New Budget Gaming PC - 1920x1080

[kurosagi01]

Hello all,so my other half has moved back home from uni and she's been using a tiny macbook air which i believe is damaging her eyes a lot more than ever using it everyday. So now shes back and experienced playing few games with over 60fps(console gamer),she wants to play specific games on PC and want move from netbook to a bigger screen for her eyes.
The budget we have is about £700 which is including desktop+OS and mouse+keyboard which can be sorted at different date,so my primary focus is the tower itself.
The PC will mainly be used for general purposes and play certain games such as rise of the tomb raider(probably most demanding one) and older titles. The games would only be played at 1920x1080.
The build i was looking at is:

Would love some opinion on this build,bonus if certain components to be in white and a mATX build is necessary due to spacing.

 

[Frick]

A thought on WIndows 10: Here the OEM versions actually cost more than retail. The difference is you can use a retail key on later machines, an OEM key is tied to specific hardware.

And Corsair PSU's are generally overpriced, at least the CX series.

 

[Kevin-HTPC]

Has the multi core restriction been fixed on the G3258k under Windows 10?

 

[Frick]

You can get an i3 Skylake system for that money, by the looks of things. And an r9 380.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/L6NDD3

Add £90 or so for OS.

 

[kurosagi01]

A thought on WIndows 10: Here the OEM versions actually cost more than retail. The difference is you can use a retail key on later machines, an OEM key is tied to specific hardware.

And Corsair PSU's are generally overpriced, at least the CX series.

Can't really find any retail copy that be cheaper than the price i found for a OEM key.
As for PSU it appears the site Scan which i tend buy all my parts from don't stock the XFX PSU anymore,all the other brands i haven't really tried before either.
How good is the i3 skylake compared to the dual core overclocking beast? Also the 380 is on par with 960 and i much prefer Nvidia over AMD GPU as im more familar with Nvidia GPUs.
Will need get opinion on that case as she's quite picky with case and i've never heard of super flower PSU,any reviews out there for this unit?

 

[Kevin-HTPC]

The GTX 960 is a good choice for 1080p gaming. But I would have a look into the latest about the G3258K and installation under Windows 10. When I tried 6 months they were not compatible and you have to disable a core to allow Windows 10 to install/boot.

A 600W PSU is overkill for the components you are looking at. The 500W EVGA 500B or 400W Be Quiet! Pure Power 8 would save you £20 to spend elsewhere. They are both good quality and will be quieter than the 3.5" hard drive.

 

[ne6togadno]

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/nFCK6h
note that windows price doesnt show up in list so total is a bit over 700.

 

[Frick]

Can't really find any retail copy that be cheaper than the price i found for a OEM key.
As for PSU it appears the site Scan which i tend buy all my parts from don't stock the XFX PSU anymore,all the other brands i haven't really tried before either.
How good is the i3 skylake compared to the dual core overclocking beast? Also the 380 is on par with 960 and i much prefer Nvidia over AMD GPU as im more familar with Nvidia GPUs.
Will need get opinion on that case as she's quite picky with case and i've never heard of super flower PSU,any reviews out there for this unit?

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=250

That's the 450W version, seems to be pretty good, I have that case and it looks good. For some reason I thought the 380 would be faster, but nevermind.

As for CPU, I definitely would pick the i3. More threads and those will be more and more important. And the clock speed is pretty good to begin with. I wouldn't spend more money on more expensive i3's though, unless you level up to an i5.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

I also would question the choice of a dual core CPU

 

[kurosagi01]

The GTX 960 is a good choice for 1080p gaming. But I would have a look into the latest about the G3258K and installation under Windows 10. When I tried 6 months they were not compatible and you have to disable a core to allow Windows 10 to install/boot.

A 600W PSU is overkill for the components you are looking at. The 500W EVGA 500B or 400W Be Quiet! Pure Power 8 would save you £20 to spend elsewhere. They are both good quality and will be quieter than the 3.5" hard drive.

