Reddit mentions: The best internal solid state drives

As others have said, almost machine will do. however seeing as a desktop PC usually becomes more than just a programming machine, and is often used for general content consumption as well as gaming. I tried to build a fairly decent machine while putting emphasis on sound. So it should be fairly quiet along with being fairly powerful.

CPU: Pretty much anything will do, I'd go for the i5-4570 or the i5-4670k, depending on if you're interested in overclocking. The price/performance ratio is pretty good, and if you want any better you're gonna have to go for the i7-4770 or something like that.

Heatsink: The stock is fine for general purpose stuff, but if you want something better and are willing to invest. Noctua NH-D14 is an excellent heatsink that keeps everything cool and is very quiet as well.

Case: The Fractal Design Define R4 is a great and a common choice, another alternative with similar features is the NZXT H440. They are both great in terms of looks and performance, and are both very quiet as well. They both have some included case fans and filters.

Fans/Filters: Additional case fans provide additional cooling and help in keeping the system fairly quiet. Noctua NF-P12 is a great all around case fan and again, very quiet. In general I'd recommend keeping your rig on a desk or something so that it doesn't colelct as much dust. But you almost always want some dust filters. Pretty much any filters will do but you generally want magnetic filters. Magnetic filters require no tools and attach on pretty much any case. They're easy to take off for cleaning and keep the innards of your rig clean. DEMCI makes some excellent magnetic filters if you need a place to start looking.

Motherboard: ASUS has excellent fan control software on their boards and almost any higher end ASUS board is gonna be great. Personally I'd recommend Asus Z97-Pro which is one of the best mobos I know and has everything you could ever want.

PSU: I almost always recommend Corsair for power supplies, their RM Series PSU's are fantastic and with a zero RPM fan mode are very quiet under normal load. the 550 watt PSU should be enough, maybe even the 450 one.

GPU: You don't need much if it's a pure programming rig, but in general the programming rig becomes "the everyday driver" so it's used for most things including gaming if your brother is into that. If you just want something to plug a monitor into the XFX R7-250A is a good passively cooled card that'll do that. For more performance I'd go for the ASUS GTX 970 StrIx. The GTX 970 provides excellent performance and ASUS' cooler makes it very quiet even under load

RAM: Pretty much anything will do. For a desktop PC that's used for general purpose stuff, I'd say at least 8GB, you can go for more too.

HDD: For general purpose get an SSD. It's much faster and makes less noise thanks no moving parts. Samsung 840 EVO is a good option, and the 250GB drive isn't that xpensive. For mass storage the 2TB Seagate Barracude is a great an affordable option. With a good case that has rubber standings for the HD it shouldn't make much noise either.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now the peripherals are where you can make programming a lot easier and more comfortable.

Keyboard: A good mechanical keyboard is going to make typing a lot faster and more comfortable. They are a bit loud, but some people like the noise. Now there are three main switch types you'll find:

Blue switches: These have an actuation point, basically you can feel a "click" when the button activates and you hear it as well. These are the loudest switches around.

Brown switches: Almost exactly like blues except a bit quieter

Red switches: These are linear switches, they have no real "point" of actuation that you can feel and rather go linearly all the way to the bottom.

There are other switch types as well, clears, blacks, greens, and some more. They mainly differ in the amount of force required to press the button. Black switches for example are extremely heavy to press. For more info you can head out to /r/MechanicalKeyboards another good things about mechanical switches is that they're very very durable.

Another option would be to go for ergonomic keyboards like the Microsoft Sculpt. Keyboards are a lot about personal preference so ask your brother before getting one.

Another thing would be two monitors. As others have said a dual monitor setup is great for programming and good for general purpose as well. Dell Ultrasharp mmonitors provide pretty much everything you could want. There are a lot of Ultrasharp models but the one I linked is great for it's price. It's 1920x1200 so it offers a bit more than your standard full HD monitor, IPS panel, has a vesa mount and the regular stand has all ergonomic adjustments you could want. most important being pivot, basically the ability to turn your monitor sideways to gain more vertical space which is great for coding.

------------------------------------------------------

With the monitors the whole thing is gonna run you for about 1900$

With some changes you can cut out a 1000$ from the pricetag http://pcpartpicker.com/p/yLjnNG

And if you ditch the 2TB Hard drive you're looking at about 825$ for the whole setup.

None of the stuff I listed above is really required at all, you could get him a 3 year old machine fro 300$ and it'd be fine for regular coding and nonsense like that. But if he wants to do something else on the machine as well, then he might need some more horsepower.

Another option for a dedicated programming machine is a good ultrabook. Like say, Thinkpad x240, slap an i5 there, 8GB of ram and a 256/512 GB SSD, use a HDMI cable to connect it to a larger external monitor and you're golden. Or the Thinkpad X1 carbon, with 8GB of RAM and a good sized SSD. The advantage is that the laptop is much more portable, but on the other hand lacks the raw horsepower of a desktop.

Also, I like your build, but I have a few suggestions

​

CPU - AMD Ryzen 5 3600 3.6 GHz 6-Core Processor

Nice. While the 3700x is clearly better for video editing, better in this case only means that it saves you time. And while time is nice, I think it'd be better to use that $140 towards a second monitor.

​

CPU Cooler - ARCTIC Freezer 34 eSports DUO CPU Cooler

I feel like you would be better off either buying a better cooler or just sticking with the stock cooler, because I don't think this one will let you oc much more than the Wraith.

​

Motherboard - MSI MPG X570 GAMING PRO CARBON WIFI

I don't think your use-case justifies an X570 board, I'd recommend the Aorus Pro with WiFi or the Aorus Elite without WiFi, and I would again say to use the extra $100+ towards that second monitor.

​

Memory - Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory

Nice. 3600 would be better, but if you can't find a 3600 set for a reasonable price, then you can try to manually oc this 3200 set to 3600.

​

Storage - Crucial MX500 500 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive

This is really important and confused me when M.2 drives first came out. Some SSDs have different physical Form Factors and electrical Interfaces.

Two common Form Factors are 2.5 inch and M.2 - Again, these are just physical, not too much of a difference here other than size.

Two common Interfaces are SATA III and PCIe - This is the important part, because SATA III has a maximum theoretical throughput of 600 MB/s, while PCIe Gen 3 4x has a maximum theoretical throughput of about 4000 MB/s

In this case, the Crucial MX500 is an SSD that uses the M.2 Form Factor and SATA III Interface. If you check it's rated read/write speeds, it's about 560/510 MB/s respectively, which would make sense given that it's SATA III.

But this doesn't mean that all NVMe PCIe SSDs can achieve read and write speeds of 4000 MB/s. This just means that if you see an M.2 SATA SSD, you know that it's not gonna be faster than 600 MB/s, but an M.2 PCIe SSD can be faster than 600 MB/s.

Maybe I went on for too long, anyway, my SSD suggestions would be:

Samsung 970 Evo 1TB for $169.99, my personal preference, nice brand, nice speeds (3500MB/s read, 2500MB/s write), nice warranty (5 years)

Sabrent Rocket 1TB for 109.98, I haven't personally used it, not familiar with the brand but this specific product of theirs has a lot of positive reviews, similar speeds (3450MB/s read, 3000MB/s write), ok warranty (1 year?... some people question this)

Intel 660p 1TB for 89.99, I haven't personally used it, nice brand, nice speeds (1800MB/s read, 1800MB/s write), nice warranty (5 years)

​

Video Card - MSI GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Video Card

Strictly gaming performance wise, the 5700 XT is better than the 2070. On top of that, it's around $30 cheaper.

General performance is tough to compare. And on top of that, they each have their own individual benefits in different video editing programs.

If video editing is mostly just a side thing, then the 5700 XT looks like the card for you. But if you are serious about video editing, then you're gonna have to do some research on which GPU is best for you.

​

Power Supply - EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650 W 80+ Gold Fully Modular

Nice, but it seams a little overpriced. The Corsair RM650x is also 80+ Gold and fully modular, but $20 cheaper.

​

Monitor - I'm tired, so I'm going to bed, but I personally use 2 monitors:

27" 4k 60Hz for content consumption

24" 1080p 144Hz VA for that juicy smooth gaming

I wish I got a 27" 1080p so they'd match in size but the increased pixel density of the 24" is probably better anyway.

​

Good luck with whatever you decide to build :D

CPU: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07STGGQ18/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

The Ryzen 5 3600 is all you really need. I doesn't require any overclocking to be a powerful and capable CPU. The stock cooler will work fine with this processor. It'll handle moderate workstation and 1080p-2160p gaming just fine.

GPU: https://www.newegg.com/asrock-radeon-rx-5700-xt-rx-5700-xt-challenger-d-8g-oc/p/N82E16814930020?Description=5700&cm_re=5700-_-14-930-020-_-Product

Damn, the RX 5700 from Pulse was in stock yesterday and it's now already out of stock. The ASRock Challenger D model is the best I could think of now, as the Mech OC is the basically the same as the Ventus OC, which also runs pretty hot. If you want to wait for a better model, you can, but no guarantees that it'll be in stock soon. If you want slightly better thermals over better performance, this 2060 Super can also be considered: https://www.amazon.com/MSI-Gaming-RTX-2060-Super/dp/B07V1Q4L2Z/ref=sr_1_11?keywords=2060+super&qid=1568248713&sr=8-11.

RAM: https://www.newegg.com/team-16gb-288-pin-ddr4-sdram/p/N82E16820331285?Item=N82E16820331285

The T-Force Delta is actually one of the better under $80 16GB kits out there. It features good RGB as well as a decent build quality. It's definitely worth a try as many people seem to like it.

SSD: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07LGF54XR/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A29Y8OP2GPR7PE&psc=1

The Sabrent Rocket seems to be one of the SSD market leaders in price to performance. This is probably the best performing SSDs you'll find that is under the $120 price tag. I think 1TB is enough for games and a good number of files, but you can always add a Seagate 2TB Hard Drive for more storage.

MOBO: https://www.newegg.com/p/N82E16813144262?Item=N82E16813144262

This is a very decent X570 motherboard at an awesome price. It has many 5 star reviews on many different retailer websites. This motherboard also supports OC, PCIe 4.0, and Mystic Light RGB Sync. Overall, just another great motherboard from MSI. Works with the 3600 out of the box.

PSU: https://www.newegg.com/evga-600-bq-110-bq-0600-k1-600w/p/N82E16817438100?Item=N82E16817438100

This power supply should be enough, as the power draw of the GPU+CPU are around 300 watts combined. This leaves a comfortable 300W for other components and possible overclocking. This is also semi-modular and 80+ bronze rated, which will have decent cable management and power efficiency. There is also a $15 rebate on this product, as well as a 3 year warranty.

CASE: https://www.newegg.com/black-phanteks-eclipse-p300-atx-mid-tower/p/N82E16811854068?Item=N82E16811854068

The Phanteks P300 is probably one of the best $60 PC case out there, tied with the View 31, in my opinion. It has a lot of room to build in (supports some E-ATX boards) as well as above-average airflow. Overall, it is one of my top picks in lower-mid-range cases.

FANS: https://www.newegg.com/corsair-co-9050082-ww-case-fan/p/N82E16835181157?Item=N82E16835181157

The Phanteks P300 doesn't include a lot of fans, and you'll need some fans to improve the airflow due to possibly having a warm GPU. The AF120s should get the job done at a good price.

Monitor Recommendation: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GD7H18F/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&psc=1

Take a look at this monitor. It features FreeSync, a Curved Display, and a 144Hz Refresh Rate. This monitor will be able to take advantage of your PC's power (not like one of my friend, who has a 60hz monitor paired with an RTX 2070), while not using a lot of your budget. The C24G1 is built with a VA panel, which allows it to have better color contrast than TN panels, while not sacrificing response times. As a bonus, AOC also has a 3-Year "No Dead Pixels" warranty in case of a defect.

Everything should total up to around $1275 before all taxes and promotions. This build includes a mixture of components from Amazon and Newegg's website. If you already have a G-Sync monitor, then spend $90 extra and get a RTX 2070 Super from Amazon to take full advantage of that.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor | $299.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Asus Z97-P ATX LGA1150 Motherboard | $110.47 @ Amazon
Memory | G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-2133 Memory | $83.98 @ Newegg
Storage | Toshiba 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $47.99 @ Newegg
Video Card | PNY GeForce GTX 970 4GB XLR8 Video Card | $329.99 @ Amazon
Case | NZXT Phantom 240 ATX Mid Tower Case | $69.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply | CoolMax 600W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply | $39.99 @ Amazon
Optical Drive | LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer | $12.99 @ Newegg
Operating System | Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) | $119.98 @ Newegg
Other| Asetek High Efficiency 120MM| $55.00
Other| Tt eSPORTS Talon Gaming Mouse| $20.00
Other| Tt eSPORTS Backlit| $30.00
| | Total
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available | $1220.37
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-11-30 06:12 EST-0500 |

OP's build on website (roughly).

OP WELCOME. I am always so happy seeing new people looking into getting a quality computer! Welcome to the community! I am going to give you my advice and take it with a grain of salt. I am biased and my mentality is get best bang for your buck but if it cost 20-30$ for quality than jump on that!

First off OP, I HIGHLY HIGHLY recommend building/picking your own parts on retailers websites or PCPP (pcpartpicker.com). You will save loads of money compare to buying from a site like the one you were on. Also, knowing you built your own PC just makes it even better! You will cherish it more! So lets get to it...

RAM: Yes they are offering a promo for a "FREE" upgrade but the promo is a bit scary. They don't even tell you all the specs on the RAM! Serious bothers me. You could get a DDR3 2133 with CAS of 9-11. Even though this isn't that big of a deal, it still matters a bit! Why pay 83$ when you could spend 5$ dollars for the better quality one. Also, the RAM they chose is a bit pricey at the moment. I would suggest going with something cheap like DDR3 1600-1866 with CAS 9 or 10.

Storage: Doesn't even give a brand or even model! This scares me a bit because they could just throw you a cheap brand with a model that could be shit. I just chose the cheapest 1TB at 7200RPM with 32 cache.

Video Card: Again doesn't even tell you the brand. You won't even know the clock speed or what type of cooler it has! This might not seem much to you but it is a big deal.

PSU: 600W 80+ PSU sounds good to new people but you could do soooo much better. If you throw like 10-20 dollars at the PSU you could easily get 500-650Watt GOLD or even if you wanted to save I know Corsair has some cheap BRONZE PSUs.

Optical Drive: They just chose the cheapest one and at the moment it is LG. There is a better one out there for the price/performance (ASUS).

OS: I highly recommend taking an OS on an older computer if you have one and using that product key for your new computer. If you don't have that option than actually 60$ for Windows 8.1 isn't bad. Although if you are a student you could get it cheaper from Microsoft. I pray in the future Microsoft makes their OS free. Would help so many builders out.

Keyboard: I couldn't even find that model. I don't even know if it is a mechanical keyboard. I just put 30$ just because that's how much it looks like. (If you don't know about mechanical keyboards come over to /r/mechanicalkeyboards. Great community and they have lots of information regarding mechanical keyboards.)

Mouse: I don't know too much about it so I won't comment.

Cooler: The cooler you chose is so old and to be honest it probably doesn't even perform that well. You could do better.

SSD: I seriously love the EVO and the MX100. Such great SSDs for the price. However, at the moment this baby is killing it. SanDisk Ultra II:

Overall OP build your own computer. I even limited parts to Amazon and Newegg and also turned off rebates and it was cheaper. For basically a 1260$ build you could buy all your parts now and get better quality for the same price than buying from that website. I bet you could even fit a monitor in there if you bought your parts on sale!

I HIGHLY recommend buying your parts over time if you can. There is really no reason to buy them all at once unless you are in need for a computer. Come over to /r/buildapcsales. We have such a wonderful community and everyone is very helpful.

>All of those things that you mentioned, some of which may trickle out in the next few months, or boards that are capable of accepting them (i.e. Broadwell/Maxwell-ready motherboards).

Maxwell-ready motherboards? Maxwell is the same PCIe 3.0 as before. There's no such thing as a "maxwell-ready" motherboard.

Of course we'll have Broadwell-ready boards with the 9-series chipsets, but the problem with that is with a $2000 budget you're well in (and past) 4670K/4770K level (or their tweaked replacements) and there's no way Broadwell will bring anywhere near a big enough performance boost to justify an upgrade there.

As for the rest: as I already stated in the initial reply, PCIe 4.0, SATA Express, and DDR4 are all slated for release well after June 2014, and even if they were, none of them will really be all that revolutionary for the end user.

>Yeah, there's no definite date, but it's likely that some new 800-series GPU will come out between now and then

Well, no, you're just pulling that out of a hat. The current information/rumours point to Nvidia waiting on the 20nm node at TSMC to be ready for large scale production before they release the desktop 800-series chips. That could be anywhere from mid-summer to even early 2015. We just don't know. With the relatively recent release of the 780 Ti and Titan Black it doesn't look like Nvidia is planning to replace their high end lineup anytime in the near future, especially with AMD's ability to compete in the gaming space crippled by miners driving the prices up and supply down.

>or at least that prices on existing components will drop as well.

Prices fall in CPUs and GPUs because of 2 main things: competition and replacement products. Both hold their price (ignoring the crypto-mining for now) until their respective company decides to reduce it to boost sales or to re-position the product to be more competitive.

Intel CPUs pretty much maintain almost exactly the same price from a month after release to soon after the release of the new line, and even after that prices don't really drop by much either. A prime example would be the i5-3570K - still $216 even this long after being replaced.

> If he has a few months to buy, and is not in a hurry to have it now, what is the benefit of buying now?

The benefit of buying now is having a great gaming machine for those few months versus having no gaming machine. Your justification for waiting was "there's a bunch of really awesome new stuff definitely coming out between now and then so you should wait", but you've so far gotten to "prices might fall a bit" (which is always true, plus sales) and some speculation on Maxwell maybe coming out.

>I just bought a laptop with a 770m at the end of January, and I got a great deal on it, but 6 weeks later I could have gotten an 870m laptop for $150 more.

So if you'd waited 6 weeks you could have spent more to get more power? What you got was basically a clock boosted GTX 670M, and the 870M is basically a clock boosted GTX 680M. Three name generations and we've still got the same GK104 chip at the heart of the high end, just with higher clocks on each release.

>edit: PCI-E SSDs. Will any consumer ones be out for a reasonable price by June? I dunno. Which is reason enough to wait to find out.

As I already said, consumer SATA III SSDs are already fast enough that PCIe SSDs are at this point more of a curious blip on the consumer radar. They had some brief fame near the end of SATAIIs life before SATAIII really took off as they allowed users to bypass the bottleneck without buying a new board. As of now they really only get used for enterprise and data center workloads. Consumer-oriented PCIe SSDs are basically just two SSDs and controllers mounted on a single board in RAID0. The Asus ROG Raidr for instance is two bog-standard Sandforce SF-2281 controllers connected up to 128GB of NAND each and connected together with a Marvell RAID controller. That'll run you $350. Alternatively you could just grab three Crucial M500 240GB drives and run them in RAID0 with Intel's onboard controller which would give you triple the storage, and about twice the speed, for only $330. Plus $20 to buy some beer with to celebrate getting better performance for less money.

Not weird at all--I'll provide Amazon links for your convenience!

The ASUS Zenbook UX305 has an MSRP of $700, but the potential issue is that it's not an i5. The Core M in this is about as powerful as an i3, but that should be sufficient for many uses in combination with the 256 GB SSD and the 8 GB of RAM. [Also, it's currently selling for $850 on Amazon. A $150 markup? Eff that--for that price, get the faster computer listed below]

The Zenbook UX303 has an updated version with a 5th-gen i5 for $850. The claimed battery life is 8 hours, and it'll be fast, thin, and portable. It should be a good option for you, unless you're into hardcore gaming or something. But a $700 Yoga probably wouldn't be any better at that...

If you want to try Lenovo again, the Ideapad Flex 14 is a good option at $800. It bends 270 degrees, rather than 360, but it comes with an i5, 8 GB of RAM, an SSD, and an HD screen. This should be a good option, and Lenovo generally scores well for reliability--not sure what happened on your Yoga.

Another 360-degree hinge option is the ASUS Transformer Book Flip. For $750, you get the Yoga's flexibility, as well as a 5th-gen i5, 8 GB of RAM, a 1 TB hard drive, and a 1080p screen. (Note that the i7 option has a lower-res screen, however). I have an ASUS Flip (a cheaper i3 version), and I can tell you from experience that it's pretty well-built, with aluminum surfaces except the plastic on the bottom panel, and it has a sturdy hinge. The trackpad is just OK, and the laptop picks up fingerprints like nobody's business--but everything else on this machine is nice. I can recommend it with confidence!

If you're looking to spend even less, the Toshiba Satellite L55-B5276 is going for around $560 on Amazon, and it comes with a 4th-gen i5 (the Broadwell processors are just coming out, so there's not a ton of variety). The Satellite also has 8 GB of RAM and a 1 TB hard drive, and the screen is the standard resolution of 1366 x 768--nothing special, but good enough. With the extra credit you have, you can buy a 256 GB SSD like this Crucial MX100, clone the old hard drive to your new SSD and install it yourself, and this will improve both responsiveness and battery life. That's probably the best deal you can get for the money, but I understand not wanting to mess around with the cloning process.

Good luck to you!

Just upgrade your storage.

__

Internal Drive

I'm assuming you have a 2013 model, but on any version of the PS4, replacing the internal drive is easy. It really only gets a little complicated if you want to back up your data beforehand, which you'll need to do if you want to keep your saved screenshots and video clips (though game save data and system settings will be backed up to the cloud if you have PS+, but make sure they're uploaded first). Keep in mind though that if you are thinking about re-downloading everything instead of backing up-- accepting the lost of your screenshots and video clips in the process-- this also means re-downloading all of your games.

__

The choice of what kind of drive you upgrade to is up to you.

• If you want to considerably reduce your load times across the board, you could opt for a 1TB SSD. Sounds expensive, but SSDs have had a drastic decrease in cost over the years, so a fast, 1TB drive to cut down your load times isn't unreasonable.
  
• Whether you want to get the most affordable upgrade possible or if you prioritize storage size and cost over speed, a standard HDD will do the job. NOTE: The drive options in the HDD links go past 2TB, but those larger drives are 15mm drives instead of 9mm. Long story short, nothing past 2TB will fit in a PS4 without modifications.
  
• For a mix of speed and storage space / budget, you could pick up the in-between option, a hybrid drive. There's a bit of nuance to these drives, but if you're looking for the best of both worlds with a single drive, a hybrid drive does offer increased performance without sacrificing storage space.
  
  _
  
  To change out your PS4's internal drive (after backing up), turn off your PS4 and change out the drives. You'll have to get the PS4 update software from here, but, do not download it from the blue button, that's a different file than what you need. Scroll down to this part of the page and click on "Perform a new installation of the system software." Read through the instructions there, and you'll download the system software from the link under step 2. Then, turn your PS4 on in Safe Mode and install the system software.
  
  There, your system's drive is upgraded and installed, now you just restore from your PS+ cloud save or your physical drive backup.
  
  _
  
  External Drive
  
  If you don't want to deal with all of the work of changing out your internal drive, or maybe you want to run a dual-drive system, you can use an external drive.
  
  A good USB 3.0 drive makes a great option for bulk storage. This way you won't be limited by what can fit in your system, but more importantly, you'll have the option to separate slower bulk storage from a faster internal drive.
  
