New to PC building, advice needed

Paul Priest

New Member
Good afternoon,
I'm new here so please be nice,
I'm looking for some advice please on a first time build in which I'm looking to do,

A quick overview as to what I expect to get out of my machine is media playing such as downloading music and films, general day to day running of common programmes such as Microsoft office etc and in the future potential gaming at a decent level (no superb high graphics etc)

My current list is as follows

Gigabyte GA-B150-HD3P ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

Intel Core i5-7500 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor

Corsair Vengeance LPX 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR4-2133 Memory

Kingston SSDNow KC300 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

AvP VE-10B Venom Mid Tower Black USB3.0 Case

This leads me onto three questions in which I need to ask,

1. With all of the choice of graphics card I really don't know which one to choose to have for gaming for the future, I'm potentially looking at a dual monitor setup in the future so I would need this to handle this setup with ease,
2. I know there is not much of a great difference between a i5 6500 and a i5 7500 but should I bite the bullet and get the 7500?
3. The PSU, how would I determine which PSU would be best suited for my setup (GPU permitting)

If anyone could give me advice or a push in the right direction that would be great,
I appreciate any support in which I get and apologies if I have posted in the wrong section,

Regards
Paul
 

Auryn

New Member
In regards with the PSU, you will want to pick that last, as you will need to know how much power your system will use.

A good way if getting a rough estimate of power usage, is to go to pcpartpicker.com, and make a 'Parts List' with all of your parts. It will give you an estimate of how much power your system will use.

A general rule when choosing a PSU, is to pick one that is good for around 100W more than the power draw if your system, so that when you upgrade in the future, you will be less likely to need to get a new PSU.
 

Auryn

New Member
I have to go to go to work soon, so I will try to look for a good gpu for you in a few hours.

About the CPU though, I don't know what country you live in, so I don't know the prices, but here where I live, there isn't much of a difference in price between the 6500 and the 7500. The 7500 does perform marginally better, but the difference is quite small, so if you're on a tight budget, go with the 6500, but if you have a little bit more to spend, then get the 7500.
 

Calin

Well-Known Member
1. If you do a dual monitor setup for gaming, I recommend using one of the monitor for the game and the other one for something else while gaming. If you try to render the game on just 2 monitors you will end up with the bezels of the monitors in the middle which isn't a great experience. Or if you have a larger budget you can do a 3 monitor setup but I'd only do that if you play racing games. For first person shooters you need one good monitor, with a high refresh rate if possible.
As for the GPU, since you said you don't plan to play your games at max settings I'd get an AMD RX 470. It has a great price to performance ratio and isn't that expensive.
2. The 7500 shouldn't be much more expensive than the 6500 so go for the 7500.
3. For the 7500 and the 470 you don't need more than 600W. Just get one from a decent brand, what's your PSU budget?
 

Auryn

New Member
I too would recommend the RX 470. It's very well priced and performs wonderfully (I can guarantee it, as I have one in my PC right now).
 

Paul Priest

New Member
I live in the UK,

My budget for the tower is max £700, that's including OS,

I'll have a look into that GPU thank you
There's £10 different between the 6500 and the 7500
 

Auryn

New Member
I live in the UK,

My budget for the tower is max £700, that's including OS,

I'll have a look into that GPU thank you
There's £10 different between the 6500 and the 7500
As I've said, the performance difference between the two CPU's isn't very big. See here. So, if you can afford the extra £10, then I think you should get the 7500.

If you haven't bought the OS yet, then I would recommend Kinguin.net. They sell excess OEM product keys for games and operating systems. I bought a copy of Windows 10 for around €40.
 

Calin

Well-Known Member
If you haven't bought the OS yet, then I would recommend Kinguin.net. They sell excess OEM product keys for games and operating systems. I bought a copy of Windows 10 for around €40.
This website checks for all similar sites to Kinguin. I'm pretty sure all of them are legit because when wanted to buy a key for a game, I just searched here and no matter what website was the cheapest, it worked.
http://www.allkeyshop.com/blog/buy-windows-10-professional-cd-key-compare-prices/
 

Calin

Well-Known Member
I had a look at the gtx1060
Currently I have avga monitor which this card does not support as there is no VGA cable
You can get an adapter to make it work, what is the resolution of the monitor by the way? If it's lower than 1080p you can get away with much lower end cards and save money that way.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Does your monitor only have VGA? No DVI or any other connection? Some newer cards don't even have the analog pins on the DVI slot so you can't use conventional converters like @Calin suggests.

480 is arguably a better buy than the 1060 at this point, particularly if you plan to use it for a while as generally AMD cards age better than Nvidia's. Especially since it's cheaper.

I'd say 480 since the price difference between the 470/480 is small. 1060 3GB is a no go regardless of how you look at it though.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Yeah if that's your monitor it really won't matter what GPU you pick as they'll max out anything at that resolution. It does have DVI in though, which means any new card should support it, might need to buy a DVI cable though.

Made a few tweaks to your list. Mainly the hard drive, you'll regret a 120GB SSD almost immediately. You can always add an SSD later but you're going to need some storage for games as single games can be 50GB+. Adjusted PSU, added 470, and changed WiFi card as those USB ones suck.

https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/h3FrtJ
 

Calin

Well-Known Member
480 is arguably a better buy than the 1060 at this point, particularly if you plan to use it for a while as generally AMD cards age better than Nvidia's. Especially since it's cheaper.
Agreed. Also the 480 supports Crossfire, while the 1060 doesn't support SLI which is why I prefer the 480.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Agreed. Also the 480 supports Crossfire, while the 1060 doesn't support SLI which is why I prefer the 480.
Crossfire is like last on my list of perks. :D More VRAM, arguably faster in current and future titles, better DX12 and Vulkan performance, and usually found for the same price or cheaper. I still say go with the 480 if it's within budget but given your monitor and uses the 470 is still more than enough and can save you a little money towards a better monitor.
 
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