I think I am overthinking my build

BenedictTaylor

Reputable
Jul 22, 2015
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4,510
Hi all,

Looking to build (or custom purchase) my first PC, and have been spending months trying to figure out what I need. My issue is, I want a PC that never, and won't, lag in any normal usage. I don't game, and only lightly use a few IDEs for software development. Apart from that, it is just regular usage for web browsing, youtube and a few applications. I know that anything will probably cover me, but I want peace of mind that it won't ever lag or freeze, or in any way play up consistently. So I need advice (I think this is a side effect of having an old laptop as my daily driver, with a malfunctioning keyboard and trackpad, and every other power cycle freezes up!).

I want to drive a 29" widescreen curved monitor (I think 2560x1080p). I'm guessing I should go for an i5, but then I could get an FX-8320 for less, and that should be better at multitasking. GPU have no clue where is overkill and where isn't. I want one so I have enough horsepower for certain applications, and to smoothly drive that monitor. RAM, maybe 8GB (16GB?) of 1800/2133MHz? Looking for a 128/256GB SSD with 1TB HDD. Budget max £700, preferably much less.

In conclusion, I want a decent, fast home PC for as cheap as is reasonable. FYI, if you can fit a (similar) monitor into the budget, bonus points! Thanks for your time.

Kind regards,
Ben
 
I would say an i3 or FX-6300. The stuff you are doing is not very intensive. For a GPU, I recommend a GTX 950. It might be slight overkill but you are using a 2K monitor and the H.265 decoder is important future proofing. Most important is RAM- look for 8GB-16GB, and an SSD. These will vastly improve responsiveness.
 
Do not purchase an FX-6300, it is essentially a four year old platform at this point. The i3 is decent, but you can definitely go Skylake with your budget. So you've basically got a budget of £700, which is at current exchange rate about $1100 US. That would be enough to get a somewhat decent PC in there, whether or not you could actually fit the monitor in there is questionable.

This is slightly over budget but has all the latest hardware:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor (£155.99 @ Ebuyer)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (£93.47 @ More Computers)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£79.46 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£68.34 @ Aria PC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£34.74 @ Aria PC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 960 4GB Superclocked Video Card (£181.72 @ More Computers)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£39.04 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (£57.35 @ Aria PC)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer (£9.38 @ CCL Computers)
Total: £719.49
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-29 23:16 BST+0100
 


Do you think it justifies the extra cost over this build?
http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/2h86WZ
 


Thanks a lot guys, got it under budget with OS now

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor
Motherboard: ASRock B150M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2133 Memory (£80.05 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (£69.31 @ Amazon UK)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (£39.00 @ Amazon UK)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 950 2GB Superclocked Video Card (£128.99 @ Amazon UK)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case (£39.04 @ Amazon UK)
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply (£36.50 @ Amazon UK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit)
Total: £392.89
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-09-29 23:33 BST+0100
 


It's not that much difference to go Z170 because you also get DDR4 and the ability to use an unlocked CPU should you choose to do so. And the 960 will be better in the long run for the type of monitor that you plan to use. You can use a 950, but the 960 has more cores and can adapt to higher resolutions than the 950 can.