Hello SEN! It's been a while since I've browsed here. I've come today to your help. I need help making a desktop since I know nothing on picking parts. Roy did help me a while back with a list of parts but I didn't end up saving it. (Sorry Roy!) Anyways, I'm looking to spend about $2500 on the tower. I'm hoping for an Intel build. It'll be mostly for entertainment. (Games, Movies, Anime, etc.)

In the tower, I want to include:

CPU: Intel
RAM
GPU
PSU
HDD
SSD
OS: Windows 8
PSU
Optical Drive
Motherboard

For monitors, it'll be a separate price but I'm hoping for dual monitors. I'm fine with 1080p. $300-$400 should be fine.

The mouse, keyboard, and speakers will be another budget. I don't know what's good for gaming but maybe someone can recommend me something. Price limit $400 for now.

Last thing I need help with is a desk. I have a smallish room but I'm looking for a roomy desk. Maybe a corner desk or something but it doesn't have to be that. What I am wanting though is that I want to be able to put multiple things, my tower/monitors, my laptop, my Wii U, and any future consoles I might buy. I want to hook it up to one of the monitors. I don't have a price limit on the desk but hopefully it's not too pricey to find for what I'm looking for. Thanks to anyone who views and/or helps me in my thread.

If that's really your budget, here you go:


Going with 1080p monitors with this computer would be a huge fucking waste: you have two of the best GPU in the world in SLI.

But spending $2500 on a computer is a huge waste when you can spend $1250 today and $1250 tomorrow and end up with a better machine.


This is still a bit more than I would normally spend on a computer, but with your budget it should be reasonable. The PSU is large enough to run any two cards in Crossfire/SLI, so you can upgrade the machine easily in the future by just getting a second GTX 970 (if you ever even need to do that). You can also get more RAM later down the road if necessary, but 8GB is sufficient for most users.

The reason I didn't use an i7 in either build is because it's an extra $100 for something you wouldn't be using. Not that you'd be using two GTX 980s in SLI, but the graphics card would be the bottleneck before the CPU.

You could pick out a fancier motherboard if you want to spend a bit more money.

For the mouse, you'll probably want to go with some Razor product. For the keyboard, I can't recommend the WASD v2 enough, but any mechanical keyboard should do the trick. I'm not an expert on speakers.

For the monitors, it's really gonna come down to whether you prioritize gaming over videos. You'll probably either want 120Hz for gaming or IPS for viewing.

As for the desk, you can find some highly reviewed corner desks on Amazon. I would just look around (preferably at a store) and see what you'd want.

Edit: Alternate build, if you want a much better all-around system:

Yay, an i7! A case that comes with a ton of fans! A top-of-the-line motherboard! And on top of it all, you still have a GTX 970. You could, of course, pop in a GTX 980 if you want to spend more. The PSU will be able to handle 2 of either card in SLI, because the Maxwell line is very efficient.

Edit 2: Just for fun, here's a $2500 build that includes DDR4 memory!


Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 13 2014, 3:19 pm by Roy.

What do you want out of speakers?

Surround sound? Subwoofer? Music oriented or gaming oriented? Are headphones an acceptable replacement?

I lol'd at the budget. And I lol'd at Roy going haywire. So much fun to spend other people's money!

That being said, let's do this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($214.29 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock 3 113.8 CFM Fluid Dynamic Bearing CPU Cooler ($59.99 @ NCIX US)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX4 4g Thermal Paste ($6.29 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($108.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($158.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($357.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($81.90 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 980 4GB Superclocked Video Card ($628.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Titanium Grey) ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 10 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($159.90 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-224DB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Subtotal: $1973.28

Monitor: Dell U2414H 60Hz 23.8" Monitor ($259.00 @ Adorama)
Monitor: Dell U2414H 60Hz 23.8" Monitor ($259.00 @ Adorama)
Sound Card: Creative Labs Sound Blaster Z 70SB150200000 24-bit 192 KHz Sound Card ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Speakers: M-Audio Studiophile AV40 40W 2ch Speakers ($159.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $2741.26
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-13 16:37 EST-0500

I based this off Roy's 2nd build, which is the most reasonable overall and mainly added some Fanboyism and German Engineering to improve secondary attributes.
I sacrificed price/performance ratio along the way, but someone with your budget deserves to get the best quality, lowest noise, best performing build there is. With ~$2k for the tower I'm still well within your limit and leave nothing left to desire.

