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Pc builds, upgrades, advice

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jwinslow

jwinslow

A MAN OF BETRAYED JUSTICE
Staff member
Tourney Pick'em Champ
Paging @Dryden @scott91575 @CentralMOBuck and others. 10 years ago I was a hardware junkie but am way out of the loop these days.

I need to replace my ancient desktop (q6600, essentially just a server at this point) and compliment my Dell Precision M6600 laptop (2.4Ghz i7, 12 gb ram, 1 gig video, 17.3" FH).


What would you guys recommend hardware wise, specifically the CPU, GPU and Mobo? I think I need something like this but I really don't know Mobos and GPUs any more.

i7 4790K at 4.0ghz

32 GB of DDR3

Solid GPU (960 GTX?)

250-500 GB SSD

I'll be using Lightroom, Photoshop, Handbrake, Plex (until I get a better server situation). I doubt I'll game very much, if I do it will be average visually, never cutting edge.



I'd like to own a 4k monitor someday, but not until Adobe figures out how to scale properly. The hardware is also very immature right now and not worthy of a huge investment. I envision upgrading in 2-4 years, and buying the proper GPU then.


p.s. great thread overall here for others building their own machine, it's just a bit datted for my specific questions :
http://www.buckeyeplanet.com/forum/threads/building-a-new-pc.627607/
 
On a separate note, is it worth waiting until the Skylake stuff drops, even just from the standpoint of pushing prices down for older tech? I doubt I need that, but I'm also not in desperate need of this system. I just need a better workstation.
 
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What's your budget? $1000? $1500?

Last years tech, Z97 mobo, Haswell/Devils Canyon Cpu, DDR 3 RAM could probably spec out ~1000. Current gen is Z170 mobo, Broadwell/Skylake CPU and DDR 4. It's quite a jump for 2015 tech, but for image processing you'd love the DDR 4 availability. Most Z170 mobos with Intel Iris graphics on the CPU can do 4K resolutions without a dedicated video card.
 
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Dryden said:
What's your budget? $1000? $1500?

Last years tech, Z97 mobo, Haswell/Devils Canyon Cpu, DDR 3 RAM could probably spec out ~1000. Current gen is Z170 mobo, Broadwell CPU and DDR 4. It's quite a jump for 2015 tech, but for image processing you'd love the DDR 4 availability. Most Z170 mobos with Intel Iris graphics on the CPU can do 4K resolutions without a dedicated video card.
Click to expand...
Budget isn't super tight, so I could stretch to 1500 if needed. Anything specific that you would recommend as the combo there? Or will any well reviewed combo work there?

As a mild to non gamer, what do I need gpu wise given the functionality of on board graphics?
 
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Honestly, with a modern build for a non-gamer you don't need a dedicated GPU. You could also build the base PC and add a GPU later. If I were building something today, I'd probably go with this:

$230
MSI Z170A GAMING M7 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130872

$370
Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 95W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel® HD Graphics 530
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117559

$280 ($140 x 2 = 32GB)
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Intel Z170 Desktop Memory Model F4-3000C15D-16GVR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231878

$400
SAMSUNG SM951 MZHPV512HDGL-00000 M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147426

That's pretty much all you need for the base system. Pick a case, CPU cooler, and power supply you like based on how many more hard drive you want. The M.2 SSD drives are crazy. This mobo would actually support two in RAID-0.

Did a quick search for this mobo at overclock.net and found this image of a build

81dc35e4_20150821144015161144007.jpeg
 
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Last machine I built for work, for comparisons sake, was this:

$150
MSI Z97-Gaming 5 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130770

$340
Intel Core i7-4790K Haswell Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor BX80646I74790K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369

$250 ($125 x 2)
CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233538

$100
SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E250B/AM 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147372
 
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If you want some details on intel's tick-tock release cycle, Computer Power User is the best resource. It's a trade publication that available for free.

http://www.computerpoweruser.com/

On the top left of their web site is a link to "View Newsstand," no registration required. You'll find plenty of things to review in the first ten-twenty pages on CPU prices and mobo chipset combos. What you'll want to read is the breakdown on Skylake on pg. 12 (Sept 2015 issue).
 