  If you included the above external drive with, say, a 500GB or a 1TB SSD, you can have your OS, capture data, and frequently played / bigger games on a faster drive, giving your better load times across the board, whilst still having a secondary bulk drive for your game collection. This is personally what I'd recommend.
  
  But again, if you're just looking for an easy way to increase you system's storage capacity without dealing with hard drive swapping or OS installation, you could just get a large-capacity external drive.
  
  __
  
  The Point is
  
  Instead of getting rid of games and getting new ones, just increase the amount of space you can use to store them.

Very light issues this time, and it mostly revolves around value.

-CPU: I rarely recommend X SKUs for Ryzen, largely because you can overclock the non-X to the same clocks in almost any circumstance. But, if you don't want to mess with clocks, it's a good enough CPU for what it is. Since your initial post, though, 3rd-gen Ryzen (aka Zen 2) CPUs have come out and the 3600 has emerged as one of the best value gaming CPUs. If you could spare another $25, that'd be a much better option. Otherwise, I'd step down to the 2600. Keep in mind that you might have to request a boot kit from AMD to use 3rd-gen Ryzen with B450 boards.
-CPU Cooler: The Wraith cooler in box is actually just fine and if you want to save $40 you can drop the cooler entirely, but having seen the Deepcool Gammax GT BK in person I have to say it's a downright gorgeous cooler if you're into the RGB craze. It's about on par with the often-recommended Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO, with roughly the same design, just prettier RGB lights vs, for example, the Hyper 212 Black RGB.
-Motherboard: Your case can support full-ATX, and the full-ATX version of the motherboard you picked is $10 cheaper after rebate. The Pro4 has some of the better VRMs for B450, making for some decent overclocks, but the king of B450 boards is still the MSI B450 Tomahawk.
-RAM: No complaints here. You could step down to a brand like XPG to get RGB cheaper, but Corsair RGB is typically less fuss.
-Storage: The drive you've picked is a SATA M.2, and is honestly a great drive that I'd recommend. Still, considering you can step up to PCIe for $5 cheaper, that's probably what I'd suggest. Given how much I've hocked this drive lately I feel like people are wondering if I'm paid off by Sabrent, but it's just a really good value, using a top-tier controller with top-tier flash from Toshiba. Just remember to register it so you can get a five-year warranty, it's three years otherwise.
-GPU: I just about had a heart attack, thinking that AMD GPU prices had gone up again, but it turns out this one is just overpriced. The best RX 580 on the market is $220 right now, but I'd actually probably suggest going for Nvidia with a GTX 1660 or even 1660 Ti, both much better graphics cards for the money these days.
-Case: The airflow on this one is kind of meh thanks to the glass front panel, making air have to turn to get in, but it's a great looking case. Honestly, for the parts you have it's probably fine. Just keep in mind that it only comes with a single fan at the back, you'll want to buy some more for at least the front for some air intake.
-PSU: The trade war is unfortunately hitting power supplies hard, so just about any suggestions I could give for this are pricey. Still, at the price you're buying this, it looks like the EVGA G1+ is a better deal at $80 with no rebate for a fully modular PSU on a slightly better FSP platform vs. the CX550M's Great Wall platform. It's also 650W vs 550W.

Putting all of this together makes for a build that's barely more expensive, about $7 more at time of writing. (Note the incompatibility warning - as I mentioned, third gen Ryzen might need a boot kit from AMD so you can update the BIOS.)

yeah definitely! tons of online videos. i wouldn't consider myself an expert in computer knowledge, but i've built a couple of basic rigs and done work on my macbook. hardest part about replacing the hard drive is making sure you either

a.) have the necessary files to complete a full reinstall or


b.) can work a program like disk utility or carbon copy cloner to make an exact clone of your HDD (this is super simple either way)



I put a kingston SSDnow v300 120gb in my early 2011 macbook pro. it has a 2.7 i7, 16gb of ram (another easy and huge upgrade, technically overkill but i do graphic design and photography for a living) my mbp is great now.

I've read some trouble about the negotiated link speed on older gen MacBooks getting locked at 1.5gb/s instead of the 3 gb/s SATA II standard. This isn't really a problem, you can fix it i believe with a firmware patch, basically it means instead of getting ~200-210mb/s read and write, you'll get more like 128 mb/s and 170 mb/s ish. still A LOT faster than your standard hard drive. boot up time is dramatically reduced, and opening programs becomes a split second ordeal.


Here is the SSD i just installed | $69.99 (very good price for decent 120gb drive)

here is the connector to mount the SSD outside of the macbook to format it and clone your HDD to it. technically this isn't necessary, but its 8 bucks that might save you from pulling the computer apart again when you can't boot from the SSD.

-----------------------------------------------

Here's a good video that shows how straightforward replacing the HDD is in the older macbooks


Helpful video on how to clone an HDD with Carbon Copy Cloner


Great comparison on how drastically this improves your machine

Here's a few useful links:

Crucial.com | Sells RAM and SSD's, high quality and Mac compatible. Another alternative if you want to explore options


Carbon Copy Cloner download site. I used this to copy my HDD, had no issues

Samsun 840 EVO 120gb | Good price for a great SSD

OCZ Vertex 460 | Another great SSD

I'd recommend doing a RAM upgrade if you only have 1gb, that wouldn't run you much either. SSD is more bang-for-your-buck than RAM upgrade is IMO. Hope this helps! Feel free to pm me with any more questions!

I bought my laptop from Amazon. Was a little worried about it being damaged during shipping but I was confident that Amazon would make things right if that happened. I bought directly from Amazon, rather than from a 3rd party seller (make sure it says "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com" under the Buy button.) Unfortunately for me, when I bought it, it was $1,199 but fortunately for you, it is now $1,088. I'm honestly very surprised they lowered the price like that, considering it was already a steal at $1200 (IMO.) Oh, and for the record, I had no issues with damages during shipping. The laptop was in a box which was in a box which was in another box and there was plenty of protective elements within those boxes.

I have not had too many issues with my thermals, although this is my first gaming laptop so I don't have much to compare it to. I did a lot of reading before buying though so from what I have seen, I think it does a good job of keeping the components cool, even under heavy loads. The highest I have seen it go is around 85°C but once it gets over 80°, I usually either turn the fans up higher and/or get out my cooling pad (I bought this one from Amazon and have been pleased with it.) However, the fans can get really loud, so I use a headset when I have to turn the fans up. In general, the fans are not too loud, though (once again, just my opinion.) I will often play shows on Netflix or Hulu and can hear everything through the laptop speakers with no issues. I do carry around a portable bluetooth speaker for louder environments but when I'm just sitting at home, it is not needed.

I do remember reading that the older models of the Helios 300 (the ones with red accents and backlighting) had a lot of thermal issues and most people who either reviewed both or just owned both said that this model was significantly better in that regard. One thing that I have thought about doing is changing the thermal paste because that would apparently really help the older models but I have not seen any reports of anyone trying it with the 2019 model. I might just give it a shot because it seems like a very cheap and relatively easy way to shave a couple degrees off the temps. I'll have to look into that some more.

I actually have heard of that good xbox gamepass deal but I had no idea that it had PC games. As someone who has pretty much only gamed on PlayStation (at least since the early 2000's), I often forget that Xbox is owned by Microsoft so it makes sense they would have PC games. I will definitely be signing up for that after I finish writing this comment. Thank you so much for clueing me in.

One other thing, you will probably want to quickly buy another m.2 SSD because the one that comes with the laptop is fairly small. Just be careful about the one you buy because they are not all compatible, apparently. I am pretty sure that Acer has a list out there somewhere (though I don't think the list is all inclusive) but I bought this Sabrent 1TB drive based on what another reddit user recommended and have been very happy with it. It was extremely easy to install as well. I haven't gotten around to buying an 2.5" drive yet but I'll probably pick up a very large HDD around Christmas time. Or I might go for the SSD, maybe sacrificing a little bit of storage. I'll have to check prices at the time and think on that some more.

And no problem. I love talking about this laptop and I also enjoying helping people out so no worries. If you think of anything else you want to ask, I'll be here. If not, enjoy your new laptop!

Looks pretty good to me but I think a few small changes could get a little better value.

I'd suggest getting the 3000 or 3200MHz versions of your RAM instead of 2666. It's literally two dollars more on Amazon. for 3000.

You could possibly save a bit of money with a different motherboard, but if you like that particular one it should work great. I don't have any specific recommendations because I don't know if there's anything specific you needed that that board has.

Personally I don't like having have two different drives for OS and any programs, so I'd just go with a single 1TB 970 Evo for $228 and a HDD with no 2.5" SSD. Or to save a bit go with a HP EX920 for 38 bucks less. With either choice, enough super fast NVMe storage to fit the OS and every single program you'd realistically ever install is worth the loss of 250GB space total when you are also getting a massive storage HDD with several TB.



You could definitely save on the PSU unless you plan on getting a second 1080ti in SLI. A high end 8700k/single 1080ti system running CPU, GPU, and storage stress tests simultaneously would still be unlikely to ever hit 500W, and in real world usage would rarely pull over 400W. You could definitely save on the PSU while still having plenty of headroom. I definitely wouldn't go lower than 500 or 550, but there are plenty of top-tier brands of 650 and 750W Gold or Plat rated PSUs for much less than $140. EVGA's Supernova G2 and G3 are around 90 bucks for top quality with a 10-year warranty and gold efficiency.
Even the normal black colored 850W Corsair RMx is thirty bucks cheaper thatn the $140 white one you picked, which would pay for the other upgrades, and you usually don't even see the PSU or its wiring any more as most cases have a PSU shroud including the SPEC-OMEGA RGB you chose.

I'm not a fan of that case's plastic Transformers look, but if you like it, other than aesthetics it seems like it has every feature you'd want in a case. IMO NZXT's H500i looks a lot cleaner while still having built in controllable RGB and a glass side panel and is also 20 bucks cheaper without having to fill out a rebate form. If you do that though, I'd suggest getting one of NZXT's AIO CPU coolers instead of Corsair's to work with their LED sync software. Usually makes sense to try and keep sync-able RGB stuff the same brand for compatibility.

Everything you already have selected should work great together but some tweaks would get you a better deal for what you're paying.

I've had this board for a couple weeks, so I'll give you a quick review if you're interested.

Some context : I got this board initially because I'm obsessed with smaller form-factor builds, didn't need WiFi, and completely understood Biostar's reputation among enthusiasts, but I didn't want to wait for ASRock, MSI, or the other brands. As much I would have liked a board that had a stronger looking VRM and such, I really didn't want to wait around for the expected release date of those boards only to find they're not coming for another month or something.

Here is my build : R7 1700, 32GB (16x2) Ballistix RAM, 1 M.2 SSD, 4x sata SSDs, GTX 1070, and a 600w PSU. ( <- links if you're interested in specifics)


Anyways, onto the board. Initial impressions were pretty good. Nothing looked cheap except the IO plate which is just a sheet of metal, but that doesn't bother me. What DID bother me was the audio jacks were blocked on the IO plate, so you have to remove bits to make it fit. Getting the prongs to line up properly was a bit of a hassle, too, but not the worst experience I've had with an IO shield.

Everything on the board looked pretty sound. It came with 4x sata cables, and that's about it. Setup couldn't have been easier. I plugged everything in and it booted up with no issues. This board (for me) does however have anywhere from a 5-10 second black screen before reaching the bios every single time. Not really sure what that's about. Also, with raid enabled, the bios will flash for a moment, show the raid console deal, then go back to the bios before booting completely.

I used a Samsung 960 EVO (250GB) M.2 on the back, and it immediately recognized it without any driver fuss. Has been working exceptionally. I have a raid 0 set up in the bios for my 4 other drives hooked into the sata ports. I had no fuss getting an image from my graphics card on the initial boot. Everything just worked.

The bios. It's not exactly sparse considering it's a cheap board, and it's a Biostar, but it's very vague about what everything does. Setting some things up was a bit of a hassle because the lack of documentation and the unhelpful descriptions on the right-hand side. Getting it into raid mode was easy, but fan control is still a bit of a mystery to me, and the overclocking didn't make much sense until I did some research.

The fan control doesn't make much sense in the bios. First off, the fans default to having PWM control off, so both headers will be running at 100% on first boot (which I'm actually glad they do). Manual control doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It gives you a min and max C for different fan speeds, but setting the fan speeds is a bit different. There is a lower percentage (?) speed, and... "speed sensitivity"? I don't know what it means, but manual mode hasn't yielded any results that I could make sense of. I've only messed with it a couple times, but I really don't know what I'm doing in that regard. If anyone has any experience with that, I'd love to hear from you.

Overclocking was a mystery to me for a while. There is no core multiplier settings on the first screen for OC tweaking, and the voltages work with an offset instead of a set value. Eventually I figured out the only real option is to set a P-state overclock (which I like, personally). The catch is, when you enable the P-state overclock, the only value you can change is the core multiplier. If you change the set voltage, it will default to what I assume is a lower P-state. When trying to set my own voltage, it wouldn't run any higher than 2.7GHz. After setting the core clock, you have to back out of the P-state settings and add voltage via the +vcore voltage offset instead. Another note, the P-state overclock is only for P0, I believe.

RAM overclocking seems fine. I haven't touched it hardly at all, but my 2400GHz RAM went up to 2667GHz without any extra voltage. The bios allows you to set timings, and the voltage offset for the RAM and SOC.

Windows setup was a little bit of a mess at first. After the fresh install, it kept crashing after 5-10~ minutes of use, and the only thing that fixed it was eventually making it long enough to install Windows updates (had to do error correction along the way because of a couple failed installs... slow internet is to blame). I think that is more of a Ryzen and Windows thing than it is the board's fault.

I've been running it at ~3.9 @ 1.38V on my 1700 for a couple weeks now. Trying to push it any further past 3.9 just isn't working for me. Not sure if that is a power limit of the 4-pin, or maybe the power delivery just isn't up to it? Maybe my CPU just doesn't like it? Either way, I'm quite happy even reaching 3.9 on my chip, and I'm even more impressed that the board has kept up with it so far.

Hmm... basic stuff. No WiFi, ethernet hasn't given me any issues, IO could maybe use an extra USB port here or there, but it's been enough for me. I'm very glad to see USB-C on there, but I haven't used it just yet. I haven't used the sound card at all. If that is a big factor for you, I can't really say how good it is. I have a DAC/AMP, and my phones definitely cannot be appropriately driven by the built in, so I can't say whether or not it's decent. If you want, I can borrow some other headphones from someone and try it out, but otherwise, not sure what else to say. I'm pretty happy with this little guy. Impressed, even.

If you have any questions, let me know!

EDIT : Added links to parts. Also here is my CPU-Z validation.

Edit: prebuilt included at bottom of post.

If your issue with building a pc is taking time to select parts, you can have the friendly people at r/buildapcforme put together a list of parts for you, and then you'd only have to visit their neatly organized set of links and put the items in your cart (usually just on amazon.com and newegg.com, occasionally ebay.com as well).

As for prebuilts, just look for something cheap. Basically anything nowadays can run the games you've listed.

If you want to go for dirt cheap, and don't mind ordering parts, you can build a computer with the ryzen 3200g APU (no dedicated GPU), 8 GB of RAM, and a b450 motherboard for... cheap. Just off the top of my head... $100 for the CPU (Actually APU), 8 GB RAM, currently $30ish, though usually around $50 (and the prices are in flux right now), Almost $100 for a motherboard with wifi, though this can be $50 if you plug it into your home router with an ethernet cable. Add a $50 case, a more than adequate, good quality $50 PSU, as well as a small-ish SSD (the linked one is a 512 GB priced at $70) and you've got yourself a completed build. Note that you'll need a desk, chair, monitor, speakers/headset, keyboard, and mouse to use this as well, and a pci-e wireless adapter if you want wifi (assuming you didn't spring for the motherboard that has built in wifi.)

Edit: Ran that through a calculator. Assuming that RAM ends up costing you $50 instead of $30, and you spring for the motherboard with WIFI, your computer will cost $350 $420. A monitor, keyboard, and mouse will jack the price up another $150ish, since most decent 1080p monitors are $100 new. You'll also need speakers, or a headset. I've edited my list above to add this, but didn't factor in price. You're most likely looking at an additional $200 for perhipials, including moniotor, if you go the cheap route; this also assumes that you have a desk (any kind that will fit a monitor, keyboard, and mouse up top, in addition to your computer tower below, will suffice) and a chair to sit in.

If you want to go the laptop route, used gaming laptops with a 960m or similar dedicated GPU usually go for about $500-$600 on Ebay. Feel free to shop around; I recommend looking specifically for a model that has support for an M.2 SSD, as you can rock a small (200-512 GB range) m.2 SSD in addition to a large (but cheap) 1 or 2 TB laptop (2.5 inch) HDD. Install the OS to the SSD, and enjoy fast as hell computer speeds; install games to the HDD and enjoy vast amounts of storage for super cheap. (This can also be done for your desktop, but most laptops only support 1 SATA storage device.)

And, hey would you look at that. I forgot to include a storage device in your system build! I'll add it in and adjust the price accordingly (probably up $50, for a total of $400.)

For comparison, I found this prebuilt computer It's got a better GPU, but the CPU is a generation behind what I've listed. It even seems to come with a keyboard and mouse. All in all, a better gaming machine, but with a price tag to reflect it; It was at $580 when I posted the link. Which honestly isn't all that bad. At all.

You know what. Screw the rest of my post. Buy that prebuilt and you're all set. Well, except for the monitor. And maybe Wifi? And speakers. But still, it's a good price. Note: There's a $530 option, the GPU is a massive downgrade and it's not worth saving $50 to get it instead of the $580 computer. Although, truthfully, both will serve your needs just fine.

(Sorry for formatting I’m on mobile)

I don’t know anything about intel so I’ll leave the cpu to someone else but here are some other parts that leave a decent budget for the cpu. Btw I just assumed that this is USD.

Cpu: byo

motherboard: (you can’t choose a motherboard without knowing the cpu sorry) make sure that you cpu is compatible AND works well with you motherboard aswell a quick google will solve that issue

Ram: https://www.amazon.com/G-Skill-Ripjaws-288-Pin-Desktop-F4-2400C15D-16GVR/dp/B013J7T5K6/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=gskill+ripjaws+16gb+ddr4&qid=1562735181&s=gateway&sr=8-2

GPU: https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GeForce-Windforce-DisplayPort-Gv-N166TWF2OC-6GD/dp/B07NJQLQWP/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?keywords=1660&qid=1562735531&s=gateway&sr=8-2

Psu: you’ll have to do some wattage calculations inputting your pc parts into this website https://seasonic.com/wattage-calculator# (tip: just ignore the sliders on the wattage calculator they will automatically adjust to the parts you choose) also regarding the wattage calculator get a power supply 50 watts or more over what it says and btw I would reccomend Corsair power supplies.

Case: choose whatever case you like best but make sure that it can fit your motherboard and other parts (e.g. a regular atx motherboard isn’t gonna fit into micro or atx mini itx case) it’s pretty easy to check just read the product descriptions for what size the motherboard is and what motherboard sizes the case supports.

Ignore sound cards unless you plan to use this pc for music production and ignore wifi cards unless you play games on wifi which I highly advise against.

Cpu cooler: unless you plan to overclock then the stock cooler is ugly but fine.

Storage: 120gb ssd (for operating system, google, game launchers, and fav games) https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-120GB-Solid-SA400S37-120G/dp/B01N6JQS8C/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?keywords=kingston+120gb+ssd&qid=1562736265&s=gateway&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=8-1

Storage 2: well you’ll have to decide on the amount for storage u need as there are different models from 1tb to 10tb again only get what u need. but for you price I reccomend: https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Deskptop-1Terabyte-5400-7200RPM-Applications/dp/B06XR3LT6W/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=wd+blue+1tb&qid=1562736437&s=gateway&sr=8-4

Case fans: depending on the case you buy it may come with fans or not. Sometimes the seller say the case includes fans and they only include 1 or 2 I would reccommend 3 fans at least (2 at front 1 at the back) Corsair, NZXT, noctua, cooler master and thermaltake make good fans.

Note: idk if intel cpu’s Comes with thermal paste with it (wether it’s pre-applied like Ryzen or in a tube) but make sure you have thermal paste on hand

Sorry I couldn’t help with cpu and motherboard but I hope this helps good luck :)

Sure, here's a super cheap SSD of equivalent capacity:

SanDisk SSD PLUS 240GB Internal SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s, 2.5"/7mm - SDSSDA-240G-G26

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F9G43WU/

If you want to get a different SSD, just make sure it's a 2.5in SATA. I like SanDisk, Samsung and Intel brand SSD's.

Here's a 4gb Stick that should be compatible (don't hold me to that, and make sure you can return it if it isn't):

Lenovo 55Y3711 RAM Module - 4 GB - DDR3 SDRAM - 1333MHz DDR3-1333/PC3-10600 - ECC - 204-pin SoDIMM

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003BC5ZBI/

That will get you up to 8GB or 6GB, depending on if it comes with 1 4gb or 2 2gb sticks. Either will be better than 4.

And here's some generic info and resources I like to give new Linux users:

The biggest change from the Windows world will be the different interfaces to choose from. While they're one of the best features of Linux, the number of choices and strong opinions on the matter can be overwhelming to new users. And everyone in the community is certain that theirs is the best. Don't stress out about picking the "right" one. You can always change it later (especially if you choose something Ubuntu based). Pick one that has a large user base, good community, and excellent documentation.

Linux comes in many different flavors, or "Distributions". Often shortened to "Distros". The most obvious difference between Distros is the interface (or "Desktop Environment" or "DE"). It's not the only thing that sets them apart, but it's the most noticeable.

I would recommend Ubuntu or any one of it's variants. The best variants (in my opinion) are Linux mint and Linux Lite. Linux Lite having the most "Windows like" interface. Linux Lite also has additional tools to install common programs that Windows users are accustomed to. Ones that don't come with other Distros by default.

Until recently Ubuntu used an interface called "Unity". As of the last couple of releases, they have switched to Gnome. However, they've made gnome look a lot like Unity, so you should be able to follow instructions you find on the internet without too much trouble.

Gnome has a ton of customizations available via the "Gnome extensions" website. If you're willing to relearn how to interact with your computer's interface, it's a good fit for someone who wants customization.

Here's a good article with the basics of getting up and running with Ubuntu.

https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/migrating-from-windows-7-to-ubuntu/

Here's Ubuntu's website for downloading and documentation:

https://www.ubuntu.com/desktop

The official "Getting starting" guide:

https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/try-ubuntu-before-you-install#0

Here's the list of official Ubuntu Distributions:

https://www.ubuntu.com/download/flavours

Here's a great article explaining the difference between the official Ubuntu Distribution (written by an awesome Redditor Killyourfm):

"Forbes: Linux For Beginners: Understanding The Many Versions Of Ubuntu":
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2018/11/28/linux-for-beginners-understanding-the-many-versions-of-ubuntu/

Here's the official install guide:

https://tutorials.ubuntu.com/tutorial/tutorial-install-ubuntu-desktop#0

An install guide for Dual Booting:

http://linuxiumcomau.blogspot.com/2018/04/installing-ubuntu-along-side-windows-ie.html?m=1

And here's Linux Lite's official page:

https://www.linuxliteos.com

Gnome extensions:

https://extensions.gnome.org

I agree with what a lot has been said so far. The 3600x is only the smallest improvement over the 3600 and definetly not worth the price, in my opinion. The 3600 is the best bang for your buck CPU and all you really need for gaming.

