Build + software help

[aeko97]

Hello guys. I won't be long on the intro. This is a build I've been working on for quite a while and I've changed it over and over. I plan to do light gaming such as older counter strikes (Counter-Strike 1.6, Counter-Strike: Source) and also the newer Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. I play some MMORPGs (just World of Warcraft really) but the older expansions as well (e.g.: retail wow, The Burning Crusade expansion and The Wrath of the Lich King expansion) on private servers. That's my main goal. I'd run some programs on the back while gaming like TeamSpeak 3 or Skype. Maybe one or two tabs on the web or some music on Windows Media Player while gaming too. So here it is:

CPU: AMD Athlon X4 860K Black Edition Quad-Core @ 3,7GHz (Socket FM2+)
CPU COOLER: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo
MOBO: Msi A68HM-P33 v2 [Chipset: AMD A68H] (Socket FM2+)
GPU: Msi GeForce GT740 2GB DDR5 PCI-E
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws X DDR3 2x4GB 1600MHz CAS9 1.5v Low Voltage
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 64MB SATAIII (6GB/s) - EZEX
PSU: Corsair Modular CX430M 80+ Bronze
DRIVER: Asus Green DVD-Writer Sata Black Retail - DRW-24F1ST
CASE: Nox PAX USB 3.0
CASE FANS: 2x Cooler Master SickleFlow 120MM Blue

Total price: 510€
Total power consumption: 270W

I'm now pretty positive and solid about this build. If there's a change in need, please do tell. I don't want to move the price range a lot.

I do need help on software though... I don't know a lot about it and I think I know just a few things. I'm building this all by myself without help and putting the parts together I think is easy. Installing the windows, I think it might be easy as well, just follow the steps, right? What bugs me is the BIOS. I've heard there are ways to configurate it and it is something that is needed, concerning CPU voltage, core speed etc, as well as RAM. I'm a noob about that sort of stuff, can anyone help me please?

 

[Dunlop0078]

I personally think the gt 740 is poor value, you can get a gtx 750 ti which is much more powerful and only a little more expensive. Other than that it looks okay for a budget build.

Yeah for windows you just follow the steps its very easy there are plenty of guides if you need one. You dont need to concern yourself with the BIOS the stock settings will be fine for you, you only have to mess with voltage and stuff if your overclocking. You may need to set your ram to run at 1600mhz however, by default the motherboard will probably set it to 1333mhz but to be honest you dont even really need to change that I doubt you would ever notice the difference between 1333mhz and 1600mhz ram in those games

 

[Forever Oleg]

1) By removing the cooler, you are saving just the right amount of money to either go Haswell i3 or Skylake i3 which both will be better than the 860K for your needs + you will be able to upgrade to an i5 or i7 later on.
2) GTX 750 Ti should be your choice of graphics card. Get the cheapest one you can find (in US, it is the Zotac single fan GTX 750 Ti with 2GB GDDR5 for $105).
3) Looks like you won't be playing many games. Would like to swap out that HDD for an SSD?
4) CX Series power supplies I do not recommend them. They use low quality caps. If you can find a VP-450 where you live, it will be a better choice for the same price.

CPU voltage? Core speed? RAM speed? Just make sure the BIOS shows the right things you put into the PC and don't mess with anything if you don't want to.

 

[aeko97]

I personally think the gt 740 is poor value, you can get a gtx 750 ti which is much more powerful and only a little more expensive. Other than that it looks okay for a budget build.

Yeah for windows you just follow the steps its very easy there are plenty of guides if you need one. You dont need to concern yourself with the BIOS the stock settings will be fine for you, you only have to mess with voltage and stuff if your overclocking. You may need to set your ram to run at 1600mhz however, by default the motherboard will probably set it to 1333mhz but to be honest you dont even really need to change that I doubt you would ever notice the difference between 1333mhz and 1600mhz ram in those games

Alright so change the GPU. I'm buying on a local store. There's this one...

Gigabyte GeForce GTX750 TI 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E

... which is 30€ more than the GT 740.

I might change it. Concerning the RAM speed, I'd like to set it to the 1600 mhz even if I don't notice the difference, is it possible? Is it easily done?

