First time PC build, need advice on components

[ahmooosh]

Hey there everyone, first of all, I would like to point out that I don't really have much experience with building a computer, let alone picking components. So I'm leaving that for the pros

Budget = 1000-1300 USD for components
Resolution = not really sure
Games / Settings Desired = currently I only play wow, considering my laptop is pretty awful I play most games on the console. But this could very well change if I have a nice pc that can run almost all
Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc) = no
Country= USA
Parts that can be reused = none
Do you need an OS? yes
Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)? just a monitor

I really want to get a build with the 1070 just because I know it will be relevant for quite sometime, I also read that it can handle Vr games for when the time comes.

overall, I obviously would rather spend about 1,000 but if the $300 extra make the build that much better I'm willing to dump the extra cash in there.
as for the monitor, I honestly have no idea because I've seen so many different types and prices so would appreciate detailed feedback on what I should be looking for.

Thanks alot for taking the time to read this long post, and hopefully helping out.

[ali725]

go to pcpartpicker.com

great website


u typically ened a ssd 120-240gb
hdd of 1tb
1920x1080 screen 22-24inch
i5 cpu is good enough
16gb ram for future proof
750 watt psu

i nvr really built a computer is a while so i didnt really pay attention to the parts yet but thats pretty much what i would build if i got a new budget to build a pc simply put.

[Fascinate]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($137.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($66.37 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Corsair Force LE 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($61.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($43.85 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card ($429.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks ECLIPSE P400 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($77.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Monitor: Acer GN246HL 24.0" 144Hz Monitor ($199.00 @ B&H)
Other: Windows 10 ($27.71)
Total: $1354.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-15 00:09 EDT-0400

Slightly over the budget, you could get a lesser quality monitor to get under 1300 but i think you would enjoy a 144hz screen.

[ali725]

well thats perfect lol

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($137.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($66.37 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Corsair Force LE 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($61.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($43.85 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card ($429.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks ECLIPSE P400 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($77.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Monitor: Acer GN246HL 24.0" 144Hz Monitor ($199.00 @ B&H)
Other: Windows 10 ($27.71)
Total: $1354.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-15 00:09 EDT-0400

Slightly over the budget, you could get a lesser quality monitor to get under 1300 but i think you would enjoy a 144hz screen.

[ahmooosh]

Fascinate, Thank you! would you mind explaining to me the differences between all the different kinds of 1070 graphic cards? i see so many different looks and some for even different prices. is the one you picked out based on being the cheapest or based on the performance? and also, with this build, how do you expect games like wow will run? will i be able to play it on ultra, or is that out of reach?

[ali725]

reviews are your best friend in these type of cases some how more fans, more memory, etc.

[Fascinate]

Fascinate, Thank you! would you mind explaining to me the differences between all the different kinds of 1070 graphic cards? i see so many different looks and some for even different prices. is the one you picked out based on being the cheapest or based on the performance? and also, with this build, how do you expect games like wow will run? will i be able to play it on ultra, or is that out of reach?

EVGA fans are the best built on the market with dual ball bearings (fans are the only thing that really "break" on video cards), plus EVGA has the best warranty. All dual fan 1070's stay well under the throttling point of 84c, you can expect low 70s with this evga model. WoW is a funny game in terms of performance spending more money does not necessarily mean you can play at 10 preset with everything cranked, a lot of times there are unoptimized graphics settings up in that range thats why i play on 8 preset. But ya this PC would laugh at WoW, and pretty much any game on the market at 1080p for many many years.

[ahmooosh]

alright so far I'm convinced lol, just a couple of extra questions. unfortunately I am not able to connect the computer directly to Ethernet, so I'm assuming I need a wireless card. any specific one you recommend? also, is there anything else besides what you linked that I need to purchase? thermal paste, tools etc..

- - - Updated - - -

also one more question, im looking at newegg's promos and I see a bunch of motherboards on sale, one is an msi z170a for $98 and the other is ASUS Z97-PRO GAMER LGA 1150 Intel Z97 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard for $125.
In comparison to the motherboard you selected, which out of the 3 do you recommend?

[Deleted]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.49 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($137.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($66.37 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Corsair Force LE 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($61.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($43.85 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 1070 8GB SC Gaming ACX 3.0 Video Card ($429.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks ECLIPSE P400 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($77.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Monitor: Acer GN246HL 24.0" 144Hz Monitor ($199.00 @ B&H)
Other: Windows 10 ($27.71)
Total: $1354.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-08-15 00:09 EDT-0400

Slightly over the budget, you could get a lesser quality monitor to get under 1300 but i think you would enjoy a 144hz screen.

great list.

personally I would churn out a bit more for higher clocked RAM but this only becomes interesting if OP is interested in CPU/RAM heavy games and a high framerate (80+).

[Fascinate]

The one i linked is the best motherboard for the money for z170 chipset for sure, really popular and low cost with plenty of ports and expansion options. It usually retails for over 150.

If you are looking to shave money off the build you could dip down to a 60hz monitor, but if it was me id save up i think its worth it.