Yeah i thought 960 be okay but im worried about Rise of tomb raider performance,but that can be fixed i guess by lowering certain settings,didn't know the g3258k had issues either with windows 10.
In terms of PSU i was only looking at mainly semi-modular PSU since its a lot tidy to sort out than non-modular.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/nFCK6h
note that windows price doesnt show up in list so total is a bit over 700.

Do like the idea of using a bigger SSD storage space but would probably prefer 1 SSD for OS+software and then 1TB for games and personal files/media, case she would probably hate that sadly.

http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=250

That's the 450W version, seems to be pretty good, I have that case and it looks good. For some reason I thought the 380 would be faster, but nevermind.

As for CPU, I definitely would pick the i3. More threads and those will be more and more important. And the clock speed is pretty good to begin with. I wouldn't spend more money on more expensive i3's though, unless you level up to an i5.

The power supply looks promising,never heard of the brand though.

I also would question the choice of a dual core CPU

If i could fit a quad core into the budget then i would,but sadly i can't seem to fit one with a mid-range GPU aswell,ROTR probably will run a lot better with a quad core and i did look at the AMD CPU quads but they seem to fall short to intel dual core/i3 from poor core optimising in performance in games.

 

[Frick]

The power supply looks promising,never heard of the brand though.

Lot's of EVGA stuff is Super Flower. They've been rocking the PSU boat a lot for some time now (in a good way).

EDIT: Some thoughts on the Aerocool DS Cube BTW:

• It looks good. It really does look good, if I had space and if the cables wouldn't clutter things up I'd have it on the desk.
• It's big. Because the motherboard lies flat on its back it's pretty wide. Or really rather quite wide.
• I wouldn't call it very silent. Depends on the rest of the cooling though, and I don't know how it stacks vs other cases. And I'm pretty sensitive to ... well all senses actually but noise especially so I'm bad at blocking things out. Visitors claim it's pretty silent.
• The build quality is pretty good. It's sturdy, and the doors feel solid.
• It's not very good on cabling, at least not if you want an optical drive. If you don't need one of those it's much better as the drive bays are close to the PSU.

 

[azngreentea01]

and I5 and msi gtx 970 would run any game at max in 1080p. If you alrady have a windows 7 you can migrate to new Pc, and upgrade it to windows 10. Once windows 10 is installed you be good.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/zKbr3C

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

If i could fit a quad core into the budget then i would,but sadly i can't seem to fit one with a mid-range GPU aswell,ROTR probably will run a lot better with a quad core and i did look at the AMD CPU quads but they seem to fall short to intel dual core/i3 from poor core optimising in performance in games.

2nd user quad core.......you cant go wrong.

 

[kurosagi01]

and I5 and msi gtx 970 would run any game at max in 1080p. If you alrady have a windows 7 you can migrate to new Pc, and upgrade it to windows 10. Once windows 10 is installed you be good.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/zKbr3C

Unfortunately i do not have a windows 7 key to migrate to new PC as its going be fresh new desktop for someone else,if i did have spare windows 7 then yeah i could spend that extra money on i5.

2nd user quad core.......you cant go wrong.

Sadly used isn't really a option just because she doesn't like used components,if she wasn't so fussy i would probably look at used CPU aswell.

 

[CAPSLOCKSTUCK]

Sadly used isn't really a option just because she doesn't like used components,if she wasn't so fussy i would probably look at used CPU aswell.

You should explain to her what a huge difference it will make.

Sit her down quietly, perhaps talk about something else for a bit and then when you think the time is right kind of slip it into the conversation, something along the lines of............

"Hows about getting a quad core, 2nd hand, it will make a huge difference Love, you wont regret it."

 

[KrachB00Mente]

If Budget is that much of Problem skip the Windows 10 key.
Buy a Windows 7 prof 64Bit from a Keystore (mmoga.com) 17€ and upgrade it for 0€ to Windows 10.
For 700p you should be able to get a core i5 at least.

 

[m&m's]

I also would question the choice of a dual core CPU

You should explain to her what a huge difference it will make.