The Monitors are awesome for that price. They aren't excellent at anything but they are good at everything, which is really rare, especially at that price. The problem is usually that you either have bad colors/viewing angles (TN panels) or ghosting effects during gaming/videos (IPS panels). But this one has pretty low reaction times despite being an IPS panel and is decently sized at 24"
So you get really good value for going $120 over your budget in the monitor department.

I found really good but reasonably priced speakers for you. Too bad they're not that good looking, but they sound excellent. And that's why I added a sound card: You don't wanna have to deal with noise or distortion.
Keep in mind this is a 2.0 system - the true audiophile's way. While the bass is powerful enough to precisely convey anything you can throw at the system it isn't able to deliver the feeling of a bass-boosted song with a subwoofer. And while accurate 3D sound is definitely possible it requires high quality recordings (aka not main-stream music, but games usually support it) and precise placing / fixed listening position. If that sounds too restrictive you should get a 5.1/7.1 system.
Summary:
2.0 - accurate sound, if used properly
2.1 - mainly for bass oriented music playback or rocking gaming effects
5.1 - jack of all trades, simple setup

I can't help much with mice, keyboards or furniture, so I'll just skip that.

Alright, I have the time to go through and properly pick some parts, this time with color themes. Open the one you're interested in:





Alright Nude, I know you really like your German brands, but this is just unacceptable.

Thanks for the help so far after reading the replies. I guess I should of been more clear on the price range. It doesn't have to be exactly $2500. I'm just willing to spend that much for a good desktop that will last for years to come. I do like the Sandisk 960 GB SSD though. I want that included. I'm going to go with no overclocking though.


For speakers, I'll probably just go with 5.1 from what Nude says. Surround sound, subwoofer, gaming oriented, and I would prefer both speakers and headphones.

I do love the color themes you did, Roy. All the parts don't have to be the same color though if I can get better parts instead. (Spending $15-50 dollars more on each part like you mentioned in the logical upgrades). I do love blue/black though for the case and blue LED lights, preferably that you can turn on and off whenever you want and same with the fans, but that's just a nice bonus if possible.

Edit: Forgot to mention that it will mostly be a gaming desktop if that helps. Prioritize games over video.

Alright, based on that, I'd recommend something similar to the following:

Up to you if you want to upgrade the HDD. Nothing else needs to be upgraded, unless you really want to have a lot of memory or a really expensive GPU.

Not my fault bequiet hasn't established in the US yet. They are much cheaper here.
I have no idea how the Seasonics or XFXs do regarding quietness. => Low noise build.

Whatever you do, do NOT get Beats headphones. They are either shit or heavily overpriced, often both. Get those instead. If you're using them many hours a time it might be worth investing in headphones that have extra comfortable over ear pieces: Audio-Technica ATH-M50S

Need to redact my statement about 5.1 systems: They aren't simple to set up, but mistakes when setting them up are not as noticeable and they are much less dependent on listener position (even more so for 7.1). To properly set them up you need mount points in a box (or better: circle) around you and since most of the time the distance of the speakers won't be same for each piece you need to adjust volume of the various channels.
Since I'm happy with my passive 2.0 speakers and Sony Amp I never kept an eye on digital surround sound components so I can't really recommend anything there.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 14 2014, 6:52 am by NudeRaider.

You seem to be blinded by brand loyalty, rather than focusing on benchmarking and test results. The fact is that a semi-modular PSU made by FSP is almost never going to be worth more money than the X Series. If you can find a worthy review that says otherwise, I'd be interested, but from what I've found, that PSU struggles with voltage regulation (source, which you can compare to this). The Dark Power Pro P10 850W models and above are made by SeaSonic, but if you picked one of those I'd have just said the PSU probably costs more than the outrageous price on the 650W.

If you were concerned about noise, put the money toward a fanless PSU, like the Silverstone Nightjar 520W.

