Desktop Computers

Alright everybody, advice time!

I am, finally after like 6 years building a new Gaming PC. This time though, my goals are slightly different than usual. I want to build (in order of priority) a small, quiet, and power efficient box.

I put together aspreadsheetof the build and also included a picture here.


There are caveats however (kind of a lot of them). All of the components I want to buy are not available yet. I am especially fond of ASUS Graphics Cards and motherboards, neither of which have new versions available, but I decided to include similar components to get a decent price comparison.

Also, I live in Norway and would prefer to buy things here, but for enough of a price difference am willing to pick up components when I am in the US this summer which is why I did the build and am asking for advice now. For these reasons I am not doing the buildright nowbut probably instead some time after the summer, early fall.

As to the build itself, it turned out to be a little pricier than I wanted. I can afford it, so if you guys think the components are worth the cost, then I will probably go for it anyway. To shave money off the total I was thinking about doing a few things. First I was thinking of cutting down the power supply to the Bronze version instead of the gold, as I heard that the fan is more quiet anyway. Second, I thought I might drop the 512GB SSD and instead get the 256GB version. I could use the extra space (especially for games) but it comes at quite the premium. And thirdly, I was debating going for one of the older 600 series cards (if they come down in price), but the power and noise savings might be worth the 700 cards.

My other technical concern is cooling. For noise I was planning to use the power supply fan to cool the otherwise passive CPU heat sink. The heat sink was designed to do this, however, I believe it is primarily designed to work with ATX power supplies that have 120mm instead of 80mm SFX fans. A little Googling around proved inconclusive when using the sink with an SG05 case. It doesn't seem to fit quite right, but there is like 1 or 2 mentions of it working fine with ivy or sandy bridge CPUs. I do not plan on overclocking anything.

Throwing this out there for anyone that has thoughts on the build in general or my issues specifically. Thanks for any help.

I'd drop the SSD down to the 256gb version and addon a regular 7200rpm HD for games/storage.

edit: Just noticed you said you were going for a "quiet" build. Meh.

Denjoy_sl said:

I'd drop the SSD down to the 256gb version and addon a regular 7200rpm HD for games/storage.

edit: Just noticed you said you were going for a "quiet" build. Meh.

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Thank you for the advice. I have a NAS for media and general storage, so I don't need that in the PC itself. Putting games on something other than the SSD sort of defeats the purpose of having one to speed up games. I suppose I could go for an OS-only SSD to really cut costs though, that might be a good place to save even more.

I'd recommend a SSD+normal drive combo, unless your NAS is really good it won't be as fast as a 7200rpm drive for apps and frequent data. You can use junctions (mklink /j in cmd prompt) to put certain stuff on the SSD and other stuff on your 1tb 7200pm drive. For example I usually only play 1-2 games at a time, and I will move them to my SSD drive while I play them and then back to my regular drives after, until uninstalled.

I also wouldn't buy top of the line video cards, with the console releases this fall by mid next year there should be a big crop of cards that sport 8GB GDDR5 memory to keep pace with the ps4. For now something like a nvidia 670 or 680 will be perfectly fine for at least 2 or 3 years.

Agree with Spronk on the vid card, if money is at all a concern just get something to get you by right now. I have a feeling we are going to see some changes with how PC vid cards are designed pretty soon.

I would also recommend scaling that SSD back, unless money is no object. You really pay a premium for 512GB SSDs. I have a 180GB Intel, and even with Windows 7 Ultimate + about 8-10 games installed (Skyrim, Bioshock Infinite, Path Of Exile, Tomb Raider, etc) I only have the drive about half full. Honestly, do you NEED to install 30 games on a SSD? Just keep the 5-10 that you might play at any given time on the SSD and you'll still have plenty of room left over, even on a 256GB drive. By the time you fill up a 180 or 256 GB drive with games, slapping another one in should be a lot more reasonable in price.

