Building $900 Budget Build

[richarizard]

Hey guys, I'm going to give a long introductory so bear with me here.

This is going to be my first build and I'm really excited. I've been viewing this forum for a while now and read informative posts by members here. Now with all that said, I want to be able to build a rig that can run all modern games very well.

I think I'm going to pass up on the SSD for now and save up for one later. I don't want any AMD processors nor do I want AMD GPU's recommended to me. I like Intel and Nvidia, that's my opinion and I'm going to stick with that. I want a simple case that can keep my parts cool and whatnot. Please, no tower cases with lights and stuff. I will want to record games on Bandicam, Fraps, etc.

Lastly, I can go up a little more but no less than $900. It could total to $1,000, but we'll see. The only thing I have is a monitor that is 1920x1080, 1080p, 4000:1 contrast if that helps any with choosing the GPU or anything for me.
BTW, PP Mguire, I see a lot of posts from you and it seems like you know what your talking about. I like you. So if you could help me out that'd be great. But please everyone pitch in to help as I am very excited to build my first rig!

 

[PP Mguire]

Well, here's the deal. 900-1000 builds you a very good rig. For the 900 you have this.

CPU:
Newegg.com - Intel Core i5-4570 Haswell 3.2GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54570

Motherboard:
Newegg.com - ASRock B85M-GL LGA 1150 Intel B85 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

RAM:
Kingston HyperX Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX1600C9D3B1K2/8GX - Newegg.com

GPU:
Newegg.com - EVGA SuperClocked 02G-P4-2762-KR GeForce GTX 760 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card

PSU:
SeaSonic M12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com

Case:
Corsair Carbide Series 200R Black Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

HDD:
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - Newegg.com

OS:
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - Newegg.com

At $851.

Or, substitue the GPU for this
Newegg.com - EVGA 02G-P4-2770-KR GeForce GTX 770 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card

Comes to $1001.

 

[PP Mguire]

Will it do what you want? Yes. Will you be able to play with maxed options, while recording at max quality? No. You'll need a bigger budget for that, but it'll get damn close.

 

[richarizard]

I dig it! Now I actually have a lot of questions so bear with me again lol.

Before that I forgot to mention some things on the first post. I don't want to superclock because I'm obviously new to this stuff. I also don't want watercooling (which Mguire didn't link me a water cooling part but still I'm posting this for others to see).

What about a sound card? Do you think the stock sound card from the motherboard is good enough? Should I just save up and leave that as an upgrade later on? Because ya know I want some quality sound too.

What about the Anti-Static wristband? Last thing I want is to shock my parts and waste money.

What about thermal paste? And will I need an aftermarket CPU cooler?

Ok about the PSU wattage. Should I go higher, like 700W and up or is 620 good enough for these parts? And about the GPU. Can I get
Newegg.com - EVGA 04G-P4-2766-KR GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
instead of the GPU's you posted? 4GB sounds nice.

Edit: I will need an optical drive. And can I use this case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119233
instead of the one you mentioned?

 

[Trotter]

I dig it! Now I actually have a lot of questions so bear with me again lol.

Before that I forgot to mention some things on the first post. I don't want to superclock because I'm obviously new to this stuff. I also don't want watercooling (which Mguire didn't link me a water cooling part but still I'm posting this for others to see).

What about a sound card? Do you think the stock sound card from the motherboard is good enough? Should I just save up and leave that as an upgrade later on? Because ya know I want some quality sound too.

What about the Anti-Static wristband? Last thing I want is to shock my parts and waste money.

What about thermal paste? And will I need an aftermarket CPU cooler?

Ok about the PSU wattage. Should I go higher, like 700W and up or is 620 good enough for these parts? And about the GPU. Can I get
Newegg.com - EVGA 04G-P4-2766-KR GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
instead of the GPU's you posted? 4GB sounds nice.

Edit: I will need an optical drive. And can I use this case
COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 Black SECC/ ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com
instead of the one you mentioned?

Unless you are a serious audiophile you don't need a sound card.