As for the XTR, you can find a nice review of it here (although for the 750W model rather than the 550W). All of XFX's PSUs are SeaSonic OEMs. Here's a review of the 550W, though I'm not familiar with that review site.

Edit: speaking of large PSUs, the SeaSonic X-1250 is on sale for $110 right now.

Edit 2: 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1866 CL9 is on sale for $65 on Newegg today only (and no rebate!) if you apply coupon code EMCWWWF227. I would pick this up immediately if you're looking to build a PC in the near future.

Post has been edited 3 time(s), last time on Nov 14 2014, 2:14 pm by Roy.

Okay, so this will be my final build for the tower?

For the Dell monitors, are those my best choice for going dual screen? They sound pretty nice, reading from what the description says. Are touch-screen monitors worth getting? Or are they a waste of money? (If there's any cheap but good ones that is)

You could get the 1TB 840 EVO instead of the Ultra II; it just dropped to $400.

If this is going to be for a gaming rig, I'd probably pick 144Hz monitors over IPS. Look at this Acer GN246HL 24" as a possible alternative. Yeah, not really a great brand, but the Asus in the same price range has complaints of backlight bleeding.

Edit:


Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 16 2014, 12:51 pm by Roy.

Spare your insults if you can't understand some sly humour. I'm not blind for other companies (I own an Antec PSU myself), but I want to spice up the mix a bit when the opportunity arises. By no means are we planning to invade the US - just maybe their market.



Now that's just rude. That's the only thing I'm basing recommendations on.


Even your review - where it failed the Voltage regulations - praises it: "But if you are a user who only demands the best in class, this may be the power supply you are looking for." It's an established review site, so I'm wondering, why would they recommend a PSU failing tests? My guess is they knew something was off for this test run, because on other sites the unit passed with flying colors:
http://www.pc-max.de/artikel/netzteile/test-be-quiet-dark-power-pro-10-650-watt-netzteil/13622
http://www.legitreviews.com/be-quiet-dark-power-pro-10-650w-psu-review_2094/6


Or a be quiet!. In all seriousness, have you looked at their dB(m)? They ARE quiet. There's no need to be quieter.
Just like with the voltages, which are 1-2% off compared to Seasonic's 0.5% average (when I ignore the bad -12V Rail). They are better on paper but in practice there's no difference. There's a reason <= 3% off is considered flawless.


Semi modular isn't a disadvantage. I even consider it an advantage when the cables I will always need can't be pulled out because it might happen accidentally when working in the case or in time due to aged and loosening connectors.
And money didn't seem the issue. He wanted a perfect product and that's what I recommended.



I'd go for the Barracudas most earlier builds included:
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($81.90 @ NCIX US)
They are considerably faster than the Blues, which is important when copying game images or DVD / BluRays from / to it and they have double capacity which is also useful for large video and game collections.

Also I didn't find reviews on the PSU. If you want it to be quiet (reasonable when watching videos), then you gonna have to ask Roy if they are that.

A note about the SSD: 1 GB of flash storage won't give you much compared to more HDD storage because SSDs have their biggest advantage when reading small files like for your OS or programs. They don't speed up game loading times much (maybe 10-20%) because many other components are involved as well. So I'd still recommend the
Storage: Samsung 850 Pro Series 512GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($357.99 @ Amazon)
for various reasons:
- A whopping 10 year warranty. Shows how confident Samsung is in their product.
- 3D V-NAND technology. While I don't usually jump on new technology this has been in development for years and I haven't heard anything bad yet, + 10 year warranty. They are faster, take less space, and most importantly last much longer (thus 10 year warranty)
- faster by a decent margin
But if you insist on 1 TB, the Samsung 840 EVO is the performance/price winner. (Not the performance winner)



God, stay away from touch enabled screens. It's not at all useful for a desktop PC. Mouse is much more ergonomic.

The Dells are what I'd get. That's because I like unicolor websites (or anime background) to be unicolor instead of having a gradient and I need fast reaction times as a gamer. And they seem to offer both. Of course I can't say if they are "the best" but they do what you need.

