Building a Computer - Compatibility

[Dralzar]

I'm building a new computer (intended primarily for gaming, but I also need it for basic stuff like Excel/Word). I don't intend to overclock, but I do want a computer that can run games like Elder Scrolls Online or Wildstar very smoothly and on decent (high, but not ultra high) settings. I plan to install Windows 8 on it after putting it together. The only things I haven't picked out are the keyboard and mouse; I plan on using a 32" LCD tv for a monitor. I have been doing some research and here's what I have come up with:

• 
  Computer Case: NZXT Guardian 921 RB ATX Mid Tower Case
  Motherboard: Z97 Extreme4
  CPU: Intel i5-4670
  Optical Drive: Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial ATA
  GPU: Radeon R9 290
  Hard Drive: WD Blue 1 TB
  RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB
  Power Supply: Corsair Builder Series CX 600 Watt ATX/EPS 80 Plus

What I'm most concerned about at the moment is getting the right motherboard, and ensuring that all of the components will work together. I'm fairly noob when it comes to computer hardware, and I don't want to end up with the wrong components here. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you.

P.S. Also, would you recommend Windows 7 or Windows 8 for this computer?

 

[Dauntae]

Looks ok except the PS, Corsair has some good ones but they are all made for corsair by other manufacturers and there builder series is of a cheaper make than the others, Seasonic makes there better ones so I would go for this one first, Newegg has it for a much better price than I could find on Amazon, About $20 cheaper actually. SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com
One other thing I noticed is if you are NOT going to over clock at all then you won't need the Z-97 and save a little for other things and get the H-97 board. Pricing I would look on newegg, Seems there prices are fairing better than Amazon on quit a few things on your list.
Newegg.com - ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Performance LGA 1150 Intel H97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s Intel Motherboard
and last but not least, Although the ram you picked is nice and I have similar but you can save some without sacrificing any speed on it, The ram has the same timing and speed for yet another $15 ish in savings.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820313342

 

[PP Mguire]

I'm building a new computer (intended primarily for gaming, but I also need it for basic stuff like Excel/Word). I don't intend to overclock, but I do want a computer that can run games like Elder Scrolls Online or Wildstar very smoothly and on decent (high, but not ultra high) settings. I plan to install Windows 8 on it after putting it together. The only things I haven't picked out are the keyboard and mouse; I plan on using a 32" LCD tv for a monitor. I have been doing some research and here's what I have come up with:

• 
  Computer Case: NZXT Guardian 921 RB ATX Mid Tower Case
  Motherboard: Z97 Extreme4
  CPU: Intel i5-4670
  Optical Drive: Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial ATA
  GPU: Radeon R9 290
  Hard Drive: WD Blue 1 TB
  RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8 GB
  Power Supply: Corsair Builder Series CX 600 Watt ATX/EPS 80 Plus

What I'm most concerned about at the moment is getting the right motherboard, and ensuring that all of the components will work together. I'm fairly noob when it comes to computer hardware, and I don't want to end up with the wrong components here. Any advice is greatly appreciated! Thank you.

P.S. Also, would you recommend Windows 7 or Windows 8 for this computer?

I agree with the below RAM choice and PSU choice except I would maybe chose the Seasonic M1211 instead. If you don't plan to overclock or use an M.2 slot for an SSD then there isn't really a reason to get a Z97 board. You could save about 100 bucks by going with an ASRock B85 board.


With the 100 saved you could do an R9 290x.

Looks ok except the PS, Corsair has some good ones but they are all made for corsair by other manufacturers and there builder series is of a cheaper make than the others, Seasonic makes there better ones so I would go for this one first, Newegg has it for a much better price than I could find on Amazon, About $20 cheaper actually. SeaSonic S12II 620 Bronze 620W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com
One other thing I noticed is if you are NOT going to over clock at all then you won't need the Z-97 and save a little for other things and get the H-97 board. Pricing I would look on newegg, Seems there prices are fairing better than Amazon on quit a few things on your list.
Newegg.com - ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Performance LGA 1150 Intel H97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s Intel Motherboard
and last but not least, Although the ram you picked is nice and I have similar but you can save some without sacrificing any speed on it, The ram has the same timing and speed for yet another $15 ish in savings.
Newegg.com - Team Dark Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory (Blue Heat Spreader) Model TDBD38G1600HC9DC01

Only want to iterate that Seasonic and CWT make the majority of Corsair units. Corsair simply rebrands them and either extends the warranty or slaps a new sticker on them. Like the TX series is the S1211 platform besides the CWT made 650 which has a different model number. I suggest based only on price rather than who makes what. In this case the Seasonic is better than the budget oriented CX series obviously, although the CX series is of better quality than other cheaper brands.

 

[Dralzar]

Thanks guys!

UPDATE:

A few items on my list have changed based on reviews and articles I've been reading, and I'm curious if they will still work together. The items that have changed are the motherboard, PSU, and RAM. Here's my updated list:

• 
  Computer Case: NZXT Guardian 921 RB ATX Mid Tower Case
  Motherboard: Gigabyte H97-D3H
  CPU: Intel i5-4670
  Optical Drive: Asus 24x DVD-RW Serial ATA
  GPU: XFX Radeon R9 290
  Hard Drive: WD Blue 1 TB
  RAM: Team Dark 8GB
  Power Supply: Seasonic M12II 750 W

From what I've read, the H97 motherboard should support all the functionality I'm looking for, but if you have any comments on it that'd be great. Thanks again!

 

[PP Mguire]

For the money, the G series is a better buy.
Newegg.com - SeaSonic S12G-750 750W ATX12V / EPS12V 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Active PFC Power Supply, Intel Haswell Ready

The H97 board is essentially the same as the H87/B85 except you're paying for an M.2 slot.

 

[BPCS LLC]

I agree with the other posters but I'd like to add, that your building this for gaming. I wouldn't use a single TB drive and I'd recommend the black series over the blue. One thing you can do here to increase the performance of the machine (aside from a SSD drive) would be to run two HDD's. For a gaming system this can increase it performance significantly, game and application load and save times as well as large file load and save times. I recommend a 150GB 10,000 raptor for the OS, and a black series 500GB for data/games etc. it's probably obvious that you install large applications to the data drive, keep your user folders there, games etc. if you have lots of movies or pics get 2, 500GB black series and use one for applications/games and the other for user folders, movies and pics etc. Splitting the OS from the data and applications/games let's the OS drive do it's business while the data and application drive only has to serve those files. They will be less fragmented and require defragmentation less. Drive life and performance are increased over a single TB drive with everything on it significantly. Two or three spindle black series are more reliable than a cheap SSD and a raptor for your OS is quite fast booting and defragmenting. I also recommend boosting your RAM to 16GB over 8 and running Windows without a page file. That will also increase speed and machine performance. Good luck!

 

[PP Mguire]

For the amount of money vested in going with multiple drives and/or RAID it would be exceedingly far more beneficial to go with an SSD. The mechanical drive downfall isn't really transfer rates but IOPS and seek/access times. A modern Black or Barracuda drive can also outperform those older Raptors on a lot of tests. SSDs also don't help the loading times for most games yet but overall general performance of the PC due to the aforementioned makes an SSD more valuable than RAIDing a couple of mechanical drives or otherwise adding more drives for performance.