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Looking for a sub $500 skylake build

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Building a tower for my friend. However my knowledge of new skylake CPU is next to 0. He does light gaming at 1080p. He does NOT need a monitor or keyboard/mouse. The 500 bucks is just for the tower.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
 

Toothless

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950 and a locked 6600
 
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950 and a locked 6600

MoBo select? Rest of the component? I am confused by so many choices. H170, H110, B150, Qwth and etc...
 

Toothless

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Honestly I'd stick with the tried-and-true 4690 with a H97 board because honestly the performance difference isn't there.
 
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Honestly I'd stick with the tried-and-true 4690 with a H97 board because honestly the performance difference isn't there.

There is however, a pretty strong heat difference, for whatever that is worth.
 
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I don't think you can build a Skylake tower under $500 US. Maybe with a Pentium Dual core now that they are released
 

MxPhenom 216

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950 and a locked 6600

Good luck getting that all under $500. Best I've been able to do for skylake is just under $600 and thats with a gtx950 and i3 6100.
 

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http://pcpartpicker.com/p/RJPQrH

Just a basic rig under $500. Skylake system is not that expensive. The only pricey part is a CPU.

You can cut corners by skipping an SSD and HSF. That price difference can be invested into a much better case/PSU because you want it to last long and be reliable.

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/xQgFvK
 
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Here you go (i3-6100/GTX 960/B150/8 GiB DDR4/520W/1 TiB SSHD):

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/7y92Jx

This should be more than enough for 1080P gaming:


Box CPU cooler is absolutely fine, but you can also pick one of those Zalman cylinders with a copper addition, just make sure the fan is PWM-capable.

Also, if there's a chance to get a H110-based motherboard with DDR4, go for that, obviously. I put B150 there just because it was the cheapest adequate product with DDR4 support.
 
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Didn't realize motherboard have gotten so cheap
 
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Building a tower for my friend. However my knowledge of new skylake CPU is next to 0. He does light gaming at 1080p. He does NOT need a monitor or keyboard/mouse. The 500 bucks is just for the tower.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated!
Well...That is going to be difficult but it can be done, however are you set on skylake because Haswell can be had for much cheaper overall.

Try the following:
DIY PC Case: (Free webcam with it lol)
i3 4160
Asus B85

8gb Gskill DDR3 1600
Seagate 1tb 7200RPM
EVGA 500watt Bronze
Asus Strix R9 380 2gb

Total for this build is $496.83 (Cheaper if you send in rebates!)

You can swap out the GPU for a lower one and put a higher CPU if you think but personally I think this is a pretty balanced 1080p gaming rig overall. The case is just a quick cheap one I saw that has decent enough reviews but can be swapped with whatever your fancy is as there were a ton at that price point.

If you want to go Skylake, the problem is its going to up the costs quite a lot for a tiny clock to clock performance gain. You have to also include the higher DDR4 cost (unless you find one of those DDR3 boards) and the higher costs of the platform currently. It depends on what your going for overall but for a cheap 1080p gaming rig, I think this is pretty good!
 
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Will the iGPU on the i5-6500 be good enough for light gaming? My friend only plays games like CSGO and DOTA2.
 

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http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/skylake-intel-core-i7-6700k-core-i5-6600k,4252-9.html

All Skylake CPUs have HD 530 IGP, except Pentium G4400(HD510), so you can kinda get the approximation of i5-6500 relative performance.

Dota 2 and CS:GO should definitely work on min/med settings @1080p. When I was in-between PCs and had no complete rig I actually passed a whole month playing Dota 2 at the lowest settings on my "emergency spare" AMD A6-powered laptop.
 

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Last edited:
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Will the iGPU on the i5-6500 be good enough for light gaming? My friend only plays games like CSGO and DOTA2.
DOTA 2, well, only if you set all settings to their minimum, and then enhance a few, so you end up with:
  • "High" textures,
  • "Medium" shadows,
  • 80~90% resolution scaling,
  • and "Ambient Creatures: On", "Fog" and "High Quality Water".
Just tried on a similar (slightly slower, Haswell-based) system, the FPS is pretty close to 40, so your friend should get 60 quite easily.

CS: GO though... Medium preset should work fine in 768p (according to tests), but if we're talking Full HD, I don't really know. Does he fully understand the risks involved? You definitely don't wanna end up with a slow, chunky gaming experience in CSGO. Maybe it would be a better option to try and find an inexpensive, low-end OEM GPU? Where I live we can sometimes get cards like Radeon R9 360, they're basically replacement parts for pre-build machines that end up being sold for just as much as they would charge a repair shop/etc.
 
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Just thought I'd give you my two cents, if you want best price per performance at $500 I think it'd be best to go with an i3 processor with an H97 board and a gtx 960 or r9 380. That's a good combo that would allow you to play just about any game at low to medium settings and keep a constant 60fps at 1080p, and I'm talking about games like The Witcher 3 and GTA V, you'd be able to max out Dota 2 and CS:GO with those parts no problem. So I'd suggest the build below.

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/97sfQ7
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/97sfQ7/by_merchant/

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($96.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-HD3 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($60.35 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($31.45 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($35.95 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Asus Radeon R9 380 4GB Video Card ($189.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT Source 210 (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $499.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-11-30 23:39 EST-0500
 
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Light 1080p gaming meaning ? he may be fine with a 950 or a 370 and go for i5 which i prefer instead of a i3/960-380 but depends on his needs.
 
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