The 3rd aspect Roy mentioned (high framerate) isn't mainstream because your video card needs to be able to render fast enough or the fast monitor won't be much of an advantage. And even the 300€ more expensive GTX 780 in Roy's last build doesn't even come close in recent games:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-970-maxwell,3941-8.html
So the advantage is only for older games.
And before you ask: You have no advantage in videos because they are at most 30fps.

However when you're watching videos with friends IPS makes sure everyone gets a good contrast view, independent from where they are sitting.
That being said, stick with the Dells, and the build at the top of my post, just replace the HDD and SSD.

Any game running over 60FPS will benefit from a monitor running over 60Hz; many people report 80FPS being an easily noticeable difference. Plus if you plan on going into SLI with the card (like all these builds expect), you'll be very happy to have your monitors already prepared to handle it.

For the record, I have two IPS monitors, and they work fine with anything from programming to gaming. Moreover, IPS is great for things like pictures and text: things that don't move around look amazing, crisp, and vibrant. On the other hand, 144Hz is going to be a smoother experience for gaming and using the desktop in general. (And there are several videos at 60FPS, but that doesn't make a difference on a 60Hz vs 144Hz monitor, as you say.)

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Nov 17 2014, 11:06 am by Roy.

What's the IPS you guys keep talking to when referring to monitors?

Is there a particular reason you want a 960 GB SSD? It might be cheaper to buy a ~250 GB one now to store your programs, and put your media on a regular hard drive. Then once SSDs become even cheaper, you could get another SSD (or replace your existing one) for less.

I didn't really think SSD's had that kind of space. 1-TB is a lot for them... I use mine to just run my OS, store everything else on other hard drives and it runs excellently, 20 seconds for a cold start. Mine is only 120-GBs though. How much faster are those kinds of SSDs?

Got it. You think it's too expensive because on paper others are better, but the "in practice" advantage won't come into effect.
Just note that I also changed the CPU cooler and that you can throttle case fans. Admittedly that doesn't help when gaming when the GPU starts blaring.

Fair enough. Just gonna note that it becomes almost exclusively noticeable in scenes where the view is racing along wall corners, whereas the better picture will always be noticeable. (The angular depended improvements are also only coming into effect in certain situations.)

IPS explained

Not much. On paper some have double the speed compared to some older models, but in practice the difference between (opening a program) "at once" and "at once" can hardly be felt.

If you look a little closer in the measurements you'll notice some aspects improved a lot (especially write speed when going larger SSDs)
while others show little difference.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/SSD/65
Understanding the measurements is another thing. You'll have to learn which measurement affects which use case.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Nov 17 2014, 6:02 am by NudeRaider.

Are you going to want a microphone? Do you need to block out other sound? How do you feel about sound leaking out of your headphones? Do your ears get sweaty? Are they extra sensitive and get sore if you wear headphones too long?

I'd recommend against 5.1. Headphones already perfectly create a surround experience. Speakers also don't really measure up to headphones until the $1k or so price range.

I just noticed one caveat on that XTR PSU: it doesn't have enough PCI-e connectors for SLI (you'd have to use adapters). You'd either want to get the higher capacity model or just use the SeaSonic I recommended.

I've been thinking about this point, and I think I would still prefer full modular simply because if a cable gets damaged, you can replace it, whereas if a non-modular cable gets damaged, you'd be SOL. It's the same reason why I exclusively buy headphones with detachable cords.

But both of our scenarios are rare and/or trivial.

I guess no real reason but simply I can afford it. 1 TB SSD for 400 bucks sounds nice but what do I know?


Yes, voice chatting! Doesn't matter for blocking out other sound. For sound leaking out, as long it's not a huge amount of sound leaking out that someone nearby can clearly hear. My ears.. I guess if it's hot in the room but that shouldn't be a problem. My ears will get sore after a long while of wearing headphones but I don't believe there is any headphones that will fix that.

I want both though because I'm not going to want to be wearing headphones all the time and every now and then I'll have friends over to do stuff (Playing local co-op games, videos/movies, etc.) I'm not an audiophile though, I don't need perfection either on sound quality.

I noticed some changes to the build. Just keeping track of it by quoting.