Tips for building a Gaming PC ~1200$ budget

[jonathan1107]

Hey guys.

I'm building a new gaming PC for a friend. NOTE that I live in Canada and will be ordering my components from canadian sites.

We're talking 1100-1200$ budget. The main purpose of this PC is going to be gaming and some game streaming/uploading... I'd like your advice as to which would be best Bang/Buck CPU and GPU and what mobo you would advise as we are planning on Overclocking too.

I'd like to know how far I can take the said CPU through the stock air cooler vs a non-stock air cooler kit.

 

[LaytonJnr]

Hello,

Here is my suggestion for a very solid build:

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/RDZYmG

Do you require a monitor? What kind of resolution will you be playing games at? What genre of games are being played?

Layton

 

[XSI]

nice build, OP can go with 280x as well, but prices kinda same or even more than 770gtx.

 

[jonathan1107]

My friend will be playing Shooters and Open world games in full HD. He already has the monitor, the keyboard and mouse. So only the PC is needed.
He wants a good computer capable of handling max settings for as many years as possible.

Oh and he has a preference for green PC cases if you are the look lol.
His favorite color

 

[jonathan1107]

Hello,

Here is my suggestion for a very solid build:

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/RDZYmG

Do you require a monitor? What kind of resolution will you be playing games at? What genre of games are being played?

Layton

N.B. oh and that PCpartpicker.com site that you have linked... Does it pick parts for you automatically or you suggest parts and it creates a link?

 

[RCoon]

My friend will be playing Shooters and Open world games in full HD. He already has the monitor, the keyboard and mouse. So only the PC is needed.
He wants a good computer capable of handling max settings for as many years as possible.

Oh and he has a preference for green PC cases if you are the look lol.
His favorite color

Layton's build is great, and if green is necessary, you can change from the H440 to the NZXT Phantom:

I've owned one of these personally and built a fully custom watercooled system inside the Full version. Lots of room and fan mount options, plus a fan controller.

Alternatively, this is a relatively old case, not sure I can recommend it:

Aerocool's DS series are more focused on silence, I can heartily recommend the DS Cube as I use one, but they've got mid sized towers too in more "vibrant" colours:

 

[LaytonJnr]

My friend will be playing Shooters and Open world games in full HD. He already has the monitor, the keyboard and mouse. So only the PC is needed.
He wants a good computer capable of handling max settings for as many years as possible.

Oh and he has a preference for green PC cases if you are the look lol.
His favorite color

In which case, would you like me to try and create a green-themed PC build? (i.e. green parts of a case, green heatsinks on motherboard, green RAM, green GPU highlights, etc.) It can be done, but be warned you may lose some bang for your buck, but hopefully not too much. A case that incorporates green would be the easiest to find without losing good price : performance.

N.B. oh and that PCpartpicker.com site that you have linked... Does it pick parts for you automatically or you suggest parts and it creates a link?

On that website I search through a database of parts and pick the ones most applicable for the build I'm creating (or suggesting for someone else), and then it finds the cheapest prices for those parts. If you click each part, it will give you some information about the part and a list of prices from various retailers. Sometimes it can be cheaper to order all from one or two retailers to reduce postage costs.

Layton

EDIT: By "Full HD" do you mean a 1920x1080 (also known as 1080p) resolution?

Aerocool's DS series are more focused on silence, I can heartily recommend the DS Cube as I use one, but they've got mid sized towers too in more "vibrant" colours:

+1 to this. I'm about to start a build in an Aerocool DS Cube, and it looks awesome, has great compatibility with high end parts, and is very quiet it seems.

 

[RCoon]

In which case, would you like me to try and create a green-themed PC build?

So that's a Thermalright CPU cooler, Sabertooth/G1.Sniper MoBo, Kingston HyperX Green RAM. I think XFX do a Black Edition PSU that has a green fan and modular cables. I don't recall a green GPU, but my bets are there's an NVidia one. Maybe black will have to do.

 

[LaytonJnr]

So that's a Thermalright CPU cooler, Sabertooth/G1.Sniper MoBo, Kingston HyperX Green RAM. I think XFX do a Black Edition PSU that has a green fan and modular cables. I don't recall a green GPU, but my bets are there's an NVidia one. Maybe black will have to do.

And to top it all off, a TP-Link wireless PCIe adapter with its lovely green PCB!

