#991
http://www.teamfortress.tv/post/521804/pc-build-thread

#991
Went over it once more.

I recommended a 260X, which is out of stock now as well, but I found a 750 Ti (slightly better) a bit cheaper. Since it doesn't need any external power connectors you can save a bit on the PSU. However that means you can't really upgrade the GPU later. If you think you might want to you can get a Be quiet! Pure Power L8 300W for 220 Kč more instead. Or an L8 400W (another 200 Kč more) if you think you'll buy a >200W GPU later.

I still haven't bothered to find a better case.

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3310 Kč
RAM: Kingston HyperX Fury Blue 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1866 1166 Kč
Motherboard: MSI B85M-G43 1768 Kč
GPU: PALiT GTX 750 Ti StormX 3136 Kč
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 - 1TB 1449 Kč
PSU: Seasonic SS-350ET 350W 979 Kč
Case: Evolveo R05 730 Kč
Total:12538 CZ

Thank you a lot Setstul, you really helped me.

I dont know if this is the right thread but
I want to upgrade my graphics card, atm i have a nvidia GeForce GT 530 and a budget of around 200-250 euro.
My pc is an Asus CM6330,
I use my pc mostly for tf2 and video editing.
What do you guys suggest?

Build sent by Setsul
My friend can go up 120 pounds in the budget for this build. So hes looking for a better graphics card and CPU.

#995
Which model exactly? Speccy output would be fine too.
Better GPU won't help for video editing or TF2 on low settings though. All CPU.

#996
Is he going to build soon? I won't redo this build every week, just tell me a few days before he's going to buy everything.

#997
This will be the finalized thing and he'll buy it the following week. I'll quote him:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($139.99 @ Micro Center)
Motherboard: Biostar TA970 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($59.33 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($42.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB Superclocked Video Card ($112.99 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Total: $405.19
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-17 17:15 EST-0500

Want to help a friend
Has a a atx case and a budget of 450 bucks and also has a hard drive and cpu cooler.
Is not planning to overclock
Wants to play rust csgo and tf2
his case is a http://www.pc-specs.com/case/Azzatek/AZZA_EOS_204_Gaming_Case/1654
or a Azza EOS 204

#998
Am I missing something?

How is that 120 GBP more?

#999
The FX-8350 is a terrible idea for TF2 and CS:GO.
Also a 750W PSU for a 264W build?

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.88 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock B150M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($78.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($103.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $451.83
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-17 18:16 EST-0500

Haswell alternative: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VHNVxr
Still have to test RAM speed vs timings for TF2. Maybe this weekend.

#997
http://imgur.com/1Xb5sAI
I am not good with computers. Is this what you wanted to know? And what cpu model do you suggest?

#1001
Not really, it's neither the exact model number nor speccy output.
Doesn't really matter now anyway. You can't afford an i7 or Xeon (and they wouldn't help in TF2) and the best i5 that would fit your mobo is the i5-3570, about 9% faster than what you already got. Even if you could find it at all (3 generations / 3 years old) and if you could find it for 250€ (less if you're really lucky), 250€ for a 9% improvement doesn't make sense. I mean you could try finding a used one and selling yours, but for 9% I don't think it's worth the effort.

You can't afford anything that would be a signifcant CPU upgrade, sorry.

For any other game a better GPU would definitely help and make sense.

Thanks for the advice!

So I figured I’d build my first PC, to replace a 2007 MBP that hasn’t been able to properly run TF2 since 2012, relegating me to just watching comp. So obviously there is probably a ton of uninformed and stupid stuff in the post below. Thanks to everybody who contributed in this thread, it’s been a great resource. I’m looking to order the parts before Christmas and build before New Year’s. If there is any advice you guys could give, especially w/r/t the mobo/PSU/case choices, that’d be wonderful.

