Need help with gaming pc build below 1360$

[Wenaker]

I need help with pc build. I am probably going to choose i5 and GTX 1060 for this build, because i7 and 1070 is too expensive, i5 (non-K) can bottleneck 1070, i5 7600K + GTX 1070 is also expensive (Z270 mobo + better cooler, ...) and i7 with 1060 is mainly for streamers (I am not). I want just pure gaming pc.

My suggestion is:
Mobo - Gigabyte H270 Gaming 3
CPU - Intel Core i5-7500
+ cooler SilentiumPC FERA 3
RAM - CRUCIAL 16GB=2x8GB Ballistix Sport LT Grey DDR4 2400MHz PC4-19200 CL16 1.2V Dual Ranked x8
GPU - MSI GeForce GTX 1060 ARMOR 6G OCV1, PCIe x16 3.0, DVI, 2xHDMI, 2xDisplayPort, 6GB GDDR5
Disc - SAMSUNG SSD disk 250GB, 850 EVO
+ WD BLUE EX 1 TB
Mechanic - LG GH24NS black Bulk
Case - SilentiumPC Gladius M35W Pure Black
PSU - Corsair RM550x 550W 80Plus Gold
Windows 10 PRO OEM 64 bit

But that is just suggestion. I will really appreciate your opinions and advices.
Thanks for your time.

 

[geofelt]

You can build as is.

I have a few thoughts:

1. I5-7500 comes with a adequate cooler. Replacing with an aftermarket cooler is only needed to reduce noise under load.

2. SSD is excellent for windows.
Consider deferring on the hard drive until you actually need the space. With a 500gb ssd, you may never need a hard drive at all.

3. GTX1060 needs only 450w.
520w will run even a GTX1080.
rm550x is a tier 3 unit on this list:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/id-2547993/psu-tier-list.html

Consider a tier 1 or 2 unit like a Seasonic 520w unit.
I would not pay extra for modular or gold rating.

 

[DRagor]

Looks good on first sight. Btw, seeing you as a Silentium fan why not try SilentiumPC Supremo L2 gold V2 550W PSU...

 

[Aeacus]

Refined your build a bit.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-7600K 3.8GHz Quad-Core Processor ($232.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer i32 CPU Cooler ($38.37 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI Z270 GAMING M5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($199.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory ($124.88 @ OutletPC)
Storage: SK hynix SL308 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($73.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.33 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Video Card ($398.89 @ OutletPC)
Case: Corsair 100R ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ B&H)
Power Supply: SeaSonic G 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD/CD Writer ($17.88 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($88.58 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1344.88
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-02 12:28 EST-0500

Few words.

Went with K-series CPU and Z-series MoBo so you can OC your CPU. Z-series MoBo also allows you to run faster than stock speeds of RAM. In this case, up to 3000 Mhz.

For CPU cooling, put in the same Arctic Freezer i32 that is also used on my Skylake build (full specs in my sig). You can easily upgrade CPU cooler from push configuration to push-pull with any 120mm fan. (I've done so in my Skylake build.)

Switched out the Samsung SSD for SK Hynix SL308. Reason why: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-ssds,3891-2.html

Managed to fit GTX 1070 into the build.

Switched out your case since there wasn't SilentiumPC case in pcpp. Replaced it with good quality Corsair case that has similar looks to the SilentiumPC case.
specs: http://www.corsair.com/en/carbide-series-100r-mid-tower-case

Put in good quality (Tier two) PSU from Seasonic. 80+ Gold, semi-modular and 5 years of warranty.

If you don't count the mail-in rebates then this build is over the budget by $1.50. If you do count the mail-in rebates then this build is well within your $1360 budget.

 

[Wenaker]

That sounds great, BUT I am not from USA (from CZE) and a few parts of your build are not available - ssd, psu, case. And prices are higher. So when I pick the parts together (with the same psu, ssd and case as first) the price will be above 1560$ (without windows)

 

[DRagor]

That sounds great, BUT I am not from USA (from CZE) and a few parts of your build are not available - ssd, psu, case. And prices are higher. So when I pick the parts together (with the same psu, ssd and case as first) the price will be above 1560$ (without windows)

Same problem here (POL). If you can wait a bit with purchase, do so. The prices in our countries should be going down next 1-2 weeks, due to the so called 'Trump effect' ending.
Or go for the polish parts, like Silentium or GoodRAM

 

[Aeacus]

That sounds great, BUT I am not from USA (from CZE) and a few parts of your build are not available - ssd, psu, case. And prices are higher. So when I pick the parts together (with the same psu, ssd and case as first) the price will be above 1560$ (without windows)

Next time, do state upfront your location and currency used since as you see, prices vary from country to country.

Since you live in Czech Republic that is part of European Union (i too live in European Union), you're best ordering your parts from Amazon.de.

Refined my build accordingly by taking account currency exchange rates (1360 USD = 34.216 CZK = 1266 EUR).

2 builds, 1st one with K-series CPU and Z-series MoBo (very similar to my Skylake build, full specs in my sig).

