Building $900 Budget Build

[richarizard]

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.

About ASRock motheroboards. Heck, I did not know they had UEFI BIOS. I was completely sold when I saw the ASUS UEFI BIOS. Is the UEFI interface in the ASRock similar to that of ASUS?
I also didn't know that the ASUS motherboard didn't have an standard PCI slot. What would I need a standard PCI slot for?
A small reason why I picked the ASUS motherboard is because I might upgrade and get 2 more RAM cards in the future. How would that work out if I only had two memory slots?

Thanks a bunch for the insight of the GPU heatsinks. Wow that is some good info you got there. I will definitely wait to get an EVGA.

Ha, I didn't know you played Mechwarrior. No one EVER talks about that game...at least the people I talk to don't. I read old threads of yours and saw. I remember playing Mechwarrior 4: Vengeance with a joystick back in the good old days. My oh my the nostalgia. My first ever FPS was Unreal Tournament 2003. Then I got Unreal Tournament 2004 and that was my last Unreal.It was great. No one really talked about those games either. Maybe when I build my new PC I will get Unreal Tournament 3. Just maybeeeeeee. I know this topic isn't the right place for this lol hope I don't get in trouble!!

 

[PP Mguire]

All modern motherboard manufacturers have UEFI bios. It's not really a big deal though, because all it does currently is just change the interface type of the bios. Is it similar? They look different, like two different programs in Windows.
If you wanted to use a PCI wireless card, or sound card.
2x8GB gives you 16GB. Honestly, if you are running stuff that needs more than that most likely you'll need a platform upgrade anyways. Like I said though, if you want the Asus by all means. I only link the ASRock motherboard because typically they have the cheapest budget boards and I know they are solid.

Yes, don't get me started on the heatsinks. I have owned two triple slot monsters, an Asus DCU2 580 and Galaxy 580 with the Accelero cooler on it. TERRIBLE sag. Dual slot cards aren't as bad, but I've noticed Gigabyte has been putting more copper than aluminum in their Windforce heatsinks. This causes more weight. Anything without the reference plate is prone to sag. It's not 100% guaranteed, but not a risk I take in recommendations.

Mechwarrior 2 happened to be the second PC game I ever played on my dads computer, which happened to be a 386 running DOS 6 at the time. Descent 1 was the first PC game and with both I used a Thrustmaster flight setup. Had to learn DOS commands and such, which is probably why I'm so fond of those games and DOS. Both series I've been fond of until lately, when Mechwarrior Online came out and was a total disappointment to me.
UT 04 happens to be my favorite of that series too. We play it at LANs still as everybodies machine can handle it easily. You really can't beat Face 3 for a CTF map.
And yea I agree, it's really hard to find people who know of those games, let alone actually played them in my age group. Most at that age were playing SNES still while my dad was teaching me early. I plan to do the same, except my fiance and I agreed on starting on the classics first and working my son up the ladder so he experiences what we did.

 

[richarizard]

All modern motherboard manufacturers have UEFI bios. It's not really a big deal though, because all it does currently is just change the interface type of the bios. Is it similar? They look different, like two different programs in Windows.
If you wanted to use a PCI wireless card, or sound card.
2x8GB gives you 16GB. Honestly, if you are running stuff that needs more than that most likely you'll need a platform upgrade anyways. Like I said though, if you want the Asus by all means. I only link the ASRock motherboard because typically they have the cheapest budget boards and I know they are solid.

Yes, don't get me started on the heatsinks. I have owned two triple slot monsters, an Asus DCU2 580 and Galaxy 580 with the Accelero cooler on it. TERRIBLE sag. Dual slot cards aren't as bad, but I've noticed Gigabyte has been putting more copper than aluminum in their Windforce heatsinks. This causes more weight. Anything without the reference plate is prone to sag. It's not 100% guaranteed, but not a risk I take in recommendations.