#1004
I'd go with Skylake, CPU prices should be pretty much the same now, DDR4 would be around the same price at the same speed (although you'd go with 2400 instead 1600MHz so slightly more expensive) and the new chipset features are worth the slight premium on the mobos imho. Bonus: LGA1151 will be around for a while, Kaby Lake in 2016 and Cannonlake in 2017 will still be using it, so only if you upgrade after summer 2018 you'd need a new mobo.
CPUs don't change that much so a more normal upgrade cycle instead of 1.5 years would be around 5-6 years for CPU + mobo + RAM (maybe complete build) and replacing the GPU 2 or 3 times (so every 2-3 years) during that.

pcpartpicker doesn't know a lot of shops outside of US/CA/AUS so this is far more expensive than it needs to be.

CPU and therefore mobo and RAM replaced, some parts swapped for equivalent and/or cheaper and/or better parts.

CPU: i5-6500. Performance should be about the same, but Skylake which got DDR4 support (Haswell doesn't) and is on LGA1151. which got chipset with some more features than LGA1150 did.

Mobo: GA-B150M-D3H. The main point of a mobo is that it connects everything. ATX vs µATX pretty much only means more PCIe/PCI slots, not really a concern if you're not going to use multiple GPUs or lots of other cards. You get e.g. SATA Express and M.2 and DDR4. I'm not sure if you understood that correctly because of the way you worded it. The i5-4590 (or Haswell in general) doesn't support DDR4, so you wouldn't have been able to upgrade. DDR4 isn't much more expensive than DDR3 so upgrading (=buying twice) would be more expensive anyway. Either way though mobos only support DDR3 or DDR4, not both (there are some exceptions but you'd pay extra for that). Replacing mobo and RAM just to get DDR4 definitely isn't worth it. It's still within budget so I went with DDR4.

RAM: See mobo. 2x 4GB 2400MHz CL15 or better, standard stuff. Brands don't matter, only specs and price do. This isn't server stuff with FB/R/LR DIMMs where you have to pay attention to compatibility lists. Even mix and match would work. This is tied to the mobo as well, but 2 DIMMs for Dual Channel and a mobo with 4 slots so you could in theory still upgrade if you ever need to just by adding 2 more with the same (or at least similar) specs instead of having to replace them with 2 of twice the capacity.

HDD: Not sure where you read that about reliability. Most HDDs with similar age and specs will perform pretty much the same since all 3 manufacturers that are left (Seagate, Western Digital, Toshiba) use very similar sometimes even the same technology. E.g. WD bought Hitachi, now HGST, another part of Hitachi went to Toshiba and all of them including Seagate buy some of their stuff, platters, sometimes even tech like read/write heads from SDK and TDK.
Back to reliability. Average life expectancy for an HDD is said to be 5-6 years. All HDDs will fail eventually and you should expect them to do so. An average of 6 years doesn't mean all HDDs will live that long. Some will fail almost immediately, some after 1 years, some last 3 and so on. There's nothing you can do about that. What you should do instead is backing up anything that you can't afford to lose. That reduces the impact of an HDD failure from "catastrophic" to merely "annoying".
The Seagate Barracuda 7200.14 (ST1000DM003) is usually cheaper than the WD Blue and performs as well or better. But you might not need it, keep reading.

SSD: The surprise guest. You can afford it (trust me, you'll see). The far lower boot / program start times are worth it.
The Samsung 850 Evo 250GB is the default recommendation. If you don't need more than 250GB for now you could ditch the HDD alltogether. You can always add an HDD (or multiple) later. Getting an SSD later and having to reinstall Windows is a pain in the ass.

GPU: Yep, 380 is where it's at. 1080p Ultra 60fps in FO4 isn't exactly limited and the price is great. Asus Strix, "bonus": it uses 1 8pin instead of 2 6pin connectors, you'll see why that's a bonus soon.

Case: N200. It doesn't have a lot of room for cable management behind the mobo tray but it's hard to find anything better at that price, which is why it's still my default budget recommendation.