I would reccomnd trying to find a nvme pcie ssd, right now you have a m.2 sata which uses a sata connection so it's just about the same speeds as your standard ssd. I don't know what prices are like in Canada (Im in the US) but I can get a 500gb pcie samsung ssd for 90 bucks and the read/write speed is 3500mbs/2500mbs vs 560mbs/530mbs respectively. It's a huge increase in speed. Samsung 970 EVO 500GB - NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSD (MZ-V7E500BW) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BN4NJ2J/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_r0bBDbQ1P13YQ

Also I would get a better pcu. You want to shoot for a 80+ gold or higher, gold is kinda your standard, as anything below, especially bronze, is a lot less efficient and adds excess heat into your system. I like evga but a lot swear by corsair or coolermaster. Up to you.

I would also say that the Radeon 5700xt is a better gpu that out performs the 2060 super as well as being a better price but if you are set in gsync and or just like Nvidia products I get that. If you decide to get the 5700xt I would suggest getting an aftermarket one with a better blower.

Good luck my dude and happy building!

> They are about the same price, while the Radeon seems to have a little bit better performance, while the GTX 960 uses less power. What do you think on that?

The difference in performance is not that small. I'd go with the R9 380 – apart from the higher energy use it has no drawback.

> A lot of reviews said, that the i3 is definitely faster, but not future proof since it only has two cores.

2 cores but 4 threads, which so far means that all games that rely on more than two cores run perfectly fine. The i3-6100 is a great gaming cpu and will be faster than the i5-6400 in many games, as it has a higher clock. Not that the i5-6400 would be too slow in practice.

> I don't really know a lot about chipsets and how taking the best one are relevant in a gaming PC.

They aren't. The problem with H110 boards is that they have only two ramslots, maxing out your mainboard with your two 4GB sticks, which will be an issue later. Get 1x8GB, and better a B150 board with 4 ramslots to not have this problem.

> Corsair VS 450W ATX Power Supply

That's not a good idea

> Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB - 62€

That's too expensive for that SSD. The 120GB model of the Sandisk Plus is a great budget pick for 40€. but 62€ is too near to the better SSDs, like the UltraII or Samsung 850 Evo.

Altogether, I think this would be a good build for your friend:

pc-kombo shared list

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i3-6100 | EUR 118,50 @ Amazon.de
Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-B150M-DS3H | EUR 73,90 @ Cyberport
Memory | Crucial CT8G4DFD8213 (8 GB) | EUR 26,01 @ Amazon.de
SSD | SanDisk Ultra II 240 (256 GB) | EUR 65,99 @ Amazon.de
Video Card | Radeon R9 380 | EUR 188,28 @ Amazon.de
Case | Cooler Master N300 | EUR 45,70 @ Amazon.de
Power Supply | Super Flower Golden Green HX (450 W) | EUR 69,21 @ Amazon.de
| Total | €590.58
| Generated by pc-kombo 23.05.2016 |

Be aware that AMD might (paper-)release new gpus on the 1th of June that could replace the R9 380 with a faster alternative. Doesn't matter if you want a PC now, but something to check if it takes some time.

There are some laptops out there for sure that have SSDs soldered in (usually chromebooks and newer macbooks), but if it has a traditional HDD you should be able to replace it with an SSD by opening the case and unplugging the old one. Laptops can have both SSDs and HDDs if they have enough room inside but I don't think it's very common, I know some newer gaming laptops have both so you get the speed of the SSD for the OS and games but still have plenty of storage on the HDD and in some cases people replace the optical drive with a secondary SSD/HDD. You're running McAfee on the computer that's slow? That could definitely be the problem there. I don't know how well it actually detects viruses but as far as performance goes it's a dealbreaker for me. I just helped a buddy take that off of his brand new Dell all-in-one because it was borderline unusable out of the box and basically all I did was uninstall McAfee. There are honestly better options out the available for free like BitDefender or even Windows Defender is pretty good. Here's a guide I like to look at that compares different AV like that.

https://www.tomsguide.com/us/best-free-antivirus,review-6003.html

BitDefender Free is what I use personally. Malwarebytes is pretty great as well, it helped me save my buddy a few hundred dollars and a few days of time that Best Buy wanted to scam him out of. Here's a decent SSD for the price, not the best and not the most storage but for $30 you can't beat it.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-240GB-Solid-SA400S37-240G/dp/B01N5IB20Q/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1549160964&sr=1-2&keywords=kingston+ssd

You could always get a bigger one or better brand too just depending on how much you want to spend.

> I remember buying snow leopard, but I think it needed a different software ?

No, you don't need different software, Snow Leopard is fine. However, you can update the iMac 2008 to OS X 10.11 El Capitan via the Mac App Store. You need to use this link if you want to upgrade it to OS X 10.11 El Capitan:

• https://itunes.apple.com/app/os-x-el-capitan/id1147835434?ls=1&mt=12
  
  What can you do to breath new life into it?
  
  -----
  
  Next to installing the most recent macOS version it can run, as described above, you can also add more RAM to it and replace the internal HDD with an SSD!
  
  The RAM upgrade is very easy to do. The iMac 2008 supports up to 6 GB RAM (1 x 4 GB RAM module, 1 x 2 GB RAM module). It has two RAM slots, meaning two RAM modules in total will fit in. A higher total amount than 6 GB RAM won't work due to a limitation in the logic board.
  
  The iMac 2008 needs RAM that matches the following specification:
  
  PC2-6400 DDR2 800 MHz, 200-pin
  
  Here are some examples of RAM modules that should work flawlessly in the machine:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Memory-MacBook-PC2-6400-800MHz-MemoryMasters/dp/B07NBV4MVN/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/OWC-PC2-6400-800MHz-SO-DIMM-Upgrade/dp/B00KHZEKS6/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/2048MB-Samsung-Original-PC2-6400-SO-DIMM/dp/B0026SD96G/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Memory-SO-DIMM-PC2-6400S-800MHz-HMP351S6AFR8C-S6/dp/B004RKX5T2/
  
  You can mix different RAM brands without any problem, just make sure that the RAM you buy remains within the specification outlined above.
  
  You may find information online which states that your iMac 2008 supposedly only supports 4 GB RAM (2 x 4 GB RAM modules), but this is outdated information! Back in 2008, 4 GB RAM modules were not commonly available, so Apple could only test with 2 x 2 GB RAM = 4 GB RAM. However, when 4 GB RAM modules became commonly available, users found out that the iMac 2008 can actually recognize and utilize up to 6 GB RAM, so I recommend that you add 6 GB RAM. I recommend that you update to OS X 10.11 El Capitan before you do the RAM upgrade, the reason being that the iMac will run the latest firmware available for it to rule out any possible issues related to an outdated OS.
  
  Before doing the RAM upgrade, check which RAM modules are already in there via the Apple menu at the top left corner of the screen -> "About This Mac" -> "Memory". If a 2 GB RAM module is already in there, you only need to buy 1 x 4 GB RAM module for the upgrade.
  
  This video shows the RAM upgrade procedure (again, extremely easy to do):
  
  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBVUp62p2QA
  
  -----
  
  As for the SSD:
  
  The SSD upgrade would give the machine an even greater speed boost (though you should do both the SSD & RAM upgrade, if you can), but is also far more complicated than the RAM upgrade. An SSD improves performance dramatically: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s9PngoDlD28
  
  Getting an SSD in there requires a partial disassembly of the device, which you should only do personally if you are very much technically inclined, otherwise let someone else do it for you.
  
  You need an SSD that matches the following criteria:
  
  
• 2.5" form factor
  
• SATA3-compatible
  
  Here are some examples of SSDs which should work fine:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-500GB-SSD-WDS500G2B0A/dp/B073SBZ8YH/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-SSD-PLUS-Internal-SDSSDA-1T00-G26/dp/B07D998212/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-250GB-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E250E/dp/B0793FNNP6/
  
• https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX500-250GB-NAND-Internal/dp/B0781VSXBP/
  
  The SSDs have a physical size of 2.5", yet the HDD that is currently in your iMac is 3.5" in size. You will need an adapter like this one to make the SSD fit in:
  
  
• https://www.amazon.com/NewerTech-AdaptaDrive-Drive-Converter-Bracket/dp/B005PZDVF6/
  
  This video shows the SSD upgrade procedure:
  
  
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qriduyHGBG8
  
  Again, I recommend that you let someone else do the SSD upgrade for you if you think that you won't be able to perform the upgrade yourself. It's worth it, though, as it's the single greatest update you can add to the machine.

If it's content creation you want to do (ala running GTA V on good settings while recording it with minimal performance impact), then you should probably choose a core i7 over an i5. I run an i5 4670k with crossfired R9 290x's and video recording can still impact performance .

This is not so much the case when I record with AMD Raptr's in built GVR function as that's GPU based. Nvidia graphics cards also ship with software with its own GPU based recorder which means that will probably perform similarly, if not better - bypassing your need for an i7,but when I use a dedicated video recorder the frame rate impact is noticeable, even if it isn't a great impact in most games. CPU intense games will suffer more in this scenario.

But if you have dedicated recording software that you want to use then it's the CPU you're gonna want to pay a little attention to. Further to this, video editting/creation software will also benefit a lot from the i7. A hyperthreaded i7 will have 4 physical cores, but 8 virtual cores. Means better multi tasking, and more efficient content creation (and better quality recording).

It's not impossible to do any of this on an i5, an i5 on its own is more than just fine for gaming (and having whatever websites running in the background) but when it comes to content creation an i7 really pays dividends. I suppose if money really is a constraint at the moment then you could skip on getting an i7 for now and see how your i5 treats you, as I said it should still work reasonably.

As suggested earlier, the GTX 970 is a great shout. Excellent price:performance ratio, right now. Low power consumption, eats through most games on ultra settings (as long as it isn't at 4K resolution).

You definitely need new sorage, I'd suggest getting a small solid state drive (SSD) , perhaps 256 GB as they're priced rather reasonably now. Crucial sells them on amazon for about £76. This should be for your Operating System(OS) and to install GTA V onto. This will allow your game and OS to run at their fastest capability. I would avoid Kingston SSD's.

And in addition to this, it's definitely worth finding a larger Hard drive (HDD) for storing all your other data and stuff on (like videos, photos, music, games you're not playing at the moment). decent 1TB ones can go for around £40 these days. It is possible to hold off on this, and just get the SSD first and add the HDD later when you have more money - but SSD's are the way PC's are going now because their lightning speed and low power consumption are transformative to the PC experience (and should also improve content creation speeds to an extent).

your RAM should be fine, though going up to 16GB should help with video editors and stuff, though I dont think it's the most alarming thing that needs to be upgraded. It should play GTA V fine. Power supply seems fine, too.

There are definitely many options for SSD available, my recommendation would be to go for a 970 evo for your 500GB-1TB SSD that you want to guarantee speed on, then do a 2TB Sabrent Rocket (Gen 3) as it is the best price per performance as far as I know and its only problem got solved with some software (previously it couldnt clone 512e, only 4k, in case you wanted to copy over any existing drives you have). For my PC personally, as I just want to use it for gaming, light work, and on/off streaming/video editing purposes, I went with a Seagate Firecuda 510 2TB, as it outperformed the 970 pro or was very competitive with it in all areas for a much, much lower price point (I got mine for $360 on newegg).

As for the mobo, the Taichi chipset overheating was actually just due to the case being used. Your case is a good one, so this shouldn't be a concern at all. Another Taichi issue is possible loud fan, but that is just a possible problem with the base Bios I believe, so as soon as you update that problem goes away. The taichi is regarded as the best board at your price point by respected motherboard expert buildzoid. I'd highly recommend skipping to 18:22 for relevant info, but hey if you have time and want to learn more then go for it. For my PC, I went with the ASUS Crosshair VIII Hero at $360, which was probably overkill but I havent had any complaints with it and it did excellent for me on memory overclocking. I don't think you can go wrong with the Taichi, it has all the features you want and is a great $300 board provided you have a good case.

I know you didnt ask lol but heres how your case's thermals stack up courtesy of gamersnexus: https://www.gamersnexus.net/images/media/2019/cases/h710/nzxt-h710-cpu_all.png

Its middle of the pack at stock which is more than serviceable, definitely not a concern.

Oh and just in case you were curious this is the full build I went with :)

Oh! And a money saving tip: Google shopping/express/whatever they're currently calling it typically has a very good first purchase/sign up/whatever bonus going, could be very worth seeing if a couple parts are available on it so you can knock 15 or 25 bucks off (forgot what the limit was, but they'll advertise it as a %, with an amount limit obviously), all the little savings here and there can add up. Supposedly right now it is 25% off your first order, unsure on the limit. I used it to get a webcam, a couple case fans, and a cd/dvd drive.

e: For some reason this guy has the Rocket as "sambrent" rocket lol, but its a decent video showing some different SSD options and their performance.

Yeah sure, the Samsung ones are really great. Price wise they go for more than a hard drive but are definitely worth it. This one here is going for around £88 new for 250GB ($130) but will be cheaper if you are buying in a already built PC.

The sales pitch is that SSDs are around 10x faster than regular hard drives. The reason this is useful is because DayZ has a lot of landscape and objects that are read directly off your drive every time they come into view. The faster the drive, the faster your game. It will also increase your FPS by a healthy amount. My game looks fantastic after upgrading and I was even able to run the game in full 1080 HD which was uncomfortable before (the FPS was too low for me to enjoy it).

Also DayZ is currently really processor heavy and doesn't necessarily rely on a graphics card as much as other games. This may change in the future however. I would suggest getting an Intel processor definitely with at least 3.0Ghz power or more if possible.

Since this is a laptop you are buying, I would suggest looking for one with an Intel processor (i5 if you can) with an SSD and a graphics card if you want. The Intel chip has an inbuilt graphics card which will run the game fine if you have an SSD but the game may rely on a graphics card more in the future so getting one could be a good idea in the long run.

This may cost slightly more but will run the game 10x better than the laptop you posted and you will be so much happier I promise. The Intel chip will also help you do everything else you need to do on the PC brilliantly and will last you a long time. Hope I've helped and see you Chernarus!

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E500BW/dp/B01LYFKX41?th=1
Check out the read/write comparison of this to the traditional SSD. This is one of the big reasons that MOBO I suggested is amazing. But you can definitely wait for this.

I know it's super hard to wait, but if you're planning to buy more ram in 2 weeks, then I would save the money and just get 16gb in 2 weeks and hold off on this build.

But to answer your question, 1 stick will work just fine in the mean time. Don't waste the money on a 2x4gb setup, 16gb is pretty much the sweet spot for gaming right now. 32 is unnecessary and overkill for gaming.

However, you've got a real nice pc build planned out! Congrats

Another word of advice, most pc enthusiasts will tell you to clean the thermal paste off the cooler and reapply before mating it with the CPU but if yours is anything like mine was, it came from the factory perfect. Plus it hasn't had enough shelf life to affect the paste on the cooler itself. Leave it and save yourself a step. I just booted my pc after getting off work, my CPU idles at 31 degrees Celsius with the Wraith cooler and factory applied paste.

The PSU is (mostly) fine, the extra 4 pins on that motherboard are for LN2 cooling so no worries.

Longevity should be a non issue.

Though i would not get that 1TB NVME ssd, its overpriced and 1TB will be eaten alive by any games so you may want.

SSD's only make game loading faster, they do not give you more FPS

​

Here: I made some modifications to your build

​

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/KfP3FG

​

This shifts the budget to a better power supply while shifting to a smaller capacity SATA SSD yes but NVME really isnt worth the price premium IMHO and i will be honest I think 1TB SSD's are still a bit too pricey.

NVME is only better for fast data transfer and or if you are going to make this into a media content creation PC but otherwise I would skip it.

Its still better to pair a traditional SSD with a HDD for mass storage, SSD's are great boot drives yes and having them is a great boon indeed.

But as having games on them..... eh its nice to have but not needed.

I mean if you still want a NVME 1TB ssd well there are cheaper options such as this:

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-1TB-NAND-NVMe-PCIe/dp/B07J2Q4SWZ/ref=asc_df_B07J2Q4SWZ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309818716690&hvpos=1o2&hvnetw=g&hvrand=973939605986231758&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=&hvtargid=pla-561975664289&th=1

​

Far cheaper and will work fairly well

​

There is also this:

​

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07LGF54XR/ref=sspa_dk_detail_3?pd_rd_i=B07LGF54XR&pd_rd_w=USMgC&pf_rd_p=45a72588-80f7-4414-9851-786f6c16d42b&pd_rd_wg=vMwi3&pf_rd_r=DWSWZ79J2EJQKBNYFEEM&pd_rd_r=9e0fcf13-b324-4fa1-b2e2-6159eaf90cfa&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFTU1JLTTdaVFNVTkUmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTJTWjdYWlY4MEZPQzMmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMTAwNDE4M0ZLMEZJMFZSOTdIMyZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2RldGFpbCZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU&th=1

​

I hear good things about the sabrant rocket, a fairly affordable NVME SSD.

Sabrent isnt like samsung (they are a bit of a off brand) but its not a bad deal there :D

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 7 1700 3GHz 8-Core Processor | $279.49 @ Amazon
CPU Cooler | Corsair - H110i 113.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler | $109.99 @ Amazon
Thermal Compound | Arctic Silver - 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste | $7.25 @ Amazon
Motherboard | MSI - X370 GAMING PLUS ATX AM4 Motherboard | $116.16 @ Amazon
Memory | G.Skill - Trident Z RGB 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $238.50 @ Amazon
Storage | Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $349.99
Storage | Samsung - 960 EVO 1TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive | $445.41 @ Amazon
Case | Corsair - Crystal 460X RGB ATX Mid Tower Case | $131.99
Power Supply | EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | $119.99 @ Amazon
Case Fan | Corsair - SP120 RGB High Performance 52.0 CFM 120mm Fan | $19.98 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1818.75
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-03-24 12:03 EDT-0400 |

PCpartpicker didn't find all the amazon links.

Case Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Corsair-Crystal-Tempered-Glass-Compact/dp/B01LA2LB7W/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1521906800&sr=8-2&keywords=460x%2Bcorsair&th=1

SSD Amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521906876&sr=8-1&keywords=860+evo+1tb

With some pretty easy overclocking, messing around with XMP settings in BIOS and voltage, you can very easily push the CPU to 3.8 Ghz, People claim to push it to 4.0 Ghz though say it seemed to be a little unstable.

If you haven't cleaned out your PSU, you should. If it's younger than 5 years it's definitely still good. 100$ saved.

Windows can be obtained for free, only disadvantage is a small Windows 10 watermark on the lower right corner, and some of the OS customization settings are locked. It doesn't bother me, and it certainly doesn't convince me to spend 100$ for customization.

M.2 nvme SSDs are many times faster than a SATA SSD, for a boot drive you won't see a huge difference in boot time, but file transfer and such it definitely shines.

The extra fan is for an exhaust for the back of the case. You'll need a fan hub Here: https://www.amazon.com/SilverStone-System-Cables-Black-CPF04/dp/B00VNW556I/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1521908068&sr=1-3&keywords=fan+hub Forgot about it :/

Ive built with this case before, and it comes with a nice SSD mounting array behind the motherboard, a kinda annoying but spacious PSU basement and great air flow. tempered glass oooo

Buy zip ties. like 50. Zip ties are your friend and so is your fully modular PSU

If you want help with your CPU overclocking, you can pm me, or look up a guide on overclockers forum. Really helpful people over there.

I made it all Amazon, because of prime, which is can save you a lot of shipping. With the cheaper vendors, its cheaper for the part, but the shipping would put you over budget.

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-500GB-Ultra-NAND-SATA/dp/B072R78B6Q/ref=sxin_4_ac_d_pm?keywords=sandisk+ssd&pd_rd_i=B072R78B6Q&pd_rd_r=6e48913a-82f5-47ee-a878-bba6330f0011&pd_rd_w=ouwib&pd_rd_wg=eDL6g&pf_rd_p=64aaff2e-3b89-4fee-a107-2469ecbc5733&pf_rd_r=9ZFFWMG7WH4XJZZRQ87D&qid=1563622854&s=gateway my ssd. Marginally (almost certainly not noticeably) faster speeds, but it's a trusted brand.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=870+evo&qid=1563623512&s=gateway&sr=8-1 Arguably the best SATA SSD you can buy, and is very reasonably priced. Well trusted, better technology than off-brand gives better random seek times etc. Definitely worth having. Maybe 10% faster in general than yours or mine

https://www.amazon.com/XPG-SX8200-Gen3x4-3000MB-ASX8200PNP-1TT-C/dp/B07K1J3C23/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=adata+nvme&qid=1563623699&s=gateway&sr=8-1 The best bang for your buck if you're taking the next step up into the NVME world MAKE SURE YOUR BOARD HAS THE SLOT FOR IT. roughly 7 times the speeds of the first two ssd mentioned. Significantly higher price per gig

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-Plus-MZ-V7S1T0B/dp/B07MFZY2F2/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=970+evo+pro+plus&qid=1563624021&s=gateway&sr=8-1 The flagship. Everybody seems to need one. Marginally better than the previous mention in reality. YOU WILL NOT NOTICE A DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TWO UNLESS YOU ARE SPECIFICALLY TESTING THEM.

I have posted there, but thank you for answering so many questions.

> If you haven't already started setting things up, you'll likely want to replace those Seagate Cheetahs with 2.5" WD Red drives. They are extremely reliable and not known to fail like the Cheetahs (and really any high speed SAS drives) are.

I installed Win10 last night just to tinker with it, but right now I am planning on spending $96 on 3 of these 240GB SSDs and using them as a primary Raid 5 array. I have a couple 6TB WD Red drives and I think the smart move is to buy another one and set up an additional Raid 5 array for my file and media storage. I'm currently only using ~2TB for personal files/videos/photos and ~4TB for Movies/TV Shows, so I think 3 6TB in drives in Raid 5 should last me for now.

> If you create a new virtual disk, ALL DATA ON THE DRIVES WILL BE LOST. it creates a clean slate when you do this.

So I guess the only way to ensure no data loss is to back all of my stuff up across different PCs in the house, make the new VD, and transfer it all back over. Got it.

> If you want to quiet the system down, you'll need to enable manual fan control through iDRAC IPMI commands. I wouldn't recommend this unless you are comfortable with lowering the life expectancy of the hardware. Keep in mind that your X5690s are high-TDP processors and need a lot of cooling to keep them from melting

Would this be an option: Remove the plastic ducting that houses the two jet engines and replace the current CPU heatsinks with something like this. Would those be sufficient cooling for the CPUs? Seeing as how I'll be going from mechanical drives to 3, I imagine I can space them intelligently to maximize airflow and replace the rear turbofans with two standard quiet case fans. Thoughts?

> Additional advice: keep your second power supply plugged in, and replace your RAID battery to ensure that the cache works properly.

The guy I got it from has two more power supplies he's giving me on Tuesday for it. Currently one of them has a yellow light and the front panel shows an error to check PS1.

> That's all I can say. I recommend using CentOS/RHEL 7 or 8, or Ubuntu 18.04 on the system for optimal compatibility. Drivers are difficult on newer versions of Windows, specifically graphics drivers are quite the pain.

I run CentOS on my webserver and I believe we run CentOS on our Axure servers for my business (not my area of expertise), so I'm familiar enough with it to do things. But, because I'm using this internally I am more comfortable running Windows on it as that's where my experience with Plex, Minecraft, networking, etc. is.