 

[Dunlop0078]

I personally think the gt 740 is poor value, you can get a gtx 750 ti which is much more powerful and only a little more expensive. Other than that it looks okay for a budget build.

Yeah for windows you just follow the steps its very easy there are plenty of guides if you need one. You dont need to concern yourself with the BIOS the stock settings will be fine for you, you only have to mess with voltage and stuff if your overclocking. You may need to set your ram to run at 1600mhz however, by default the motherboard will probably set it to 1333mhz but to be honest you dont even really need to change that I doubt you would ever notice the difference between 1333mhz and 1600mhz ram in those games

Alright so change the GPU. I'm buying on a local store. There's this one...

Gigabyte GeForce GTX750 TI 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E

... which is 30€ more than the GT 740.

I might change it. Concerning the RAM speed, I'd like to set it to the 1600 mhz even if I don't notice the difference, is it possible? Is it easily done?

Yeah in my opinion the 750 ti is definitely worth it. It should be as simple as just changing the number from 1333 to 1600, the timings should be close enough by default. Im not sure where this will be in your motherboard, check the manual look for memory speed or DRAM speed it shouldn't be hard to find.

 

[aeko97]

I personally think the gt 740 is poor value, you can get a gtx 750 ti which is much more powerful and only a little more expensive. Other than that it looks okay for a budget build.

Yeah for windows you just follow the steps its very easy there are plenty of guides if you need one. You dont need to concern yourself with the BIOS the stock settings will be fine for you, you only have to mess with voltage and stuff if your overclocking. You may need to set your ram to run at 1600mhz however, by default the motherboard will probably set it to 1333mhz but to be honest you dont even really need to change that I doubt you would ever notice the difference between 1333mhz and 1600mhz ram in those games

Alright so change the GPU. I'm buying on a local store. There's this one...

Gigabyte GeForce GTX750 TI 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E

... which is 30€ more than the GT 740.

I might change it. Concerning the RAM speed, I'd like to set it to the 1600 mhz even if I don't notice the difference, is it possible? Is it easily done?

Yeah in my opinion the 750 ti is definitely worth it. It should be as simple as just changing the number from 1333 to 1600, the timings should be close enough by default. Im not sure where this will be in your motherboard, check the manual look for memory speed or DRAM speed it shouldn't be hard to find.

I decided to pick a Asus Radeon R7 360 OC 2GB GDDR5 instead of any GTX 750 TI because that's what I built my girlfriends pc on and I've seen it rolling the games I want pretty well. Is it ok?

 

[Forever Oleg]

I personally think the gt 740 is poor value, you can get a gtx 750 ti which is much more powerful and only a little more expensive. Other than that it looks okay for a budget build.

Yeah for windows you just follow the steps its very easy there are plenty of guides if you need one. You dont need to concern yourself with the BIOS the stock settings will be fine for you, you only have to mess with voltage and stuff if your overclocking. You may need to set your ram to run at 1600mhz however, by default the motherboard will probably set it to 1333mhz but to be honest you dont even really need to change that I doubt you would ever notice the difference between 1333mhz and 1600mhz ram in those games

Alright so change the GPU. I'm buying on a local store. There's this one...

Gigabyte GeForce GTX750 TI 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E

... which is 30€ more than the GT 740.

I might change it. Concerning the RAM speed, I'd like to set it to the 1600 mhz even if I don't notice the difference, is it possible? Is it easily done?

Yeah in my opinion the 750 ti is definitely worth it. It should be as simple as just changing the number from 1333 to 1600, the timings should be close enough by default. Im not sure where this will be in your motherboard, check the manual look for memory speed or DRAM speed it shouldn't be hard to find.

I decided to pick a Asus Radeon R7 360 OC 2GB GDDR5 instead of any GTX 750 TI because that's what I built my girlfriends pc on and I've seen it rolling the games I want pretty well. Is it ok?

Just pair it with a decent PSU and you will be fine.

 

[aeko97]

I personally think the gt 740 is poor value, you can get a gtx 750 ti which is much more powerful and only a little more expensive. Other than that it looks okay for a budget build.