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor (€247.48 @ Amazon Deutschland)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Freezer i32 CPU Cooler (€28.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI Z170A GAMING M5 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€180.72 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston Savage 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-3000 Memory (€86.01 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€99.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€69.95 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 Gaming X 3G (€251.99 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Corsair 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (€48.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€86.78 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (€16.20 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (€172.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1288.02
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-03 12:58 CET+0100

Few words.

Since in Europe, Kaby Lake CPUs cost more than Skylake CPUs, i went with Skylake CPU. i5-6600K is one of the best CPUs for gaming that you can overclock to get more performance out of it.

Didn't change the CPU cooler.

Changed MoBo to MSI Z170A Gaming M5. (Same MoBo is also used in my Skylake build.) Do note that when your BIOS version is 1.C or newer, you can upgrade your CPU to any Kaby Lake CPU, including K-series CPUs (i5-7600K and i7-7700K). If your BIOS version is 1.9 (like it currently is on my MoBo), you can manually update your BIOS to get support for Kaby Lake CPUs.

Due to the budget restrictions, had to lower RAM amount. Put in 2x 4GB Kingston Savage RAM at speeds of 3000 Mhz. (And again, i have the exact same RAM in my Skylake build.) You can buy the exact same set of 2x 4GB Savage RAM if you want to upgrade your RAM to 16GB since MoBo supports this very RAM in all 4 RAM slots.

Switched SSD to Samsung EVO 250GB. SK Hynix SL308 is also available in Amazon.de but Samsung SSD costs only 7 EUR more. It's little enough price to pay to get better performing SSD.

Also switched out HDD to HGST (Hitachi) HDD since they are most reliable HDDs out there.
Further reading: https://www.backblaze.com/blog/hard-drive-reliability-stats-q1-2016/

Since in Europe, all PC components are far more expensive than in USA, had to lower cost on GPU as well. Put in MSI GTX 1060 Gaming X 3G. (You can find the same GPU in my Skylake build as well.)

Didn't change the case.

But did change the PSU. Put in Seasonic M12II-520 EVO that is 80+ Bronze, fully-modular and comes with 5 years of warranty. (I have M12II EVO series PSU in my Haswell build.)

Also changed the ODD since the one i initially picked wasn't available in Amazon.de.

Didn't change the OS.

All in all, this build is high-end gaming PC and you can keep it high-end with additional upgrades for years to come.
For example, i'm planning to upgrade my RAM to 16GB, populate both M.2 SSD slots on MoBo with M.2 NVMe SSDs and go for 2x GTX 1070 in a 2-way SLI without changing other components on my Skylake build. You can do the same but for GTX 1070 2-way SLI, you'll need at least 650W PSU. (I already have 650W PSU in form of Seasonic PRIME 650.)

And now, a 2nd build with Kaby Lake non-K CPU.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-7500 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor (€214.84 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Motherboard: MSI B250 GAMING M3 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€133.89 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: Kingston Savage 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory (€111.84 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€99.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (€69.95 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 1060 6GB 6GB ARMOR OC Video Card (€296.88 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Corsair 100R ATX Mid Tower Case (€48.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€86.78 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer (€16.20 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit (€172.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1250.28
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-02-03 12:57 CET+0100

Changes made compared to the build above.
CPU: i5-6600K -> i5-7500
CPU cooler: Arctic Freezer i32 -> Intel stock cooler (comes with CPU)
MoBo: Z170 -> B250
RAM: 2x 4GB 3000 Mhz -> 2x 8GB 2400 Mhz
GPU: GTX 1060 3GB -> GTX 1060 6GB

And for bonus, a comparison between the two builds. Skylake as a base and Kaby Lake as an alternative.

Userbenchmark PC Build Comparison

Baseline Bench: Game 83%, Desk 86%, Work 50%
CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060-3GB
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB
HDD: Hitachi HUA722010CLA330 1TB
RAM: Kingston HyperX DDR4 3000 C15 2x4GB

Alternative Bench: Game 87%, Desk 81%, Work 52%
CPU: Intel Core i5-7500
GPU: Nvidia GTX 1060-6GB
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB
HDD: Hitachi HUA722010CLA330 1TB
RAM: HyperX Fury DDR4 2400 C15 2x8GB

 

[Wenaker]

And can i5 6600K/7600K handle gtx 1070 in SLI? I thought it is happy, when it handle just one 1070. Anyway if this is true and i5 6600K can handle SLI 1070 then I have a suggestion (if you can display this czech eshop):

https://www.czc.cz/204094,204459,164760,110330,175654,177806,202987,161089,184214,176898,200026/kody

I am just not sure about the PSU

 

[Aeacus]

And can i5 6600K/7600K handle gtx 1070 in SLI? I thought it is happy, when it handle just one 1070. Anyway if this is true and i5 6600K can handle SLI 1070 then I have a suggestion (if you can display this czech eshop):

https://www.czc.cz/204094,204459,164760,110330,175654,177806,202987,161089,184214,176898,200026/kody

I am just not sure about the PSU

The great part when using i5-6600K/ i5-7600K with 2x GTX 1070 in 2-way SLI is that you can OC your CPU and bring it to match the performance of 2x GPUs. If you were to use non-K CPU with 2-way SLI on 2x GTX 1070 then you'll run into risk of bottlenecking CPU.