Don't go crazy with huge amounts of SSD storage yet, wait for the price to be a little more reasonable. Even if price isn't an issue, scale back that SSD and put that extra money towards a beefier video card or something, you'll get way more bang for your buck that way. You could probably bump the video card up to a 780 with the price difference(even though honestly, I don't think the 780 is worth the price difference over a 770, but the money *would* be better spent there than the bigger SSD if I had to choose 1)

Thinking about putting a new computer together, mine is about 6 years old. Here is what I have so far:

CPU:Intel Core i5-3570k
CPU Cooler:Thermaltake Frio Overclocking Universal CPU Cooler
Ram:Corsair Vengeance 16GB
PSU:Corsair Enthusiast Series 650-Watt 80
Case:Cooler Master HAF 912
Video Card:Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7950
HD:Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black 1 TB
SSD:Samsung 840 Series 2.5 inch 120GB

Here is where I'm not sure. I don't know enough about motherboards to decide. These are just two options that I found, I'm open to other suggestions:

Motherboard:AS Rock LGA1155 EXTREME4orAsus Z87-A DDR3 1600 LGA 1150 Motherboard

Also would it be a better idea to get theIntel Core i5-4670K? The price difference isn't an issue. Any other suggestions that I haven't mentioned?

Mist, thank you for the advice. That was exactly what I was looking for. Do you have any motherboard recommendations or should I just go to newegg/pcpartpicker and just add the CPU and look for combos?

Go Seasonic on the power supply. Really can't recommend them enough. Hell, a good 1/3 to 1/4 of other companies PSUs are just rebranded Seasonics. Might as well get it from the source and cut out the middle man/markup. Over the years Seasonic has made PSUs for Corsair and a lot of other large PC component companies.

You can get a 650W Bronze-rated Seasonic for the same price
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seasoni...supply-ss650am

or even upgrade to Gold-rated for only $14 more
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/seasoni...upply-ssr650rm

Anyone know when the GTX 760 ti's will be coming out? Looking to upgrade desktop some time in the near future, just wondering when that particular card will be out since the x60 ti's are pretty much always the best bang for your buck.

Thank you everyone, solid advice. I'll modify my build a bit to bring the costs down. Hopefully by the time fall rolls around the 600 series cards will be cheaper, right now they are nearly as much as the 700 cards which annoyingly defeats the purpose of getting one to save money.

As for Rabkorik's build, unless you plan on overclocking or using SLI, 650 watts is probably overkill. At least the research into my build showed that 450 is plenty for a single card low hard drive number build. Seasonic power supplies are great, I just wish they made an SFX model.

Denaut_sl said:

Thank you everyone, solid advice. I'll modify my build a bit to bring the costs down. Hopefully by the time fall rolls around the 600 series cards will be cheaper, right now they are nearly as much as the 700 cards which annoyingly defeats the purpose of getting one to save money.

As for Rabkorik's build, unless you plan on overclocking or using SLI, 650 watts is probably overkill. At least the research into my build showed that 450 is plenty for a single card low hard drive number build. Seasonic power supplies are great, I just wish they made an SFX model.

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always overshoot your psu estimations by at least 20-30% if not more. You don't want to tax your psu by running it at 90% of max capacity all the time. If your calculations show that you need 450w, go 600 or 650 at least. Running at closer to half capacity all the time is going to keep things cooler and extend the life of the unit.

Fadaar_sl said:

Anyone know when the GTX 760 ti's will be coming out? Looking to upgrade desktop some time in the near future, just wondering when that particular card will be out since the x60 ti's are pretty much always the best bang for your buck.

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Thought I remembered reading somewhere that nvidia was moving away from "ti" cards, I just can't remember if that is effective this gen(700s) or next..

which is a shame, I love my 660ti

joeboo_sl said:

always overshoot your psu estimations by at least 20-30% if not more. You don't want to tax your psu by running it at 90% of max capacity all the time. If your calculations show that you need 450w, go 600 or 650 at least. Running at closer to half capacity all the time is going to keep things cooler and extend the life of the unit.

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I agree about overshooting, I was just surprised by how little power you need for a modest build (1 Video Card, no overclocking). For example my build I probably need an absolute minimum of about 300 watts, but 350-400 watts would likely be more than enough. I ended up at 450 to be safe and because that is what comes with the case Now, my build was specifically designed to be lower power so that gives me a bit of an edge, but 650 seems a little overkill.

I think his build could work with 450, assuming one GC and little to no overclocking, 500-550 would probably be more than enough. My first thought was that he could save some money, but it seems that a 650 watt PS barely costs more than a 550 one. So I guess what I am saying with a lot of words is that it really doesn't seem to matter that much unless you are trying to shave pennies.