Here is the wireless card id recommend:
http://pcpartpicker.com/product/tTdq...card-gcwb867di

[ahmooosh]

Alright so an update! I received all of the components except for the wireless card, was surprisingly able to finish the build without a ton of problems! honestly the hardest thing for me was sitting on the bathroom floor to avoid being on carpet lol... and the connecting of all the wires (didn't know if there is a preference on which sata port to plug the drives into)
Then the moment of truth, powering it up! everything went well and managed to get the OS installed and what not. now since I dont have internet on it ive just been pretty much staring at it all day...doing nothing..
Is there anything i need to change in the BIOS for better performance and what not? I'm not familiar with it, so any help will be much appreciated

[Fascinate]

Alright so an update! I received all of the components except for the wireless card, was surprisingly able to finish the build without a ton of problems! honestly the hardest thing for me was sitting on the bathroom floor to avoid being on carpet lol... and the connecting of all the wires (didn't know if there is a preference on which sata port to plug the drives into)
Then the moment of truth, powering it up! everything went well and managed to get the OS installed and what not. now since I dont have internet on it ive just been pretty much staring at it all day...doing nothing..
Is there anything i need to change in the BIOS for better performance and what not? I'm not familiar with it, so any help will be much appreciated

Asus has a great auto-overclocking software called 5 way optimization, you should make sure all case fans are plugged into mobo as well so you can run the fan tuning software which is in the same suite of software:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLkzMamoRbA

More in depth one if you are bored
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSz4qydUL2c

Grats on build BTW, if you got any more questions shoot.

[Thunderball]

Alright so an update! I received all of the components except for the wireless card, was surprisingly able to finish the build without a ton of problems! honestly the hardest thing for me was sitting on the bathroom floor to avoid being on carpet lol... and the connecting of all the wires (didn't know if there is a preference on which sata port to plug the drives into)
Then the moment of truth, powering it up! everything went well and managed to get the OS installed and what not. now since I dont have internet on it ive just been pretty much staring at it all day...doing nothing..
Is there anything i need to change in the BIOS for better performance and what not? I'm not familiar with it, so any help will be much appreciated

Set Ai Overclock Tuner to XMP mode. Dont listen anything about overclocking software, if you want to overclock make sure to do your research and do it through BIOS.

[Fascinate]

The asus implementation is a very solid option for someone who does not want to fiddle around with stability testing for hours on end, you of course could likely get a lower vcore manually but this software does the OC "right" in that it leaves all the power saving features on allowing volts and frequency to adjust as needed. It usually gets within ~100mhz of the max a chip can hit, asus has been doing this for quite a few generations now its a very polished software.

[Gorgodeus]

The asus implementation is a very solid option for someone who does not want to fiddle around with stability testing for hours on end, you of course could likely get a lower vcore manually but this software does the OC "right" in that it leaves all the power saving features on allowing volts and frequency to adjust as needed. It usually gets within ~100mhz of the max a chip can hit, asus has been doing this for quite a few generations now its a very polished software.

Yeah, ignore the guy saying to not use OCing software. The Asus software works great. I tried it on one of my PCs (4770k) and it has been been doing just fine with a 4.9 OC via Asus Suite. Admittedly, I won the silicon lottery getting a chip that OCed that high.

[ahmooosh]

thank you for the advice, I did use the OC software for the cpu and I think it worked pretty well. on the otherhand, OC'ing the gpu wasn't as easy. Everytime i would run XOC software wow would crash, and it felt like the fans only followed the curve when the app was launched not all the time. Is there any like basic OC number guide i can follow without the need of running engines like valley and what not? because same thing trying to run those often just kept crashing.

[Fascinate]

GPU overclocking is not like CPU, the way video cards are now (at least on nvidia side) is they are nearly maxxed out of the box especially if you bought a "superclocked" or higher model. I wouldnt use asus software for GPU overclocking, do that manually with msi afterburner or evga precision.

Personally i dont do GPU overclocking, when i first got my 760 i tried to see how high i could get mine and it worked fine for most games, booted WoW up and got artifacts within 2 mins of gameplay. My card came stock at 1228mhz most i could get manually overclocking was 1291mhz so to me its not even worth it, compared to how much you can gain with CPU overclocking.

[ahmooosh]

GPU overclocking is not like CPU, the way video cards are now (at least on nvidia side) is they are nearly maxxed out of the box especially if you bought a "superclocked" or higher model. I wouldnt use asus software for GPU overclocking, do that manually with msi afterburner or evga precision.

Personally i dont do GPU overclocking, when i first got my 760 i tried to see how high i could get mine and it worked fine for most games, booted WoW up and got artifacts within 2 mins of gameplay. My card came stock at 1228mhz most i could get manually overclocking was 1291mhz so to me its not even worth it, compared to how much you can gain with CPU overclocking.

Yeah I personally will not be overclocking the GPU again (assuming the restore wiped that)
Is there something I can do about very small coil whine? I turned on vsync and limited my fps to 65 but I can still hear it..

[Fascinate]

Not sure on the coil whine outside of an RMA (evga is good with those). How high did the asus get your CPU up to?

[ahmooosh]

Not sure on the coil whine outside of an RMA (evga is good with those). How high did the asus get your CPU up to?

not really sure how if its accurate but after running it and setting the stress time way higher its reading 4532 mhz, pretty sure the first time I did it before I restored everything (under less time for stress testing) gave me 3900