PSU: There's two things I don't agree with here. First of all it's a 360W build. Even a Fury X would only push it to 450W. So scale down on the wattage a bit and save some money. Secondly the N200 does have a lot of space in front of the PSU. Now think about which cables you could even take off. Mobo and PCIe power connectors will all be in use. You'll need one for the HDD and/or SSD. That leaves one or two SATA power cables that you could remove. Is it worth paying 20€ for that? Not really.
About brands: Again brands don't matter, but for a different reason. Be quiet doesn't build any PSUs. HEC, FSP and Seasonic do that for them. Yes, there's the customer support, but I'd rather get a good PSU and never have to deal with CS instead of having great CS that replaces the PSU 3 times no questions asked because it keeps dying. One thing to keep in mind is that while the manufacturer is important for what they can do in terms of the uppoer limit of performance, quality and quality control they'll only do what they are paid for. So if a "brand" tries to increase their profit margin bad things can happen. An example would be the Corsair RM series, two full recalls on the Chicony models because they kept overheating (3rd revision built by CWT) and lackluster QC on the CWT models on top of mediocre performance and overinflated price. Compare that with the RMi (slightly overpriced) and RMx, both built by CWT and pretty darn good.
Back on topic there's some better, far cheaper although non-modular Seasonic models. It was Seasonic by the way who built the top of the line models that earned be quiet their reputation, whereas the L8 CM line is built by FSP and HEC. Skylake and DDR4 mean even lower power consumption and since the 380 Strix only needs one 1 8pin PCIe power connector you can get away with a Seasonic S12II-350. The downside is that you can't really upgrade to any GPUs above 200W. Those wouldn't really be midrange/sweetspot anymore so I doubt you'll do that. If you'd still like the option there's the S12II-430, but it is more expensive.

Here's the list:
CPU: i5-6500 203,49€
Mobo: GA-B150M-D3H 80,12€
RAM: 8GB 2400MHz CL15 46,12€
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 44,84€
SSD: Samsung 850 Evo 250GB 77,06€
GPU: Asus Strix R9 380 189,08€
Case: N200 44,41€
PSU: Seasonic S12II-350 36,45€ or
Seasonic S12II-430 50,83€
Total: 721,57€ (350W) or
735,95€ (430W)
Used mindfactory prices.

So the price of the psu went up and my friend of wondered if this build would still work well
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.75 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock B150M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($78.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2800 Memory ($46.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($103.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec 450W ATX Power Supply ($32.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $461.70
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-20 14:51 EST-0500

#1006
RAM seems to have gone up too so I replaced it as well.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($198.75 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: ASRock B150M Pro4S Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($78.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon R7 265 2GB Video Card ($103.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Enermax 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($34.00 @ Newegg)
Total: $460.71
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-20 15:11 EST-0500

Need help!

A surge has taken out my pc. I have tested the psu and it's dead. No 5v or 12v lives. So I just purchased a new GTX 970 and corsair cx 750w.. Plugged in etc, and I have found my motherboard was also fried (thought this might be the case!) and appears my ram is gone too. As a result, I'm going to upgrade.

So.. With my new video card and psu, I'm now needing to get a new motherboard, CPU and ram.

My pc was an i7 2700k, and I have a NAS with 2 x 4tb in a raid set up. For my o/s I have an SSD and another ssd for my games and photo editing. So it's really just the motherboard and CPU / ram that I need to upgrade.

Any recommendations? Haven't upgraded in years as the 2700k was such a beast.

I am not keen on overclocking but I'd rather get something decent and have it last a few years. New gen gear, preferably.

Thank you chaps! Price range isn't too much of an issue, just good value for performance etc.

We might have different definitions of that.
I mean apart from the 390 usually being the better choice, in what world is the CX750 good value for performance? It got neither good performance, nor is it cheaper than some competing PSUs, some of which are performing better as well.
And then there's buying a 750W PSU for a <300W build. Are you really expecting to get good value out of this?