I'm not an SA though, so while I understand that Windows Server is meant for server environments, I don't know what benefit Windows Server would have over Windows 10 for this application. Thoughts?

haha, Well I love your honest opinion about the shit you care about.

Anways, you don't need anything too ridiculous to max out your budget. The MSI GT60 Dominator-424 would do great for you.

Also, it would be a good idea to get a Samsung 840 Evo and slap that in there as your boot drive. It's pretty easy as it comes with drive cloning software so you don't even have to reinstall your OS or anything.

It'll also play your games at high to ultra settings, even with WoW addons whic you should have if you're trying to play competitively. Also it will be well capable of playing with high settings even with the new character models being introduced in WoD.

Change the SSD. The Crucial MX100 is cheaper and better.

http://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX100-adapter-Internal-CT256MX100SSD1/dp/B00KFAGCWK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1411622882&sr=8-1&keywords=crucial+mx100+256gb

You could also get a Corsair CX600M for $20 cheaper and it'd be way more than enough to run the system. Or, an EVGA Supernova 750G2 for $15 cheaper.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139048&cm_re=cx600m-_-17-139-048-_-Product

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817438028

For the price I'd say the EVGA looks the best.

The case looks good. Another alternative if you want a lot more cooling is the Rosewill Blackhawk, but it looks more flashy and perhaps less refined.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147107

As for the keyboard, honestly I'd not even think about going with such a basic keyboard unless it was for a very budget build. You'll be better served by getting something like the CM Storm Devastator Mouse/Keyboard combo. The keyboard is available either Red or Blue backlit and is pretty good for typing because it has well-spaced keys and good key travel. The mouse has buttons for adjusting DPI on the fly and side buttons you can use while gaming. Even if you already have a better mouse, it'd work great as a backup.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LZVP71A/ref=gno_cart_title_0?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER

The rest looks solid. Good luck!

I don't have very much experience with SSDs (I have a WD SATA 500 gb) but it might be worthwhile to pay for a Western Digital or other more name brand. I am not trying to spark an argument over the best SSD brand or anything but I think that as far as support and future reliability goes, the WD or Samsung might be a move if you are willing to make the 40-50 dollar price jump. I have heard that Samsung makes some very nice SSDs - https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=samsung+1tb&qid=1574356509&s=electronics&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=1-3

Other than that, looks good. Make sure when you build it to build the RAM in the correct slots so it will run at full speed and give you dual channel capability.

Best of luck to you, and welcome to PCMR.

Have you checked Amazon? They usually have these SSDs along the same price tag. I’ve seen them 85-100$ USD. There’s a Western Digital version of that SSD for about 88$ USD. There’s also a Crucial version of that SSD for about 88$ USD on Amazon. Not sure if it’s more expensive in AUS on Amazon. Hope I helped.

Edit: I’ll link you the items I’m talking about

This is the WD model
WD Blue 3D NAND 500GB PC SSD - SATA III 6 Gb/s 2.5"/7mm Solid State Drive - WDS500G2B0A https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073SBZ8YH/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_I9xPBb4VDW1BD

I personally own the WD one and it’s been pretty good so far.

Crucial MX500 500GB 3D NAND SATA 2.5 Inch Internal SSD - CT500MX500SSD1(Z) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0784SLQM6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_N.xPBb0HSAM8T

My friend owns the Crucial model and has told me good things about it.

Here is the Samsung model you’re looking for
Samsung 860 Evo 500GB 2.5 inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_AbyPBbF2HH21P

The WD and Crucial models read and write faster than the Samsung model according to the info on Amazon. And they’re cheaper. WD also has a M.2 2280 version of the SSD which is easier to install IMO and it’s the same price.

Here is the post for archival purposes:

Author: nynjawitay

Content:

>Hey everybody! I've been a part of the Bitcoin community since 2011. I write this in the hopes that people see there are actual people supporting Bitcoin Cash. I believe cryptocurrency is the greatest invention since the Internet. I believe that a well designed cryptocurrency can give us the ability to send money (be it pennies or millions of dollars) nearly instantly with a fee of a cents or sometimes even free. I believe cryptocurrency can also do way more than this, but this is the most important first step to me; if it can't do this, I don't think it can do other things very well. I hope Bitcoin Cash can be this cryptocurrency.

>Because of the whole blocksize debate and fee market madness, I ignored Bitcoin for a while and looked at other cryptocurrencies. Now that Bitcoin Cash has forked and continues to survive, I want to help it.

>I hear constant FUD about how initial sync times are destroying Bitcoin's decentralization. The common response is that most people don't need to run fully validating nodes; they are fine with SPV nodes since if they aren't mining they can't meaningfully contribute to consensus anyway. I agree with this.

>I recently read https://medium.com/@peter_r/on-the-emerging-consensus-regarding-bitcoins-block-size-limit-insights-from-my-visit-with-2348878a16d8 where Peter relays the message from BitPay and Coinbase that "we need more genetic diversity in nodes that are ready and willing to accept larger blocks."

>Well I'm a professional programmer and I have a powerful home server with plenty of room. Since I want Bitcoin Cash to succeed, I figured I should setup a node that people can actually get some use from. I bought https://smile.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E250BW/dp/B01LYFKX41/ and my goodness it made initial sync times with txindex=1 go WAY faster than last I did this. I started yesterday evening and Bitcoin Classic is already at block 457,235 and electrumx (which I started an hour or two later) is at 394,602. Once It's synced, I'll update this post with the DNS information although it looks like electrumx has proper peer-discovery built-in.

>I'm especially happy with host fast this sync is going considering that the system is also loaded with an archival parity node, monero node, and zcash node. It's also serving Whonix and Tails torrents. If anyone has any suggestions for other applications I could run to help the community, I'm all ears.

I've done all these updates/upgrades to my x250.

External batteries and chargers can be found on Amazon easily. For whatever reason the internal ones are all third party. I've use a third party internal battery and it worked fine, but degraded quickly (I'm actually looking to replace it again now). On the charger I like to get a longer cable for the wall to brick part. It's a standard cable you can get for a $8 and I highly recommend it. Link for the longer cable: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01JBDY3GS

For a 16GB memory module, I used the "Mem Store" one from eBay and it works fine. Some places have reported certain memory modules don't work. That one does. It's about ~$80 right now. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Single-16GB-SODIMM-1x16GB-PC3L-12800-Memory-Thinkpad-X250-5TH-GEN-I3-I5-I7-ONLY/191609325156

Laptopscreens.com has a FHD LCD panel that works good. You can also find that seller on eBay. You don't need anything special to do the swap, although a few guitar picks helps to start the bezel. Just be patient when removing the screen bezel so you don't break it. This is the one I got: https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-LCD-Screen-for-Lenovo-Thinkpad-X240-X250-00HM745-LP125WF2-SP-B2-IPS-FHD/282811633253

The SSD is pretty straight forward, just get a sata one in your desired capacity and swap it. I personally went for a WD Blue 500GB and it's been great. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073SBZ8YH

I agree with /u/xcyu SSD and FHD screen will be the most noticeable upgrades.

No worries. That doesn't really help but if you could show me where you found it I might be able to dig deeper.

For clarity, a PCI Express (or PCIe) slot is where expansion cards like your graphic card go. They are very fast when it comes to transferring data. A PCIe slot has "lanes" of data it can transfer. An x1 slot has one "lane". An x16 slot as 16 "lanes". Each lane can transfer 8Gb/s, if I remember correctly. That's some background info.

Now let's talk drive types. You've got Hard Disk Drives or HDDs, which come in different capacities and physical sizes. The two common sizes these days are 2.5" (usually found in notebook computers) and 3.5" (usually found in desktop computers). Larger physical size does not necessarily equate to larger capacity. Capacity is usually expressed in gigabytes (GB) or terabytes (TB). An HDD is one of the slowest forms of media commonly used today, but it's cheaper per GB/TB than solid state drives. (SSDs.) HDDs today use the SATA "bus", which is a specific way to transfer data. Your PCIe slots are another way to transfer data, but we'll come back to that.

Then you've got SSDs. The most common size still being produced is 2.5". These are much faster than HDDs. SATA SSDs are roughly 5 times faster than HDDs for reading and writing data. This means faster boot times for your system, faster game loads, and faster file copies.

A few years ago, M.2 SSDs came out. M.2 is not necessarily faster than 2.5" SSDs. This depends on which bus they use. If they use the SATA bus, they're around the same speed as 2.5" drives. That said, they're far smaller and use less power, so they're better for laptops and, frankly, everything else except for speed. That said, we also have M.2 NVMe drives. NVMe is a special type of memory (like your computer's RAM) that doesn't wipe itself each time you reboot your computer, which means it can be used for storage. Also like your RAM, it's very fast - about 4 times faster than a SATA SSD, which is about 5 times faster than an HDD. That means an M.2 NVMe SSD is roughly 20 times faster than an HDD.

Because of this faster speed, the SATA bus just isn't fast enough, so they use the same bus as your PCIe slots. They can use 4 lanes of the PCIe bus. They can be plugged into an M.2 slot if your motherboard supports them, but you can also buy an inexpensive PCIe card (which will fit into a PCIe slot, if you have one available) if your motherboard does not have an M.2 slot. Here's an example of a cheap card that I've found to work well. You mount the M.2 SSD to the card, then install the card in a PCIe slot. That said, if the only PCIe slot you have available is x1, it's kind of pointless to do so. Remember how I said it is roughly 4 times faster than a SATA SSD? And remember how I said it uses 4 PCIe lanes? Well, if you only use 1 PCIe lane, you're not going to see those same performance gains. At that point, you're better off using a SATA SSD. They do make them in the M.2 size/format. The Samsung 850 Evo is an example of a decent one. (Note: the 850 Evo is also made in the 2.5" size/format, so be cautious which one you buy if you go that direction. Also, note that many PCIe cards (and M.2 slots on motherboards, for that matter) only support NVMe/PCIe M.2 SSDs OR SATA M.2 SSDs but not both. The PCIe card I linked above will only work with NVMe/PCIe SSDs, for example. Therefore, the Samsung 850 Evo I just linked wouldn't be compatible with it.

I hope that helps to clarify. Feel free to respond with more info or questions if you have them.

Case: Rosewill, NZXT, and CoolerMaster are good places to start. Its mostly an aesthetic choice.

CPU: Intel i5 or i7. If you're budget is tight go i3.

GPU: This is the most important!! If your budget is tight I'd go with AMD R7 265X, R9 270, or Nvidia GTX 750 Ti. If not my pick would be the AMD R9 290 non-reference. It's cheaper than most yet is very powerful.

Motherboard- I use a Asrock Fatal1ty Killer. Most common brands are Asrock, MSI, Asus, and Gigabyte.

RAM- I use Kingston HyperX. Other good brands include Corsair, Crucial, G-Skill. Be sure to get 8GB or more RAM memory.

Power Supply Unit- The two highest reviewed brands are Seasonic and XFX (I use 1050watt XFX). Other good brands include Corsair, EVGA, CoolerMaster. You will want probably at least 700W PSU but I would recommend a !000W. It will give you headroom for any components you want to add.

Wifi- If you want/need this: TP-Link WDN-4800

SSD- This is for your operating system, doesn't help much with games. Samsung 840 Evo, Kingston HyperX, and AMD R7 (just released, only read reviews) are all good and affordable brands. You shouldn't need more than 120GB. If you have a M.2 socket on the Motherboard you choose, go with an M.2 SSD such as the Crucial M500, or if you can find it at an affordable price, the Samsung XP941.

HDD- Seagate Barracuda 3TB is a cheap, yet reliable choice.

Optical Drive- I've only used mine once, but you can find a DVD-RW on Amazon for like $12. (Internal not external)

Miscellaneous:

Keyboard: RAZR, Logitech are good brands

Mouse: too many to count, just browse "gaming mouse" on Amazon or Newegg.

Monitor: I prefer Asus. Go with an IPS monitor. They are gorgeous. !440p if you have the money, if not, 1080p.

Headphones- AudioTechnica or Sennheiser

non-reference are graphic cards with after-market coolers on them. I like XFX and Gigabyte.

Links to Parts:

CPU: http://www.amazon.com/Intel-i7-4790K-Processor-Cache-BX80646I74790K/dp/B00KPRWAX8/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408495033&sr=1-1&keywords=intel+i7

GPU: http://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-GDDR5-4GB-2xDVI-Graphics-GV-R929OC-4GD/dp/B00HS84DFU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408495068&sr=1-1&keywords=R9+290

Case: http://www.amazon.com/NZXT-PHANTOM-Tower-White-PHAN-001WT/dp/B003WE9WQO/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408495102&sr=1-1&keywords=nzxt+phantom

MOBO: http://www.amazon.com/ASRock-FATAL1TY--LGA1150-CrossFireX-Motherboard/dp/B00KG5T4C4/ref=sr_1_2?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408495154&sr=1-2&keywords=Asrock+z97+fatal1ty+killer

RAM: http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-HyperX-FURY-2x8GB-1600MHz/dp/B00J8E8XT4/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408495201&sr=1-6&keywords=Kingston+RAM

SSD: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE120BW/dp/B00E3W15P0/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408495329&sr=1-3&keywords=samsung+840+evo

HDD: http://www.amazon.com/Seagate-Desktop-3-5-Inch-Internal-ST3000DM001/dp/B005T3GRLY/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1408495357&sr=1-3&keywords=Seagate+Barracuda

Good Luck ascending brother!!

I don't know much about the XFX TS line of PSU's, apparently some people have problems with it being DOA or dying within a couple of weeks, but some say it's great. YMMV.

The r7 260x is good for what your friend will need it. It will do fine with LoL on high or ultra, but then again, many cards can do this, even after the recent visual updates. But at $100, it beats many options (750ti for example, even though the 750ti uses almost 50% of the power that the r7 260x uses).

Also, if your friend is a student or part of a schooling/university program or part of a work program that allows discounted/free OS, look into it. Often times universities (such as mine) will include an OS key in your "technology payment". I got a 64x Win 8.1 key for free because of this. And if you're able to get the free OS, you can either choose to save $90 off the total, or use the extra $90 to upgrade parts or add a 256gb SSD

Samsung SSD warranty has been shit for years.

If anyone's looking for SSD makers with good service, I'd recommend WD. I've done several WD HDD RMAs painlessly and successfully. They're located in the GTA area so you don't have to pay too much for shipping. The turn around time were around 3-5 business days each time.

WD sells NVMe m.2 SSDs as well as SATA in 2.5 form factor and m.2. They are priced better than the Samsungs as well. I don't know too much about long term quality, but so far the reviews for these units are quite good. I personally run a WD Blue m.2 SSD as my game drive/storage. And clarify that I'm not a shill, I use a Samsung EVO 960 512GB as my main boot drive. I'm very happy with my Samsung EVO as well as my WD. I just don't like Samsung's warranty service.

I have the same 13” mid 2012 MBP and am running 16gb of RAM w/ a 1TB SSD. I also have the same version of Ableton as you. The official specs from Apple list 8gb RAM as the max but it can for sure support 16gb. Based on the specs you provided I’d guess you have the i5 version which comes stock with 4gb of RAM and the 500gb HDD. Your model will support 16gb and you’ll see a significant boost in performance, with Ableton and the computer in general, if you add 16gb and an SSD. If you leave the standard 500gb HDD, I'd assume you'd only see a moderate boost in performance since that's really the big driver of slow performance. I can't speak to the performance of Omnisphere as I don't have a working copy but I do know it made a significant boost for pretty much everything in Ableton and otherwise.

​

My recommendation would be to add 16gb of RAM plus an SSD. They are both relatively straight forward processes as well (links below), just need the right tools and to take your time. Watch YouTube tutorials. Attaching links to the items I have in mine. I'd recommend getting the Crucial RAM and Samsung SSD (which is what I have and has a higher performance rating), but the Crucial SSD will be adequate as well.

​

Let me know if you have other questions on it.

​

INSTRUCTIONS

HDD Swap - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+Hard+Drive+Replacement/10378

RAM Swap - https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBook+Pro+13-Inch+Unibody+Mid+2012+RAM+Replacement/10374

​

PRODUCTS

Crucial SSD - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0784SLQM6/

Samsung SSD - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/

RAM - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008LTBJFW/

Tool Kit - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01IVKPTP6/

I would put a GTX 1050 ti in there to get the most out of your A10 CPU. The integrated graphics can run WoW but it's not ideal. GTX 1050 ti is really ideal here, going much higher and you're looking at noticing the limitations of your CPU too often. Your A10 is fine for it's price, but it's not really in the same class with GTX 1060 and higher, those are best paired with a Haswell or Skylake quad. A balanced system will run consistently, whereas an unbalanced system will run very well in some titles and comparatively not very well in others.

SSD would definitely be the second best upgrade, check out Crucial's new MX300 for really good price per gig and a good solid product with acceptable speeds. If you get a 1050 ti and a 525gb MX300 you're looking at like $260 ish to make that thing scream.

https://www.amazon.com/Crucial-MX300-525GB-Internal-Solid/dp/B01IAGSD68/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480483313&sr=8-1&keywords=525gb+mx300

https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-DisplayPort-Dual-Link-Graphics-ZT-P10510A-10L/dp/B01MCU1ERO/ref=sr_1_2?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1480483341&sr=1-2&keywords=gtx+1050+ti

Thank you for your help, kind stranger !

• I don't get what water cooling is, is it really better? Do I need to do anything with the fan, like fill it with wter, or do i just plug it in and voila?
  
  
• I'll really wait for the graphics card because i want to go all in later when i'll have enough money. I'm really used to playing games with a bad computer (GTAV all low in 800x600 on a 2017 dell XPS 13 for example, Intel integrated graphics and an I5 2.5GHz) and i'll probably stick to some csgo, gmod terraria and other smaller games haha.
  
  
• The cpu fan is a cooler master, looks a like it might be this one : https://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-7H51C-Processor-Socket/dp/B000I223LO
  
  
• The other fan I have is this one : https://www.amazon.com/PV902512L-DC12V-0-16A-3-WIRE-92x25mm/dp/B00B877C50
  
  
• Do you recommend anything for cooling? Since I don't have good fans, do I need to buy more. Even in the optic of buying a new graphics card (Probably the 11GB titan), and one that can still cool down the 78xx? Water cooling is cool to if you think it's better
  
  
• What do you think of this SSD? It's better looking and cheaper where I live : https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-500GB-Internal-MZ-76E500B-AM/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1523216119&sr=1-3
  
  
• What's the difference between micro ATX and ATX? I'd prefer a "bigger" motherboard if it means better aeration, but i'm no expert. Plus, if my tower is big why not put a bigger motherboard in it? And will this one be able to support a better graphics card later? And i think it's a yes otherwise you wouldn't suggest this one but is it compatible with the I7?
  
• Edit : what do you think of the Asus PRIME Z370-P? : www.amazon.com/Z370-P-LGA1151-Motherboard-Generation-Processors/dp/B075RJHLBK/
  
  

• For the case, i can't find the one you're suggesting under 150€ ~ 180$ so what do you think of the Corsair Carbide 400C/270R/275R ?
  

  
  

  Anyway, thank you really much for your help, I know i ask a lot of questions but isn't this why this subreddit is made for? :)
  

  
  

  edit : this
  

  PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
  

  
  

  Type|Item|Price
  

  ----|:----|:----
  CPU | Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor | $410.00
  CPU Cooler | Corsair - H100i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler | $129.00
  Motherboard | Gigabyte - H370M D3H Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $129.00
  Memory | G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory | $224.00
  Storage | Samsung - 850 EVO-Series 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $150.00
  Storage | Crucial - MX300 525GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive | $0.00
  Case | Corsair - Carbide Series 275R (Black w/Tempered Glass) ATX Mid Tower Case | $104.00
  Power Supply | FSP Group - 650W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply | Purchased For $0.00
  Operating System | Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit | Purchased For $0.00
  | Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
  | Total | $1146.00
  | Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-08 16:05 EDT-0400 |

8gb of ram should be fine, but If you might decide to play some other games as well I would get 16gb, but definitely get at least ddr4-3000 ram. I’d get a 240gb ssd like this one just to be on the safe side. Idk much about wow but if it’s a 15 yr old game like you said the 570 should be fine for 1080p 144fps. The 2200g should be ok if you want to just play wow, but it doesn’t have hyper threading and has only 4 cores. If you can spare the money, get a 2400g (it has hyper threading)

• Get an SSD, ASAP. Single best upgrade you can make to ANY PC - 250GB Samsung 840 Evo is $75 on Amazon, the 850 Evo is $90. If you want 500GB, you'll pay about $150 for the 850 EVO, 840 EVO doesn't have the 500GB available (Amazon shows it at $272 for a 500GB?! I think it's no longer produced)
  
  
• Max out your RAM. Your MoBo can support 32GB of RAM -- 16GB should do you plenty of good. $67 on NewEgg
  
  
• So far that's only $142 of your $350. That leaves you with $208 for a nice GPU. I have a GeForce GTX 750Ti that does great, and I'm not a gamer at all, so I really only bought it in case I decide to game later on (Dark Souls 3 will apparently run perfectly on my machine, which makes me very happy). You can get a GTX 950 or 960 under that price limit, both are mid to high tier graphics cards (980 is the highest in the series, atm [correct me if I'm wrong I don't know shit about gaming GPU's])
  
  
• If you don't want to spend $200 on a GPU, or if you can up your budget to $400, you can get both a really nice GPU and a better motherboard that supports DDR4 RAM, which of course increases the cost of the RAM, but it's all about future proofing.
  
  TL;DR: For the amount of your budget, buy the SSD and RAM I recommended. Either spend $200 on a GPU or spend $150 on a mid-tier GPU, up your budget to $400 and get a better MoBo for future upgrades. Good luck!
  
  Edit -- I just saw you have an AMD CPU. I've heard that nVidia & Intel work better together, and AMD works best with the other cards. Adjust accordingly.

Beautiful tiny PC but here's a very friendly price break down. I'm using new prices here from Amazon except for the fan. This isn't taking into consideration whether the parts are a day or a year old they are officially used and if you go off of even good/average to great /r/hardwareswap deals this would be quite cheaper and it's hard to add a building tax to a community full of builders.

CPU $200 - Ryzen 3600

MOBO $129 - MSI B450i

GPU $320 - RTX 2060

NVME $90 - Samsung 970 Evo

RAM $90 - XPG 3200 MHz 16GB RGB

COOLER $40 - Noctua NH-L9a

FAN $24 - 25mm 4000 RPM Delta Fan

PSU $90 - OP's model is OOS

Custom SFF Cables - $30-50

CASE - GEEEK A30 + Riser Cable + Shipping = $100.67 (for me)

This is $1,113 for everything, basically new.

I don't really think it's a terrible price at all but the nature of this sub seems to be getting great deals so you can pretty much build a PC you would have never had if you just bought everything new on Amazon etc, especially since I believe this sub is full of PC builders. I have seen some absurd deals on this sub reddit that make me want to quit my job so I can just refresh constantly and that's because I've had a full system for awhile. Just a little food for thought for anybody. With some commitment to checking here you can get a great build for way below retail cost of the parts.

I have an SSD and that improved my loading times by a good amount of time, also helps to have better internet, my speeds are good enough but not great at all.

They really aren't that expensive, I'll point you in the right direction if you want. Also helps a ton with games like PUBG, BF, Red Dead, GTA etc.

.