Make sure to ground yourself before touching parts (touch the metal of the PSU) and you will be good. I have never used a static band in all my years of working on computers.

The stock heatsink will have a thermal pad or paste with it. If you want something different I recommend MX-2. Having some thermal paste around is a good idea just in case you need to pull your cooler off.

An after market cooler is a good idea if you are going to overclock. The stock cooler is quiet enough, but you you could buy quieter coolers if you wanted to do so.

620 should handle it, but you could go higher if you wanted to. Be sure to stay with a solid brand like Seasonic, Corsair, or Antec.

Either GFX would work. The one you linked to is clocked a little lower but you can overclock them easily enough using EVGA Precision or MSI Afterburner.

Any SATA optical will work, and cases are a matter of personal preference.

 

[PP Mguire]

I dig it! Now I actually have a lot of questions so bear with me again lol.

Before that I forgot to mention some things on the first post. I don't want to superclock because I'm obviously new to this stuff. I also don't want watercooling (which Mguire didn't link me a water cooling part but still I'm posting this for others to see).

What about a sound card? Do you think the stock sound card from the motherboard is good enough? Should I just save up and leave that as an upgrade later on? Because ya know I want some quality sound too.

What about the Anti-Static wristband? Last thing I want is to shock my parts and waste money.

What about thermal paste? And will I need an aftermarket CPU cooler?

Ok about the PSU wattage. Should I go higher, like 700W and up or is 620 good enough for these parts? And about the GPU. Can I get
Newegg.com - EVGA 04G-P4-2766-KR GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card
instead of the GPU's you posted? 4GB sounds nice.

Edit: I will need an optical drive. And can I use this case
COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 Black SECC/ ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com
instead of the one you mentioned?

Trotter answered all the questions, I'll elaborate.

The CPU I linked can't be overclocked, so no aftermarket cooling is required. The only time you'd need another heatsinks is if you manage to break one of the push pins on the stock heatsink setup. That's not very hard to do, but with some finesse you should be fine. Having extra paste is not a bad idea, but the stock cooler comes with some. TX-2, MX-2, or AS5 are all good.

Unless you have a high quality sound setup or cans a sound card is not needed these days.

Never used one myself, been building computers since 99. Touch the metal of the PSU or more easily the metal of the case while building.

Would not recommend a PSU to anybody if it wasn't enough wattage as PSU quality is the most important to me besides performance to budget and customer service. That Seasonic 620w is enough to power many rigs and any single GPU solution for a long while.

The more powerful 770 would benefit you more than the 4GB 760 due to the fact that you want to record which requires a certain FPS level to remain smooth in the video. If you don't want to do the 1000 dollars like you suggested in the first post then get the 4GB 760 over the 2GB I originally linked.

Any cheap SATA DVDRW will work, yes that case is fine.

 

[xerolen]

Hey I figure PP Mguire and Trotter have effectivly answered your questions but I figured I might as well jump in just as an idea that if your going to record your games or even your entire screen what about going with a capture card? I know AVermedia has some really nice ones. I personally have one of their Live Gamer HDs (AVerMedia MTVLIVGHD Video Device - Newegg.com) and I love it. This card is probably a lot more than what you need but another good one they have is their new Live Game Portable (AVerMedia MTVLIVGHD Video Device - Newegg.com) and one that would probably work best for you is their AVerTV HD DVR (AVerMedia MTVHDDVRR Video Device - Newegg.com) that's a lot cheaper and enough for what you would need. While all these cards go over HDMI they all (except the Live Gamer Portable) come with a HDMI to DVI conversion cable. Just putting it in there for either consideration or even just future reference. I know that after I switched over to using a capture card all the videos I took were:

A. A lot nicer looking.
B. Easier to work with.
C. My CPU and GPU didn't have to work as hard I noticed a nice size drop in CPU usage along with a nice size drop in the stress on my GPU.

So just putting it out there. Good luck with your build!

