Cyber Monday computer ideas

[Minigun]

Hey guys its been a little while since I made a post over here but I've been looking into building my little brother a computer like the one you guys recommended for me a little over a year ago.

CPU: Intel Core i5 3570k - (BX80637I53570K)
Motherboard: ASRock Z75 Pro3 (Z75 PRO3)
RAM: G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (F3-10666CL9D-8GBNT)
GPU: GIGABYTE GeForce GTX 670 (GV-N670OC-2GD)
HDD: SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 1TB (HD103SJ)
PSU: XFX Core Edition PRO 550W (P1-550S-XXB9)
ODD: SAMSUNG Internal DVD Writer (SH-222BB/RSBS)
Case: Rosewill Challenger (N82E16811147153)

That was the list of my parts and I haven't really been paying much attention to the newest tech so i though i'd come ask for an opinion since yall all helped me with my first build.

His budget is about 1,000 just as mine was with a little room to go over if necessary.

My gut instinct for the big three parts are the new haswell chipset,I read that my Ivy bridge socket wont be very compatible with some hardware in the future, maybe a 4gb 770 for his video card, not sure who makes the best aftermarket one so i'm open to discussion, 8 gb of ram and I guess a motherboard like my z75. He wants an SSD for his OS and some of his favorite titles so that might be an area to cut costs. He wants to OC so maybe a hyperevo thrown in there aswell.

If you guys could piece one together for the holidays whats the best performance for the price?

Not in any kind of rush just would like some guidance.

Thanks.

[Goku]

I will post something up later tonight after my differential equations course. First off though does he need a copy of Windows? If so does he want Windows 7 or 8? For the SSD what games does he want to store, like does he need 120GB or 240GB? For his video card with the inclusion of the SSD we are probably looking at a GTX 760, or 670/680 on sale.

[Minigun]

Thanks for the speedy reply.

I still have my OEM windows 7 disc laying around from my build so I think he can do with that. I also believe a 120gig SSD would be enough for him he plays swtor all the time so he probably just wants that and windows 7 on it, though he may be able to squeeze one more game on it.

He does play BF4 and out of curiosity I wanted to see how dated my hardware was so I loaded it up on my rig and my 670 still pulls 45+ frames on ultra so we can probably back off of the 770 like you said. He just wants new and shiny so I can't blame him. I'm not running an OC on my card or my processor so I'm sure a mild OC on his processor could yield him even higher performance because my BF4 performance seems to stem from a CPU bottleneck.(I get the change windows to performance mode popup about 60% of the time)

I think that about covers it. Good luck with those differentials, man do I hate those things.

[Goku]

The course isn't that bad, just getting more edgy now with the semester almost being over.

Now here is what I came up with:

Motherboard and CPU Combo: Core i5 4670K and ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer - $339.98
Toshiba Q Pro 256GB SSD - $159.99
CoolerMaster Hyper EVO 212 - $34.99
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 - $52.99
CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W -$79.99
EVGA 02G-P4-2763-KR GeForce GTX 760 2GB - $249.99
Seagate 1TB HDD - $64.99
Corsair Carbide 330R - $69.99

Total = $1,052.91

The build is a bit over budget. However I think the extra money is worthwhile in order to have the extra space on the solid state, that will it will be more usable in the coming years. Feel free to change the case out to something more to his liking. I could try to find some cheaper parts with the PSU and case to free up money, so he could maybe get a GTX 770. Then again that is also possible if you just get a 120GB SSD instead. All depends on what you two want to do.

[Minigun]

Talk about end of the semester, just getting an opportunity to get back to you.

The components look good that seems like a great deal you found on that CPU/Mobo combo. I just found out he has a little more to spend than he originally mentioned to me. With that being said I think we're going to raise his budget another $150-$200 more than the original $1000 putting us in the 1.1-1.2 range.

After some discussion he wants a case that's a little more "eye grabbing" so he showed me this one he had been looking at (NZXT CA-PH410-W1) for ~ $100 so that leaves for an additional $100 for a GPU if we keep the 256GB SSD putting us in 770 range such as this gigabyte (GIGABYTE GV-N770OC-4GD) if you know of a better solution I'm still all ears.

If he decides he wants the 128GB SSD that will free up another $50 I don't know if that can be better spent elsewhere but it seems best to keep it invested in the 256GB SSD.

As always thanks for the help, only two finals left so I will try to get around here sooner next time.

EDIT: It's late but I think I noticed you didn't list an ODD so I'll be picking up a basic one for the windows install.

[Goku]

Always is fun isn't it?

Anyway that sounds good to me what you are saying for the parts.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask. Best of luck on the finals.

[Minigun]

Finally got some time to myself.

Just wasting time playing around on some sites I came across an article that said by about the end of this month the R9 290's should be coming out with their aftermarket heat sinks. Would this be something to be weary about?

I know it might be taking a gamble because i've heard nothing but horrible things posted here and talking to others about AMD's current drivers, but at $400 the thing looks like a monster. That is at least from a few of the benchmarks i've gone over. I know you used to run a 7850 or 7950 from reading your forum posts back when so could you shed some light on the little red guy?

I have no problems jumping brands, my first GPU was a 9800 Pro that served me well.

[Goku]

Going back like 10 years ago AMD aka ATI had bad driver support from what I have read. The drivers have improved vastly, since then so now I would say that is more of a myth now lol. I have been leap frogging with AMD and Nvidia hardware for awhile now and neither has given more trouble than another. Each company has had their bad points with say continued bugs in certain games or crappy launch drivers for huge titles.

In terms of the 290. The card is awesome, but its hot hot. If you can wait for the non reference that would be a good idea imo. 290s are hot cakes right now due to the virtual coin mining operations, so they are selling right when they get in stock. Hopefully the fad will die down a bit allowing you to get one.

That could be a couple weeks off from now however. When you finally get the card we probably should do a revised build as the prices on the components may of changed. I don't want you paying $78 on memory when you can get another kit for $50 again .

[Minigun]

No memory yet, think it got lost in shipping but it still went smoothly. He can't wait to fire it up.

Might post some lit up pictures sometime tomorrow if it gets completed.

[Goku]

Very nice. Go with the 770 4GB in the end?

[Minigun]

Yeah, went with the 770, the price spike on the AMD's turned me away.

Ended up running to a local shop and picking up 16GB of ram, they were out of everything else but it's Christmas so I went ahead and blew the budget a little bit.

Funny story I forgot to plug in the secondary ATX12V CPU connector so when we went to fire it up for the first time it was less than climatic lol. Anyways I was wondering what that extra 8pin was for even though the opposite side was clearly labeled CPU, wont do that again.

Other than that it runs great and my brother couldn't be happier with it.