Looking for help on building a new pc

[JoshuaWarner]

I was hoping to get some help on building a new pc, specifically with regards to hardware choices. Mine is a six year old budget pc and has just run it's course.

The problem is, I'm having some issues figuring out what kind of hardware I should be looking for based on my habits and budget (<$1000). I play a lot of games, mostly rpgs but I dabble in fps, and regularly watch YouTube videos and stream movies.
I'm currently running:
Windows 7 x64
AMD II X2 545, 3.0GHz processor
4 GB DDR3 RAM
NVidia GeForce GTX 460 video card

Ideally I'm looking for something that can handle today's games with five plus years of life. I've done some preliminary searching and think something in the 600 series GTX cards, i5 quad core, and 8GB DDR4 RAM would be sufficient. I just don't know where to go from there. I'm not really focusing on overclocking capability, but it's certainly an option if I can make it cost effective.

I was hoping to get some advice on specific hardware you would look at in this situation and/or ideas where I could look to get some ideas.

Thanks a lot in advance.

 

[why_wolf]

An i5 and 8GB of RAM will be sufficient. Though for the RAM I would recommend based on how many RAM slots your motherboard has you leave some open so you have room to double to 16GM of RAM years later if games start to really demand that. The i5 is a great chip, been rocking mine for 4 years now with no OCing, getting a K model does give you the option to push it a bit more and potentially stretch out its usefulness.

A 600 series card is an improvement over your 460 but those are old cards now. I really would recommend getting a current card and just ridding out its lifespan. If you really want to pinch pennies on it you can look for refurbished ones. EVGA has a b stock listing that they populate every few months. I saved $150 bucks buying my GTX 980 that way. http://www.evga.com/Products/ProductList.aspx?type=8

 

[Jonas Dixon]

I'm guessing that you're looking for a completely new build including PSU and hardrives.

Starting off with the processor, you'll need a skylake and the cheepest one is around 180$ but i would recomend the Intel Core i5-6500 for 200$ as its got a better clock speed. Overclocking is probobly out of the question if you dont want to pay 275$, as the cheepest unlocked one is the Intel Core i5-6600K for 275$.

The motherboard i would recomend is the MSI H170A PC Mate as it isn't that expensive with a bunch of unnecisary features. It doesen't support SLI but i'm not expecting you to do that and if so i can find another board. It also supports the DDR4-2133 and the skylake processors so it'll work like a charm.

There isn't that much to say about the ram except that you'll need DDR4-2133 ram. I would recommend Corsair Vengeance 2 x 4GB DDR4-2133 for 75$ but if you would like to switch that out there shouldn't be a problem.

for a harddrive i would probobly recommend a Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB SDD + an aditional 500gb-1tb HDD if you want extra space. This should cost around 125-150$. Again if you want to switch out the SSD there shouldn't be a problem, i'm just recomending it as its one of the most preiceworthy on the market.

For a PSU i'd look into a 550 watt 80+ gold certified fully modular as it reduces all the problems with the cables and ensures that you get the wattage you're paying for. This should cost around 80$

The problem with the 600 series is that it isn't being produced anymore and therefore you can hardly buy it if you dont buy a used one. I would instead recomend a 900 series, in particular the 960 which is in your price range. this should cost between 180-200$.

I'll let you look up a case on your own as it really comes down to taste, but you should have around 100$ to spend on it.

 

[JoshuaWarner]

Thanks a lot, Jonas, your insight was extremely helpful.

I think the only thing I should have mentioned, and which has caused an issue with the motherboard selection, is that I, at least, need 2 DVI ports because the dual monitors that I am currently running. One has a standard DVI port and VGA, and the other is a bit older and has VGA and something that looks like DVI, but the pins are slightly different so I have never used that port. I noticed that the board you mentioned has one DVI port and one HDMI, but I don't know how I could use that unless I converted one of the DVI inputs to HDMI and the other VGA to DVI, which I already do on my currently PC.

You have already clearly spent some time searching for me so I wouldn't want to take up much more of your time. So unless you might have some suggestions already, could you just explain how I would go through and select a different mobo that has those options? What do you think?

Again, thanks a lot for your help.

 

[JoshuaWarner]

Thanks a lot for the advice, wolf. I checked out the b stock from EVGA and unfortunately they did not have anything that was really within my price range for the cards I was looking for.

The low cost of some of the lower grade cards did get me curious about SLI though, and I did a little reading to learn some more about it and found that it might be an option.

Do you have much experience with SLI?

 

[why_wolf]

Thanks a lot for the advice, wolf. I checked out the b stock from EVGA and unfortunately they did not have anything that was really within my price range for the cards I was looking for.

The low cost of some of the lower grade cards did get me curious about SLI though, and I did a little reading to learn some more about it and found that it might be an option.

Do you have much experience with SLI?

Unfortunately no. I've always viewed SLI/Crossfire as an unnecessary complication in a setup. So I'm very much in favor of buying the strongest single card you can instead of gambling with SLI compatibility in a given game.

As for the B Stock listing it's basically empty right now, they pushed their big list back before Black Friday. I wouldn't expect them to repopulate it until after the new year starts (all those returns from xmas gifts). So if you aren't in a hurry to buy all your stuff right now it's definitely worth keeping an eye on it. I think I waited for about two months before the 980 that I wanted came back in stock.

 

[Jonas Dixon]

I'm glad that my advice helped you Joshua!

There shouldn't really be a problem with the DVI connectors as you should connect monitor directly to your graphics card to utilize its power, if you connect the DVI, VGA, HDMI etc to the motherboard you're only using the intergrated graphics on the motherboard that give you really bad performance. Usually the newer graphics cards come with at least 1 DVI port, an HDMI port and sometimes a dipslayport which should be sufficient for you. To make sure you can always look it up at the vendor under the specifications tab.

Hope this helps!