Layton

 

[jonathan1107]

lol nice. thanks for the suggestions. This is going to be fun.
And yes, by full HD I meant 1920-1080...

As 4k resolution is also known as Ultra HD... but I never heard anybody call 4k (or anything higher than 1080p) "full HD"...
I've come to think full HD= 1080p

 

[RCoon]

As 4k resolution is also known as Ultra HD... but I never heard anybody call 4k (or anything higher than 1080p) "full HD"...
I've come to think full HD= 1080p

720 = HD Ready
1080 = HD
1200, 1440, 1600 = WQHD
2160 = Ultra HD
Netflix streaming HD = Super HD

God help us all.

But wait... here's my all time favourite

HD internet!!!

 

[GhostRyder]

lol nice. thanks for the suggestions. This is going to be fun.
And yes, by full HD I meant 1920-1080...

As 4k resolution is also known as Ultra HD... but I never heard anybody call 4k (or anything higher than 1080p) "full HD"...
I've come to think full HD= 1080p

Its normally like this:
HD = 720p
Full HD = 1080p
WQHD = 1440p
UHD = 2160p

Normally if someone refers to a full HD system they mean a 1080p system.

As far as your 1200 dollar budget, here is a good bang for buck build that should satisfy your needs (I went through Amazon Canada but if you have a better site let me know, the prices listed were a bit odd here I noticed, I also would need to know if I should account for an OS purchase or not):

i5 4670k (I would upgrade to 4690k if you can but the price difference was alot on this site and to be honest you should be fine overclocking with either)
MSI Z97-G55 (One of the best bang for buck motherboards out there IMHO, it comes with a rich feature set and 8 phase power Delivery for the CPU, I love this board)
Corsair Vengeance 1866 8gb (2x4gb) (Always a good choice for ram)
EVGA 600watt Bronze PSU (Good value PSU, I have used many in client builds and they always are top notch)
MSI R9 280X Gaming 3gb (Great 1080p-1440p gaming card, has decent clocking potential and just a well rounded card)
Samsung 840 EVO 250gb SSD (My personal favorite brand of SSD, they offer great performance and value in one pack and Samsung is known for quality on these)
Seagate barracuda 1tb 7200RPM (Great storage Drive, I personally like seagate drives and WD but this one was just a good price here)
NZXT Phantom (Since I see you like that case , I love them to and if nothing else remember a case is up to the user because most now a days come with decent feature sets)
Asus DVD Drive (Does not really matter, but it normally is good to have one. You can grab a Blu-Ray drive if you need one but I would say a cheap DVD drive is all thats needed unless he is interested in burning or what not)
Cooler Master Hyper212 Evo (Well rounded Price to Performance cooler, one of the best values out there for air coolers IMHO)

That build is a bit above the 1200 buck mark with no OS. If you need more room for an OS I would say drop the SSD down to a 120gb as that will save you around 100 bucks give or take. In all honesty it will come down to where you shop because I noticed the prices on amazon CA to be a bit high for some reason.

Either way this should be pretty good and give you an idea of what to look for.

 

[jonathan1107]

Hello,

Here is my suggestion for a very solid build:

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/RDZYmG

Do you require a monitor? What kind of resolution will you be playing games at? What genre of games are being played?

Layton

Yes, I would like to go for a green themed PC if possible, he would be crazy happy about it!
When you say I could lose some "bang/buck" because of going green theme, u mean it might force us to consider parts that don't perform as good?
Can you expand on the matter a bit?

And yes, if you could give me green themed kit on that pickparts site, would be greatly appreciated. I must admit I'm not very familiar with that website yet. I'll be spending more time on it to learn how it works

EDIT: Oh and just in case he wants a big azz SSD instead of a tiny one, is there a cheaper alternative to the graphics card and CPU we could shoot for that would save us some $$ to spend on a better SSD?

still in green theme of course

 

[jonathan1107]

So that's a Thermalright CPU cooler, Sabertooth/G1.Sniper MoBo, Kingston HyperX Green RAM. I think XFX do a Black Edition PSU that has a green fan and modular cables. I don't recall a green GPU, but my bets are there's an NVidia one. Maybe black will have to do.

I've been searching for those green parts on different websites... but when I search for say "thermalright CPU cooler" I get like 30 results, none of them green...
Where did you find those?
Can I get the specific names?
so I can order them

 

[LaytonJnr]

Yes, I would like to go for a green themed PC if possible, he would be crazy happy about it!
When you say I could lose some "bang/buck" because of going green theme, u mean it might force us to consider parts that don't perform as good?
Can you expand on the matter a bit?

