Budget gaming build review for my son

[Design1stcode2nd]

My son and I will be building his first computer used mostly for gaming and some school work. Games would be Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch or similar although I’d like it to be able to run the majority of games as I’m sure he will get into others as he gets older (actually as long as it will last a 2-3 years we can build a new one or upgrade it)

Based on my research and targeting a $500ish budget (we have an unused copy of 8.1 that we will upgrade to 10 before the deadline) the link below is what I’ve come up with.

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/MmhCJV

Can you all review and see if I’m making any mistakes or forgetting anything? I know the PSU is overkill but its priced the same currently as lower ones. If pricing changes I’ll end up with a Corsair or Thermaltake or similar.

I chose the mobo listed for three reasons it has a vga and dvi port (he has a cheap monitor), 4 ram slots and it can support more than one system fan.

 

[CV_Taihou]

I swapped the PSU and disc drive around so the build works out to be roughly the same price. PSU isn't quite as overkill now though. All in all it's a solid build for sure.

i3-6100 Build Tweaked

 

[Swordkd]

Why would you swap out the PSU just for wattage? There is a Thermaltake 750w, semi-modular, Gold certified for 55 dollars that I'd actually get instead. One of the few series that is a good quality from Tt.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Power Supply: Thermaltake 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $54.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-20 12:10 EDT-0400

There isn't a downside to having more wattage available than you'll need. It'll actually help out if you are running at near 50% of total available load for efficiency.

:edit: Also, the motherboard VGA socket doesn't help out much unless you plan on using onboard video from the motherboard, so you could save some money there. Other than that, the build is priced pretty tightly. If you could come up with even 50 dollars more it might be able to improve the build quite a bit actually. For your current budget though, it's a nice build.

 

[ForeverMirin]

The PSU is kind of overkill. would go with something like 500/600W. (there's still plenty of room to upgrade(No SLI, or Crossfire tho)
I would go with a quality 500/600W.
Seasonic M12II 520W is good I think

 

[madmatt30]

You could buy a cheaper board mate , the video outs don't concern you because you'll be plugging the monitor into the gtx 950 , not the board.

This gets you 16gb ram in now so you don't have to worry about future upgrading , the kendomen is also a far far better case than the corsair spec series for an extra $5.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H110M-HDV Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($59.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: GeIL EVO POTENZA 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($47.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0 Video Card ($124.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Deepcool KENDOMEN Red ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($48.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($19.89 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM 64-bit (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $515.31
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-20 12:16 EDT-0400

 

[Swordkd]

The PSU is kind of overkill. would go with something like 500/600W. (there's still plenty of room to upgrade(No SLI, or Crossfire tho)
I would go with a quality 500/600W.
Seasonic M12II 520W is good I think

15 dollars more. No reason to try and drop the wattage and spend more money. If there is a good unit in the 550w range that is less money, sure. But no need to spend the same amount of money for less wattage, and certainly no reason to pay more for less wattage.

 

[Design1stcode2nd]

No idea why I thought about the VGA and DVI on the mobo thats a great point, thanks! Pretty sure he has a DVI port on his monitor I'll check this evening, if not I need to budget for one.

 

[madmatt30]

That card has dvi-i output & comes with a dvi to VGA adapter so you don't have to worry either way

 

[Design1stcode2nd]

Why would you swap out the PSU just for wattage? There is a Thermaltake 750w, semi-modular, Gold certified for 55 dollars that I'd actually get instead. One of the few series that is a good quality from Tt.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Power Supply: Thermaltake 750W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $54.99
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-20 12:10 EDT-0400

There isn't a downside to having more wattage available than you'll need. It'll actually help out if you are running at near 50% of total available load for efficiency.

:edit: Also, the motherboard VGA socket doesn't help out much unless you plan on using onboard video from the motherboard, so you could save some money there. Other than that, the build is priced pretty tightly. If you could come up with even 50 dollars more it might be able to improve the build quite a bit actually. For your current budget though, it's a nice build.