PS. Prices

Live Gamer HD: $179.99 AVerMedia MTVLIVGHD Video Device - Newegg.com
Live Gamer Portable: $169.99
Newegg.com - AVerMedia Video Device C875 (Live Gamer Portable) USB 2.0 Interface
AVerTV HD DVR: $90.99
AVerMedia MTVHDDVRR Video Device - Newegg.com

PPS. The Live Gamer Portable does not require a PC to record so if you wanted to record off your XBOX 360, PS3 or other HDMI enabled Device it will work with it. It has a SD card port to put up to 32Gb SD card in for Video storage purposes and it can be powered over USB when needed or using the provided power cord. I know this is probably long but hope you at least read it.

 

[PP Mguire]

The cheapest solution you offered supports only 1080i, rather than the 1080p+ content PC gaming provides. The others are simply too pricey and any amount of that cash could be used to better his build, which effectively offers a higher quality recording depending on what's being used.

 

[richarizard]

Trotter answered all the questions, I'll elaborate.

The CPU I linked can't be overclocked, so no aftermarket cooling is required. The only time you'd need another heatsinks is if you manage to break one of the push pins on the stock heatsink setup. That's not very hard to do, but with some finesse you should be fine. Having extra paste is not a bad idea, but the stock cooler comes with some. TX-2, MX-2, or AS5 are all good.

Unless you have a high quality sound setup or cans a sound card is not needed these days.

Never used one myself, been building computers since 99. Touch the metal of the PSU or more easily the metal of the case while building.

Would not recommend a PSU to anybody if it wasn't enough wattage as PSU quality is the most important to me besides performance to budget and customer service. That Seasonic 620w is enough to power many rigs and any single GPU solution for a long while.

The more powerful 770 would benefit you more than the 4GB 760 due to the fact that you want to record which requires a certain FPS level to remain smooth in the video. If you don't want to do the 1000 dollars like you suggested in the first post then get the 4GB 760 over the 2GB I originally linked.

Any cheap SATA DVDRW will work, yes that case is fine.

Okay I think I can make some adjustments to my build and need your help again Mguire.

I was thinking of upgrading from a Haswell 3.2GHz to a Haswell 3.4GHz.
Newegg.com - Intel Core i5-4670 Haswell 3.4GHz LGA 1150 84W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics BX80646I54670

In your opinion, do you think this motherboard is a good choice instead of the ASRock you have listed? I like ASUS motherboards and I'm really feeling this one.
Newegg.com - ASUS B85M-G LGA 1150 Intel B85 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard

Lastly, I'm going to get the same GPU but going with Gigabyte because apparently EVGA's GTX 760 4GB is out of stock. Will this card even fit in this case? Gigabyte's card seems to be bigger than EVGA's...
Newegg.com - GIGABYTE GV-N760OC-4GD GeForce GTX 760 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready WINDFORCE 3X Video Card
COOLER MASTER HAF series RC-912-KKN1 Black SECC/ ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

So what do you think about all this? Are these nice adjustments?

 

[PP Mguire]

The extra price of the 4670 isn't worth it for the extra 200Mhz. If you're going to do that, the "worth it" aspect comes from buying the 4670k adding the ability to overclock, which means you'll need to up your board to a Z87 costing a minimum of 100 bucks. That's raising your spending on the CPU 50-70 bucks depending on what you're getting for almost no "real world" performance besides the possibility of an overclock.

The boards are practically the same. 7 bucks more gets you baby poop yellow, 2 extra RAM slots, and the loss of a standard PCI slot. If that's your game, go for it.

As for the video card, personally I would wait. The MSI and Gigabyte cards have heatsinks that add a ton of weight to the center, while not having that reference heat plate keeping the board flat and even/straight. This causes PCB sag which can cause damage after lengths of time. Most don't care, but I can't recommend to people cards that could potentially have problems later.

If you have to buy this minute, I would go for the MSI as I believe the heatsink on it is lighter. Otherwise, check back to Newegg later, or even eVGA's site for availability.
EVGA | Products | EVGA GeForce GTX 760 4GB | 04G-P4-2766-KR

Yes, all of the cards mentioned will easily fit in the case.