What happens is you end up spending more money on green-themed components, which means less is spent on other parts. This basically makes the build's budget inbalanced in terms of the money that you would say spend on say a GPU would be less than the optimal portion of your budget because you wanted a green motherboard. And this means you would get less performance than a build where there isn't as much colour theming. However, I'm sure the TPU community could weigh up some good components which will give some green styling.

EDIT: Oh and just in case he wants a big azz SSD instead of a tiny one, is there a cheaper alternative to the graphics card and CPU we could shoot for that would save us some $$ to spend on a better SSD?

In my opinion, its better to go for a smaller SSD which you use for the operating system and some of your games and applications, and then a larger HDD for any other files. I don't think there is any point buying a more expensive SSD and in doing so buy a much cheaper GPU - in a large amount of cases, the gaming performance of a PC is heavily reliant on which GPU you choose. Spending $50 more on an SSD does not yield any real noticeable performance gain, but $50 extra for a graphics card can turn a machine from stuttering high settings to smooth maximum settings at 1080p.

Layton

EDIT: Here is a new build with some green changes - I've also changed the GPU in order to facilitate the extra costs, but a GTX 760 should handle games smoothly at 1080p.

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/KGwst6

 

[GhostRyder]

Yes, I would like to go for a green themed PC if possible, he would be crazy happy about it!
When you say I could lose some "bang/buck" because of going green theme, u mean it might force us to consider parts that don't perform as good?
Can you expand on the matter a bit?

And yes, if you could give me green themed kit on that pickparts site, would be greatly appreciated. I must admit I'm not very familiar with that website yet. I'll be spending more time on it to learn how it works

EDIT: Oh and just in case he wants a big azz SSD instead of a tiny one, is there a cheaper alternative to the graphics card and CPU we could shoot for that would save us some $$ to spend on a better SSD?

still in green theme of course

Well that is an interesting proposal, if he wants a green theme does he also want an nvidia GPU? Or just the color scheme in general? It is a hard thing to do since most colors seen especially on coolers are Red or blue. I even saw a yellow one for sale but normally if you want green you have to buy green themed LED fans. The NZXT Green themed case is always a great start and I have seen one up close (They are really nice looking, it gives such a sweet glow).

If you want to include a big SSD, you can get a Samsung 840 Evo 500gb for around 278. You should be able to get down to about 250 depending on where you look but going beyond that size is going to destroy the budget and subtract from the overall gaming experience. A 250 gb would be the best I would recommend for this budget just because you would lose out alot more on the components inside which would limit you in the long run versus just saving up for a bigger one. Heck You might be better off getting a small cheap on now, putting the money back into the rig on other components. Then later when you get an extra 300 bucks grabbing a heavy SSD.

 

[RCoon]

I've been searching for those green parts on different websites... but when I search for say "thermalright CPU cooler" I get like 30 results, none of them green...
Where did you find those?
Can I get the specific names?
so I can order them

They aren't green, the fan on them is brown and green, e.g Thermalright Silver Arrow

Oh and just in case he wants a big azz SSD instead of a tiny one, is there a cheaper alternative to the graphics card and CPU we could shoot for that would save us some $$ to spend on a better SSD?

Crucial MX100 500GB is the equivalent price of a Samsung Evo 256GB.

 

[jonathan1107]

What happens is you end up spending more money on green-themed components, which means less is spent on other parts. This basically makes the build's budget inbalanced in terms of the money that you would say spend on say a GPU would be less than the optimal portion of your budget because you wanted a green motherboard. And this means you would get less performance than a build where there isn't as much colour theming. However, I'm sure the TPU community could weigh up some good components which will give some green styling.



In my opinion, its better to go for a smaller SSD which you use for the operating system and some of your games and applications, and then a larger HDD for any other files. I don't think there is any point buying a more expensive SSD and in doing so buy a much cheaper GPU - in a large amount of cases, the gaming performance of a PC is heavily reliant on which GPU you choose. Spending $50 more on an SSD does not yield any real noticeable performance gain, but $50 extra for a graphics card can turn a machine from stuttering high settings to smooth maximum settings at 1080p.