Edit: If anyone is wondering I have one 512GB Silicon Power 3D NAND A55 SLC Cache Performance Boost SATA III 2.5" 7mm (0.28") Internal Solid State Drive from Amazon for $49.99 USD along with another of the same Silicon Power SSD but in 256GB for $28.99 USD.

Then you need the enclosure which costs $8.99: Sabrent 2.5-Inch SATA to USB 3.0 Tool-Free External Hard Drive Enclosure [Optimized for SSD, Support UASP SATA III]. Super simple set up, literally open the enclosure by sliding the top off, slide the SSD into the connection slot in the enclosure, put the top on, plug it in to the USB slot and turn the thing on. Really nice price, had never heard of the brand but it has really good reviews, and works well for me. Just about the cheapest SSD I've seen on Amazon with an average review of 4.5+ (and at least 1k reviews).

So starting from the ground up.

APC PDUs into two seperate circuits.

The cisco switch is the only device without redundant power. But again, it's only running IPMI which I can't make redudant anyway.

The 4 servers, 2 switches, and qnap are both each plugged into both PDUs.

I set up both Nutanix Clusters (3 node, 1 node). All the VMS on my 3 node are snapshotted and replicated to the 1 node cluster daily for 30 days and monthly for 72 months. Nutanix does not offer a way to export their VMS. No 3-2-1 rule for them.

I shut down a test VM on 3 node cluster and switched to the other 1 node cluster I was doing their data protection on. Hit restore and the vm came right back up on this 1 node cluster. pretty happy with that.

The VMS themselves back up their data daily to the QNAP using emcopy.exe. Qnap has backup software, I just haven't had time to get into it.

These clusters have been up and running for about 2 months. I finally copied all of the old data off the old servers and got them unplugged last night. That was a great feeling.

I am currently running 25 VMs (+3 controller vms). personal, friends, media, mysql, mssql, nginx, mongo, redis, domain controllers, dns, etc all adds up pretty quick. I am a developer by trade, so I have a lot of expermination and code all over the place.

Once pleasant suprise is that since most of my VMs are a clone and I am running the data dedupe, I am getting ~20:1 effeciency. I am only using around 2.5% of my logical data storage.

I refuse to do the exact math, but I am well over $8k into this.

So lets go back to my goals

no single point of failure.

Any cable can pulled and nothing turns off.

If any piece of hardware fails, all my vms continue running.



faster speed.

Nutanix has some voodoo. The VMs disk benchmark is faster than my NVME desktop.

Network copying gets 600mbps+ tends to slow down on transfers of serveral gbs. Needs to investigate more.



some sorta backup.

doing snap shots to secondary cluster.

nutanix allows file level restore from previous snapshots.

data copied to nas daily.

would like actual file level back up to nas eventually.

Since someone will ask. I am running between 4-5 amps on each APC.

Problems I have encountered:

Nutanix does not show the network cards in their web interface. They show up fine in the CLI?

2 Ram sticks were returning ECC errors. Used servers, this is a risk. Monitor your IMPI people!

Watchguard does not technically support Nutanix. So the manager shows a lot of warnings. Support said they are just warnings.

I somehow crashed a nutanix install on the satadom. Was able to get it re installed relatively quickly. requires a live cd to image the disk. I bought a 5th satadom to just have on hand.

No way to monitor the disk SMART info from nutanix that I have found yet.

Hardware List;

2x APC7900

https://www.amazon.com/APC-AP7900-Switched-Surge-Protector/dp/B0000AAAYH

​

Cisco SG110-24

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01MDNHKQ4

​

2x QUANTA LB6M 24-PORT 10GBE SFP+

https://www.unixplus.com/products/quanta-lb6m-24-port-10gbe-sfp-4x-1gbe-l2-l3-switch

​

4x SUPERMICRO 1U X9DRI-LN4F+ SERVER

Dual E5-2650 V2, 128gb Ram (8x16gb)

https://unixsurplus.com/collections/1u-servers/products/supermicro-1u-x9drw-3ln4f-dual-intel-xeon-e5-2670-octo-core-2-6ghz-1u-server

​

4x Intel X520-DA2 10Gbps SFP+

https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833106044

​

8x WD Blue 1tb SSD

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-1TB-SSD-WDS100T2B0A/dp/B073SBQMCX

​

4x 16gb SATADOM

https://www.amazon.com/Supermicro-SSD-DM016-PHI-16GB-SATADOM/dp/B00NGBW5GM/

​

6x WD RE 2tb spinny drives (Nutanix 3 node cluster) (pulled from last lab)

2x WD RE 4tb spinny drives (Nutanix 1 node cluster) (pulled from last lab)

​

QNAP TS-432XU-RP-2G-US

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07DWC85JH/

​

4x WD 6tb Red Pro

https://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Red-Hard-Drive/dp/B07B1HX5KN/

Remove the CPU Cooler. The 2700x got its own cooler, which is a relatively good one (probably even better than the Hyper 212 evo).

The Motherboard: I'm not sure, it is a micro ATX board, which will likely limit your upgradability options in the future, but I haven't looked into this one yet to be sure. You do want to research a lot about it though.

RAM: It is okay. Does the job. 3000mhz would be better, but you could get by with the 2400. It won't make a big difference anyway.

GPU is good, but I would try to get an Evga variant, as they have great warranties and customer support.

Case: No idea. Never heard of that brand before, but it is a microATX, which also limits future upgradability (goes hand in hand with the motherboard). If you're willing to change the case, this is an amazing one, for only a bit more (but probably won't make sense to get it with a microATX Motherboard, so keep that in mind):

https://www.amazon.ca/Thermaltake-CA-1K8-00M1WN-01-Computer-Chassis-Pre-Installed/dp/B07FL1D5RV/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1542983696&sr=1-1&keywords=thermaltake+v200

I also have no idea about the SSD brand. The Samsung one seems to be on sale though:

https://www.amazon.ca/Samsung-Internal-MZ-76E250B-AM-Version/dp/B07864WMK8/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1542984270&sr=1-4&keywords=samsung+850+evo

I haven't had a problem like this. But I did have an issue with heavy teamfights that would make me crash (was able to get back into the game though.) So I decided to upgrade my PC. Was running a 7 year old GPU before and upgraded to 1660ti. Will sort me for the next 5-6 years just like the last.

But mainly and the thing that I believe will help you is getting an SSD. I installed the new SSD and did a fresh OS install on that(deleted OS off old HDD). Then just reinstalled Dota, steam and other main programs to run on the SSD. That way I had the speed and performance of the new SSD but still had all my files from my old HDD which is now my storage. I'd recommend the WD Blue 3D SSD( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B073SBZ8YH/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_image_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 ). I went for 500GB but you can go for anything that you feel is enough for your OS and programs you want to run.

(I can't tell you how nice it is not crashing and also launching and being able to use my PC in 30 seconds compared to 15 minutes.)

Hope this helped man and wish you the best :)

​

Edit: link

It's a little over budget at $1000, but the Asus N550JV has an optical drive which can be removed and replaced with an SSD if you so choose. The other really nice features that the N550JV has is a beautiful IPS 1080p touchscreen and quad core i7 4700HQ processor that can help with your photography programs. IPS screens have excellent viewing angles and picture quality compared to more common TN screens; you will want this when working with photos. THe N550JV also has 8GB ram, GT 750M GPU and 1TB HDD running Windows 8.

For SSDs, we highly recommend you get a Samsung 840 Evo for a good mix of value, capacity and speed. Here's a video showing how to replace the optical drive with an SSD.

How soon do you plan on building this? If you can wait a couple months the NVIDIA GTX 880 will be out soon, and it's supposed to be around the price of the 770 when it came out (about $400, US). This is probably the worst time of the year to build a computer. Devil's Canyon and Z97 did just come out, but Intel is still do for X99 and Haswell-E, NVIDIA is releasing Maxwell, and AMD probably has some stuff being announced soon.

Otherwise it looks good, the only things I would change would be the power supply (for an EVGA SuperNOVA), the motherboard (to something from ASUS), I would maybe get a cheaper SSD as the 850 Pro series don't really offer much more for the premium. An 840 EVO or a Crucial MX100 of the same price would be the optimal as far as price/performance. I would also recommend against getting a 7.1 headset, I've tried them and they're terrible, as an alternative I'd get a cheap pair of studio headphones like the Audio-Technica ATH-M50 and a desktop microphone.

Edit 1: I would recommend getting a case with better airflow as well. Something like the Phanteks Enthoo Pro is a good value case with much better airflow, and has a nice aesthetic.

• 750 Watt Power Supply. $89.98
  
  
• Generic Corsair Case. $64.99 You can shop around for something better looking for a little more money.
  
  
• DDR4 3200 RAM (2*4GB Sticks) for $147.99 and DDR4 3200 RAM (1*8GB Stick) for $160.32. You can also drop to 3000MHz and save like $5-10 but not worth it in my opinion.
  
  
• GTX 1060 3GB for $304.99 or GTX 1060 6GB for $389.99.
  
  
• i7 8700k for $449.99 or i7 7700k for $422.96. 8700k is 8th gen and 7700k is 7th gen. You can drop to any processor around an i7 7700 (No "k") without seeing issues I'd assume. WoW is a processor heavy game though. Still my i7 8700k only ever reaches maybe 30% useage that I see.
  
  
• Heat Sink + Fan. Cooler Master is good. $34.99
  
  
• i7 8700 will require a 300 Series Motherboard like ASUS ROG for $141.50 or ASUS Prime for $84.99. The 7700s will take a 200 series motherboard like this one for $129.61 or this one for 149.99. Basically just make sure it has all the hook-ups you need (sound and USBs and shit) with the proper chip set and supports DDR4 RAM with minimum 1 PCI Express slot for your GPU.
  
  
• Samsung 860 Evo 500GB SSD for $179.94 or the 250GB for $109.94. Any decent SSD will do. Make sure it has enough room for your OS and the game(s) you play. You can use any regular HD to store other stuff on. Samsung is a good brand for them.
  
  When trying to decide on what power your PC needs a good website to use is http://gpu.userbenchmark.com/ - it'll give you a general idea since I get confused with all the "i7/i5/i3 XXXX gen X" nonsense too.
  
  That'll build you a tower. Then you just need external components. Monitor, keyboard, mouse, headset, chair, desk, etc. Depending on what you have available and stuff it can vary so I'll let you price out that stuff.
  
  $1,358 pre-taxes if you go with i7 8700k, and GTX 1060 3 GB. For the tower. Taxes in, plus all the other components you're still looking at pushing close to $2000. That's CND I think. If you do a little shopping around you might get a decent deal on a few items and look into different price points between AMD and Intel if you choose their Board/Chip/GPU combos.

It's just because you linked to your user saved list, the new link is fine.

The X570 pairs well with a high-performance NVMe drive. There is a decent selection of great drives right now. Since you mentioned budget I figured you'd want the best value in that segment. That would be the Sabrent Rocket, although there are other drives that share its hardware like the Silicon Power P34A80 or Addlink S70. The Rocket is the cheapest but you might trust one of the other two brands more (although I'd consider them all around the same quality). This assuming you're looking for 1TB.

It's possible to get the QLC-based Intel 660p or Crucial P1 for cheaper at 1TB and for most things they'll be just as fast. Their performance is not as consistent especially when fuller, however, due to the nature of QLC. They are an excellent value so you may want to consider that - Linus Tech Tips has a video on the 660p (the P1 has the same hardware, more or less). Alternatively there are SM2262/EN drives like the EX920 but this drive is aging a bit and at equal price I'd probably take one of the drives linked above. HP's support is suspect as well.

If you decide to go with the Rocket, be sure to check out Sabrent's site: they have a utility for formatting the drive if required (only needed if you are going to clone the OS to the new drive, and maybe not even then) and you have to register the drive to get the full five-year warranty.

> but which one should I buy, considering a Wi-Fi adapter?

The TP Link WDN-4800. It's very popular on this subreddit and gets recommended very often.

For cpu and Mobo I'd go with the I5 4690 and the ASRock H97 Pro4.

> Which 750w PSU for my GPU? (I'm talking about compatibility for pins)

Most 750W power supplies come with the necessary cables for the computer. I know for sure that this XFX Pro Series 850W has all the cables you need.

> About the RAM, I'd go for the faster CL9 I put in description

There is no scenario where you'll even notice the difference between CL9 and CL10... It might, just might improve when doing something like rendering / 3D-modeling.
So you can save yourself about 8,- that way.

> and same thing for the SSD 840 Pro, which has better read/write speed.

When only considering the read/write speeds you'd see 1 maybe 2% performance improvement over the 840 Evo. While the 840 Evo is ~30% cheaper.
If you think performance is important get the Samsung 840 Evo 120GB twice and put them in Raid 0. It improves performance up to 100%! And is still cheaper than the 840 Pro.

Your budget is generous not "cheap" so with the goal of $1000 plex server here is what I would do...

EDIT: THIS WON'T TRANSCODE 4k... however thats ok because 4K transcoded are washed out... use high bitrate 1080P looks just as good if sitting 4' or further away.. if you want 4k for the HDR then use a player that can play 4k hdr(almost any tv does now.. i have a $600 65" TV that does it just fine)

​

• $110 a Node 804 Case(or really use any mATX case) https://www.amazon.com/Fractal-Design-Supply-MicroATX-FD-CA-NODE-804-BL/dp/B00K6OVG0I/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Node+804&qid=1573235254&sr=8-1
  
• $48 - beQuiet 400Watt ATX PSU(even 400watts is twice what is needed mobo will use 100watts under load and hd use max 3atts each)
  
• $540 - 3x 12 TB HD Here: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/wd-easystore-12tb-external-usb-3-0-hard-drive-black/6364259.p?skuId=6364259&intl=nosplash <-- this is a 12tb WD Red drive just need to remove the shell.
  
• $32 - Kingston A400 256GB SSD for cache drive - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N5IB20Q/ref=twister_B07YTKD3J6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
  
• $59 - unraid for up to 6 HD
  
• $45 - X9scm motherboard off ebay for $50 this looks good.. https://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Micro-X9SCM-F-LGA-1155-Intel-C204-Micro-ATX-server-motherboard-with-i-o/352558745024?epid=127396627&hash=item52162385c0%3Ag%3AIfsAAOSw09xZ8mUk&LH_BIN=1
  
• $45 - intel Xeon E3-1230V2 (8,800 passmark) such as this... https://www.ebay.com/itm/Intel-Xeon-E3-1230V2-SR0P4-3-30GHz-4-Core-8MB-LGA-1155-Processor/133228992846?epid=28011033095&hash=item1f0511194e:g:Z4oAAOSwA5RdwFUZ <search ebay for "sr0p4" to find them
  
• $45 - 16GB of ECC Un -Buffered Ram: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-16GB-4x-4GB-PC3-10600E-ECC-Un-Buffered-DDR3-Server-Workstation-Mac-Pro/303346347609?epid=6016691535&hash=item46a0d9ee59%3Ag%3AuzUAAOSwmdxco3tX&LH_BIN=1
  
  Total of $924 for a system than can transcode 4x 1080P with ease and store 24TB of Parity protected Datam if you want 4k then just make sure your player can play it natively(which this system could with a video card in a VM)
  
  If you wanted rack mounted then this is a well priced case... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07957B2VF/ref=twister_B079C7QGNY?_encoding=UTF8&th=1
  
  If you want to be able to play from the Server then still use Unraid and make a VM with windows or a Linux plex OS and pass through a PCI-E Video card of some sort to the VM.
  
  Of course since its unraid you can now easily run the Plex Server, Sabnzbd, sonaar,radaar and all the other goodies you need to automate your system for the ultimate watching experience as unraid has a great docker experience.

I know the Samsung EVO ssd's are widely recommended on this sub. I'm not sure why they are preferred, maybe someone else can chime in on that.

As for the GPU, you won't get more performance per dollar out of SLI. A single powerful card will almost always offer more value. However, one thing I've seen is that you can get an extra boost for free if you're upgrading your GPU by using your old GPU as a dedicated PhysX card. I was just reading an article on it here: http://volnapc.com/how-much-difference-does-a-dedicated-physx-card-make. The improvement is apparently quite substantial, though this will only benefit games that use PhysX.

I've heard that the GTX 770's are a great buy. I'm waiting for my 770 to be delivered tomorrow. I plan on using my old GTX 560 TI as a dedicated PhysX card to see if it has any benefit. I would avoid the AMD R9 cards as they're still inflated due to miners snatching them all up.

Everything else looks pretty solid.

This is the wrong take, OP didn't ask for best bang for the buck PC, he asked for the best PC.

Cooler: Air is usually cooler and quieter than AIOs, in your machine you want the noctua nh-d15 though.

Your memory is not the best it can be for Ryzen (you want 3200c14 or 3600c16). Remember you have 4 DIMM slots, you can go 4x8 if you want, but I don't think they are cheaper than the 2x16 kits.

3600c16

or

3200c14

I personally have the latter one, Samsung b-die for good overclocking potential.

Storage: Don't put mechanical in this build for the love of god. Your "boot drive" is fine w/ the 860 evo, consider the m.2 version for slight (and I mean slight) performance gains and less wires:

also consider it's bigger brother the 970 Evo

For your "data drive", get a 2tb mx500, If you buy a mechanical drive for this build you will be banned :).

The video card situation is a weird one right now. nVidia keeps the good bins of their cards and sells the rest to AIBs. If you want the best 2080ti, you want the founders edition

But nVidia has probably the worst customer service, and 3rd party cards offer better cooling. It's a decision that's up to you. I personally went with a Founders Edition card for my build (2080 Super though).

Get an 80+ platinum power supply

This is a hot take, but consider a wireless mouse. The offerings today have no lag and gaming without cable drag is fantastic. Some suggestions:
Logitech G Pro Wireless


Logitech G703

There's a difference between yellow smart attributes (which means the attribute has errors but is not totally dead, just worn) and red smart attributes (the attribute has many errors and the drive is basically dead). Many SMART reading softwares won't even show yellow marks.

You seriously think you need to replace mechanical drives every year? Wow. Average drive life for one of those is roughly 3-5 years. And an ssd even longer.

Also, I'll say it again. 300dollardatarecovery.com

We use HDDScan in our shop to run sector by sector scans and run smart reports.

EDIT:

Also, you are spending way too much on those drives if that's where you are buying them from.

Same WD Black you linked: http://www.amazon.com/Western-Digital-Black-Notebook-WD5000BPKX/dp/B00DSUTWMQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422507435&sr=8-1&keywords=WD5000BPKX&pebp=1422507422065&peasin=B00DSUTWMQ

Same Samsung EVO you linked: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-250GB-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3W1726/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1422507502&sr=8-2&keywords=samsung+evo+840+250

Either way, 80 dollars is a lot of money just to gain some extra performance and longetivity that the kid is never going to notice anyway. It's still about half the cost for a 500GB mechanical (a very good mechanical at that) than a 250GB SSD with a serious performance issue unless you perform a firmware update on the drive.

Double EDIT: I just noticed that that is an Australian site. Disregard the amazon links. But my point still stands.

I'm not sure what system you're playing on, but I've seen both PS4 and Xbox One users who benefit greatly from a SSD. I haven't gotten the money to afford one yet, but they seem to make a very noticeable difference, typically cutting it down by more than half. This tends to be the next step and/or known solution, which I say because it seems you have already investigated if Internet was the possible culprit. I play D2 on a Xbox One myself, and the loading times definitely feel unbearably long, no matter the activity or destination. 3-5 + minutes. I guess it helps to use that time to grab water or browse my phone during, but they do get annoying, so I understand your frustrations.

I know, it's unfortunate that in order to have any hopes of lessening the duration of these load times, many have resorted to paying out of pocket just to solve this problem, but I'm afraid there's little Bungie can do about it. It's about hardware of the system itself, not so much the game or servers, or even some pesky bug. Destiny's growth and where it is now, means that there's far more the system needs to work on loading than there was before. In fact, I've noticed other users say they've had this problem with other games, as well. Yet, PC players are generally unaffected.

I can't provide much on external vs internal SSD, or if internal affects warranty (which I think I remember that being mentioned before on another thread), but the most common I've seen was by purchasing an external SSD (Amazon; Samsung ones work well or Amazon Basics), and putting Destiny on there. I advise to go for 500+ GB, not below it, and you'll also need an Enclosure.
With every thread I've read about this, loading times went from minutes to now only a few seconds-- every single penny gone into the purchase, absolutely worth it. I'll post a link I saved from users who bought this one and also recommended it, and if it can help give you an idea! 'Hope this is able to be of any assistance.

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E500B/AM) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_.Qw4BbX96E2J5

(It's internal, but I know there's an external version and there's a bundle that comes with the Enclosure. Either way, again, it may serve as an example to give some sort of idea.)

Edit to add: I've forgotten to bring up that with earlier and upgraded versions of a console, the less that players ran into this problem. But unless you were planning to, say, buy a Xbox One X (which I've seen some say that this was an improvement from the standard X1) or the newest PS4, this can be a far cheaper alternative and something you have more room to experiment with.

I personally am majoring in CS also! I also would like a laptop that could handle light gaming but not a beast or heat-machine. I was trying to find that slim look with the good specs, and I ended up finding the Asus N550JK after about 3 weeks of constant searching. It will be coming in this Wednesday! Can't wait!

The only issue I saw with it is that it comes with a 1TB 5400 RPM HDD, which is a good size but far too slow. I ordered a samsung 500GB SSD and am going to swap it in as soon as I receive it!

Asus N550JK

Amazon Link

Samsung SSD

Also I purchased a bay ($10) to replace the DVD drive and now I can put in another hard drive bay, which I plan on sticking that 5400 RPM HDD in there until I save up some money for another SSD

Heres some specs on it

cpu runs at 2.4GHz-3.4GHz

Glossy Touch Screen

15.6" screen

Win 8.1

If you're not gaming on it, you should get around 5 hours on time on it (Big one for me!)

Not hot!! (Also a big one for me!)

Not noisy, even while running games and pushing the laptops limits

1080p


Audio is said to not be too great, but it comes with a little speaker which vastly improves the quality and plugs right into the laptop

Remember you can always buy the laptop now, and save money for a SSD and things later!

I also am putting another 8GB stick of ram into it (totaling 16gb)

Any questions, feel free to ask, I will be LOADED with info come the 30th when mine arrives. Can't wait!

Edit: Only issue is the laptop is about $100 out of your range, so if you would like to pull a tiny bit more cash out, it looks to be very promising!

I see, thanks a lot for the great explanation :)

Out of interest, if I could spare the extra £80, which GPU would it be, and could it slot straight into this build without any other adjustments? And which PSU + mobo would you have recommended? If I manage to add to the budget I'd be interesting in stepping it up a little from the compromised options!

Also, I'm assuming the 256GB version of the SSD (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Crucial-CT256MX100SSD1-256GB-Includes-Spacer/dp/B00KFAGCWK/ref=lh_ni_t?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE) will work just as well in this build?

Sorry for the many questions, thanks again, I really appreciate the help here :)

The only thing that stands out negatively is the SSD. There's no need for a 850 Pro version that costs twice as much as another manufacter 250 GB SSD and doesn't provide enough benefits. Get the 840 Evo if you want to stick with Samsung:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3W1726

If you want to spend around 200 $ get this Crucial 500 GB SSD:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KFAGCUM

The most external 780Ti will blow hot air on the one closer to the CPU with that cooler. My advice is to buy this 780Ti to put near the CPU:

http://www.ncixus.com/products/?usaffiliateid=1000031504&sku=93804&vpn=GTX780TI-DC2OC-3GD5&manufacture=ASUS&promoid=1009

And a reference 780Ti to put closer to the PSU:

http://pcpartpicker.com/mr/newegg/zotac-video-card-zt7050210p

If you're wondering why I chose a reference card it's because they're the only cards (as far as I'm aware) that blow out air outside the case instead of a pull/push system like the custom versions. This means that the first card will pull air from the bottom and push it outside the case instead of blowing it on the other card pulling fans.