Sit her down quietly, perhaps talk about something else for a bit and then when you think the time is right kind of slip it into the conversation, something along the lines of............

"Hows about getting a quad core, 2nd hand, it will make a huge difference Love, you wont regret it."

Current Skylake i3s perform very similarly to i5s (regarding gaming) with a mid range GPU and RAM running @3000MHz+.
See by yourself: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-intel-core-i3-6100-review & http://www.techspot.com/review/1087-best-value-desktop-cpu/page4.html
Of course an i5 is still better, but an i3 can do the job very well too.

But @kurosagi01 as mentioned by others ditch the Pentium.

 

[Frick]

If Budget is that much of Problem skip the Windows 10 key.
Buy a Windows 7 prof 64Bit from a Keystore (mmoga.com) 17€ and upgrade it for 0€ to Windows 10.
For 700p you should be able to get a core i5 at least.

That works until the key is locked because it's pirated and you have to bypass the activation entirely because tech support will laugh in your face.

 

[ASOT]

Change HDD Green into something like WD Blue/Black(better) or Seagate Barracuda for more performance,green are low rpm 5400...

Why not something like i3 6100/i5 6400 new Skylake's cpu's and some ddr4.. 8Gb are OK

Also u can get a better card like 380/X/970 that 960 is good on today games and good pwm but later on ...?

Why not a cooler CPU with 120 fan ? A 90 mm fan is loud on full rpm,perhaps a Deepcool Gammaxx 300 or S40 and if u can get a Hyper 212 Evo is great

 

[newtekie1]

My suggestion: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/qKvY4D

You won't notice the difference in games between an overclocked G3258 and a stock i3-6100. But you won't have to deal with the issues the G3258 causes, like games not running because it is only 2C/2T. For example, Farcry will not even load on a G3258, but runs fine on a i3.

 

[Kevin-HTPC]

The G3258k does not work properly with Windows 10, something to do with broken micro code, I've not seen an official fix yet:

https://communities.intel.com/thread/77391?start=15&tstart=0

 

[kurosagi01]

Change HDD Green into something like WD Blue/Black(better) or Seagate Barracuda for more performance,green are low rpm 5400...

Why not something like i3 6100/i5 6400 new Skylake's cpu's and some ddr4.. 8Gb are OK

Also u can get a better card like 380/X/970 that 960 is good on today games and good pwm but later on ...?

Why not a cooler CPU with 120 fan ? A 90 mm fan is loud on full rpm,perhaps a Deepcool Gammaxx 300 or S40 and if u can get a Hyper 212 Evo is great

The 380x performs similar to the 960 and i am more of a Nvidia man over AMD now. May consider a CPU cooler if its bad.

My suggestion: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/qKvY4D

You won't notice the difference in games between an overclocked G3258 and a stock i3-6100. But you won't have to deal with the issues the G3258 causes, like games not running because it is only 2C/2T. For example, Farcry will not even load on a G3258, but runs fine on a i3.

I was only looking at the g3258 just because they were cheap and remember looking at it last year,haven't really looked at Skylake CPUs at all.
This what i came up with just now:

 

[m&m's]

The 380x performs similar to the 960 and i am more of a Nvidia man over AMD now. May consider a CPU cooler if its bad.

I was only looking at the g3258 just because they were cheap and remember looking at it last year,haven't really looked at Skylake CPUs at all.
This what i came up with just now:

Get the i3 6100 instead of the 6100T, it's cheaper and comes with a 500MHz clock bump.

 

[newtekie1]

The 380x performs similar to the 960 and i am more of a Nvidia man over AMD now. May consider a CPU cooler if its bad.

I was only looking at the g3258 just because they were cheap and remember looking at it last year,haven't really looked at Skylake CPUs at all.
This what i came up with just now:

Get a normal i3-6100, not the i3-6100T. The 6100T is a low power part, and clocked 500Mhz slower, the regular 6100 is clocked at 3.7GHz.

 

[ASOT]

@kurosagi01 A 960 never beats a 380X..maybe in some games beats 380 but not 380X