosure, you get a familiar sight, just in a different shape. I could be wrong. 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

8 minutes ago, firey said:

 

So would it make sense then to go with a smaller one for say OS then standard drive for game installs?

I would say that it depends on your storage needs/budget. 500GB-1TB m.2 PCIe for OS, frequently used apps and demanding games.  Just realize that modern games are huge. 

 

Maybe a secondary, larger SATA SSD or HDD for regular storage/backup/media/less frequently used programs/less demanding games.

 

Once again though...it just depends on your budget/storage needs.  Install stuff you want to be fast on the m.2 PCIe and all the other stuff on the secondary drive.

[adrynalyne]

Also keep in mind that with SSDs, the smaller you go, the slower you go. 256GB SSDs are a bit slower than 512 and so on. Once you hit 512+, that difference tends to get smaller or disappear. 

[Mindovermaster Moderator]

8 minutes ago, adrynalyne said:

Also keep in mind that with SSDs, the smaller you go, the slower you go. 256GB SSDs are a bit slower than 512 and so on. Once you hit 512+, that difference tends to get smaller or disappear. 

True. My 512GB SSD is faster than my old 60GB... lol (of course, moire factors go into that, too)