Holiday build, critique welcomed.

[BruceG87]

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday around the corner, a friend tasked me with building her a new PC.

Budget: ~$600
Resolution: 1920x1080
Games: Variety of steam games both old and new
Country: USA

No reusable parts, does not require monitor or peripherals or storage drive. (She has an external storage drive)
I gave her a selection of case options and she chose the selected case which is on sale.

Feedback always welcomed.

EDIT - New target build is as follows.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($94.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($91.14 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($94.97 @ SuperBiiz)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB DUAL-X Video Card ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Silverstone PS07B MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($64.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $615.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-25 10:37 EST-0500

[Denpepe]

I would go for the Crucial MX100, slightly more expensive but a better drive

[Lamb Mine]

Looks sweet.

[BruceG87]

I would go for the Crucial MX100, slightly more expensive but a better drive

..and this is a perfect example of why I always seek critique prior to building. Thanks for catching that, given benchmarks it's pretty safe to assume that it's well worth the $5 difference to pickup the MX100 over the M500.

Still, will have to see what actual sales hit this upcoming weekend. I'm keeping an open mind and looking out for any sales on appropriate Crucial and Samsung SSD's.

[SpongeGuard]

..and this is a perfect example of why I always seek critique prior to building. Thanks for catching that, given benchmarks it's pretty safe to assume that it's well worth the $5 difference to pickup the MX100 over the M500.

Still, will have to see what actual sales hit this upcoming weekend. I'm keeping an open mind and looking out for any sales on appropriate Crucial and Samsung SSD's.

While Crucial doesn't make bad SSDs, they're not quite at the top in terms of reliability. Plextor is, in my opinion, the absolute best when it comes to SSD manufacturing. Like Samsung, they use their own in-house controllers and experiment with various types of NANDs. What sets plextor apart is the 2.4 million hour MTBF. Plextor SSD's go through a LOT of burn in testing before even leaving the factory.

EDIT: I'd also be wary about a potential gpu bottleneck with the cpu.

[BruceG87]

While Crucial doesn't make bad SSDs, they're not quite at the top in terms of reliability. Plextor is, in my opinion, the absolute best when it comes to SSD manufacturing. Like Samsung, they use their own in-house controllers and experiment with various types of NANDs. What sets plextor apart is the 2.4 million hour MTBF. Plextor SSD's go through a LOT of burn in testing before even leaving the factory.

EDIT: I'd also be wary about a potential gpu bottleneck with the cpu.

This is a budget build.

I'm not after the best, I'm after as good as I can get with the budget allocated.
On that note, any potential money saved will not be reinvested into a higher tier SSD. That's actually the lowest priority excluding the case.

[SpongeGuard]

This is a budget build.

I'm not after the best, I'm after as good as I can get with the budget allocated.
On that note, any potential money saved will not be reinvested into a higher tier SSD. That's actually the lowest priority excluding the case.

Not really higher tier, just much less likely to fail. I hear you though, SSD being a low priority makes sense. I guess my last post should've been dedicated more towards the CPU. It's going to bottleneck the gpu, but to what extent (or if even noticeable) I cannot say. Rule of thumb for me is if the budget is limited, the build is AMD. Price:Performance sort of deal. Or at least it used to be, until AMD dropped out of the desktop cpu race.

I must say this build is pretty impressive though, given the low budget. I'm getting pumped up for my biannual rebuild in April!

[tielknight]

IMO

Swapped the board, SSD, PSU and case to fit in the i3, as good as the G3258 is, it's having problems with newer games due to it still being a dual-core while the i3 handles them just fine thanks to hyperthreading.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4160 3.6GHz Dual-Core Processor ($124.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97M-DS3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: PNY Optima 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB DUAL-X Video Card ($169.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cougar Spike MicroATX Mini Tower Case ($29.99 @ Mwave)
Power Supply: EVGA 500W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply ($24.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($13.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $578.92
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-25 00:51 EST-0500

[Deleted]

I'd go for the i3 4150, 100mhz less but worth the price difference:
(seems case no longer on sale?)


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4150 3.5GHz Dual-Core Processor ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H97M PRO4 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($71.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.98 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Crucial MX100 256GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($109.96 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon R9 280 3GB Dual-X Video Card ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 520W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($54.00 @ Amazon)
Total: $625.90
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-25 03:20 EST-0500

[tielknight]

Yeah looks like prices changed since I threw that one together, the CPU did have a combo-deal as well, hence the choice over the 4150

[BruceG87]

-snip

Updated above build following your suggestions on picking up the i3 as well that sexy EVGA PSU.

I don't see dropping the ASRock Z97M Pro4 for the Gigabyte Z97M-DS3H though. They're both the same socket, and the Z97M offers more options.

I don't feel too comfortable purchasing a PNY SSD on behalf of anyone. SSD's are the one thing where I prefer to spend a bit more for something you know is reliable. From what I've read, Crucial (M4, M500, MX100) and Samsung (830, 840 series) have been reviewed quite well and don't cost an outstanding amount.

Finally, I went over budget for the sake of the case the buyer selected. The budget was approximately 600 with slack to go over a bit if needed. Still remaining flexible on some parts, as you never know what this upcoming weekend will bring on discounts. I'm pretty confident that I'll nab something very similar to the target build at below the budget.

[tielknight]

Understandable, and the MX100 is available for about $20 more at the moment so you might want to grab that while it's on sale.