IBKillingfools Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 I need a little help putting together a parts list for a first time gaming rig for my daughter. I have done component replacement / repairs, and am not new to the process of building the computer, but when it comes to getting some quality "budget" components for a mild gaming rig, I am lost. The last thing I want to do is build a brick for her. So far we have a full tower case, and a 750 watt power supply. As our budget allows we will be adding components, with the Mobo/CPU being her Christmas present. She has stated she would like to go with Intel based chipsets. She is saving her allowance and babysitting to assist with some of the purchases. Things to consider, she really only plays Minecraft, but is finding more and more games on steam all the time. This is a budget build, can't afford her dream setup, and she knows this. She likes the black and red motif, and her case is black and red with red l.e.d. fans. Room for upgrades and improvements from the basic would be awesome. She loves engineering and building things herself, but I will be assisting with stuff as needed. She has expressed a want to liquid cool and mess with over clocking in the future, but we are staying away from that for now. So what do you say fellow survivors? Feel like helping a father daughter bonding experience? Any and all input would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazerblade01 Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 Core i3-6100 is the best budget CPU in the Intel line. However, it can't be overclocked. Your best bet if you may be overclocking in the future, is to get any Intel CPU with a K at the end - this signifies that it's an unlocked processor. The core i5-6600K is almost double the price, but with the overclocking potential, faster turbo clock speed, and the fact that it's a quad-core vs. the 6100's dual core, you'll get more out of it and a longer lifespan with today's games. Just pair it with an appropriately fast and powerful video card, and 16GB of RAM, and you should be set. For motherboard, there are a ton of options out there, and picking the right one depends on what you plan to plug into it. What's your minimum supported RAM? Do you need built-in BlueTooth or Wi-Fi, or are you willing to use an add-in card or USB dongle for either of these features? How many USB ports will you need? Is m.2 important to you? PCIe 3.0? How many SATA 3 ports will be enough? DDR4? On a budget, the ASRock H110M-HDS LGA 1151 is priced under $50 on NewEgg, supports 32GB of DDR4 2133mHz RAM, has 2 USB 3.0 slots, 4 USB 2.0 slots, and 1 PCIe 3.0 slot. The GIGABYTE GA-B150M-DS3H runs closer to $70, supports 64GB DDR4 RAM, has 3 PCIe slots (1 @ x16), 4 USB 3.0 slots, 1 m.2 connection, and the usual stuff. Then there are the $200 motherboards, and everything in-between. Just look through the LGA 1151 CPU socket motherboards and pick one within your budget, comparing features, and you should be fine. Alternately, answer the questions posed above and someone can help you narrow your search. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 The problem is I've never been a cpu gamer. I don't know what she needs and her being new, and 13, dosent either. Kind of why I am asking you all for opinions on what to look for, and where a good starting point for expansion and longevity. I'm a automation tech. I troubleshoot and swap parts in computer controlled equipment. Industrial. Most of the questions I don't understand, lol. I've been doing research, but not getting anywhere. So many options. Kin of why I wanted to tap you guys that know and have done this kind of thing. I've already figured in the ballpark of $300 ish for the Mobo/chipset. I do appreciate your input and I'm gonna look up the parts and go over them with her after school. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlicksGirl Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/gaming-pc?sid=B016E80EKW®ion=us&refid=1226&item=12905 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppycur Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 300 can do you well for mb/cpu. http://www.portatech.com/products/category.cshtml?id=1240 I like this site because it's cheap, has an online configurator, will ensure only compatible options are displayed, and has speed comparisons. I5 6700k (best i5) with mb, under 300. Just uncheck the extra crap at the bottom to bring the total cost back down to as advertised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nitnoid Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 I always go to pcpartspicker.com to check on pricing from several sources. Newegg generally has good prices and occasionally you can get bundle deals there as well. But sometimes they aren't always the cheapest. Tom's Hardware is an excellent place for technical questions and reviews also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CongoBongo Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 Pretty good advice here on parts. As for putting it together, I put my together watching YouTube videos. They have a video for everything! just FYI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 Thanks so much. Guppy that's kinda right up my alley. I'm not too worried about the assembly part, as said I've Delt with that part a few times, albeit not on a gaming level. I will keep you guys posted of our progress if interested. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 GTX 950, GTX 960 or GTX 970 are your current best budget graphics cards for a pretty good gaming rig (better than my own). I personally always stick with EVGA cards, but I know other manufacturers sell them for much cheaper I'll post more later... got a friend who wants to play a game with me... so g2g, lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppycur Posted October 19, 2016 Share Posted October 19, 2016 @KillerofFools Yeh, price you pay when you buy the pieces separately; you gotta put it together. You may want to consider NOT doing that, and instead give her cards that represent pieces as gifts... that way, 1) You can have the company put it together for you, and 2) You won't be stuck with legacy hardware should something new and cool come out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 19, 2016 Author Share Posted October 19, 2016 Thx guppy. I get what your saying, and knowing computers the way I do, I don't think it matters which direction as more often than not things are outdated soon after you get them anyways. My kid and I discussed some options today. I have a disk drive dvd-rw, that we will be mounting this weekend, and I'm planning on a 120g Samsung solid state drive for her operating system and such... I am hearing that will give faster startups without breaking the bank. Then later installing a standard 1tb hard drive to handle her other storage requirements. The last components we buy will be the Mobo/cpu/ram. As a few months may bring prices there down even more. I don't want to go too cheap there and back her into a corner on future upgrades. I guess the real questions I would have are. 1. Is there any brands of motherboard you guys would recommend staying away from? Inherent issues you've seen and such? 2. Any motherboards with built in graphics that will handle the simple games she currently plays, giving us time to save for a good GPU, (everything I found says that GPU is more important than CPU for higher demanding games.) and allowing her to enjoy her hard work while she saves. 3. Any issues crossing certain drives with certain brand motherboards? 4. Does the brand of ram make that much difference in performance? By the way, she is stoked to be doing such a project. I raised her right. She WANTS to learn and build it herself, she looks forward to the payoff of hard work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Buying each part separately will usually cost a lot more in the end due to shipping costs... so there's that to consider. Besides, in my opinion, although I mean no offense, to each their own... a gift is only a gift if you can use it right away. Otherwise, it's just a tease. As far as purchasing a motherboard; In my experience, it's actually better to go with as little excessive features as possible while still keeping the price in the average range of about $75 - $125. Reason is for reliability. Some manufacturers will cram in as many features as possible onto a product but using only the cheapest parts possible. Like cheap capacitors that pop during normal use. For instance, why would you bother with a 3 way SLI supported motherboard if you never plan on using that? Or getting a motherboard that supports 64GB of ram if you never plan on turning it into a dedicated server or doing insane work on it. The motherboard will retire long before any average gamer starts needing 64GB of ram. I currently only have 8GB of ram and I've never felt like I needed more at the moment. Although I would suggest going with 16GB of ram just so you don't have to worry about it 2 - 4 years from now. As suggested above, if she really prefers Intel over AMD, than the i3-6100 ($120), i5-6500 ($205), or i5-6600K ($240) are all great options. The i5 gives 4 true cores (4 threads), while the i3 has 2 true cores but 4 threads total. The majority of current games only benefit from 2 true cores which is why it's still a great option, but if you can afford it... go with the 4 true cores. SSD is completely optional, and for a "mild" gaming setup, I wouldn't bother... just get her a regular hdd and she'll never notice the difference. Just don't give her a hybrid drive (regular drive with SSD features), as it greatly reduces the reliability of the drive and you still have to treat it special like an SSD. Since you already have a case and PSU for her, I guess that's it. EDIT: Oh, and plz watch a tutorial on how to properly apply silver paste on a cpu during installation if you're not 100% sure how it's done. So many ppl do it wrong and then complain about heat issues... And I would suggest getting an aftermarket cpu cooler as well cuz the ones that come with the cpu are so tiny and useless it's surprising that they don't melt through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 1. Is there any brands of motherboard you guys would recommend staying away from? Inherent issues you've seen and such? 2. Any motherboards with built in graphics that will handle the simple games she currently plays, giving us time to save for a good GPU, (everything I found says that GPU is more important than CPU for higher demanding games.) and allowing her to enjoy her hard work while she saves. 3. Any issues crossing certain drives with certain brand motherboards? 4. Does the brand of ram make that much difference in performance? 