First PC Build, How does it look? [WAITING ON PARTS]

[Kade]

WoW maxed out will take a R9 290 to it's knee's... My GTX 980 can't even handle WoW maxed out with the new AA they just put in patch 6.1. It really depends on what maxed out means to you, since it's objective. I want to move over to a Fury X to be ready for 4K gaming.

I haven't played the new patch yet, but before that in dungeons I was maxed out on my settings. Sometimes I dipped to 18ish when things got crazy.

Out in the world with other players... To it's knees lol. I never really quested that much. Guess I should've noted that.

I only run PvP when I play, I did a little questing to level, but that's about it... Even in the battlegrounds, old and new... They will rip my FPS down into single digits if I max everything out now... That's with my GTX 980 @ 1500MHz core clock and i'm only playing at 1080p. The AA they added is ridiculous on performance.

Man, now that you say that, I'm not even sure I messed with the AA manually. I put the profile on ultra and just assumed it capped everything out. I know my core clock is 1040Mhz.

I retract my original statement lol

[Skullz]

I have an amd 6870 that i play wow with and have everything on ultra and have no issue with my FPS dipping into single digits, most times i am in the high 30's to 40's with this old card.

[Kade]

I have an amd 6870 that i play wow with and have everything on ultra and have no issue with my FPS dipping into single digits, most times i am in the high 30's to 40's with this old card.

Dang man. I think it's time to upgrade just because lol

The 6800 and 6900 series were great cards though

[RainStryke]

I have an amd 6870 that i play wow with and have everything on ultra and have no issue with my FPS dipping into single digits, most times i am in the high 30's to 40's with this old card.

Dragging that bar over to ultra does not mean maxed out. There are advanced options that does not effect.

[firebirdude]

Yes, you can wait on the HDD if you want. But 250GB gets eaten up DARN quick. Once windows and a few neccesary programs are installed, you'll be under 200GB free for sure. Couple games on there and you're nearing the 100 mark real quick. No music. No videos yet. And yes, you should absolutely use an SSD. True night and day performance versus a HDD.

Get whatever Windows you want. Windows 10 is a FREE upgrade from Windows 7 or 8 users. Yep. If you have a legit copy of Windows 7 or 8, you can upgrade to 10 at zero cost at any time.

I too would recommend stepping up to 16GB RAM right out of the gate. It shouldn't be too much more money. If you were to buy only one 8GB stick now and then decide to add another 8GB stick later, you'd have to search out the exact same RAM to ensure compatibility in dual channel configuration. Maybe that RAM has ceased production? Who knows. Just buy a 16GB matched set now and move on.

I would also echo what one poster said about the 850Watt power supply. If you never plan on adding a 2nd video card, it's completely and utterly overkill. A 700W would be MORE than enough.

That i5 should overclock well. But honestly you're really not going to notice a ton (if any) improvement from it. Sounds like you're building this rig for gaming. It's all about the video card man.

Case? Who cares. Whatever you like and fits your budget. The more expensive ones have removable drive bays and rolled steel edges so you don't cut yourself. Big deal. Yeah yeah. There's some other small tiny things here and there, but nothing that's going to impact anything serious. You're just holding the other parts together. It's not rocket science. Once it's built, it's done. It sits there and you just push the button up front. lol Just look for USB 3.0 ports up front. Other than that, it's all aesthetics.

[RyanJ]

Alright guys, I did a little changing to list and looking into buying parts soon. Here it is:

CPU - $235.99: Intel Core i5-4690K Processor 3.5 GHz LGA 1150 BX80646I54690K
Graphics Card - $350.00: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 970
Case - $140: NZXT 630 Corsair or Phantom Mid-Tower case ( > $100 )
OS: Windows 8.1 than upgrade to Windows 10
Motherboard - $190.00: MSI Z97-Gaming 7 or ASUS Z97-PRO
RAM - $55.00: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB Single DDR3 1600 MT/s Corsair Vengeance 16GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 or Kingston HyperX FURY 16GB (2x8GB) 1600 MHz DDR3 CL10 DIMM - Blue
HSF (Cooling) - $35.00: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan My brother said I don't need one right away since im not going to start OC right away, but I might still buy it since its cheap
HDD - $51.00: Seagate 1TB Desktop HDD SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare Drive Will buy one when I need more space or find a sale
SSD - $85.00: Crucial BX100 250GB SATA 2.5 Inch Internal Solid State Drive
Power Supply - $140.00: EVGA 850 G2 650W to 700W , not sure which brand
Total: Cheaper

Between this, which RAM? As well as will this be okay at the beginning and I will look for an HDD, etc when they're sales? Thanks btw for all the advice. I don't think I'm going to need the RAID just yet as its my first PC build. Unless I can find a decent price.

[STEvil]

Dont bother with raid, useless to you at your current level of need. When you get to the point where you need it, you will know it from experience.

If you're sticking with 1600mhz ram then go for the sticks with the lowest cas latency between the two you have chosen. Otherwise 2133 or 2400mhz ram is cheap if you poke around and can increase performance in some situations for a menial increase in price.

I would pick a different video card with a true 4GB of ram, depending on how long you plan on keeping the video card. The 970's have two pools of memory which cannot be accessed in parallel and must be accessed only in series, which reduces performance when you go over a certain usage of your ram. At 1920x1080 this isnt too much of an issue (and most game engines are not optimized to use over 4gb of ram and wont hit that point until 2560x1440 and higher at the moment) so you're ok with the 970 for the time being, but beware it could be an issue in the future or in some games that may eat vram at certain settings.

At 1920x1080 even an old 7950 would be plenty though. I'm running a 7950 at 2560x1600 currently since my R9 290X died.. lol.

As to WoW performance, whatever 6.1 did sucks. Have a 750 Ti that runs it buttery smooth, but friends 670 chops like crazy for some reason. 670 is much better than a 750 TI btw.

[RyanJ]

Dont bother with raid, useless to you at your current level of need. When you get to the point where you need it, you will know it from experience.

If you're sticking with 1600mhz ram then go for the sticks with the lowest cas latency between the two you have chosen. Otherwise 2133 or 2400mhz ram is cheap if you poke around and can increase performance in some situations for a menial increase in price.

I would pick a different video card with a true 4GB of ram, depending on how long you plan on keeping the video card. The 970's have two pools of memory which cannot be accessed in parallel and must be accessed only in series, which reduces performance when you go over a certain usage of your ram. At 1920x1080 this isnt too much of an issue (and most game engines are not optimized to use over 4gb of ram and wont hit that point until 2560x1440 and higher at the moment) so you're ok with the 970 for the time being, but beware it could be an issue in the future or in some games that may eat vram at certain settings.

At 1920x1080 even an old 7950 would be plenty though. I'm running a 7950 at 2560x1600 currently since my R9 290X died.. lol.

As to WoW performance, whatever 6.1 did sucks. Have a 750 Ti that runs it buttery smooth, but friends 670 chops like crazy for some reason. 670 is much better than a 750 TI btw.

So you know... I'm not asking you to help me pick out parts... but... any suggestions on parts that would fit better for my CPU? LOL

Edit: Ill come backw ith another list

[RyanJ]

I think I'm going to jump and buy this instead of the Asus unless someone opposes.

http://www.frys.com/product/8298626?site=sa:adpages%20page:P161%20date:071215

[RainStryke]

That's a pretty solid board. I run a MSI Z87 MPOWER MAX AC that I got from microcenter for $40 after purchasing a i7 4790K for $279. I love their boards.