Also you have to keep in mind that there's a risk of bottlenecking the 2 780Tis with an i7 4790k. I know it sounds crazy but some games like Arma require a lot of CPU power and that i7 could bottleneck the 2 GPUs if you'll run them at 4k/triple monitor (which I hope you'll do with 2 780Tis). If you can, my advice is to wait until september when the new Enthusiast level CPUs will come out. The i7 5930k will be a 6 core/12 threads that has HUGE overclocking capability and will be sold for around 500$. The i7 5960x will be a 8 core/16 threads CPU that will ship for 1000$. Not only you'd get a better CPU that has better overclocking capatibility (the i7 Extreme series doesn't feature an integrated GPU), but you'll have a platform that will support the next 3-4 generations of CPUs, support for DDR4 RAM and Quad SLI. If you're building a future proof machine wait until september and get an enthusiast level MoBo + CPU and DDR4 RAM.

You need a case.

I just bought a Phantek, great for the price:
http://www.phanteks.com

In my case's case, it had one built in exhaust fan. I put two intake fans on the front of the case to create positive airflow. Basically, more cold in, pushes more hot out the back. Chances are you will need fans. The mm or size of the fan and its placement will depend on the case.

Having just purchased the AMD Ryzen5 1600, I would recommend it. I imagine the i7 is great, but I would still recommend going AMD at the moment.

People often talk about edging out percents of power and performance, when overall the increase is not worth the extra money.

When I look at the AMD Ryzen7 1700 I see several benefits over the CPU you picked:

-Cost. You save $25 on the actual CPU.
-Cost(again). The Ryzen comes with a Wraith Spire CPU Cooler.
-Coes. Four more cores.
-Overclocking. You can OC the AMD and get the same speed as the Intel.... with four more cores.

It looks like you're going for water-cooling, but I don't see why looking at the games you posted: it won't hurt!

A M.2 SSD by Samsung is $30 more, and faster:
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E250BW/dp/B01LYFKX41/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1497621489&sr=1-1&keywords=samsung+m.2

Your motherboard supports it, so I would recommend it!

Check the reviews and so on, but my recommendation would be to go with a non-x570 board if the money that would go to the x570 could be better spent.

You might look at https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-Rocket-Internal-Performance-SB-ROCKET-1TB/dp/B07LGF54XR

but if ssd performance is a big concern for you I'd recommend thinking about the new pci express 4.0 ssd, and, something to note, reviewers have been getting pci express 4.0 ssd performance on non-x570 motherboards...

RAM... Hard to say, I'd recommend maybe two 16GB sticks of good, low latency samsung B-die (google bdie finder), or, if you want, four sticks. You might lose some frequency and latency, but you'd gain in banks and ranks which have a large effect on performance. Banks and ranks operate independently. The more banks and ranks you have, the more operations your RAM is performing in the background... Also you might want to think about ECC, but that's up to you.

I'll guess you use CUDA, so just do your research. Nvidia doesn't give out a lot of free lunches. Particularly if you want DPFP do your research.

https://www.jonnyguru.com/blog/2018/07/30/evga-supernova-750-g1-750w-power-supply/6/

https://www.jonnyguru.com/blog/2018/07/03/seasonic-prime-ultra-750-titanium-power-supply/6/

https://www.jonnyguru.com/blog/2018/05/08/corsair-rm750x-2018-750w-power-supply/6/

Get a well reviewed power supply. I guess the one you picked is probably pretty good.

Certainly!

First and absolutely foremost: BACKUP YOUR DATA AND SAVE FILES TO A USB DRIVE OF SOME SORT. (This is mostly if you're on a PS4. Xbox I believe has some cloud save feature but please verify first you have your data backed up before doing any hardware replacement on any console.

Next, pick up a 2.5" laptop SSD. You can use up to a 2TB drive in a PS4, I don't know Xbox Ones size limitations but 2TB is a friggin lot of storage. Here's a pretty sweet deal on a 1TB on Amazon

Now, if you haven't backed up your save files yet, do so. Seriously. Don't make the same mistake I did.

Once you've got your SSD, follow these directions to replace the shitty mechanical HDD in your PS4 or Xbox with that slick solid state storage:

• Regular PS4 SSD replacement tutorial.
  
• PS4 Pro SSD replacement tutorial.
  
• Xbox One SSD replacement tutorial.
  
• Xbox One X SSD replacement tutorial.
  
  After you've got the SSD installed and your PS4/xbox software re-installed and updated, setup your account and restore your save files to your account.
  
  Now kick back and enjoy the quickest load times you've ever experienced on a console.
  
  Note: This may affect how you treat bathroom breaks while gaming.

I own a few of the NUC8i5's and use it for pro audio work and a tiny bit of video work.

The machine is fast, quiet, and efficient. 16 gigs of memory may be fine (that's what I'm using), 32 may be helpful in Premier as Steve mentioned. Consider a Samsung 970 EVO m.2 drive; the 1TB is $149 on Amazon today...that's quite a deal. https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=MZ-V7E1T0BW&qid=1574095226&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER&sr=8-1

The 970 EVO Plus (even faster) is $199 today for a TB.

​

And 32 Gigs of memory is currently $125 (Crucial 2400 MT/s)

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B019FRCV9G/ref=ppx_od_dt_b_asin_title_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

If I'm producing anything substantial video wise, I go to another machine. But for light video, the NUC will work. And the i7 you're looking at will perform slightly better than the i5 I'm using.

All that said, this tiny PC space may be getting even more exciting if AMD gets into it as has been rumored. They have superior graphics rendering in many cases, and their latest laptop chips have been shown to outperform the Intel counterparts. It'll be interesting to see the 10th gen intel chips in a NUC soon.

I love the NUC platform. I've built 25+ of them and have been please along the way.

The machine doesn't seem all that bad. Pretty old and some older/slower RAM, but really I think just throwing an SSD on there would make the best performance boost and is cheaper than building a whole new machine. Up to you, though.

Grab something like a 256GB SSD or something like this: http://smile.amazon.com/Samsung-250GB-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3W1726/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1417498227&sr=8-2&keywords=256GB+SSD

Install Windows 7/8.1 on it, tweak it some if you'd like to disable some services or whatever to save some RAM space, or add some faster/more RAM to the machine would be beneficial as well.

UPDATE: Over-night changes in pricing have ruined my carefully-picked PC parts, so I've downvoted this comment and made a new comment containing updated builds with proper pricing.

　

Here's an alternate set of builds (multiple because I don't know how picky you about about your $700 budget) that downgrades the CPU but squeezes in an SSD. Depending on the game, you may need to use GPU-accelerated video encoding (which is lower quality) in order to still have good gaming performance.

Note that, for the SSD, Amazon likes to default to a 3rd party seller that is actually more expensive, so make sure you click the link the "New (8) from $47.99" link to purchase from Amazon directly for a cheaper price.

Again, special mention that the RAM is known to work with the motherboard I chose.

　

$700 after rebate:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor | $157.49 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard | ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | $77.98 @ Newegg
Memory | Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory | $64.00 @ Amazon
Storage | Kingston - A400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $47.99 @ Amazon
Storage | Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $48.44 @ OutletPC
Video Card | EVGA - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB SC GAMING ACX 2.0 Video Card | $121.53 @ Amazon
Case | Zalman - ZM-T1 PLUS MicroATX Mini Tower Case | $28.99 @ SuperBiiz
Power Supply | Corsair - CXM 450W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply | $26.99 @ Newegg
Operating System | Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit | $89.89 @ OutletPC
Keyboard | Logitech - K120 Wired Standard Keyboard | $10.89 @ SuperBiiz
Mouse | Logitech - G302 Daedalus Prime Moba Wired Optical Mouse | $25.10 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $734.29
| Mail-in rebates | -$35.00
| Total | $699.29
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-21 03:19 EDT-0400 |

　

$700 without rebate but also without shipping:

Differences from first-listed build

Downgraded case

Downgraded power supply (it's non-modular)

Downgraded mouse

Different merchant for Windows 10 (they're cheaper when not considering the rebate)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | AMD - Ryzen 5 1400 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor | $157.49 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard | ASRock - AB350M Pro4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard | $82.98 @ Newegg
Memory | Crucial - Ballistix Sport LT 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory | $64.00 @ Amazon
Storage | Kingston - A400 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $47.99 @ Amazon
Storage | Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $48.44 @ OutletPC
Video Card | EVGA - GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB SC GAMING ACX 2.0 Video Card | $121.53 @ Amazon
Case | DIYPC - MA01-R MicroATX Mini Tower Case | $25.97 @ Newegg
Power Supply | EVGA - 500W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply | $36.99 @ SuperBiiz
Operating System | Microsoft - Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit | $92.99 @ Amazon
Keyboard | Logitech - K120 Wired Standard Keyboard | $10.89 @ SuperBiiz
Mouse | Redragon - Centrophorus M601 Wired Optical Mouse | $12.99 @ Amazon
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before shipping) | $695.28
| Shipping | $6.98
| Total | $702.26
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2017-06-21 03:33 EDT-0400 |

　

$700 without rebate but with shipping:

Requires RAM that isn't confirmed to work with the motherboard which isn't something I'm comfortable suggesting when OP doesn't know what overclocking means

The second-listed build is only $2.26 above $700 when shipping is included

Therefore I will abstain from providing a true under-$700-after-all-costs-accounted-for build that includes an SSD.

Hey dude, Singaporean here as well! And For you I'll recommend getting a new case and Motherboard +CPU.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1W3wurvEJFEEZkES875Os6DHOT2RuYqFDGB9Bl1iH2ZA/edit?usp=sharing

here is a spreadsheet that I use for people I help to build PCs for, with prices for stuff from Sim Lim (because having local warranty is good). But yeah, this is just for reference. You can always try amazon esp to save abit on older Ryzens and RAM but RMA may be a bit of a pain just so that you are aware. But for cases, the techware Nexus is pretty solid choice and I think it's only $50 SGD.

https://www.tecware.co/nexus

​

IIRC it's the same case that Aftershock uses on their more budget lineup.

​

In any case, If I were you, I'll either wait for the Ryzen 3000 series if I want local warranty, or if I dont mind shipping from amazon and potentially having to deal with overseas RMA, wait for Ryzen 2000 sales on amazon after the 3000 series launches. Or get the 1600 from amazon now. since the prices of those have been crazy cheap these days and TBH it wont bottleneck your RX 580 anyways.

SSD wise, how big do you want it? a 500GB WD Blue 3D is like $100SGD now, so not too different from say a 500GB 860 evo once you add in the conversion rate + Import Tax+ Shipping. But if you wait for a sale on the 1TB 860Evo, those could be quite nice, since I've seen amazon sell those for 130USD during sales, which is quite cheap considering the lower performance 860QVO is like $200SGD right now from local distributors (and the failure rate on Samsung SSDs are so low that the RMA risks are minimal). as for the 860 evo, no reason to buy one of those in SG now since for almost the same price you can get the Adata XPG SX8200 Pro but with performance matching or surpassing in some areas, the much vaulted 970 Evo.

​

Edit: Just saw the WD Blue 3D 1TB for $115USD on amazon.https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-1TB-SSD-WDS100T2B0A/dp/B073SBQMCX/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1LPKB9DX5EIHI&keywords=wd+blue+3d+1tb&qid=1557331485&s=gateway&sprefix=WD+Blue+3d+1tb%2Caps%2C354&sr=8-12

SanDisk as a brand isn't bad, but COULD BE better. See if you can spring for a Samsung drive. It's not like it's C or D tier, but Sandisk isn't A tier that's for sure. The MSI board you've chosen is probably fine; but we've seen some issues with reliability over time - especially with the more budget-focused sub 100 dollar boards.

GPU is a bargain. Great cooling on it. Phanteks is kicking butt in the case market these days. Corsair always amazing -- BUT their TXM line is NOT high quality. It's built by a third party manufacturer last I checked.

See if you can spring for an EVGA G3. Worlds better quality.

first of all you have a Z87 mobo, this is outdated and you will want a Z97 mobo. Are you intending to overclock? if so, a 4670k or 4690k is the default choice. great price/performance ratio and will last you at least 4-5 years before you need a new cpu, esspeically once OC'ed to the high 4ghz range.

Some other notes on your build below:

As for the ram, you are way over paying for it. it's your regular 1600 mhz cas 9 ram. that ram is run of the mill with a fancy name slapped on it. Get a 2x4gb kit from g. skill or something similar for $60-80 range.

case: case is completely subjective, but that's a fairly basic case for $100. I would recommend something like a source 210 windowed version for $40. In builds this, don't drop $100 on a case. That extra $60 can bump you up another GPU tier.

Case fans: Case fans are again, something completely based on opinion but i notice they are 140mm fans and im assuming you are using the two red ones to replace the case fans and the two bitfenix for rad fans? if so these need to all be 120mm fans (unless the case specifies it will work with 140). however, i would say only get 2 anyway and only replace the case fans as those are pretty expensive fans. This is an area to cut cost if you are on a buget.

CPU cooler: that CLC is a fine cooler, but if you are on a budget this is an area to cut cost as well. Something like a 212 evo will give you 90% just as good temps for $30 without the hassle of worrying about leaks or pump failures. If you are not overclocking absolutely do not waste $100 here. A non-overclocked cpu will do fine with the stock cooler.

Psu: fine psu, no tips

GPU: 760 is a fine gpu (i have one in my build right now) however if you save some money in other areas you could get a 770 or 280x or something for the same price.

SSD: m500 has been replaced by the mx100. Here it is at the same price however this one performs better and is newer


hope that points you in the right direction.

15.6" Suggestions| Lenovo U530 59428052| Lenovo U530 59428053| Lenovo Flex 2 15 ^Signature ^Edition | Dell Inspiron I7547-3020SLV | ASUS Transformer Book Flip TP500L | ASUS N550JK ^suggested ^by ^construktz
---|---|----|----|----|----|----
CPU| i7-4510U | i7-4510U | i7-4510U | i5-4210U| i5-4210U | i7-4700HQ
GPU| Intel 4400 | Nvidia GT 730M ^(can play most games on low settings) | Intel 4400| Intel 4400| Intel 4400 | Nvidia GTX 850M
Passmark CPU Mark | 3969 | 3969 | 3969 | 3422 | 3422 | 7906
storage | 500GB HDD + 8GB SSD | 500GB HDD + 8GB SSD| 500GB HDD + 8GB SSD | 1TB HDD| 1TB HDD | 1TB HDD
ram | 8GB| 8GB | 8GB| 6GB| 8GB | 8GB
battery | ^Can't ^find ^any ^review-based ^battery ^life, ^should ^be ^slightly ^more ^than ^the ^730M ^GPU ^version| 8hr | 4hr | 6hr customer claim | 4-5hr Amazon Customer Reviews | 3hr Amazon Customer Review
weight | 5.07lbs| 5.07lbs | 5.59lbs| 4.5lbs| 4.95lbs | 6lbs
screen | 1920x1080 touch| 1920x1080 touch | 1920x1080 IPS touch| 1920x1080 IPS touch | 1920x1080 touch | 1920x1080 IPS
price | 839| 899 | 699.99| 649.99 | 629.99 Amazon or 699.99 ^(Signature ^Edition) | 929

My suggestion would be the Dell Inspiron I7547-3020SLV. A 15.6" laptop at 649.99 that has an IPS display for great viewing angles and color. 4.5lbs and 6hr of battery life fit your needs.

If you'd like longer battery life and more portability:

13.3" Suggestions | MacBook Air 13.3 i5 2014 (Refurbished) | ASUS VivoBook Q301LA| ASUS TP300LA ^Signature ^Edition
---|---|----|----|----
CPU | i5-4260U | i5-4200U | i5-4210U
Passmark CPU Mark| 3640 | 3292| 3422
storage | 128GB SSD | 500GB HDD| 500GB HDD
ram | 4GB| 6GB | 8GB
battery | 12hr 20min | 5hr 38min| 6hr
weight | 2.96lbs | 3.8lbs| 3.92lbs
screen | 1440x900| 1366x768 touch| 1920x1080 IPS touch
price | 849.99 | 599.99| 699.99

"The reason is Apple has a really great refurbishment process and policy: Refurbs come with a new outer shell, new battery, and the same one-year warranty that new hardware comes with." And install Windows on it if you like (would probably shorten battery life but with 12h20m it can't be too bad). The 128GB SSD would hold a few programs and externals are down to 59.99 for 1TB and at 5.4oz/.34lb you could (gently) toss one into your laptop bag.

Microsoft Store Signature Edition means zero bloatware.

Each specification cites its source with a link (which will usually lead you to a review) unless that source is the product link (at the top of the chart).

This article was helpful Ultrabook Review: Best ultrabooks under $800 (or $1000) in 2014

A HDD can be the bottleneck of any computer. If you end up with a HDD laptop and find it to be slow, you may want to switch out the HDD for a SDD like this 256GB for $109 or 512GB for $189. Or get a hybrid hdd+sdd drive like this TOSHIBA MQ01ABD100H 1TB+8GB for $84.

edit: formatting

I don't know what kind of budget you are on, but I would say spend 30 more and get this 120gb from Samsung. I have it and it works like a charm, comes with software that is very easy to use and helps keep it running at maximum potential. But this is just my completely unprofessional opinion. It just seems like a hassle to have to think about what you can put on there, with a 120gb you can't put everything but you can put most of your most used programs on there and not have to worry about it. I put all my drivers on there, software for my mouse, keyboard, speakers, and Bluetooth dongle, chrome, team speak, iTunes, and my trend micro antivirus and still have about 50gbs free. I love being able to restart my computer and hop back onto Reddit and team speak before I can take my next breath haha.

That's perfect really, if you wanted to save a bit of money you could also get the Dark rock 3 non pro, in the UK there's about a 30GBP difference, otherwise if you're happy with paying extra the PRO is fine, they're equelly as good.

The MSI board is good too because with that board you will be able to OC your ram quite easily to 3600MHz which is what I have done with my 3000 ram as well.

Your motherboard also has an M2 slot so I would suggest switching out the Corsair SSD for this https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-960-EVO-Internal-MZ-V6E250BW/dp/B01LYFKX41/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1493821134&sr=1-4&keywords=samsung+ssd

Samsung makes the best SSD's in the market and this one will be perfect for your system in terms of reliability and speed.

Get an SSD. That is going to improve performance so much. It's honestly the best bang for your buck upgrade. You can also always move the SSD to a new desktop or future laptop as well so it's not money wasted.

I have personally put SSDs in older laptops for my self and family and we've all been happy with the results. It makes the computer fast as far as load times and daily tasks go. It's not going to speed up heavy CPU intensive tasks. But if you watch videos, browse the internet, do simple things like that, it's night and day.

Samsung 860 EVO 1TB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD (MZ-76E1T0B/AM) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078DPCY3T/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_6OKBCbY64VS6V

This is one I've bought 2 of so far. Great performance for the money and plenty of storage. Old spin type HDDs are such a huge bottle neck. Especially in laptops where they put slow spin HDDs to conserve battery usage.

Step 2 would be ram upgrade, but it's not going to be as dramatic as the SSD upgrade. If you have 4gb of ram just leave it be. If you find a good deal on a 4gb stick for like $20 or less on Facebook market or something like that I'd upgrade it. I wouldn't put a whole lot of money into the computer. The only reason I recommend the SSD is because traditional HDDs are such a huge bottleneck that once lifted , makes even an i3 shine. And like I mentioned earlier that SSD you can use in future computers.

The 1st thing I would do is upgrade the hard drive to a SSD. Since you want to keep all the current data that means cloning the HDD to the SSD.

Generally speaking, buying a Samsung 860 EVO is the best option for cloning because Samsung's proprietary cloning software can be described as "bulletproof". Samsung SSDs generally also have better performance than other SSDs, though you would not really know that unless you run benchmarks. Because of it's popularity and overall performance the Samsung 860 EVO tends to be more expensive than other 2.5" SSDs.

Below is a link to a 1TB Samsung 860 EVO for $140.

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Inch-Internal-MZ-76E1T0B-AM/dp/B078DPCY3T/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=1tb+2.5%22+ssd&qid=1569532694&sr=8-3

Alternatively, you can buy the following 1TB WD Blue 2.5" SSD for $110 that "only" has very good to excellent performance. They do not have their own priority cloning software, I think they provide Acronis True Image which is very good 3rd party cloning software.

https://www.amazon.com/Blue-NAND-1TB-SSD-WDS100T2B0A/dp/B073SBQMCX/ref=sr_1_7?keywords=1tb+2.5%22+ssd&qid=1569533139&sr=8-7

You will need to purchase a USB to SATA cable for the cloning process like the one linked below. It allows you to attach a 2.5" drive to the laptop.

https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-SATA-USB-Cable-USB3S2SAT3CB/dp/B00HJZJI84/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=usb+to+sata+cable.&qid=1569533431&sr=8-3

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When it comes to RAM... 8GB should generally be enough for most people. The laptop has 4GB onboard (soldered) with a 4GB RAM stick in the only RAM slot it has. Because both RAM are of the same capacity, the RAM is operating in dual channel mode; otherwise known as "full speed". If it only had the 4GB of onboard RAM, then it would be operating in single channel mode; otherwise known as "half speed".

Installing an 8GB or 16GB stick of RAM will mean the RAM will be operating in asynchronous dual channel mode; in other words, faster than single channel mode, but slower than dual channel mode. For best gaming performance you want to keep the RAM as is since it is running in dual channel mode. However, if the game is being bottlenecked by not enough RAM installed where it has to constantly copy data between RAM and storage, then increasing the amount of RAM to 12GB or 20GB is a good idea.

I'd recommend the Y50 HD Touch. It's a 1920x1080 monitor (there is another model for 4k but doesn't have touch) and would be great for what you need. It will blow rust and minecraft out of the water and does have a backlit keyboard. Using a Barnes and Nobles Gold account you can get it for 1200$. The battery isn't great but it's worth it because of how nicely it qualifies all your needs. The 1300$ model comes with 16gb of ram and the 1200$ model comes with 8gb. I'd recommend getting the 1300$ model with a Samsung 250GB SSD.

http://shop.lenovo.com/barnesnoblegold/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y50-touch/

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3W1726/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1404838510&sr=1-1&keywords=Samsung+evo+ssd

http://shop.lenovo.com/barnesnoblegold/us/en/laptops/lenovo/y-series/y50-uhd/ (No touch but 4k and 512GB SSD)

However the downside to the Y50 is the screen. It has had some backlash because of the TN panel screen. If this is a deal breaker go for the N550JK if you want touch or the G550JK if you want a backlit keyboard. Definitely pair these with a nice SSD. These both have a nicer screen but a lower end GPU. However these systems will still run Minecraft and Rust easily. These both also have optical drives well the Y50 does not.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00KOUILK2/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_il_tl?tag=linustechtips-20&ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B00KOUILK2&linkCode=as2&linkId=UNU4AFU6LYLTU634

http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-N550JK-DS71T-15-6-Inch-Touchscreen-Laptop/dp/B00IAA5BSS/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1404838674&sr=1-1&keywords=N550Jk

I know you've already purchased things but there's a lot you can improve and I'd suggest returning things to improve your build:

• Get Haswell over Ivy Bridge. It performs better in every aspect for $10 more. Plus you can then upgrade to the newer z87 motherboard chipsets which are worth the price increase alone. You're buying slightly outdated tech when you can get the newest and best for essentially the same price.
  