1. I tend to stick with Asus motherboards, EVGA graphics cards, Corsair ram, Western Digital hard drives, EVGA Power supplies and CoolerMaster aftermarket cpu coolers and mid-tower case. 2. Intel onboard video has never and will never be an option for gaming. Sorry, but she's just going to have to wait. In the meantime, she can play Solitaire or Freecell. lol 3. Right now, there's no conflicts to worry about as it'll work no matter what. As long as it's Sata, you're fine. Although I would suggest going with Sata 3 (6GB/s) drives and motherboard. 4. Brand name is a preference thing based on reliability only. But something to keep in mind is the frequency and latency. You want a balance of high frequency at lowest latency to ensure the best performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 Maybe that's how most kids feel, but mine has been raised to be thankful for anything she gets. Not dogging you at all. But the hope is that between her saving up and our Christmas gift it will be completely ready to fire up Christmas afternoon. To put it perspective, she would rather shop at Goodwill than the mall, and understands the value of a dollar. In our current financial situation, as like a lot of folks, it is just not possible to drop 5/600 at once, for what I consider a luxury item. This way she learns to appreciate things, and that patience will pay off in the long run. That a little bit of hard work and saving will pay off in the long run. Much better than instant gratification. We have an EVGA 750 power supply coming in the mail. I also have a Fry's location fairly close by, meaning that some items we can skip shipping all together. She has been scoping a 24" Samsung widescreen monitor, and I believe that's her next purchase. And if you think it's better to just go standard HDD, it's probably a good idea. An extra 60 bones to go for something else, such as a better mouse and keyboard. She wants some rainbow lighting crap, but hey it's hers, not mine. As of right now, we may slap my old motherboard and such in it and get it powered up for her to mess around on. Get used to tinkering and such. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 And thanks for the heads up about the video card. I assumed that since her chincy laptop ran most games she is playing now it wouldn't be an issue to use onboard video as a short term solution. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Maybe that's how most kids feel, but mine has been raised to be thankful for anything she gets. Not dogging you at all. But the hope is that between her saving up and our Christmas gift it will be completely ready to fire up Christmas afternoon. To put it perspective, she would rather shop at Goodwill than the mall, and understands the value of a dollar. In our current financial situation, as like a lot of folks, it is just not possible to drop 5/600 at once, for what I consider a luxury item. This way she learns to appreciate things, and that patience will pay off in the long run. That a little bit of hard work and saving will pay off in the long run. Much better than instant gratification. We have an EVGA 750 power supply coming in the mail. I also have a Fry's location fairly close by, meaning that some items we can skip shipping all together. She has been scoping a 24" Samsung widescreen monitor, and I believe that's her next purchase. And if you think it's better to just go standard HDD, it's probably a good idea. An extra 60 bones to go for something else, such as a better mouse and keyboard. She wants some rainbow lighting crap, but hey it's hers, not mine. As of right now, we may slap my old motherboard and such in it and get it powered up for her to mess around on. Get used to tinkering and such. I totally understand where you're coming from. If you can roughly estimate what you think you and your daughter can come up with by xmas, I can look further into helping you with what hardware to recommend to better balance the performance. From my understanding so far, I get the impression that the i3-6100 is in fact the best option, with maybe a GTX 950, 2x 4 GB of ram (8 GB total). Overall, it'd be roughly the same performance system as what I currently have which I'm happy with, so I'd imagine she'd be quite happy too. Games like Minecraft wouldn't even make it warm up. 7D2D can be played on medium - high settings. Paladins / Overwatch on Ultra settings. Fallout 4 without mods on high settings. etc... As far as keyboard and mouse goes... if what you're referring to is the RGB lit keyboards... you're looking at $100 - $200 dollars just for the keyboard alone. Most of the price is due to overpriced mechanical keys which they claim to be new technology even though it's been around since the 80s. In my opinion... not at all worth it. But assuming she's already made up her mind, maybe you can try to convince her to go with one of the following name brands to ensure she's not accidentally getting a bad quality one. Corsair, Logitech, Razer, Cooler Master, G.Skill, Asus or MSI are all good name brands with respectable warranties. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 Razer is the brand keyboard I heard her talk about. But she knows what she ultimately gets and wants may not be the same. She has mentioned overwatch, and I believe if I got her the 7d2d on pc she would be much more into it, as she is more about the modding on Minecraft and different game modes other than survival/building, although she did take pity on me and assist with my first SP game on console. I am guessing we would sink another 300ish into this build before Christmas. Combination her money and me supplementing. Again guys, sorry for the mass questions, but you are really helping. Glad I'm not getting torched as some forums are a little unforgiving. So thx for tolerating my ignorance when it comes to computers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppycur Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Torched? For asking questions? You need to leave those places. Yeh, it's hard to feel you have a new computer without the shiny monitor, keyboard and mouse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Torched? For asking questions? You need to leave those places. Agreed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gipothegip Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 My three opinions on what you've suggested. 1 - Just get a HDD if you're on a budget, SSDs are over hyped in my opinion (they are fast, but not necessary). 2 - I've looked at those light up keyboards (the multi / custom color ones I assume, you said "rainbow"), and you suggested Razer, so I think I know what you're talking about (is it one of the Chroma's by any chance?). If she wants to spend the money on it, she can, but they're massively overpriced IMO. Granted my keyboard costed me $80, but those are like $140 to $200 iirc. I'd try to get one on sale if she gets one. I do recommend a mechanical keyboard if you want a quality keyboard. Just have her research different types of mechanical switches (and try them out at a store if that's an option) so she knows what kind of switches she wants. Also do your research and watch out as some mechanical keyboards are just cheap and riding off of hype. Have your daughter read this if she's interested, it should give her an idea on how they all operate http://www.keyboardco.com/blog/index.php/2012/12/an-introduction-to-cherry-mx-mechanical-switches/ I'd recommend the one I have, but the model I have isn't available on Newegg anymore (except that there's another seller, but it's for $200), and the current model has bad reviews. 3 - I'm with Fox, I think a GTX 950 is your best option. I would recommend EVGA as well, especially a card with their ACX 2.0 cooling as those work great in my experience. I have an EVGA GTX 950 FTW to be specific, and I'm happy with it, I would recommend that if you can spend the extra, or get it on sale (which is what I did). It would be worth it IMO http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814487159&cm_re=evga_gtx_950_ftw-_-14-487-159-_-Product As for the case, I recommend getting one with plenty of space, and good airflow. Do not get a micro tower, and I recommend avoiding a closed case. Those overheat easily. Get at least a mid size tower, or a full size tower. For reference, here's the case I have http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811208036 I don't think they make them anymore though, or maybe there's a newer model. My PC is like 5 years old, and I've just been upgrading it a little bit at a time over the past year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 For what it's worth, the case she chose was the Skyline-07-R. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guppycur Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 I'm not with the others with regards to gpu. It's too pricy of an item to "settle" with and only get a low to mid range card, when for another 100 you could get something that will last a lot longer. Do that one right, since it's the most expensive to upgrade later. Hell, get a pos $35 one if need be for now, but save up and get a decent one for later. Crowd fund it if necessary... That could be a fun bonding experience in itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lazerblade01 Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 You have to be careful that your CPU doesn't become a bottleneck for the GPU though. Make sure the CPU can handle whatever games throw at it. If overclocking is a goal, make sure the CPU is unlocked, and that it can handle all the calculations necessary to keep feeding the GPU. If the CPU is weak, you'll actually lose frames in some games. City: Skylines, any voxel game (especially if it has decent graphics), and games with explosions and particles (Far Cry 3 / 4, Batman, GTA 5, etc...) can be very CPU-intensive. Intel does these types of games better than AMD, but we'll see how Zen handles them soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IBKillingfools Posted October 20, 2016 Author Share Posted October 20, 2016 Woot wizzle! Power supply was dropped off this afternoon. She is now the proud owner of a EVGA supernova 750w platinum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fox Posted October 20, 2016 Share Posted October 20, 2016 Woot wizzle! Power supply was dropped off this afternoon. She is now the proud owner of a EVGA supernova 750w platinum. That is definitely one of the best PSUs out there in my opinion. Have you seen the packaging yet? Just that alone shows the amount of pride they put into their products. I don't know of any other manufacturer that does that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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