Saturday, 10 October 2015

[Build Ready] gaming rig + peripherals, ~$1200

Build Ready:

Have you read the sidebar and rules? (Please do)

Yup.

What is your intended use for this build? The more details the better.

Mostly (non-pro) gaming; also the usual low-intensity home-computer stuff (internet, word processing, maybe a little hobby programming, etc).

If gaming, what kind of performance are you looking for? (Screen resolution, FPS, game settings)

60FPS @ 1080p would be plenty; main target is Skyrim on average-to-high settings, with maybe a couple of dozen mods. I'm coming from a laptop with on-board graphics and an xbox 360, so I've got pretty low standards on the graphics front. ;)

(I'm also hoping to be able to play Fallout 4 and Dishonored 2 on decent settings when they come out - but I guess we don't know their real requirements yet. Doubt they'll be that much higher than modded Skyrim, anyway.)

What is your budget (ballpark is okay)?

About £800 ($1200 USD), including the display & all other peripherals (except mouse & speakers - I already have those).

In what country are you purchasing your parts?

Mainland UK.

Post a draft of your potential build here (specific parts please). Consider formatting your parts list. Don't ask to be spoonfed a build (read the rules!).

Pretty much just picked stuff from the "Great" tier on Logical Increments, then added a few bits not listed there (monitor, optical drive, etc).

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type Item Price Notes
Motherboard MSI Z97 PC MATE ATX LGA1150 Motherboard £64.74 @ Aria PC
CPU Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor £85.99 @ Ebuyer Slightly surprised LI didn't suggest an i5 at this price-point. Would that be a good upgrade? Would it still be compatible with everything?
CPU Cooler Stock £0 I may buy a better fan later, if I decide the stock one's too loud / otherwise inadequate. Or should I just upgrade from the start?
Memory Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory £35.38 @ Amazon UK Actually planning on this one as recommended by LI, but I couldn't find that exact model number on PCPP. Are they even different?
Storage Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive £34.74 @ Aria PC
Storage Sandisk Ultra II 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive £42.99 @ Amazon UK On the fence about this... tempted to just put the OS on the HD, and get a smaller SSD to play disk cache, but wouldn't know what to get for that.
Video Card Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 2GB Video Card £157.00 @ Aria PC I'm considering setting up a Linux dual-boot, and don't mind proprietary drivers - with that in mind, I hear nVidia chipsets are the way to go.
Case Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case £62.34 @ Aria PC
Power Supply Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply £64.34 @ Scan.co.uk PCPP says I'm only using 283W, so I'd have thought a 620W power supply was excessive... this is just what LI suggested. Should I go smaller?
Optical Drive LG BH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer £46.62 @ Amazon UK I may want to watch blu-rays, and conceivably burn the odd DVD... it's not much extra, anyway.
Operating System Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM (64-bit) £75.79 @ More Computers
Monitor Asus VX229H 60Hz 21.5" Monitor £127.46 @ Scan.co.uk Picked from LI's peripherals guide. Don't know much about monitors, but I figure it's several steps up from my ~16" 720p laptop screen.
Keyboard Logitech K120 - UK Layout Wired Standard Keyboard £10.57 @ Ebuyer It's a keyboard. It's cheap. I might buy a Das S later if I decide to go all-out.
Thermal Compound Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste £7.27 @ Overclockers.co.uk The professional's favourite, right?
Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
Total £815.23
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-10-10 16:34 BST+0100

Provide any additional details you wish below.

I've added a column to the table above for my own notes - any comments, on my notes or otherwise? I don't really know what I'm doing (this is my first foray into PC building), so I'm 100% open to suggestions on anything. And please shout if there's any minor bits I may have missed - I dunno, cables, connectors, that sort of thing.



Submitted by EvilTerran Xbox 720 Release Date 2015

No comments:

Post a Comment