  
• You'd need a new motherboard to match the 1150 socket and z87 chipset and IMO you can do better than ASRock at the $150 price point. I'd recommend a UD3H/UD4H or a comparable Asus board.
  
  
• Newer, faster, more reliable SSD by Samsung with the same amount of storage for $25 less: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE120BW/dp/B00E3W15P0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1382718396&sr=8-1&keywords=samsung+840+evo
  
  
• GPU. If you're at around the $300 price range get a 280x. Nothing can compete with it for the price right now.

I am not familiar with the Team Vulcan RAM listed, but I would suggest a CAS latency of 8 for DDR3-1600. I also would suggest scrapping the Hybrid drive for a SSD, such as the Samsung 840 EVO 250GB with a storage drive like Seagate Barracuda 1TB.

What kind of display are you using, what resolution do you plan on playing at? Are you determined to get the Windforce model? There are options just as good for $100 less, or in most cases a 970 is the better buy which could save you even more...

You definitely will not need a 750W PSU, a 500W will certainly suffice.

Haha, I feel you-- I do miss the days when a console was a console and you didn't have to worry about customizing it to improve performance.

Here's the drive and the external enclosure I'm using, total $59.98:

Original link (see edit below; might not want to get this one): https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-240GB-Solid-State-SDSSDA-240G-G26/dp/B01F9G43WU/ref=sr_1_6?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537193290&sr=1-6&keywords=250gb+ssd

Better link (Samsung, $8 more): https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-250GB-Internal-MZ-76E250B-AM/dp/B07864WMK8/ref=sr_1_3?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1537193972&sr=1-3&keywords=250gb+ssd

https://www.amazon.com/UGREEN-External-Enclosure-Adapter-Housing/dp/B06XWRRMYX/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1537193304&sr=8-4&keywords=external+enclosure+2.5

There are better SSD drives that that one, but the PS4 OS is not optimized for SSD so other people's tests show the better drives aren't any faster than lower-end drives. If you're buying one for a PC, then you might want to spring for a Samsung or something, but it's not necessary on PS4.

Edit: Ah, wait, that's not the exact same drive I'm using. Mine is listed as 250GB. This one is listed as 240GB. I think the minimum PS4 can use externally is 250GB. I know there's funny business in hard drive capacities due to the next step of bytes being 1024, not an even 1000, but I don't know if it would make this 240GB not meet PS4's "250" requirement or not. Might want to go with something explicitly 250GB to be safe.

Edit 2: Wow, Amazon actually has the Samsung brand 250GB for only $57 on sale today. I added that link if anyone's interested.

Ok couple things:

• Real good motherboard choice, Z370 is the way to go
  
• Cooler: I'm a shill but the Noctua NH D15 is champ, just gotta get over the fan colour. My hack is absolutely quiet
  
• Samsung Drive: Ditch it, firmware doesn't play nicely causing random stutters and delayed boot times(this is all NVMe Samsung drives, not just the 970 Evo Plus). Can get same performance from a Sabrent Rocket or for workhorse drive grab a WD SN750. Oh look at that, got you a 1TB drive for the price of a 512GB Samsung(Amazon)
  
• CPU is really tight, if possible try to go for an i5. You're right at the edge of getting out of the #LowlyQuadCoreLyfe (love you i7 6700k but christ I can't wait to upgrade). i5 9400f is a real good deal(wait a hot second, found the 9400F for $140 USD. I see no reason to grab the i3). Main issue with going for 9th gen is it will need a BIOS update so Z390 might be a better idea. Don't worry about no iGPU, setting the boardID to iMacPro1,1 will get better performance out of the RX 580 compared to the UHD630

Lets look at the Dell Optiplex GX280 Full Tower. According to CNet it came out June of 2004 so lets just pretend that was ten years ago instead of eleven. My parents bought a Dell Dimensions 8300 sometime around 2003 which had two SATA ports on the motherboard (The hard drive and CD drive were IDE) but since I never got it to work, I'll skip to the all SATA model. This is what I would do to determine the reasonable upgrade cost.

• The Intel Socket is LGA775 so I would need to determine the fastest processor for that socket. That being said, just because a processor fits on the motherboard does not mean that it will work.
  
  
• This computer has 4 DIMMS for RAM so I would want to max that out. Since all of the GX280s I have used were 32-bit systems (some pentium processors around this time were 64-bit but lets just assume that isn't the case), I would assume 4GiB is the max.
  
  
• A decent 256GiB SSD would probably do the job. If they need more storage, it can be added after the fact. I assume if they have been using a 10 year old computer and the thing probably came with a 150GiB drive they should be fine with the 256.
  
  
• Windows XP is end of life now so a Windows 7 license would be needed.
  
  
• Since drivers on Windows 7 for the GX280 are a bit hard to find, you may need to get an discrete graphics card if one is not in there already. I found unsigned Windows 7 video drivers once but they really didn't work all that well. I want to say if you need the serial port too, you might be out of luck unless you come up with a different solution.
  
  So here are all the cost estimates.
  
  
• $109.99(Free Shipping)Crucial MX100. I have had a lot of luck with Crucial products so this would be the one I would buy because of that.
  
  
• $24.60(Free Shipping)A-Tech 184Pin 400MHz PC3200 RAM (We're going to need two of these so I doubled the price). According to this forum and the specs sheet the max for the full tower is 4GB. Normally I go with brands I have heard of but I wasn't seeing good buying options for those so I went with A-Tech.
  
  
• $15.99(Free Shipping)SL7Z3. According to this forum post the fastest process is the Prescott P4 clocked at 3.8GHz. According to Intel's site it is 64-Bit compatible so that is something.
  
  
• $76.98(Free Shipping) Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit SP1. I was reading somewhere (I can't find the link now) that drivers are a mess and just because the processor supports 64-bit does not mean the entire system would. It might be safer to get the same thing but in 32-Bit
  
  
• $33.99(Amazon prime shipping) GeForce 8400 graphics card. Just in case you needed an graphics card if the drivers don't pan out.
  
  
• $34.99(Amazon Prime shipping) Antec 450 Watt Power Supply. This also may be strenuous. The graphics card says to have at least a 350 Watt power supply. Since the full tower 280 comes with a 305 Watt I would imagine it would be a good idea to up the supply a bit.
  
  Total Cost = 296.54 with all extra costs added. Someone not as throughout as myself can cut costs on a lot of the things on this list. I would show this breakdown to the customer and explain why it might be more cost efficient to purchase a new machine (or have me build them one) and we could go from there.

You should get an SSD. 512GB, or better yet, 1TB. They've really fallen in price. Amazon has the WD Blue SSD for $115 and that's what I have. I'm crying (not literally, LOL) because I paid $300 for that. And it's amazing. I don't regret it. I mean, I know you're being facetious about 20 minutes to launch an app store, but with an SSD, you can go from your computer having been off a week, to you reading Reddit, in like six seconds flat. I'm not kidding. It's stupid fast. Your computer is probably faster than you think. The bottleneck is your hard drive. Replace it with an SSD, and let the app stores start when the computer does.

There are apps that combine all your games into one place, kind of like what Steam does, but for all the app stores, plus emulators. The main one I know of is called LaunchBox. Personally I think it's a giant pain in the knob, but I respect the hustle. I mean, I'm lazy. If I want to play a game, I just launch it from the start menu. If you launch the game, it'll launch any dependencies in the background, and that's that. It's never been an issue. LaunchBox is free, by the way, with a $20 pro version that does some cool shit. And the author sounds like a great guy. If you like what you see, definitely try it out. Maybe the all-in-one launcher thing is for you. I'm old school. Same with music... I don't do music libraries, I just play the songs out of my file manager. Old school. It's worked for ~20 years, why change it?

Finally, after all these reviews, i'm going to buy these pieces and build my masterpiece-wannabe.

I would like to thanks /u/Raffles7683 for his dedicated, nice and smart help ! Also, thanks to /u/DIK-FUK and /u/golli123.

That's it, the final configuration, which is 2€ cheaper than the first one. WHAT A SAVE. But it's all the way better. I finally picked a I7-6700k as a CPU since nobody seems to know at which point a I5-6600k will bottleneck the GTX 1080, even with a 4.5 Ghz overclock. The debate is running litteraly everywhere and no one has the same point of view. So... I guess i can throw 100€ by the window to be sure and to overlock a i7 to 4.4 Ghz.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU |Intel Core i7-6700K | €325.79 - Amazon.it
CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler | €34.99 - Amazon.it
Motherboard | Asus Z170-P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | €109.61 - Amazon.fr
Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3000 Memory | €126.04 - Amazon.it
Storage | Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | €74.00 - Amazon.es
Storage | Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | €53.44 - Amazon.fr
Video Card | KFA2 GeForce GTX 1080 EXOC 8GB Video Card | €560.00 - French shop
Case | Fractal Design Define S ATX Mid Tower Case | €76.32 - Amazon.de
Power Supply | Corsair CSM 650W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply | €78.99 - Amazon.es
Wireless Network Adapter | Asus PCE-AC56 PCI-Express x1 802.11a/b/g/n/ac Wi-Fi Adapter | €48.00 - Amazon.de
Monitor | Acer XB271HU bmiprz 27.0" 2560x1440 165Hz Monitor | €699.90 - French shop
| Total | €2187.08



The CPU has been edited according to /u/Raffles7683's review and /u/DIK-FUK's build suggest. And updated, because no one knows what is a bottleneck, in real world.
The RAM / SSD has been edited according to /u/Raffles7683's review, again.
* The case has been edited according to /u/golli123's review


I will provide some news in the future with, probably, in build photos :)

What is the build's purpose? This is a pretty imbalanced gaming build but could be good for general use with some productivity and light gaming.

You're overspending on RAM, you're better off with a lower timings and lower speed sticks, for example this kit at 3200MHz CL16.

You should be going with an NVME drive at that price/GB, here is a great option by Sabrent.

For $84 you do have some other good cooler options, the Dark Rock Pro 4 and Noctua NH-D15S are other comparable options. The Noctua is the best for performance/noise by a small margin.

Also instead of spending $170 on an H500 and fans, just get the H510 Elite with the same fans and controller included, and you get a nicer glass front panel to show them off.

You can save a fair amount on this SSD, the MX100, for $115. While the performance on that samsung is really impressive, I'm not sure it is worth it for the standard gamer.
The R9 280 will probably be the best option to squeeze into your budget.
In terms of RAM, all you need is the best deal you can find on 1600MHz CL9 running at 1.5 volts.
Not to sure on optical drives as I haven't used one in a while. Good luck though and enjoy the process.

The only way you could get a vr capable pc for under $700 would be to build one with buying the main components used off Ebay. Let me see if I can put together something:

Used Parts
GPU - $95
CPU, motherboard, and memory - $233

New Parts
Power Supply - $50
Hard Drive - $110
Case - $45

Total - $533

You'll still need a mouse and keyboard, which you can spend as little or as much as you want on. If you have a TV with an hdmi input, which you probably do, you can use that as a monitor. This will satisfy the minimum requirements for most headsets, but just barely. You would be better off getting a gtx 1070 over a 970.

GTX 1070 - $260

New Total - $698


That would give you a better experience, but is obviously more expensive. If you haven't built your own pc yet, don't feel intimidated. There are plenty of guides on youtube and it is very simple. It is also a right of passage. Putting it together yourself will also allow you to upgrade one component at a time later on. Used pc parts are usually pretty good. All the stuff I listed should be able to work for another 8 years or so, well beyond the time they will be obsolete. Feel free to ask any questions.

Hey guys, my friend brought a used Dell XPS 8700 computer for her side hustle as photographer/videographer. She has budget of about $500 for upgrade. She wants to run Adobe suites, Color grading apps and some simple animation (text and such) with After effects, MS office apps,web browser,chat app (Skype/Discord). Ultimately she wants to have 3 monitors so she can run multiple apps at the same time.

I have software background, don't know much about hardware but I am the only "computer guy" she knows.

Its windows 10 machine and has Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz and other stock dell component.

I was thinking of suggesting upgrading these three

ASUS AC1200 Wireless Bluetooth 4.2 PCIe/Mpcie Adapter https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0713RRZMB/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_ykaIDb4ZDEE3W $34.99 (for faster Wi-Fi and Bluetooth because dell one is really bad)

Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB (4x8GB) DDR3 1600 MHz https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00D6E5JMQ/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_JYaIDbJZCAVQP $139.99 (more ram for multiple apps, it only supports DDR3 ram)

Samsung 860 EVO 500GB 2.5 Inch SATA III Internal SSD https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0781Z7Y3S/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_nlaIDbJWFPEJK $79.99 (for boot and installing program only, format and use the existing HD for storage)

But I am struggling with which graphic card to suggest, it has dell power supply (I think 460 watts, might be wrong, don’t have PC with me so can’t tell), NVIDIA GeForce GT 635 card which supports 3 monitor but really struggles with everything else.

Here are 3 graphic card that it say it works with 450w and has good reviews, but I don't know which one to suggest.

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 OC 6G Graphics Card, 2X Windforce Fans https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P76G428/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_gnaIDbMGBH0AR $229.99

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Gaming OC 6G Graphics Card, 3X Windforce Fans https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07P689CXR/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_WnaIDbQQBPCR8 $239.99

MSI Gaming GeForce GTX 1660 Ti 192-bit HDMI/DP 6GB GDRR6 HDCP Support DirectX https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07N824KNV/ref=cm_sw_r_tw_dp_U_x_toaIDbNAYN7PV $279.99

Which graphic card do you think will work best? Do you guys have any other suggestion? Do you see a bottle neck or compatibility issues? Do you think that the best use of her money? It’s my first time messing with hardware and it is someone else money so I am really nervous. Thank you in advance for your help.

There's a couple kinds of SSD: 2.5" drives connected though SATA, PCIE based SSDs and then the dedicated slot M.2 and U.2.

SATA SSD speeds are limited by the SATA port itself but the drives are still much faster than spinning HDDs and are easy to install since they're compatible with any build.

PCIE based SSDs as I understand it were useful before M.2 and U.2 slots were as popular as they are now because you could still install them in any computer with a PCIE slot open. But they take up a lot of space and have basically been replaced by the M.2 standard.

M.2 use dedicated PCIE lanes and have a dedicated spot on the motherboard.

So when looking at SSDs you're basically considering m.2 or SATA.

You're budget, storage needs, transfer speed preferences, and motherboard are going to guide you one way or another.

This LinusTechTips video explains it pretty well.

Here's a build. One thing you really need to look for is that your motherboard supports x8 dual channel PCI-e slots because that's the standard for crossfire. Don't buy a cheaper MoBo if it doesn't have that because in that case you might as well not crossfire.

I've added one that will work well in crossfire. I downgraded the PSU to save cash but the first you picked is great. 750W should be enough for crossfire. And really, you can look at the 840 EVO SSDs for a better value/performance. Just $10 more and you get much better performance than the 840s. Though I do have the 840 250 GB and it's great. It's not on PCPartPicker from what I see:

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3W1726/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1377307697&sr=1-1&keywords=Samsung+840+evo

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor | $229.99 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler | $29.99 @ Microcenter
Motherboard | ASRock Z87 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard | $129.99 @ Newegg
Memory | Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $49.99 @ Newegg
Storage | Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk | $176.98 @ Newegg
Storage | Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $59.98 @ Outlet PC
Video Card | MSI Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) | $299.99 @ Newegg
Video Card | MSI Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) | $299.99 @ Newegg
Case | Antec Three Hundred Two ATX Mid Tower Case | $57.99 @ Microcenter
Power Supply | XFX ProSeries 750W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply | $109.99 @ Newegg
Operating System | Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) | $85.99 @ NCIX US
| | Total
| Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available. | $1517.87
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-08-23 21:35 EDT-0400 |

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor | $280.00
CPU Cooler | CRYORIG H7 49.0 CFM CPU Cooler | $34.88 @ OutletPC
Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $115.00
Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2666 Memory | $94.89 @ OutletPC
Storage | Sandisk SSD PLUS 240GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $68.88 @ Jet
Storage | Toshiba P300 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $63.00
Video Card | Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Windforce OC Video Card | $389.38 @ Amazon
Case | NZXT H440 (Matte Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case | $95.99 @ NCIX US
Power Supply | EVGA SuperNOVA GS 550W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | $79.99 @ B&H
Monitor | Asus VG248QE 24.0" 1920x1080 144Hz Monitor | $269.99 @ SuperBiiz
Other| iKBC F108| $129.99
Other| CableMod® WideBeam™ Foam Adhesive LED Strip 30cm - RED| $18.99
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total | $1640.98
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-12-17 04:37 EST-0500 |

So uh.. Yeah. I'm a noob. Kind of did some changes.. Changed the monitor to a 144Hz for that juicy CS:GO gameplay, got a far more aesthetically pleasing case, which also comes with 4 fans, as opposed to 2. They don't have the fancy lighting though, so I added a good red LED strip. As for the peripherals, I only need a keyboard, and my good friends over at /r/MechanicalKeyboards hooked me up with one of the best currently available on the market! Again, sorry for all the fuss, I don't mean to say you did a bad job recommending just idk I really care about looks and it drives me crazy if things don't look right to me.

Only compatibility issue that was given was this:

"The NZXT H440 (Matte Black/Red) ATX Mid Tower Case supports video cards up to 406mm long, but video cards over 294mm may block drive bays. Since the Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1070 8GB Windforce OC Video Card is 298mm long, some drive bays may not be usable."

From this I gather that I just barely won't be able to use one of the drive bays, which shouldn't be a problem at all.

Sorry again! And thanks again! Uggh

Edit: These are all of the right parts, correct? Just want to make sure because it's 6 am and I haven't gone to sleep yet.
CPU
CPU Cooler
Motherboard
Memory
HD
SSD
GPU
Case
Power Supply
Monitor
Keyboard
Lighting

I narrowed it down to three sites to make it easier to order, plus I have Amazon Prime and NewEgg Premium, which makes it easier with those sites!

PCPartPicker Part List

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel - Core i5-9600K 3.7 GHz 6-Core Processor | $259.89 @ OutletPC
CPU Cooler | Scythe - Mugen 5 Rev. B 51.17 CFM CPU Cooler | $54.89 @ OutletPC
Motherboard | *ASRock - Z390 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $99.89 @ OutletPC
Memory | G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory | $85.98 @ Newegg
Storage | ADATA - Ultimate SU800 1 TB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $94.99 @ Amazon
Storage | *Hitachi - Ultrastar 7K3000 3 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $52.33 @ Amazon
Video Card | EVGA - GeForce RTX 2070 8 GB Black Video Card | $479.99 @ B&H
Case | NZXT - H500i ATX Mid Tower Case | $99.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply | SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply | $89.99 @ SuperBiiz
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $1352.94
| Mail-in rebates | -$35.00
| Total | $1317.94
| *Lowest price parts chosen from parametric criteria |
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-05-18 17:48 EDT-0400 |

Stuck with Intel because that was your initial choice, didn't want to jump straight into a different platform on you.

Far better performance for your dollar. You will not notice a difference in gaming performance between the 9600k and 9700k because they got rid of the hyperthreading advantage on i7 CPUs. Now the only difference is 6 vs 8 core which again will do nothing in games.

I have this cooler on my 9600k @ 5ghz/1.35v and it keeps it around 55-60c in games. Other options are the scythe ninja 5, dark rock 4, dark rock pro 4. The corsair h100i is a massive waste of money.

Switched ram to 16gb because 32gb will do literally nothing for you if you're gaming and doing office work.

Swapped to a different 1tb SSD with the same performance without the samsung upcharge. If you wanted to get a much faster drive for the same price as the 860 evo check out this and this, but a sata SSD is more than enough. The su800 is a great drive.

2070 with the leftover budget because it is a massive upgrade from the 1660ti. However if you're only gaming at 1080p just stick with a 2060 and save some money.

Swapped to a better PSU, and 750w was overkill. This and the rm650x(2018) are both top tier options.

The mobo is fine but now you have money for a slightly nicer one if you need any extra features or want to go for bigger overclocks.

Here's my chat log. TL;DR it comes with the game code

04:21 PM PST Marc(Amazon): Hello there! My name is Marc. I hope you are doing well in this beautiful day! I will do my best to assist you with your concern.
04:21 PM PST Demetri: Hi Marc
04:22 PM PST Demetri: I was looking at the Samsung 120gb SSD that is advertised with the promotion for Far Cry 4
And just wanted to ask if this ssd for sure comes with this code or not
04:22 PM PST Marc(Amazon): Can you send me a link to that promotion so that I can check?
04:22 PM PST Demetri: http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-120GB-2-5-Inch-Internal-MZ-7TE120BW/dp/B00E3W15P0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417133211&sr=8-1&keywords=samsung+120gb+ssd
04:23 PM PST Demetri: Honestly, I've been on reddit seeing that some people are claiming they have spoken to one of you guys and you confirm that this deal is real
and some have said it doesnt qualify
04:24 PM PST Marc(Amazon): It does qualify Demetri. The download code will be emailed to you when the item will be shipped.
04:25 PM PST Marc(Amazon): To receive the Bonus with Purchase:

1. Add qualifying products described in the promotion to your Shopping Cart via the “Add to Shopping Cart” button.
   
   
2. After your item ships, we will send you an e-mail with the game download redemption code for Far Cry 4 within 5-7 business days with instructions to redeem.
   04:25 PM PST Demetri: And we're for sure talking about the 120gb sized ssd, correct?
   04:26 PM PST Marc(Amazon): Yes, the item that you are looking right now.
   04:26 PM PST Demetri: Okay, thank you so much Marc! Thats all the questions I have.
   04:27 PM PST Marc(Amazon): You're welcome. Just follow the instructions on how to place the order so that you will be able to take advantage of the promo.
   To receive the Bonus with Purchase:
   
   
3. Add qualifying products described in the promotion to your Shopping Cart via the “Add to Shopping Cart” button.
   
   
4. After your item ships, we will send you an e-mail with the game download redemption code for Far Cry 4 within 5-7 business days with instructions to redeem

I'd also have to recommend the Samsung 840 Evo. I got a 250gb one for around $110 on sale back in march, and it's amazing.

They're still around $120 but it's totally worth it. I'd also recommend this size in particular. 120 is too small and the others are too expensive.

Transferring Windows over was a huge pain, but once it was done and I restarted, it was totally worth it. If you do a clean install it's way quicker. Seeing your pc boot to an instantly usable desktop in less than 10 seconds is totally worth it. Also putting steam on it was awesome.

I've been able to quit a cs:go competitive match, restart my computer, open steam, and rejoin the game well within the 3 minute window before you get penalized for leaving.

tl:dr get one

So this won't meet all of your requirements; but if Cheap is #1; then it might be a workable solution.

​

The HP Microserver is about the size of a toaster, standing up on it's end - so it's space efficient & uses AMD's Mobile processors for reduced power requriements: Pairing that with a couple of half height INTEL nics and a cheap SSD, I had PFsense up and running in under an hour. My internet speeds are about the same as what you quoted above. As far as build time, it took me longer to open up the microserver than it did to install the software; and then learning PFSense has been an adventure; but it sounds like you're already familiar with that. The microserver has an onboard NIC, if you add the two Intel half-heights you can support a local network +DMZ in whatever flavor you want. Sounds like you might need those to be SFPs - but if you can reuse the ones from your old Firewall it might be a workable solution.

