Build Advice Seeking Suggestions For First Time Build ($600-$700)

[mbn2023]

Hello, I'm currently looking to build pc with a budget of $600-$700 USD with no access to a Mirco Center unfortunately. I hoping to take advantage of upcoming sales. I do not need any peripherals nor OS with this build and my current panel is a LG 27" at 1080p with connectivity options being VGA, DVI and HDMI. I'm not in favor of one brand from another in the way of parts but I know for me personally I'm not into constantly upgrading anything and plan to have said build for quite some time. I want a simple yet very cost to performance build as much as possible. Since I have a very limited interest in the ways of gaming being that The Sims franchise is my main choice so while I'll list other games that's where I really want my build to shine. That being said I realize that the foundation itself for TS4 has lot to be desired meaning there is only so much I can expect from it but what of I can expect I want the best of. My productivity list is mainly connected with my interest in TS4. While I don't have much knowledge on computers, I don't mind learning the reasons behind your choices so please feel free to share.

What I would like from my pc is:

Gaming

• The Sims 4 on ultra-high settings with most of the DLC, heavily modded plus tons of cc (50GB minimum) and with GShade presets
• Older time management games (i.e. Diner Dash franchise)
• Match 3 (Bejeweled, Supe Collapse etc.)
• Mystery/Investigation/Hidden Object (The Painscreek Killings, The Room (1-4), Sherlock Holmes etc.)
• Racing games (mostly the NFS franchise and Burnout)
• Crash Bandicoot
• Sonic
• Overcooked

Productivity

• Editing in Filmora
• Photoshop
• Blender (poses and animations for TS4)
• Want to try my hand at machinimas with TS4 using OBS as of now

As far as future gaming goes, I'll be mostly interested in The Sims 5, Paralives and Life By You whenever they are released. Thank you all who take the time to respond, I appreciate it.

 

[thestryker]

Even with being new to pc parts I found it rather uh interesting about Intel's socket life. I don't understand the reasoning behind it but I haven't looked to see if there is one to begin with.

There's two main reasons behind it, or rather why it hasn't changed and likely won't.

1) Intel now releases a lot of SKUs which need to be covered in BIOS code and BIOS chip size hasn't really changed much in a long long time, but all sorts of UI stuff has been added which takes space. As AMD users found out with AM4 you can't maintain every SKU over time and due to OEMs Intel can't afford to drop SKUs out of support.

2) OEMs do not care at all about socket shifts, especially since most of them have used the same board layout. This is by far Intel's largest sales market so there is no economical reason for them to spend resources to change it.

Personally I've never been bothered by it as my upgrade cycle is so long I'm replacing more than just the CPU. For anyone who does upgrade more often (or buys low and plans a specific future upgrade) though AMD definitely is the way to go.

 

[Eximo]

I think I recall that about older games or at least something similar about Intel gpus. And as you can gather from my list of games, I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be a good fit me personally. This 14700 you speak of are you referring to the i7? Sorry for the probably obvious answer just want to be sure and if so I assume said cpu would be fine with rx 6000 gpu? Thank you for the build list plus the little bit of Intel information.

Yes, I have tested out some old DX7 and DX8 title and they aren't happy with Intel graphics. They render fine, but there are weird stutters all the time. Not much of my DX9 library is super happy to run on Windows 10 or 11, but that and DX11 are the big hurdles for Intel.

Yes, if you get an LGA1700 board that supports Intel 12th, 13th, and 14th gen processors. In a few years you can pick up a used CPU or perhaps a new in-box one at a discount that will bring the system up to 'high-end' today which will be more like mid-range tomorrow.

I have an i3-12100F, and at some point I may go down the path of picking up a i7-14700 to refresh it. But I will probably do that more like 5 or 6 years from now when it starts to show performance issues.

 

[mbn2023]

Yes, I have tested out some old DX7 and DX8 title and they aren't happy with Intel graphics. They render fine, but there are weird stutters all the time. Not much of my DX9 library is super happy to run on Windows 10 or 11, but that and DX11 are the big hurdles for Intel.

Yes, if you get an LGA1700 board that supports Intel 12th, 13th, and 14th gen processors. In a few years you can pick up a used CPU or perhaps a new in-box one at a discount that will bring the system up to 'high-end' today which will be more like mid-range tomorrow.