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Dryden said:
Honestly, with a modern build for a non-gamer you don't need a dedicated GPU. You could also build the base PC and add a GPU later. If I were building something today, I'd probably go with this:

$230
MSI Z170A GAMING M7 LGA 1151 Intel Z170 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130872

$370
Intel Core i7-6700K 8M Skylake Quad-Core 4.0 GHz LGA 1151 95W BX80662I76700K Desktop Processor Intel® HD Graphics 530
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117559

$280 ($140 x 2 = 32GB)
G.SKILL Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000) Intel Z170 Desktop Memory Model F4-3000C15D-16GVR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231878

$400
SAMSUNG SM951 MZHPV512HDGL-00000 M.2 512GB PCI-Express 3.0 Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147426

That's pretty much all you need for the base system. Pick a case, CPU cooler, and power supply you like based on how many more hard drive you want. The M.2 SSD drives are crazy. This mobo would actually support two in RAID-0.

Did a quick search for this mobo at overclock.net and found this image of a build

View attachment 11695
Click to expand...
Outstanding info, thanks. That sounds like the perfect build for me. I already have a case, so I am pretty thrilled at the notion of getting top tech (for my realm of work) for 1.3-1.4k.
 
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Upvote 0
Dryden said:
Last machine I built for work, for comparisons sake, was this:

$150
MSI Z97-Gaming 5 LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130770

$340
Intel Core i7-4790K Haswell Quad-Core 4.0GHz LGA 1150 Desktop Processor BX80646I74790K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819117369

$250 ($125 x 2)
CORSAIR Vengeance Pro 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233538

$100
SAMSUNG 850 EVO-Series MZ-75E250B/AM 2.5" 250GB SATA III 3-D Vertical Internal Solid State Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147372
Click to expand...

This is nearly identical to my most recent build, except I went with 32gb of RAM and had a 256gb 840 Pro to put in it. Same CPU/Mobo though and I love it. I also have a 3gb AMD MSI 7970 GPU in it that I re-purposed. Eventually I will upgrade to the GTX980 perhaps when price drops.
 
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jwinslow said:
Outstanding info, thanks. That sounds like the perfect build for me. I already have a case, so I am pretty thrilled at the notion of getting top tech (for my realm of work) for 1.3-1.4k.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind you could also reduce that price by $330 by cutting the m.2 boot drive to a 256Gb and halving the RAM down to 16Gb. Or with that MSI mobo swap the 512 m.2 for two 256s and do a RAID0 striped array (you'll lose some of the slots for discreet GPUs if you do this, but it's not an issue unless you would run multiple GPUs in SLI).

I've become a big fan of MSI over the last two years. Have always had good luck with Gigabyte too. I am not a fan of ASUS, as I've had service life and driver support issues with them on a lot of recent boards. Maybe they're better now, but I'm not going to find out with my own money until MSI gives me a reason to buy something different.
 
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Magua said:
This is nearly identical to my most recent build, except I went with 32gb of RAM and had a 256gb 840 Pro to put in it. Same CPU/Mobo though and I love it. I also have a 3gb AMD MSI 7970 GPU in it that I re-purposed. Eventually I will upgrade to the GTX980 perhaps when price drops.
Click to expand...

That Devils Canyon chip is what I'm running at work in my desktop PC. I think I've done 4 total for my graphics guys and they love them.

Mine has the 850 for the OS drive and 4 4Tb Seagate Constellations in a HostRAID 5 array for my "scratch disks" to build Hyper-V images before deploying to production.

The shielded audio chipset with manual selectable pre-amp on those MSI gaming boards is great for environments where you expect a lot of EMI from fluorescent ballasts and cellular antennas.
 
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Thanks. I'm often running out of room with my 512 SSD on my laptop, but that's because I'm constantly downloading and later offloading files. That would not be an issue with my desktop machine with storage taking place elsewhere (with regular backups as well).

I may do the math and see if I can get away with two raided 256s. I doubt I'll ever be running multiple GPUs.

So from the sounds of it, I should be just fine eventually scaling up to 4k with this rig for photo editing and mild gaming use? I doubt I'll ever be a big gamer any more. If I do, I can always throw another one in there (and I am certain I won't be running twins).
 
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