I can access and see your Czech e-shop just fine.

Your build looks great. I'm not sure if you have enough money to buy it though. But if you do, you can have high-end gaming/OC rig with the latest Intel's Kaby Lake CPU that you can upgrade even further.

About your selected PSU, Fortron is most commonly known as FSP and their Hydro G series PSU is great quality (Tier one) PSU.
Here's also a great review about FSP Hydro G 750W PSU by JonnyGuru,
link: http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story&reid=456

 

[geofelt]

And can i5 6600K/7600K handle gtx 1070 in SLI? I thought it is happy, when it handle just one 1070. Anyway if this is true and i5 6600K can handle SLI 1070 then I have a suggestion (if you can display this czech eshop):

https://www.czc.cz/204094,204459,164760,110330,175654,177806,202987,161089,184214,176898,200026/kody

I am just not sure about the PSU

If a I5-6600k or I5-7600K with an overclock can not handle some game with sli GTX1070, then nothing else available today can.

But... while you may win fps benchmarks with sli GTX1070, your gameplay will be better with a single GTX1080.
dual gpu is prone to issues such as stuttering and screen tearing.
Some games do not support dual cards at all.

 

[Wenaker]

And can suffice the 650W version of this PSU? (for the upgrades)

 

[Wenaker]

And can i5 6600K/7600K handle gtx 1070 in SLI? I thought it is happy, when it handle just one 1070. Anyway if this is true and i5 6600K can handle SLI 1070 then I have a suggestion (if you can display this czech eshop):

https://www.czc.cz/204094,204459,164760,110330,175654,177806,202987,161089,184214,176898,200026/kody

I am just not sure about the PSU

If a I5-6600k or I5-7600K with an overclock can not handle some game with sli GTX1070, then nothing else available today can.

But... while you may win fps benchmarks with sli GTX1070, your gameplay will be better with a single GTX1080.
dual gpu is prone to issues such as stuttering and screen tearing.
Some games do not support dual cards at all.

I know, about this future update was talking Aeacus, I will more likely buy the 1080 in the future, but everyone has his own opinion

 

[Aeacus]

And can suffice the 650W version of this PSU? (for the upgrades)

650W PSU is enough even when you plug GTX 1080 into your PC and OC your CPU and GPU.

But... while you may win fps benchmarks with sli GTX1070, your gameplay will be better with a single GTX1080.
dual gpu is prone to issues such as stuttering and screen tearing.
Some games do not support dual cards at all.

Yes, for gaming one single powerful GPU is generally better than 2 weaker GPUs in SLI.

But since i have other uses for my PC besides gaming, 2-way SLI works better for me.

 

[Wenaker]

And I have heard that new games are already using more efficiently the 8 Threads of i7 and i5 can be problem in the future with only 4 Threads. Do you think that AMD Ryzen could be the solution?

 

[geofelt]

Figuring out which apps or games can effectively use multi cores can be difficult.
Just because you see activity on all cores does not mean that a app is multithreaded.
It may just be Windows spreading out the activity over all available threads.
In fact if the activity is the same, it is a strong indication of a single thread app.
One way to tell would be to experiment with removing one core. You can do this in the windows msconfig boot advanced options option. set the number of processors to less than you have.
This will tell you how sensitive your games are to the benefits of many cores.
As a rule, sims, mmo and strategy games use mainly a single fast core.
Here is one of the few articles researching that.
Skip the ad to get to the report:
http://www.dsogaming.com/editorial/report-despite-claims-most-pc-games-are-still-unable-to-take-advantage-of-more-than-4-cpu-cores/

And... how many games would be sold if they REQUIRED 6 or 8 cores?
Not many, game developers will not want to restrict their market.

 

[Wenaker]

But this research is 3 years old. Thats long time and now it can be different especially afterwards in the future. And I have not said that games in the future will not run with 4 threads, but you will be able to see differences (fps) between numbers of threads.

 

[Vic 40]

Getting a cpu that can overclock means that you're wiling to,keep an eye on that. If you don't think you ever will overclock get the i5 7500 or maybe an older hyperthreaded cpu like the socket 1150 xeon's if for about the same price.With a nice "Z" motherboard and decent cooler could you run all cores at max turbo and maybe use some higher speed ram as well if fitting the budget.

That first build looks okay to me btw.I would like 2400mhz ram with a cas of 14 better but that's nitpicking.

 

[Aeacus]

But this research is 3 years old. Thats long time and now it can be different especially afterwards in the future. And I have not said that games in the future will not run with 4 threads, but you will be able to see differences (fps) between numbers of threads.

Actually, nothing has changed in those 3 years when it comes to hyperthreading in games.

Found a nice source that tested today's games with i7-6700K in 4 core, 8 threads mode and 4 core, 4 threads mode, just to see if hyperthreading has any benefits at all,
link: https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/gaming-benchmarks-core-i7-6700k-hyperthreading-test.219417/

In general, hyperthreading decreases performance by 2%. Depending on a game, decrease can be even higher.