I'm building a new PC, can you guys take a look?

avroom

avroom

Well-Known Member
Hey,

This is my first time building a PC. I've set a quite high budget (for me at least) and I've compiled a list of parts that could fit it. I want to use it for fluent gaming on a 2k monitor on high (ultra?) settings and I don't wish to upgrade any time soon. I would really like to hear your opinion on this build, as I'm sure I missed something important. Probably there are better alternatives, too. I'm buying those parts from Germany and the prices may not be entirely accurate.

How well would this do?

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K, 233,95 €
Mainboard: MSI Z97 GAMING 5, ATX, 143,89 €
CPU cooling: Corsair Hydro Series H75, 88,99 €
RAM: 2x 8GB-Kit Crucial Ballistix Sport Series DDR3-1600, CL9, 2x49,83€
Case: FRACTAL DESIGN Arc R2, 85,99 €
Power: Corsair Enthusiast Series RM650, Modular, 80 Plus Gold 650 Watt, 109,10 €
GPU: MSI GeForce GTX 970 4GB, 349,46 €
Storage: Seagate NAS HDD 3TB SATA 6GB/s, 111,99 €
SSD: Samsung SSD 850 EVO SATA 6Gb/s 250 GB, 106,65 €
Optical drive: LG BH16NS40 Blu-ray, 67,99 €
Monitor: Dell U2515H, 329,00 €
OS: Windows 8.1 64-Bit (SB-Version), 95,99 €

Total: 1.852,65 €
 
You may want to check the wattage requirements of the video card...I just got a mis Radeon R9 that required 750. I'd also look at 32gb RAM. I was able to upgrade to 2133mhz for about 60 Euros more.
 
Tsysin said:
You may want to check the wattage requirements of the video card...I just got a mis Radeon R9 that required 750. I'd also look at 32gb RAM. I was able to upgrade to 2133mhz for about 60 Euros more.
Click to expand...
32gb ram? Sounds a bit overkill, since I read that 8 is actually enough. I'll take a look at a better power supply, though.
By the way I'm now thinking about a micro ATX mainboard with a smaller case, because of limited space under my desk and, well, it just looks nicer.
That'll probably be a MSI Z97M Gaming motherboard with a Thermaltake Core V21 case (and I'll need to buy a few extra fans).

[EDIT] Seems like I should be fine with 650 watts, I'm only using one GPU.
 
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lacar1601 said:
Could you detail why you chose this CPU cooling option?
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That was just a thought (I can't really explain why), but I updated it to a BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 cooler, which uses air.

lacar1601 said:
On what are you basing this conclusion? Did you use some website to calculate your power requirement? What's your total power req?
Click to expand...
The graphics card uses 145W power, although at least 500W are required by the unit. Power calculation sites recommend a minimum of ~380W.
What do you think?
 
The main thing to keep in mind about PSU's is that you never want to get close to max capacity in your system power requirement. PC World recommends not going above 80%, while max efficiency is achieved at around 60%. Also beware that the PSU may not actually support the wattage listed on its package, but instead be a little lower (dark side marketing and corner-cutting).

In addition, it's not just the power requirement of the graphics card that you will need to account for, but also your CPU, motherboard, memory, fans, drives, mouse, keyboard, gamepad, headset, and all those other peripherals which will accumulate to the total. This is why I recommend you find a calculator like this, that, and that one over there to estimate your wattage, and then select your PSU following the above guidelines and customer reviews. It may very well be that your presently selected PSU is sufficient.

avroom said:
BeQuiet Dark Rock 3 cooler
Click to expand...
:thumbsup:
I use a very similar cooler manufactured by Noctua, which is a little cheaper than that one but still gets high reviews. The color choice of their fans may not be to your tastes, however.
 
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lacar1601 said:
The main thing to keep in mind about PSU's is that you never want to get close to max capacity in your system power requirement. PC World recommends not going above 80%, while max efficiency is achieved at around 60%. Also beware that the PSU may not actually support the wattage listed on its package, but instead be a little lower (dark side marketing and corner-cutting).

In addition, it's not just the power requirement of the graphics card that you will need to account for, but also your CPU, motherboard, memory, fans, drives, mouse, keyboard, gamepad, headset, and all those other peripherals which will accumulate to the total. This is why I recommend you find a calculator like this, that, and that one over there to estimate your wattage, and then select your PSU following the above guidelines and customer reviews. It may very well be that your presently selected PSU is sufficient.


:thumbsup:
I use a very similar cooler manufactured by Noctua, which is a little cheaper than that one but still gets high reviews. The color choice of their fans may not be to your tastes, however.
Click to expand...
The calculators don't exceed 400W :)
So I guess I'll just buy the parts now.
 
avroom said:
By the way I'm now thinking about a micro ATX mainboard with a smaller case, because of limited space under my desk and, well, it just looks nicer.
Click to expand...
One thing to keep in mind about micro boards is to take a look at where your SATA ports are located in conjunction to the rest of the layout. My old build was running a micro and everything was fine, but when I decided to upgrade to a beefier GTX 970 SSC graphics card, it overlapped the SATA ports (Which I use for my CD-Rom drive and HDD) so I couldn't plug them in if I had the card installed. Had to change to a normal sized board to accommodate it and now everything is running smoothly.

Otherwise, your build seems pretty solid.
 
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