Mechwarrior 2 happened to be the second PC game I ever played on my dads computer, which happened to be a 386 running DOS 6 at the time. Descent 1 was the first PC game and with both I used a Thrustmaster flight setup. Had to learn DOS commands and such, which is probably why I'm so fond of those games and DOS. Both series I've been fond of until lately, when Mechwarrior Online came out and was a total disappointment to me.
UT 04 happens to be my favorite of that series too. We play it at LANs still as everybodies machine can handle it easily. You really can't beat Face 3 for a CTF map.
And yea I agree, it's really hard to find people who know of those games, let alone actually played them in my age group. Most at that age were playing SNES still while my dad was teaching me early. I plan to do the same, except my fiance and I agreed on starting on the classics first and working my son up the ladder so he experiences what we did.

Ok now to finalize this. Get ASRock with a B85 chipset with the Intel Haswell 4570 and GTX 760? Or can I go up to H87?
Basically do I need more than a B85?

 

[PP Mguire]

No you don't really need more unless another board has something specific you may need. For instance, maybe you need more SATA ports, PCI-E 16x slots, or something like that.

 

[richarizard]

Alright gonna get the H87 ASRock board since it has a discount right now.

Thanks to PP Mguire and Trotter for helping me out with the build. Very much appreciated guys. These forums seem much more "mature" than other ones on the net. I think I got the parts down and going to start buying them.

Can I upload pictures after I'm done building my new rig here? Along with good cable management of course since that seems to be your pet peeve

 

[PP Mguire]

Yea we have a cable management thread here. Can make your own build thread in the OC/mods section if you like.

It's a lot easier to have a mature forum when you don't have 30 guys having a fanboy battle.

 

[richarizard]

Yea we have a cable management thread here. Can make your own build thread in the OC/mods section if you like.

It's a lot easier to have a mature forum when you don't have 30 guys having a fanboy battle.

Ok I decided that I'm going to get a new monitor for my new build. I might get this monitor along with the GTX 760 4GB.
Newegg.com - ASUS VG248QE Black 24" 144Hz 1ms (GTG) HDMI Widescreen LED Backlight LCD 3D Monitor Height&pivot adjustable 350 cd/m2 80,000,000:1 Built-in Speakers

Now from what I've read, people are getting 144Hz just by putting in Dual DVI cable in, and some people aren't. Other people said that they have to plug in both a Dual DVI cable in and a Display port in as well to get 144Hz. If not, only 120Hz. What? I'm confused. I have once again come here for quick answers.

 

[PP Mguire]

Ironically, that is the same monitor my best friend has, except he has 3....in Surround...with 2 680s.
Anyways, a single dual link DVI cable works fine. It depends on if the game supports 144Hz or not. As he found out, putting Shift at max quality, with Surround res, set to 144 causes the game to go bonkers. You'll find some issues like that where 120 may be the highest you can go. Not like it really matters, as in most games where you need that FPS at max quality the 760 might not deliver.

 

[richarizard]

Ironically, that is the same monitor my best friend has, except he has 3....in Surround...with 2 680s.
Anyways, a single dual link DVI cable works fine. It depends on if the game supports 144Hz or not. As he found out, putting Shift at max quality, with Surround res, set to 144 causes the game to go bonkers. You'll find some issues like that where 120 may be the highest you can go. Not like it really matters, as in most games where you need that FPS at max quality the 760 might not deliver.

Right that's what I assumed too. This monitor is only for like extreme PC's and also can only run 144Hz in high intensive games like Crysis 3, Last Light, etc? So old games won't even matter.

Either this or I'm debating on whether or not to buy a 120Hz. BTW what monitor are you using?

 

[PP Mguire]

Some old games can still run 120/144, but I think his res and Hz combo just makes them all go derp. Certain games that actually matter having a high refresh like BF3 (so can you run vsync with no input lag) you won't be able to run it maxed out and still achieve 144+ FPS with a single 760. Although, it still may work to your advantage, that is beyond me if you still get input lag while not maintaining higher than the refresh. I haven't tried it before as I don't have the equipment.

My monitor is in my sig. I'll be running with this probably until it dies because LED gives me a headache and the color accuracy on this thing is top notch for a TN panel.