Yeah for windows you just follow the steps its very easy there are plenty of guides if you need one. You dont need to concern yourself with the BIOS the stock settings will be fine for you, you only have to mess with voltage and stuff if your overclocking. You may need to set your ram to run at 1600mhz however, by default the motherboard will probably set it to 1333mhz but to be honest you dont even really need to change that I doubt you would ever notice the difference between 1333mhz and 1600mhz ram in those games

Alright so change the GPU. I'm buying on a local store. There's this one...

Gigabyte GeForce GTX750 TI 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E

... which is 30€ more than the GT 740.

I might change it. Concerning the RAM speed, I'd like to set it to the 1600 mhz even if I don't notice the difference, is it possible? Is it easily done?

Yeah in my opinion the 750 ti is definitely worth it. It should be as simple as just changing the number from 1333 to 1600, the timings should be close enough by default. Im not sure where this will be in your motherboard, check the manual look for memory speed or DRAM speed it shouldn't be hard to find.

I decided to pick a Asus Radeon R7 360 OC 2GB GDDR5 instead of any GTX 750 TI because that's what I built my girlfriends pc on and I've seen it rolling the games I want pretty well. Is it ok?

Just pair it with a decent PSU and you will be fine.

Corsair Modular CX430M 80+ Bronze

 

[Forever Oleg]

I personally think the gt 740 is poor value, you can get a gtx 750 ti which is much more powerful and only a little more expensive. Other than that it looks okay for a budget build.

Yeah for windows you just follow the steps its very easy there are plenty of guides if you need one. You dont need to concern yourself with the BIOS the stock settings will be fine for you, you only have to mess with voltage and stuff if your overclocking. You may need to set your ram to run at 1600mhz however, by default the motherboard will probably set it to 1333mhz but to be honest you dont even really need to change that I doubt you would ever notice the difference between 1333mhz and 1600mhz ram in those games

Alright so change the GPU. I'm buying on a local store. There's this one...

Gigabyte GeForce GTX750 TI 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E

... which is 30€ more than the GT 740.

I might change it. Concerning the RAM speed, I'd like to set it to the 1600 mhz even if I don't notice the difference, is it possible? Is it easily done?

Yeah in my opinion the 750 ti is definitely worth it. It should be as simple as just changing the number from 1333 to 1600, the timings should be close enough by default. Im not sure where this will be in your motherboard, check the manual look for memory speed or DRAM speed it shouldn't be hard to find.

I decided to pick a Asus Radeon R7 360 OC 2GB GDDR5 instead of any GTX 750 TI because that's what I built my girlfriends pc on and I've seen it rolling the games I want pretty well. Is it ok?

Just pair it with a decent PSU and you will be fine.

Corsair Modular CX430M 80+ Bronze

It will work but the CX series power supplies use low quality caps and are not recommended to use with high load components or overclocking. I also wouldn't recommend to keep one of the CX PSU for more than 2-3 years but the sooner you replace it the better.

 

[Dunlop0078]

Yeah I agree about the CX definitely not one of the best power supplies around. It should be okay on your system as I doubt a 750 ti and 860k will push it very hard, but should you want to upgrade your gpu in the future or do some overcloking I would look into a better psu.

 

[aeko97]

Yeah I agree about the CX definitely not one of the best power supplies around. It should be okay on your system as I doubt a 750 ti and 860k will push it very hard, but should you want to upgrade your gpu in the future or do some overcloking I would look into a better psu.

I don't think you guys are following me, maybe I failed to explain myself. I just want those pieces, I'm not planning on overclocking any part or having a super computer. I just want a "small beast" to run those games I want at "fair graphics" if possible for 60 fps. I also am running a 18.5" screen which means I'll most likely be using resolutions like 1024x768 or 1280x1020 and such. I am not looking forward to upgrade my computer. I'll keep it for 2 years and run those games for 2 years. After those 2 years I'll be economy stable to build a better computer

 

[Forever Oleg]

If you haven't bought it yet, I never recommend the CX.

CX power supplies are simply bad. If you have a graphics card that requires a single 6-pin or doesn't require a PCIe connector at all (like the GTX 750 Ti) then get the Antec VP-450 - more reliable than any CX.