I've built a few PCs so far- The first one in 2008, a second to replace it in 2014, and also a experimental "budget" build to see how cheaply I could build a system. These were all for me.

My brother's birthday is coming up (21) and I got to thinking how he's still using his first computer that he got in 2007- I've gone through 3 and a laptop in the same time frame, and I consider myself rather reserved in when I decide to upgrade.  It looks identical to the one listed here, The specs don't match up- It came with slightly higher specs then those listed. He mostly uses it for browsing and games- I'm not privvy to the specifics though I believe one of them is League of Legends. He's likely restricted in what games he can play because of his specs.

I bought him a 9800GTX+ quite some time ago, and more recently he was having issues and I fixed it up for him. In the process I upgraded the memory from the stock 2GB to 4GB by taking two sticks out of my old build. I think he is planning on saving up for a new system but I know from experience (My own first build, when I was working at the same sort of job/pay level) that such things can take a while.

I've considered giving him one of my computers, or even my old laptop that compares favourably to his system- maybe swapping parts like the 9800GTX+ into them where applicable to make the system better, and I'm sure he'd like that just fine. But I have a tendency to go overkill, and this is no exception, so I've been considering the idea of a completely new build.

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That leads me to this forum for advice as to the build I have currently specced out. I'll provide the specific parts list then an explanation of my choice and likely alternatives. (Prices are in Canadian, so if they look ridiculous that is why, hah)

Motherboard: Gigabyte Intel Z97 LGA 1150 Micro ATX Motherboard GA-Z97M-DS3H  $130.99
CPU: Intel Core i3 4160 $170.73
PSU: Corsair RM 650 $143.99
GPU: EVGA Geforce GTX 750Ti $167.54
RAM: 8GB Corsair XMS3 (2x4GB) $74.77
Case: Fractal Design 1100 $65.72
SSD: Crucial BX200 240GB $97.99
HDD: 1TB WD Blue $72.75

Total: $924.48


Motherboard:

I've had good experiences with Gigabyte motherboards. I suspect this may be less a result of Gigabyte being any better then other brands and mostly because I've only bought Gigabyte motherboards. The motherboard arguably fits into the CPU decision. I went with this one because it seems to be a respectable board.

CPU:

I went with an i3 here because it's cheaper than an i5 or an i7 and considering he's using an ancient <2Ghz Dual core the performance improvement will still be a massive jump upwards. an i5 is a consideration. I think an AMD CPU (And motherboard) might be the best choice here over an Intel system but couldn't settle on any particular configuration so went with "What I sort of knew" here.

Power Supply: I went with Corsair for the same reason I chose Gigabyte. I bought a Corsair PSU for my first build and then bought one for every build after, and none of them have caught fire yet after years of service so they can't be terrible. Other brands are hardly off the table by any means, as with the motherboard. I went with the RM650 because it's the same PSU I'm using in this system. Modular cables probably don't matter much in this case, and my "napkin calculations" indicate that it should be enough wattage to run the system adequately.

Graphics Card:

This comes down to NVidia/AMD. I don't have a preference and I don't think my brother does either (and if he does he can buy his own bloody graphics card ). I don't want to go too high with this one- aiming for less than $200 for the Graphics card. Same thought as with the CPU- the jump from the 9800GTX+ should be huge even if the 750Ti doesn't compare favourably to a lot of other modern cards. (I think a Radeon R7 might be a good drop-in replacement to reduce costs without sacrificing performance. I see some less than $100 which would be a great reduction.

RAM:

Straightforward. None of this fancy gibberish where the RAM has heatsinks shaped like dragon genitals or whatever they seem to go for. I've used XMS3 myself for two systems and like the power supplies they haven't caught fire or caused any issues. Seems difficult to go wrong with RAM these days.

Case:

I used this same case for my "budget" build, and I think it is great looking while remaining affordable. I was concerned that it's smaller form factor would make it more difficult to work inside but building the system I used it for and I didn't have any problems.

SSD/HDD: His current system has a 250GB HDD that probably wants to die, so removing the HDD and leaving the comparably sized SSD to save cost- or use it for other components, is probably a great way to cut cost. I went with 1TB since it was only a few dollars more than the 500GB I originally selected.


Possible alternatives: AMD CPU/Motherboard; drop the HDD, use a Radeon R7? I'm trying to make it as cheap as possible without making it cheap... if that makes sense! THANKS in advance for any suggestions/advice.