Anyway
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($325.00 @ PCCaseGear)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-B150M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($135.00 @ CPL Online)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($78.00 @ IJK)
Total: $538.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-22 03:23 AEDT+1100
or i7-6700 if you think you'd benefit from Hyperthreading.

#1005
Thanks so much, that made everything much clearer. I did know about the DDR4/newer mobos relationship, but everything else was new to me and hugely helpful. I'll report back when I've got the rig running.

Christmas is here and I'm ready to upgrade my PC!
Budget is $1200 but I could stretch to $1500, looking for the best future proofed PC I can get for TF2/CS but also some demanding games like Overwatch and Star Wars Battlefront. I'm gonna keep my 270x, Corsair CX 600M and 2x 1TB HDD's (Running Raid 1, not sure if this is a problem for further HDD/SSD's), but I'll also need a new HDD/SSD cause I'm running out of space. I plan on overclocking so will need a CPU cooler and also a new case cause the current one is damaged. Thanks!

im looking to upgrade from my fx-6100 cpu and ASUSTeK M5A97 mobo
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80662i56600
pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gab150md3h

i saw these in earlier posts by setsul, what kind of performance would i get from this cpu? + im buying a 750 from a friend

#1011
How are you running that RAID 1, software or hardware?
How much space do you need? 250GB SSD for OS? How many TB for the new HDD(s)?
Overwatch and Battlefront aren't demanding games, so might be able to get away with that 270X. You won't quite get 60fps average on Ultra though, drops obviously lower. For actually demanding games you'd definitely have to get a better GPU or drop down to mid settings.

Future proofing doesn't exist. That said the CPU should still last you a couple of years.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-6600K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($355.00 @ Centre Com)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($99.00 @ CPL Online)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z170M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($189.00 @ IJK)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory ($78.00 @ IJK)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($129.00 @ Centre Com)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($61.00)
Total: $911.00
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-22 21:32 AEDT+1100

#1012
Not sure what you want me to say. Performance in what? In single threaded CPU bound tasks (TF2) it should be extremely good, multithreaded (rendering/streaming) still very good and probably more than you'll ever need. Other games which are GPU bound the CPU doesn't really matter if it's not garbage but the 750 might not cut it.
It depends on what you're going to use all of this for.

The two 1TB HDD's where set up that way from the bios so hardware I assume?
I have 180GB left on my HDD's so a 250GB SSD should be plenty for now, my only concern is if RAID will interfere with any new HDD's I get.

#1014
RAID doesn't interfere with other HDDs, but if you want to use those HDDs in the new pc you'll obviously have to use the same raid controller or they won't be readable.
I'm not sure what you'd need raid for and why you'd use hardware raid instead of software raid.

late response, but yes tf2 is a higher priority to run well than dolphin for me and i want more than 60 fps for tf2.

also this for context since its been a long time

a computer without an APU or not is optional to me, whichever choice would get me better performance would be fine.

i just did this thing: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/ZG2tvK
the sandisk is actually a 256gb ssd/1tb hdd combo drive
other fancy shit not shown
bought cyberpowerpc
should arrive in the new year

!

yo yo yo yo i need help, how good would this PC be for tf2 gaming and maybe melee then? what performance would i be expecting if i did buy this?

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/nKWhhM

#1016
Why do you quote a full post every time? Delete the part that's not relevant.

#1016/#1018
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i3-4170 3.7GHz Dual-Core Processor ($111.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: MSI B85M-E45 Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($62.88 @ OutletPC)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($67.80 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($45.88 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 270 2GB TurboDuo Video Card ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master N200 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $458.51
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-12-23 05:42 EST-0500

Could go with only SSD or HDD for a lower total.
As always performance depends on settings.

#1017
99% sure that's just a normal SSD and a normal HDD.
https://www.cyberpowerpc.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=40038

I got a budget of 500 dollars, just need the actually computer, i have all my peripherials and jazz

i want to play tf2 / csgo without worry

so if i take out the hard drive within my current pc (http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c03143256) can i just cut off the 46 dollar internal hard drive off the list and be fine?