​

For the parts below your looking at about $130.00 - maybe less if you have an old SSD laying around? or opt to use an older hard drive?

​

This is what I bought:

​

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-ProLiant-MicroServer-Turion-II-Neo-N40L-1-5ghz-4gb-RAM-4x-Trays-Sound/293026779637?hash=item4439c1d1f5:g:9nUAAOSwTO9aN~VZ:sc:FedExHomeDelivery!70448!US!-1

​

https://www.ebay.com/itm/LOT-OF-2-INTEL-EXPI9400PTBLK-PRO-1000-SERVER-ADAPTER-Half-Height-Bracket/372650340117?hash=item56c3b0ef15:g:EDMAAOSw6~VZxC15:sc:USPSFirstClass!70448!US!-1

​

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-240GB-Solid-SA400S37-240G/dp/B01N5IB20Q/ref=sxin_2_ac_d_pm?keywords=ssd&pd_rd_i=B01N5IB20Q&pd_rd_r=21440a5c-1495-4f5d-ac1e-e1a1cd70cba5&pd_rd_w=GCh7t&pd_rd_wg=iTFs8&pf_rd_p=5cc8abfe-8f78-4f34-b19f-d09d6ea0dca4&pf_rd_r=82JE7208JTNJ1DN96224&qid=1557770695&s=gateway

This is a nice looking build. It will definitely outperform the PS4 and Xbox 1. [Here is a side by side comparison with a gtx 760 build, the ps4 and the xbox 1] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4z4igRnlLQ#t=130).

Looking at GPU benchmarks for the 760 will give you a good idea of what framerates to expect. [Tom's Hardware] (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-760-review-gk104,3542.html) has a great review with some benchmarks. It looks like you should be able to max out pretty much every game at 1080p and 60 fps except for the most demanding games out right now like Crysis 3 which are still playable. Turning down the settings a little on Crysis 3 gets it to over 40 fps, which is more than playable.

The only change I would suggest is adding a SSD if you can afford it. The [Samsung EVO 120GB] (http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Electronics-EVO-Series-2-5-Inch-MZ-7TE250BW/dp/B00E3W1726) is on sale right now and is a great drive for the price. However, don't get it if it means that you need to downgrade your CPU or GPU.

Also, make sure you have a 1080p monitor. This the 760 will blow any game out of the water at less than 1080p, so there is no point in getting this card over the cheaper 750 ti. If you don't already have a 1080p monitor and don't want to get one, I would suggest you save money and downgrade to the 750 ti.

Great motherboard for your build ! Best in class for the b450 platform IMO.

Few suggestions:

Cheaper yet more than decent keyboard

Take a safer/better SSD from a reputable brand: At least a DRAMless drive like a Crucial BX500 or a Kingston A400.

Here is a better, safer PSU for long term: the EVGA Supernova G2 550W

The stock Ryzen 2600 cooler is more than fine unless you plan on overclocking your stuff. You could save a little bit there instead of getting a single-fan AIO solution.

For the RAM, I can't really speak as I've never looking into 2x4Gb kits. Somebody else could review that.

Hey, full stack developer using x1 extreme with Linux here. Everything you listed here seems fine other than the ssd you want to make sure you get nvme as opposed to normal sata 3 one to make sure you get the most out of it. This is the lowest one I'd put on a workstation

https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG

That's the normal 970 evo, the 970 evo plus is a bit better though. 970 pro isn't worth it to me from a price point perspective the 970 plus is my go-toand is what I have installed on my X1E. 3500mb/s read and about 3200-3300 mb/s write, the one you listed hovers around 500mb/s read and a bit less write than that.

Everything you listed as a requirement can be done on all Linux distros, what you have to determine is how you'd like to manage them. If you're a first time user I'd recommend pop os and manjaro, they're sure to have all the stuff you need and work pretty good out of the box. I personally use manjaro because it's a rolling release so I install once and just go upgrading stuff as it comes out, no need to install a new one over what I have once the new release is out like other distros. Just remember that with Linux you'll have to do some digging around and getting your hands dirty with stuff sometimes for things to work properly but once you get used to it you'll see it's a small price to pay for all the flexibility you get. The ones I listed are just some personal favourites, you really can't go wrong with any other to be honest just experiment with a few until you find the right fit for you, try them on some virtual machines if you want to make your testing a bit faster.

Cheers

https://www.amazon.com/ASUS-TUF-X570-Plus-Motherboard-Lighting/dp/B07SXFK1TP

That’s a good mobo, costs more but anything cheaper has bad VRMs,

https://youtu.be/zuyuS04lD4o

this video is good for motherboards.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/62vp2g/clearing_up_any_samsung_bdie_confusion_eg_on/

Good Reddit post on bdie RAM.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073SB2MXT/?tag=pcpapi-20

I also think the higher end builds should have a 1TB ssd, and this one is nice.

And as other commenters said, a better PSU and perhaps a nicer case (meshify C, and H500 are both nice) on the higher end builds would be a good improvement.

I've used quite a few SSDs and I would steer you towards paying an extra 10 quid (not British I hope I am using the proper slang up in this John) to get a Samsung 840 Evo 120gb

The main reasons are not only that the reviews show that it is one of the faster SSDs available in the price range, but it has Samsung Magician, which lets you dedicate some of your system memory/RAM for use with the SSD for faster read/write, and here are some pretty benchmark numbers showing how well Magician works in synthetic tests, although these are synthetic, and RAPID mode might not give you as large an advantage in real-life scenarios (unless you frequently use the same programs so that RAPID mode throws those files into your RAM, then the gains will be rather large!)

The V300 should be awesome should you choose to get it but you might want to spend some time drooling at charts before you make the purchase, and I admit that I am a little biased towards Samsung (I own 2x 840 Pro and 1x 840 Evo for OS/Games and a few Crucial SSDs that I relegate to less-important things like music/etc)

I think your best bet would probably be one of these Silicon Power 256GB SSDs from Amazon. Link.

They aren't the most well known brand and they aren't as good as something like a Samsung SSD, but most people find they work well and at only $63.99 US I'm pretty sure it's the best you're going to get storage wise without increasing your price range a bit or buying something used or completely unknown from eBay.

I would spend less on the PSU. Yuo could dip down a bit on the motherboard side and still get quality, but not a lot. Jump down on the PSU and 2TB to 1TB and you can almost afford a 250GB SSD http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00E3W1726/

Save 5 bucks on ram http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008XQEQT4/
Save 35 on motherboard http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157460
Save 25 on PSU http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139050

That's 75 bucks, more than enough to cover the 250GB SSD. If you really like the mobo you have (I don't blame you), you can save almost 30 if you step down to the 1TB model of that HDD.

> HDD: 1TB SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 32MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
> .
> My main goal with this build is to not only be able to game but to also to build and animate 3d models, and well as process heavy visual effects in my adobe editing programs. Well better than my current laptop at least. I just can't wait 7 minutes to process a simple effect on a wedding video lol.

It sounds like the biggest most fixable problem you had is that you're using a regular hard drive (which is very slow compared to other options).

Your files would load dramatically faster from an SSD. If you're editing large video files I'd go for one of the more expensive ones - at 1tb the Crucial mx500 ($130) or the Samsung EVO 860 ($150). An ssd will make the whole machine faster for someone who's just web browsing...it's an even bigger improvement for someone who's video editing.

If you want it faster still, you might benefit from Nvme's even higher speeds. The Samsung 970 is one suggestion:
https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-970-EVO-1TB-MZ-V7E1T0BW/dp/B07BN217QG/

You should definitely be getting an SSD at minimum though. It makes everyone on your computer much faster (except game framerate).

You need an SSD. HDD's are very slow on modern operating systems and will bring any PC down. I dont even know why they still put them in computers. Otherwise your specs are not that bad.

I'd get a Kingston A400 assuming you're on the cheap side, but if you want best of the best in every category you can get a Samsung one. I can help you through the installation, cloning, ext, processes if you wish once you get the drive.

Samsung: https://www.amazon.com/Samsung-250GB-Internal-MZ-76E250B-AM/dp/B07864WMK8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=samsung+ssd+240gb&qid=1567214881&s=gateway&sr=8-1

Kingston: https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-240GB-Solid-SA400S37-240G/dp/B01N5IB20Q/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=kingston+a400+240gb&qid=1567214901&s=gateway&sr=8-1

>I have also been told that it would be easier to buy a prebuilt and then slap a graphics card into it, is that something I should do? What computer should I use to do it?

Yes, a used PC and a cheap GPU would be the best thing for your price range.

The best thing I can find is this Dell Optiplex for $100. According to this, the best GPU you can fit in the Optiplex 745 is a Zotac 1050ti mini which goes for 170 and should be able to give you 100 fps at 1080p on every game you listed.

You should upgrade to this SSD and potentially upgrade the PSU.

What is this for? Learning, displays/kiosk, Multiple Workstations/Gaming (linustechtips style), etc?

I'm going to assume that you aren't pegging the CPU's and that each VM will only be moderately used for my recommendations here (most common for people starting out into the homelab/server space)

With any VM system, the more ram the better. Some people here will tell you 64GB minimum, honestly depending on what you're doing 4GB might be plenty. If you want a middle of the road option, then 16GB to 32GB would be decent.

Most any CPU supports virtualization. How good of a CPU you need really depends on the workload. If you aren't pegging cores with each vm then any recent quad core CPU is plenty.

You VM's need to be on SSD's. No if's and or buts. Just get something cheap like this for 30$. If you need more space then you can add a HDD for extra space, but honestly you likely won't need it.

-----

On the GPU/USB side, is each monitor expected to be interacted with? Is there a separate keyboard/mouse for each one? How much latency are you okay with?

If you're okay with latency then a single GPU should be fine, just find a cheap one with enough ports that you need.
Otherwise you're looking at GPU passthrough, which requires a GPU for each system. Used RX 480/580's should work and be cheap.

If you want a seperate keyboard/mouse then you'll want USB PCIE cards so you can do passthrough with those.

Generally, this isn't worth doing. It's usually easier, faster, and/or cheaper to have a seperate system for each monitor if it's for intensive loads.


------

All of this said, any random old laptop can handle VM's, it really depends on what you want to do.

Not for the money, no. The i7 U processor and i5 U processor are essentially the same features, only difference is clock speed - which isn't really something you'll feel a big difference on, at least not nearly $300 worth of one. Were it an i7 MQ/HQ it'd be quad-core, so there you'd see a difference, but that's not an option on this system (due to power usage).

The system has 4GB RAM soldered, true, but there's one open DIMM slot that can fit up to a single 8GB SO-DIMM in. So the max memory for the system is 12GB.

Yea you could save about ~$100 installing your own SSD, if you're comfortable doing so. From Notebookcheck's internal look, it appears the 256GB they include is the Samsung 840 Pro, which is one of the best SSDs on the market, and retails for about $220. If you were to install your own, you could get a much cheaper Crucial M500 240GB for $120.

>I know that my CPU is the issue so I'm wondering what you would suggest for a new CPU that would still work with the rest of my parts (or just upgrade the MBOARD/CPU), preferably for less than 150 used

It's old but it will still work. A feasible upgrade will require DDR4 memory which is another $60ish. I suppose you could get a better FX chip, like the 6300 or 8300 but that's not much of an upgrade. You'd be wasting money on it TBH. It would be best to leave that alone until you can afford a better upgrade, like the Ryzen 5 system I posted.

>everything else is far out of my budget, especially the card & SSD

The cheapest 120GB SSD I know of is about $50. If $130 for the 1050Ti is too costly, you're better off sticking with the 760 you have. Lesser GPU's are not upgrades to what you have.

>Before I get it though, have you ever used the case?

I did use the case once. It was easy to work in with my average-sized hands. I don't think you'll have an issue with it.

This WD Blue 1TB M.2 SATA SSD is $115, but goes on sale for $99 pretty often. There is also the intel 1TB 660p NVMe M.2 drive that runs about $90. Both are good options, I have the WD Blue one and it works perfectly, it probably costs a bit more because of brand/reliability.

This is the SSD I got for my Late 2011 MBP and it took a dying MBP into what feels like a brand new one. I like it because it comes with a 3 year warranty. (If you get the PRO model, it comes with a 5 year warranty) I'd be careful about using a smaller 128GB model, because the more free space you have, the more reliable the drive will be. (I use about 110-130GB on my 250GB SSD). What I would do is get a program to look at all of your files and see how much space you're currently using on your HDD and then make sure you'll have enough extra space on the SSD.

RAM is a pretty simple installation, and really as long as you get the right kind, there's no going wrong. But overall, make sure you have good tools to use to open your MBP, because those little screws can easily get lost or stripped and then you'll have to replace them. Good luck! And I absolutely recommend any SSD and RAM upgrade, it'll feel like you've got a brand new computer.

So I see quite a few suggestions on CPU's and RAM, but the one I see staring me in the face is this:

>Storage Inland 480 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive $51.99 @ Amazon

Good for you going for an SSD as your system drive, but for another $30 you can get the Samsung 970 EVO nvme drive that is MUCH faster and much better quality. I want you to picture this. From powered off to Windows loaded and ready to go in 5 seconds.



SSD is good, nvme is God Tier. Read below

Inland 480GB 2.5" solid state drive

Read Speed: 550 MB/s

Write Speed: 490 MB/s


Compared to the 970 EVO nvme:


Read Speed: 3500 MB/s

Write Speed: 2500 MB/s


That's the difference you get for $30


I'm going to disagree with u/ChiliPeanut on his Storage Philosophy. I think you went the correct route looking for an SSD as your system drive and then having a disk drive as extra storage. If you ever decide to stream, or record your game play...you don't want to be constantly writing to and erasing video on a SSD...especially when that SSD is your ONLY drive. Disk drives handle the write to: function much better right now.

Yeah, it's definitely a nice build. I've built me a new pc half a year ago with almost the same specs.
I would consider a bigger SSD especially new AAA games are huge in terms of storage space and need, imo, a SSD to run smoothly.
And as already mentioned you could really get a smaller case... But if you want to upgrade to normal ATX in time the chosen case is definitely the better choice. (Imo it's also better for cable management, air flow and upgradability).
Remember that you get windows for 10-20 bucks on your friendly key-selling site :)

Edit:(fixed link) pretty cheap 500GB SSD

It definitely runs better and always has there's just a lot of crashing bugs with the May update.

My buildings render a lot better (everything is usually loaded in as soon as I'm in the plane), the console is pretty quite, and all my other games look amazing and load faster.

I play CODWWII, Assassins Creed Origins, and NBA 2K and it's a way better experience than my OG Xbox.

I upgraded bc my disc drive in my OG Xbox was busted and I had to tilt my xbox up to a 45 degree angle for the discs to be read lol.

EDIT: I also just ordered the SSD below bc I had the extra cash, it arrives today so I'll let you know if it makes difference with PUBG and my other games:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075RJS55D/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00OJ3UJ2S/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Personally i would recommend changing your power supply to [this] (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371073&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&cm_sp=&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=)

Personally i would get rid of that garbage CX series power suppy and go for the one i linked instead. It has 5 year warranty and very good build quality. It will be futureproof in case you ever decide to upgrade.

The 750W may seem like overkill now but it will last you a long time with great performance.


If you don't want to spend the $69.99 i would recommend getting the EVGA 500W B power supply which is $40.

You could also save roughly $26 with this instead of the ssd you listed above. It has pretty much the same performance.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ARGVNV6/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01N5IB20Q/ref=ox_sc_act_title_2?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01ICLGJF8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_3?smid=A2XOC34F7KPTGN&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07D7KR2Y8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B078Y32P1W/ref=ox_sc_act_title_5?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07HS4XS93/ref=ox_sc_act_title_6?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07HHLX1R8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_7?smid=AFXON1SGSPLH4&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0134EW7G8/ref=ox_sc_act_title_8?smid=A2KXDAC5Y6BNRJ&psc=1

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07M7PJ3M3/ref=ox_sc_act_title_9?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1

Im sorry. I know im posting here for the 5th time but heres a config from amazon uk i think is nice. Id say you can just get a 480 gb kingston ssd for a bit more money. The kingston ones are on sale.Just dont change out the gpu. for this pricepoint this is the best thing right now since its a rtx 2060 on sale for 330 pounds. The ideal thing you could do is just buy the parts some of us reccomended from america since electronics in europe are much more expensive. Promise i wont bother you anymore.

But wait, there's more!

Home->System->Notifications & Actions: all off

Windows Update Settings->Advanced Options->Choose how updates are delivered: off

OEM bloat, just don't try. A new computer needs to have windows re-installed as step #1.

1. Go to Download Windows 10 and download the media creation tool.
   
2. Run the media creation tool which will allow you to create a windows 10 installation usb.
   
3. Visit Lenovo Support and lookup your model then download the network drivers. Shouldn't need them but put them on a different flash drive for if WiFi doesn't work after install.
   
4. I'm just going to ext link you the rest, there are also plenty of threads in this sub describing the rest. How to Clean Install Windows 10 from USB
   
5. Windows should just activate itself and do a lot of updating, safe to start the stuff above as soon as it first boots.
   
   Owning macs for the past 3-4 years you are coming from a SSD to a slow HDD. It will get better after a week and significantly better after you do what pokebud said. Best case though is it rearing its ugly head daily at least a few times.
   
6. Replace 2.5 HDD with 2.5 SSD
   84USD Generic SanDisk 250
   Lose 750GB
   -10-20% drive power consumption
   
7. Add NVMe SSD
   120USD 960 Evo 250
   Gain 250GB
   +15-30% drive power consumption
   I don't think this machine supports m.2 AHCI so you need to buy a NVMe. Apparently option is in BIOS but drives aren't working? If you return it for a model with a SSD it will come with hynix at a cost to you of 160, the samsung is faster and cheaper.
   
   On a 5400 drive you shouldn't be using superfetch.
   
8. Open services.msc
   
9. Open properties of Superfetch
   
10. Change startup type to disabled
    
    Between resmon and Process Explorer you should be able to see what is accessing the drive.

What quality do you want the games to be? In Pakistan gaming parts are insanely expensive, my GTX 1060 cost me nearly 40,000 alone. I'd recommend just not buying parts here if it's possible for delivery from abroad.

If you're sure, what city do you live in? I can recommend some general parts you might want to aim for in that range.

• CPU: Ryzen 5 2600 (an X isn't necessary)
  
• GPU: Get either a Radeon RX 580 (I'd recommend this) or a GTX 1060 (wouldn't recommend now with the shift to DX12 but it's not a huge difference)
  
• RAM: Stick with either 8gb or 16gb, if you have the remaining money go for 16 gb but make sure you go for dual channel (two sticks totaling one amount) meaning 2x4 or 2x8. The fps difference between dual channel and single channel is a lot.
  
• Motherboard: MSI B450 Tomahawk (you should read up on compatibility it has with the ryzen, you may need to install some drivers, if you're interested I can read up on it and tell you myself.)
  
• Storage: Go for an SSD, forget HDDs since the performance difference between a SSD to an HDD is quite insane. An older samsung 970 evo is likely the perfect choice for you.
  
  As for your PSU, cooling and case. Stick to air cooling and see what cases you have in terms of availability nearby, people really try to rip you off. This thermaltek case is what I got in Karachi for around 8000 Rs. You probably won't need additional fans with this so the cooling is mostly eh.
  
  As for PSUs, never cheap out on these. I'm not entirely sure about the availability here in Pakistan, but it depends on your parts really. You will likely need a stabilizer to ensure your computer isn't blown up incase of short circuits, load shedding or low voltage. I'd recommend the EVGA 650 GQ but once again, EVGA doesn't sell in Pakistan so I'll have to look into it.
  
  I think you may get these within your budget or you may or may not end up going outside your budget because of the GPU. If you're gonna order online or get retail it also changes things. Feel free to ask any questions, also check out groups on facebook like Pakistani PC Gamers as u/muhammad1236 recommended, you might be able to learn a bit more since I'm not invested in the Pakistani market (made my pc a year ago) but I can give you the general outlook.

SSDs will provide little to no performance difference in games aside from faster loading times. Of course this depends the game, some could benefit from an SSD but most will not. The SSD would make general performance of the operating system and applications far more responsive.

Your Mac Pro doesn't have USB 3.0, so unless you have an internal PCIe USB 3.0 card you wouldn't be able to use a USB 3.0 SSD. And that's assuming that you are really talking about a Mac Pro... you don't have a Macbook Pro, do you? As that can't use USB 3.0 at all. But either way I wouldn't recommend the one you found as it's not a very fast SSD. Good internal SSDs are not any more expensive than an external one, in fact external (of the same performance) is probably going to be more expensive.

I would suggest either this 128GB for $62 or this 256GB for $104. These are some of the best value SSDs you can get. Very fast, very reliable.

There isn't really a performance difference between an SSD on SATA III 6Gbps and USB 3.0. Even some of the fastest SSD won't saturate the bandwidth available on either. However for simplicity sake, it's a lot better to just boot off the SSD internally. You don't want to have to boot to USB 3.0 all the time.

Ok since your friend needs it mainly for editing, he's going to need a good CPU, good amount of RAM, an ok-to-decent GPU, and as much storage as he can get.

Ryzen 1700 processor - Rs. 25,100/-

Asus X370 Pro mobo - Rs. 12,900/-

GSkill Trident Z 32GB 3000 MHz RAM - Rs. 28,000/-

Asus Strix GTX 1060 6GB GPU - Rs. 25,450/-

Samsung 960 EVO 250GB m.2 SSD - Rs. 12,975/-

Seagate Barracuda 3TB 7200 RPM HDD - Rs. 7,950/-

Thermaltake 500W 80+ Gold PSU - Rs. 5,125/-

Corsair 100R Case - Rs. 3,300/-


Total - Rs. 1,20,800/-
This should be able to handle editing even up to 4K pretty comfortably. The X370 board is simply so your friend can put in an additional GPU for SLI later if he feels the need. I've read that even editing programs are getting increasingly GPU dependent nowadays, so that might be helpful later. If this configuration is too far past the budget, then you can get 16GB RAM at 11K and get a B350 mobo for about 8K. This particular B350 supports only Crossfire, so if you still want the option of a dual GPU setup later, you can change your GPU to a RX 580, which retails for about 24k (but is currently out of stock everywhere). The total cost then will come to around 98 99K.



EDIT: See u/ReddyPs' comment below. Stick with an Nvidia card for now.

Glad it solved your issue, hoping in the future we will have a more effective way for EAC to sort thru all the pak files for slower HDDs - its a problem of having an ever increasing file size for Squad install, and the need for anti cheat to verify files on bootup that causes the slower processing time. So A12 we did alot of optimisations but the sheer amount and size has ran us into this problem.

Alternatively if you have extra cash and were looking to do a hardware upgrade anyway, SSD's are an excellent performance boost to not just windows booting but all apps and games in general, the perf benefits are plenty and thankfully they are now quite affordable.

$30 USD well spent.

https://www.amazon.com/Kingston-240GB-Solid-SA400S37-240G/dp/B01N5IB20Q/ref=sr_1_3?crid=2IQHJZ9AH7UNE&keywords=ssd%2B240gb&qid=1550952004&s=gateway&sprefix=ssd%2B240%2Caps%2C195&sr=8-3&th=1