I do mostly AMD builds myself, mainly because I am cutting corners in cost, but I would say stick with the build you have and the i3 listed as for if later he needs more processing power, the ceiling cap of performance is much higher on the Intel vs the AMD with the i7 upgrade later if needed worth it and the i7 processor cost will drop in time and become much more affordable.

Additionally AMD is not doing so hot and their future is unknown. In the past going with an AMD + socket build usually meant a long 2 or 3 CPU generation upgrade path for a build such as AM2+ would take a wide range of AM2 and AM3 CPUs, however with socket AM3+ if AMD fails tomorrow, there will be lesser upgrade path for the AM3+ board. Additionally the chipset controls the range of processor support as well as in my case I went with a build with a board that is maxed out for processing power because of the chipset support limit.

Sadly AMD isnt going to pull themselves out of the mess they are in, and their core design is lagging behind Intel. With my AMD FX-8350 8-core 4000Mhz build, I found out after the fact that the cores although 8 of them are trailing by 2 or 3 generations compared to Intel. Found this out when running single threaded program on the 8-core and performance seemed lesser than expected per core. Is it plenty of power,.... YES its plenty and overkill for most applications I have for it. After I built it and the local power company doubled our rates, I actually shut it down for about 5 months only turning it on when needed thinking I should probably have not built the system and saved my money and the 2009 build dual-core AMD Athlon 64 x2 4450B 2.3Ghz I continued to run instead because its power draw was 1/3 of the power draw of the 8-core system and otherwise ran fine for all games I used on it etc. Additionally I built my system on a motherboard that the maximum CPU supported is the AMD FX-8350, and the motherboard doesnt support the 4200Mhz Turbo feature so it only runs at 4000Mhz max of which I have cool n quiet enabled so it idles at 1400Mhz and sips electrons when idle or low work load vs running full tilt. I built this system figuring that it would be overkill and should last me a while, hoping to get 8 years out of it like my AM2+ 2009 build that is still in use and now better with a Athlon II x4 620 2600Mhz CPU in it at 780Mhz idle with cool n quiet enabled, and retired the dual-core 4450B 2.3Ghz that I overclocked to 2.53Ghz. However, the 4GB RAM of DDR2 800Mhz on this older system, I have started to see where the free memory is getting lesser and lesser as games I am running on it with Windows 7 64-bit are getting more needy and so with 4GB RAM I have seen my available memory drop to 300MB so its days are coming to an end at some point after 7 years of use 3 CPU upgrades ( Sempron x2 2300, then Athlon 64 x2 4450B, and then Athlon II x4 620 ) and a few video card upgrades ( Geforce 8400GS, Radeon HD 5450, and then  [ EVGA 896-P3-1267-AR GeForce GTX 260 Core 216 Superclocked Edition 896MB 448-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Supported Video Card ]   as seen here http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130400&cm_re=evga_core_216_260_gtx-_-14-130-400-_-Product )

I like Gigabyte brand, good quality, features and price. I went with this board, because it had the best of old and new and I wanted legacy IDE support with modern SATA to make use of dual IDE DVD-RW drives without having to buy new SATA DVD-RW drives saving myself about $40 using legacy when for an DVD drive IDE is still plenty of speed for them, and the SATA bus gets the best of use by SSD and HDD's that communicate much faster than optical drives.

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=4305#ov

Thanks, Dave.

the AMD alternative was able to drop the price by quite a margin- $793.53. Also I did the math and I wish I thought of this earlier since it seems budget is a greater concern than I realized- I Could have, you know, not bought a Japanese Super Famicom, if I had considered this idea earlier, but too late now... at any rate, because of that I'm considering some possible cost-cutting measures. taking on-board the consideration to allow him (or me) to get additional components for the system while reducing the Initial cost.

1. Definitely dropping the HDD. SDD could technically be a later upgrade but going from HDD to SDD would mean moving the Windows install which would be a bit annoying. a 240GB SSD would be the same size as his current HDD and much faster so still an upgrade. Based on what I've seen I don't think disk space is a concern for him- and if it is or he wants more storage a HDD can be an affordable upgrade.

2. Another interesting thought I had was to drop the graphics card. This would require either an on-board graphics solution (an Intel processor or an AMD APU) or we could bring forward his 9800GTX+ and go with something like the FX (which doesn't have on-board). In both cases, the idea would be the slap a more capable card in later. My reasoning is that this would seem to make an AMD APU less preferred, since it would only be needed temporarily; for Intel chips they all have integrated GMA by my understanding so that is less of a significant problem (Xeon processors aren't in the running here, anyway). Dropping the graphics card would also mean that it would likely be possible to get a more significant graphics card in the future. Or, another possibility is I could upgrade my own graphics card and give him the 770, which would still be a significant upgrade over either on-board possibility or the brought-forward 9800GTX+.

