<$1,500 Gaming PC - Focus on Star Citizen & Gaming

[kozality]

Hey All,

Looking to build my first gaming PC. I've been pouring over information, reviews, etc but I believe advice from experienced users is invaluable. So please chime in and let me know if you see any gaps in performance, bottleneck, and/or better deals out there.

Approximate Purchase Date: This Month

Budget Range: $1,300 - $1,500 (I'm watching out for deals & rebates as well)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming & Light Video Rendering, Everyday Use

Are you buying a monitor: No

New Build - current PC is outdated and would be difficult to upgrade

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon, Newegg, Tigerdirect, & Micro Center

Location: Colorado

Parts Preferences: I've liked using NVIDIA in the past so I'm siding with the performance these GPUs provide even though they are higher cost. I am open to both AMD or NVIDIA though. Also I side slightly with Intel over AMD and I already have an LGA 1150 MoBo. I decided to go with i5-4670k as I'm not sure I will see the gains of the hyperthreading on i7-4770k and for the $100 difference, I'd rather go with better GPU.

Overclocking: No to Maybe in the future (for some future performance gains)

SLI or Crossfire: Yes - but for future upgrade

Your Monitor Resolution: 23.6" 1080p

Additional Comments: Already got the case that I liked the most for the best deal I could find.

I'm also planning on getting a 1TB HDD, but I don't have immediate need for it and at $50-60 it won't break the bank.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: I am hoping to play current games on Max and next gen games on High, I won't be running a resolution higher than 1080p for the foreseeable future. I believe Physx is a bonus but I've also heard Star Citizen will be Mantle optimized (not sure how much gain there is if the CPU can compensate).

PC Part Picker List (some components have been purchased when I saw a decent deal):
http://pcpartpicker.com/user/kozality/saved/4AoX

Also, I decided to go with an aftermarket CPU Cooler to better cool than the stock even though overclocking isn't an immediate need of mine. Figured if I run the CPU at lower temps, I'd extend the lifespan (not sure if there is any difference here though).

I'm splurging a bit on the PSU but figured can't go wrong with higher quality PSU.

My real concern is where I want to go with the CPU & GPU. As you can see I have several of the other components. Will I limit myself with the i5? Is the GTX 780 good bang for my buck? Will this card support next gen games well or is DirectX 12 going to be the factor in the future?

Thanks in advance for any input.

 

[Diox55]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($234.97 @ OutletPC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler (Purchased For $29.95)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste (Purchased For $7.56)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (Purchased For $139.00)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.58 @ Amazon)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk (Purchased For $139.22)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($56.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Superclocked ACX Video Card ($509.99 @ Micro Center)
Case: Corsair 500R Black ATX Mid Tower Case (Purchased For $89.99)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply (Purchased For $129.99)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer (Purchased For $14.99)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN4800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($38.57 @ Amazon)
Total: $1466.79
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-05 16:08 EDT-0400)

I edited a couple of things- Firstly, if your only doing light rendering, then 8 gigs of ram is plenty enough. I also put in the 1 TB hard drive. You need a mechanical hard drive if your going to have the SSD. Use the SSD as a boot drive and install the rendering program or whatever you plan to use on it. Also the 780 is fine, it will perform a bit better than the 770. I originally was going to reduce it down to the 4 gig version of the 770, but check this out, http://gpuboss.com/gpus/GeForce-GTX-780-vs-GeForce-GTX-770. If you want more future proof you could go for the 780 Ti, but thats around 729 bucks for the ACX version. Also, the i5 is fine. Again like the ram, you only need the i7 if your going to be doing alot of hardcore rendering and using photoshop aton.

 

[HiTechObsessed]

If you're building a rig for future-proofing and what Star Citizen performance, I would go with either an i7-4770k, or a Xeon 1230 V3. An i5 is perfect for now, but Star Citizen I believe will be utilizing more than 4 cores. And rendering and editing will greatly benefit from the hyperthreading as well. And Mantle-optimized is only really important for weaker CPUs. Running with a strong CPU won't see much benefit, though if it does utilize >4 threads, the i5 would benefit from it.

Like Diox said on the RAM, 8GB is acceptable for general rendering, and even light video editing. I definitely would recommend the better CPU though.

 

[dottorrent]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($244.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.94 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z87 MPOWER MAX AC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($175.50 @ Newegg)
Memory: A-Data XPG V2 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-2400 Memory ($139.50 @ Newegg)
Storage: Plextor M5S Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($79.99 @ Micro Center)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($83.98 @ Best Buy)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 780 3GB TWIN FROZR Video Card ($499.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Case: NZXT Phantom 530 (Black) ATX Full Tower Case ($109.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($124.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1488.86
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-05-05 16:30 EDT-0400)

This might do. There maybe a Xeon processor in the build but trust me, it's better value than the i5.

 

[HiTechObsessed]

I would also go for a 290x. The 290x outperforms the 780, and is almost on par with the 780 Ti, but you can get one now for around $550, which is great for the performance you get. Pair a Hyperthreaded CPU with a 290x and you'll get phenomenal 1080p performance for a very long time.