Layton

EDIT: Here is a new build with some green changes - I've also changed the GPU in order to facilitate the extra costs, but a GTX 760 should handle games smoothly at 1080p.

http://ca.pcpartpicker.com/p/KGwst6

Thanks for the quick reply Layton
So yeah, let me give you guys a bit more info, so you know where i'm headed with this:

I'm building a PC for a friend of mine as a "favor" to him... He likes gaming, but he doesn't know much about how to put a PC together. I've built several PCs in the past years... so I do know my way around PCs, and I probably could pick most of the parts myself by just looking... but there's always someone that knows better than me on this forum, and I find the "collective" knowledge available on this forums PRICELESS. Countless times I was given suggestions I had not thought about and ended up making smarter decisions because of yall.

So yeah: The priority here is to build a decent gaming PC, but we're talking about a 16 year old teenager. So the build doesn't need to be 100% performance. In fact, the truth is I'm getting more and more requests for CustomPCz from acquaintances and friends, so it's more about "client satisfaction" really. So yeah, I'd rather stay in the NVIDIA GPUs as I have a personal preference for them a bit of hate towards AMD cards... (mainly because of driver support and partnerships which I find too lacking)...

But I don't mind going down to a 760 to save some bucks and get a kick-ass green theme. In fact, the more I think about it, the more the green theme is actually number 1 in priorities and the bang/buck 2nd...

Thanks for all the input and help, I'm going to go look at that build of yours now.
Thank you so much for the help. really appreciated. gave thanks

 

[jonathan1107]

So I've looked at the parts and the mobo has green features, so does the RAM... everything else not much though...

Are there lighting effects or CPU cooler (all in one liquid coolers) with green tubing, green lights, green led lights, green sleeves that I could go for?

 

[GhostRyder]

So I've looked at the parts and the mobo has green features, so does the RAM... everything else not much though...

Are there lighting effects or CPU cooler (all in one liquid coolers) with green tubing, green lights, green led lights, green sleeves that I could go for?

AIO's generally stay very generic black and gray to appeal to the most people and avoid colored fans.

Normally some coolers have the color changing effect directly on the cooler that you can adjust in an app that comes with it like some of these:

Corsair H100i
Corsair H80i
Thermaltake big water 760 (has green tubing)


Unless you build custom, your options are very limited though (the thermaltake is not an AIO also).


On top of all that, it would just be picking green LED fans of your picking for the rest.

 

[jonathan1107]

what's the difference between these 2:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...e=motherboard_lga_1150-_-13-128-674-_-Product
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...tionCA&cm_mmc=AFC-C8JunctionCA-_-na-_-na-_-na

 

[jonathan1107]

is this compatible with 4th gen i5 ?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233577&cm_re=ram_8gb-_-20-233-577-_-Product

 

[jonathan1107]

What amount of Power does the gtx 760 and the i5 haswell need (case fans and whatnot included)

600w? enough 550w?

or at least 650w and up?

 

[GhostRyder]

what's the difference between these 2:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...e=motherboard_lga_1150-_-13-128-674-_-Product
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Produc...tionCA&cm_mmc=AFC-C8JunctionCA-_-na-_-na-_-na

One is theB85 chipset which has much less features sets and is not overclocking ready (albeit I can't remember if it's unlocked for the i5 and i7).

Get the Z5s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...681&cm_re=Gigabyte_z87-_-13-128-681-_-Product

is this compatible with 4th gen i5 ?
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233577&cm_re=ram_8gb-_-20-233-577-_-Product

Yes

What amount of Power does the gtx 760 and the i5 haswell need (case fans and whatnot included)

600w? enough 550w?

or at least 650w and up?

500 will be more than enough with a bronze rating.

 

[jonathan1107]

One is theB85 chipset which has much less features sets and is not overclocking ready (albeit I can't remember if it's unlocked for the i5 and i7).

Get the Z5s
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...681&cm_re=Gigabyte_z87-_-13-128-681-_-Product

Yes


500 will be more than enough with a bronze rating.

about the cheaper mobo: do u mean that with that mobo it would be "impossible" to overclock or just that the mobo doesn't have any "overclock pre-sets" ? like boost mode or whatnot?
I'm not familiar with the mobo "needing to be unlocked"... isn't the CPU the one that needs to be unlocked in order to overclock?
(K-processors that is...) usually, a non-"K" processor can't be overclocked and a "K" processor can ... correct?