I can be a tad flexible on the budget if a little more money would bring significant value, what would you reccomend? I'd prefer to spend a tad more on a mobo so that it has all the SATA, ports, USB headers, fan conectors and so forth that he would need.

Here is what I've updated it to:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($56.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($33.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked+ ACX 2.0 Video Card ($124.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair SPEC-02 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($48.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.88 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM 64-bit (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $500.20
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-06-21 09:39 EDT-0400

 

[Design1stcode2nd]

I'm back from vacation and some of the rebates and prices have changed. Unless there is a particular item in this build that is a poor choice I'm going to order this. Thanks for having a look.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-6100 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($110.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($56.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory ($33.89 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($47.49 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 950 2GB Video Card ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair SPEC-01 RED ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: SeaSonic S12II 520W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($58.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($16.88 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM 64-bit (Purchased For $0.00)
Total: $475.20
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-07-04 09:48 EDT-0400

 

[madmatt30]

^ solid choices mate imo , hard to fault anything in there.

 

[Design1stcode2nd]

Thanks, went to buy everything and the GPU is sold out 🙁 ended up with an ASUS GTX 950 for the same price.

 

[madmatt30]

Thanks, went to buy everything and the GPU is sold out 🙁 ended up with an ASUS GTX 950 for the same price.

a 950 is a 950 mate ,theres very very little difference between any of them.
Id take an asus card over an evga one anyway personally.

 

[Design1stcode2nd]

Everything has come in and has been assembled, went together very easily, the dual 4 pin CPU power cable was shorter than I would have liked otherwise everything is plugged in(no whether it is plugged in correctly is another matter). The HD and DVD drives did not come with SATA cables but luckily the mobo came with two which is just the amount we needed. Also noticed there were no jumpers included or on the HD, I hope that won't casue an issue.

I have read through the building a PC threads/tutorials and the thread on what to look for if your system doesn't boot what I didn't find is after you boot I assume you go in to the BIOS and make sure everything is recognized and that the DVD drive is the first boot device? Do I need to check memory or cpu voltages/timings or should this just be recognized by the bios/mobo?

Exit bios, put in your windows CD and install windows.

Now after that what order do I start installing drivers, I have a mobo disc, video card disc, does the mobo bios need to be updated?

I'll be using the onboard graphics as the video card did not come with a dvi-vga adapter, I'll need to run to Walmart or Bestbuy and get a DVI cable.

 

[madmatt30]

Sata drives don't have jumpers, single cable per device so not required.

Boot order should be hard drive first, optical second.
On first boot the bios will skip the unpartitioned HD& jump to the optical (windows install disk)


Just run the mb install disk once windows is installed.

No point fitting or installing the GPU until you have that cable mate imo - will just complicate things.

Once you have the cable , fit the GPU ,install nvidia package from here (the GPUinstall disk will be outdated)

http://

Once Installed & run it will download & install the relevant drivers for your card.

 

[Design1stcode2nd]

Sata drives don't have jumpers, single cable per device so not required.

Boot order should be hard drive first, optical second.
On first boot the bios will skip the unpartitioned HD& jump to the optical (windows install disk)


Just run the mb install disk once windows is installed.

No point fitting or installing the GPU until you have that cable mate imo - will just complicate things.

Once you have the cable , fit the GPU ,install nvidia package from here (the GPUinstall disk will be outdated)

http://

Once Installed & run it will download & install the relevant drivers for your card.

Thanks, I'll get the cable before we install windows then.

 

[Design1stcode2nd]

I didn't end up getting a cable as BB didn't have one and the local radio shack wanted $27. We tried using the VGA cable to Mobo but that got us nothing. I found a HDMI to DVI-D adapter I had and stole an HDMI cable from a Roku and that worked. Installed windows 8.1, patched it, upgraded to windows 10, installed the drivers from the mobo disc that I thought appropriate and now running Geforce experience.

So far its been an almost perfect build.

Thanks everyone. I would never have tried this if not for Tomshardware forum.