I have an i3-12100F, and at some point I may go down the path of picking up a i7-14700 to refresh it. But I will probably do that more like 5 or 6 years from now when it starts to show performance issues.

I'm not sure what all my games run as I'm one of those if it turns on and I can play it that's all really care about. But hearing more from you yeah, I'm hundred percent we wouldn't work well together. Thanks for the further insight, I appreciate it. Ok on the cpu as I don't mind being some generations behind if I ended up going that route. For the build you suggested is there an advantage in going with ddr5 oppose to ddr4 ram/mother board combo?

 

[ohio_buckeye]

I’m assuming he’s going ddr5 because it’s the newer standard and should be relevant longer. Since you don’t plan to upgrade a lot you should go with the latest tech possible.

 

[mbn2023]

There's two main reasons behind it, or rather why it hasn't changed and likely won't.

1) Intel now releases a lot of SKUs which need to be covered in BIOS code and BIOS chip size hasn't really changed much in a long long time, but all sorts of UI stuff has been added which takes space. As AMD users found out with AM4 you can't maintain every SKU over time and due to OEMs Intel can't afford to drop SKUs out of support.

2) OEMs do not care at all about socket shifts, especially since most of them have used the same board layout. This is by far Intel's largest sales market so there is no economical reason for them to spend resources to change it.

Personally I've never been bothered by it as my upgrade cycle is so long I'm replacing more than just the CPU. For anyone who does upgrade more often (or buys low and plans a specific future upgrade) though AMD definitely is the way to go.

Those reasons make sense to me. Even though this will be my first build knowing me I'm pretty sure it'll be years before I upgrade so I could quite possibly be in the same boat.

 

[mbn2023]

I'm running an A380 in my HTPC as a watchdog on Intel drivers.

Expectation for Battlemage is something like RTX 4070 Ti like performance. Doesn't look like they are going to try and compete with Nvidia or AMD on the high end just yet.

If they stick to a 256 bit bus as expected but increase Xe cores to 56 as rumored it will have an effective 7188 processing cores, (4070 Ti has 7680 (60 Cuda Cores)) Though the proposed die size is a nearly the size of a 4080 and would be on a similar TSMC node. But that could be more silicon dedicated to Intel's RT cores and the like. Hard to do a direct comparison. Especially if you toss AMDs lower stream processor counts into the mix, which this would be effectively a little bigger than the 7800 XT at also 60 CU...

Older games is where Intel really falls apart though, so I would not consider it much unless you only play games from the last few years that are DX12 or Vulkan. Even with the recent drivers there are still old games that just plain don't work right.

I would probably do something like this, with the expectation of dropping in a 14700 and a new GPU in a few years.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: Intel Core i5-12400F 2.5 GHz 6-Core Processor ($144.97 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock B760M PG Lightning Micro ATX LGA1700 Motherboard ($115.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Flare X5 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR5-6000 CL32 Memory ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial P3 Plus 1 TB M.2-2280 PCIe 4.0 X4 NVME Solid State Drive ($48.99 @ Amazon)
Video Card: ASRock Challenger D Radeon RX 6600 8 GB Video Card ($189.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Deepcool MATREXX 40 MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($50.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Thermaltake Toughpower GF1 - TT Premium 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $730.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2023-11-13 17:10 EST-0500

Would an 12600kf work just as fine in this build? I only ask since I've seen it on sale for roughly the same price. I know I would need to add a cpu cooler and maybe switch out the motherboard to be to overclock, though I'm not looking into do so. And the main reason I didn't go for the non k variant was because it cost more.

 

[thestryker]

Would an 12600kf work just as fine in this build? I only ask since I've seen it on sale for roughly the same price. I know I would need to add a cpu cooler and maybe switch out the motherboard to be to overclock, though I'm not looking into do so. And the main reason I didn't go for the non k variant was because it cost more.

Totally fine and you don't need to go with a Z series board if you don't plan on overclocking. Just get a decent cooler (120mm single tower of good quality should be sufficient) and call it good.

 

[mbn2023]

Totally fine and you don't need to go with a Z series board if you don't plan on overclocking. Just get a decent cooler (120mm single tower of good quality should be sufficient) and call it good.

Ok, cool. Thanks