3. Power Supply. the RM650 is a fairly good PSU but I'm thinking it might be workable to get a more inexpensive unit. My first consideration here was a Corsair CX 430M, which is nearly $100 cheaper. This is also the PSU I'm using in my aforementioned budget AMD system and similar back-of-the-napkin calculations suggest it should be enough to run a modest configuration, even adding in a GTX 970 or R7 later on. ANother possibility was anEVGA 500W Supply. There are other options such as the Corsair CS 450 which could reduce the initial cost without impeding future upgrades.

4. Save it for Christmas, heh

This leaves me with two possible builds, which really boils down to a AMD/Intel QUESTION (as well as Intel GMA versus 9800GTX+, I suppose):

AMD Version:

CPU: AMD FX-8350 Black $169.99
Motherboard: Gigabyte AM3+ GA-78LMT-USB3 $58.33
GPU: Bring forward his existing 9800GTX+ ($0)
PSU: Corsair CS430 $65.99
RAM: Corsair XMS3 8GB $74.77
Case: Fractal Design 1100 $65.72
SSD: Crucial 240GB $97.99

Total: ~$532.79

Intel Version:

CPU: Intel i3 4160 $170.73
Motherboard: GA-Z97M-DS3H   $130.99
GPU: Bring forward 9800GTX+, or use Intel GMA 4400 on the i3)
PSU: Corsair CS 430M $65.99
RAM: XMS3 8GB 74.77
Case: Fractal Design 1100 $65.72
SSD: Crucial 240GB $97.99

Total ~$606

Intel GMA 4400 seems to lose to the 9800GTX+ by a wide margin, which I actually didn't expect, so it's looking like bringing the 9800GTX+ forward. would likely be the case for both, here.

I was looking at the two, and seems the price difference is less about the CPU and more due to the motherboard. I suppose it's a bit of a toss-up here- either way, the Intel build with future upgrades stripped out is cheaper than my originally specced AMD system. Though I don't think I have a preference- as I don't put much stock in Doom & Gloom predictions of AMD since after we have the parts, AMD's involvement going forward will be practically non-existent. That, and the higher end AMD chip costs the same as the lower-end i3's on Intel's side.




Going with a slightly cheaper power supply would be a good idea - The RM650 is a great unit but you are paying a lot for nice things like modular cabling - I'd look at some sort of nice Seasonic unit or one built by them such as one from XFX.

With the AMD build I wouldn't see that motherboard as being comparable to the Intel one - The AMD 760G chipset is extremely old (From 2009) and therefore lacks features such as native USB 3.0 (it's provided by a 3rd party controller) and SATA III.  For a comparable board you'd really need to go for something with a 970 chipset or better (bear in mind that for some reason these are all regular ATX sized boards).

As far as the SSD goes, The crucial BX series aren't great, I'd bump that up to an MX using the money you save on the PSU.Very impressive. 
About overkill.
SSD: Crucial BX200 240GB $97.99
That is a lot of SSD. You might cut that in half and get about the same performance.
Or maybe you really like your brother. 
Quote from: Geek-9pm on February 16, 2016, 07:06:50 AM

You might cut that in half and get about the same performance.
Or maybe you really like your brother. 

have you considered getting the components and doing the build with him ? ?

Going with a slightly cheaper power supply would be a good idea - The RM650 is a great unit but you are paying a lot for nice things like modular cabling - I'd look at some sort of nice Seasonic unit or one built by them such as one from XFX.

With the AMD build I wouldn't see that motherboard as being comparable to the Intel one - The AMD 760G chipset is extremely old (From 2009) and therefore lacks features such as native USB 3.0 (it's provided by a 3rd party controller) and SATA III.  For a comparable board you'd really need to go for something with a 970 chipset or better (bear in mind that for some reason these are all regular ATX sized boards).

As far as the SSD goes, The crucial BX series aren't great, I'd bump that up to an MX using the money you save on the PSU.

Given the i3 is not overclockable you could get a cheaper, non Z97 motherboard.

1 more afterthought...not sure it applies in your area but Samsung SSD's have gotten more aggressive with their pricing lately...