Wanting to build a PC for: Gaming / Game Recording / Video Editing $1,300-$1,400

[jameswb]

*sorry i don't know where to post this but I need some help!*

Hey my name is James, I'm 18 and would like to upgrade my laptop to a nice custom built PC for gaming/recording/editing. Hoping i can get advice as i am very inexperienced in PC parts.

Approximate Purchase Date: When school ends
Budget Range: ~$1,300-$1,400
System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, Recording, Editing & Rendering.
Parts Not Required: Keyboard and Mouse, headphones, speakers.
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Ebay, pcpartpicker, local shops.
Country: Australia
Parts Preferences: Intel Processor, NVIDIA
Overclocking: Not sure
SLI or Crossfire: Not sure
Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080
Additional Comments:
I have only owned a $700 Asus laptop that did the job but isn't enough for what i need. I have small experience in bulding PC's and have small knowledge of most parts, I am familier with intel cores, video cards and RAM.

My budget price i want to aim for is $1,300-1,400 and i may add onto it later on if i feel i need to.

Parts I have chosen (not final):
http://au.pcpartpicker.com/p/mFRNmG

Storage
I own a portable Hard drive with 1TB. Should i get a solid-state drive? not sure..

Mothboard etc.
I have minimal knowledge of motherboards, coolers, power supply, and hard drives. From the partslist and what i need/want are those ok? or could i lower their prices.

Frames and render speed/editing lag
I have been getting lag in recording and from editing my videos, can higher RAM stop this? Also Render speed would be better if it was faster as a 3 minute simple video takes an hour to render.
I would like to have at least 100 frames at least when recording on relatively high videos settings for CS:GO. For other games I would like to record in better quality than what i usually get without it getting frame drops or low frames/second.

Ram
Is 8gb RAM enough for what i want? I would like to have no frame-rate drops as i have experienced in recording a video. I can show an example from my video : http://youtu.be/6D9I0vXKNh8 at 3:40 - In this video I have a 720m nvidia card, i5 and 4gb RAM.
I was told i would need 16gb.


CPU and Video card
I would like to have a i7 but also a nvidia 970.
Which would give me the most out of what i want for gaming/recording/editing. I'm willing to go down to i5 or 960 of one of them to get down to my budget.

KeyBoards
not sure which one to get (some of my considerations budget: $80 max)
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/cooler-master-keyboard-sgb3010kkmf1us
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/razer-keyboard-rz0300800100r3u1
https://au.pcpartpicker.com/part/turtle-beach-keyboard-tbs480001
Also the Razer Anasi.

Monitor
Is the one I chose in the list a good one for my budget/needs?

Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it.

 

[jmsellars1]

I think more RAM will probably help the framerate drops but 8GB should be plenty, I don't think you will see any benefit from 16GB. A better CPU and GPU will probably help a bit as well.

I would use a SSD in the system to make it feel quick when booting, loading programs and in loading screens in games then use your external for storage.

A few things to point out with your current build really:

- That PSU has a lot more power than you need and is average quality, you'd be better with a great quality 400W+ PSU. Some names to look for with this are Seasonic, XFX, Antec and Superflower.

- If you're never going to overclock, I would go for a Xeon 1230v3 as this is basically exactly the same as that i7 but is a slightly lower clock speed and it doesn't have integrated graphics so you have to use a graphics card with it. It is cheaper though. If you think you might overclock, I would go for an i5-6600K. It is on the new socket and means you could get speedy DDR4 RAM, bit more expensive but with overclocks you would easily overtake the i7's performance in games anyway.

- That CPU cooler is very small so it is excellent if you've got a small case but it is quite expensive and obviously this means the cooling is compromised. In a big case like that, you'd be better off with a bigger cooler as it would be cheaper and give you better cooling. Alternatively you could just stick with the stock cooler included with the CPU. The only reason to upgrade the cooler really is better cooling for overclocking or quietness.


This should give you overall better performance for less cash:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($335.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty H97 Performance ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($139.00 @ CPL Online)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($75.98 @ Mwave Australia)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($145.00 @ Mwave Australia)
(1TB External Hard drive)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($449.00 @ Centre Com)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($83.00 @ IJK)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 450W 80+ Gold Certified ATX Power Supply ($90.00 @ Umart)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($129.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Monitor: BenQ RL2460HT 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($139.00 @ CPL Online)
Total: $1584.98
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-25 19:37 AEST+1000


In terms of the keyboards mentioned, it is really personal preference and depends which features you want. If you don't care about bright lights, backlit keys, macro keys and mechnical keys then you could just buy any old keyboard.

That monitor looks great for the price, reliable brand, 1080P resolution, low response time and good price.


If you wanted to bring the build down to your ideal budget range without losing much performance, you could go for this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1230 V3 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($335.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: MSI H81M-P33 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($63.00 @ Centre Com)
Memory: Corsair 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($69.00 @ CPL Online)
Storage: Crucial BX100 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($135.00 @ Umart)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB Video Card ($449.00 @ Centre Com)
Case: Silverstone PS09B MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($45.00 @ Umart)
Power Supply: Silverstone Strider Essential 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($58.00 @ IJK)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($129.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Monitor: BenQ RL2460HT 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($139.00 @ CPL Online)
Total: $1422.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-25 19:44 AEST+1000


That motherboard would need a BIOS update to ensure it is compatible with that CPU so I'd get the store to do that before buying it. That motherboard and PSU might not be quite as rock solid as the Seasonic and ASRock mentioned above but they are still decent quality and have warranties to back that up. This has a slightly slower SSD and slightly slower RAM as well but this won't affect gaming performance much, I'd be surprised if you lost more than 1 frame per second due to this. Obviously there's a cheaper case here as well but the differences are mainly in aesthetics and overclocking potential, neither of which would affect the performance of this build as it can't be overclocked anyway.

 

[Xibyth]

I cant stress enough how much 16GB of RAM will help with editing and rendering with real world experiences. For storage, between games and videos they will take a lot of space. So I bumped up the RAM and storage capacity, I also switched you the the Xeon and a different motherboard more suited to the build, which saved a pretty good amount without sacrificing anything needed and maintaining performance. Nvidia is likely the way to go as it's shadowplay software is far more reliable (IMO) than raptor for recording.

I do agree with JM for the Xeon, but the storage capacity is crucial, an SSD with enough is just not in the budget.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($369.00 @ CPL Online)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-L9i 57.5 CFM CPU Cooler ($54.00 @ IJK)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($109.00 @ CPL Online)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($135.00 @ Centre Com)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($98.00 @ Centre Com)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 960 4GB Video Card ($349.00 @ CPL Online)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($83.00 @ IJK)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($115.00 @ CPL Online)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($129.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Monitor: BenQ RL2460HT 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($139.00 @ CPL Online)
Keyboard: Turtle Beach IMPACT 100 Wired Gaming Keyboard
Total: $1580.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-25 23:15 AEST+1000

Or with the 970
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($369.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($109.00 @ CPL Online)
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($135.00 @ Centre Com)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($98.00 @ Centre Com)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 970 4GB STRIX Video Card ($498.00 @ Centre Com)
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case ($83.00 @ IJK)
Power Supply: Thermaltake SMART 550W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($89.00 @ CPL Online)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($129.00 @ Mwave Australia)
Monitor: BenQ RL2460HT 60Hz 24.0" Monitor ($139.00 @ CPL Online)
Keyboard: Turtle Beach IMPACT 100 Wired Gaming Keyboard
Total: $1649.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-08-25 23:26 AEST+1000