Building my Bro a new PC

So pretty much I was sent on a mission to build my brother a new computer. He is 16, so he is rather broke himself. My initial build price was going to be around $500 but I ended up saying screw it.

At first I was going to simply get him a decent "basic" computer with like a 270x. But then started to build and decided I had some extra cash I could throw into it.

Parts List:
CPU: Intel i5-4570 @ 3.2GHz ($200)
CPU Cooler: Enermax ETS-T40-VD (Free - $40)
Graphics: Sapphire AMD R9-290X 4GB ($290)
OS Drive: Crucial M550 256GB SSD (Free - $125)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Green 3TB (Free - $90)
Motherboard: ASRock H81M-HDS ($65)
Ram: Crucial Balistic Sport 2*8GB=16GB ($160)
Case: Fractal Design Arc Midi Black (Free - $100)
Optical Drives: 2*DVD+/-RW (Free - $30)
PSU: Antec TP-650 ($50)
Keyboard: Logitech G110 ($35)
Mouse: Razer Naga ($40)
Game Pad: Logitech G13 ($30)
Monitor: Acer s240hl (Free - $110)
Headset: Logitech G930 ($75)

Items that are denoted "Free" simply mean that I had them on me already but I denoted the price so I can laugh at how much I paid in 10 years

I would say the biggest mistake is probably the CPU. When ordering I did not realize I ordered the "non-K" version but I did not fret too much since I was expecting to spend so much or else I would have probably went with an i7-4xxxxk. It would be a pain to replace this part (due to merchant, how I paid, etc), but do you think it would be worthwhile?

The only other nitpicks I could think of is that the motherboard leaves little leeway on upgrades, but really the only upgrades would be to add another video card or more RAM. Ram would be easy to pop in another stick for 16GB (any more is kinda pointless) and for the video card, by the point he has enough money for a new video card/upgrade, it will probably be more worthwhile to just upgrade to a newer GPU (In a year or two?).

PS: The main reason I posted this is so I can keep a public record of what I used encase I needed to reference it in the future and to gloat of what such a good brother I am

I would recommend the second RAM stick now, because single channel will actually bottleneck for gaming.

Past that, looks nice!

i would get dual channel,
i heard a lot of negative stuff about naga, but its like apple, some ppl hate it some ppl love it ! i personally never buy razer again!

also i guess the stock cooler will do the job because you can't overclock with that CPU + Mobo

im a noob, so don't trust my opinion without anyone approving it im just trying to learn

PS: The main reason I posted this is so I can keep a public record of what I used encase I needed to reference it in the future and to gloat of what such a good brother I am

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lol

Can you still preform the "Limited Overclocking" on these 4th gen chip just like I do with SB and Ivy?
If so that wouldn't be a bad chip IMHO.

+1 to Dual channel, too bad DDR3 kits are expensive
I would also throw in a 1Tb HDD for installing games to. Makes backing up the data and imaging the OS a breeze.

sorry i thought you can't oc at all on this chip

also he mentions hard drive i thought he meant hdd so i thought he has one already, +1 that

get an hdd for throwing your stuff at it

I guess I will go dump another $80 on another stick.. Feels like every time I build a PC RAM goes up

I am not sure about overclocking or not for the CPU, but I have that cooler and can not see myself using it anytime soon so I figured it would give him more appeals then anything.

I was already planning on giving him one of my 3tb drives once I upgrade my server.. I know I said I would do this a while ago but $300 a drive @ 8+ drives is not cheap.

Lol , nice

What a Lucky brother

kamran said:

sorry i thought you can't oc at all on this chip

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You can. It's call "Limited Overclocking" You can OC non K chips by 400Mhz.
Look up i5-2300 on hwbot, I currently hold the fastest record

Silver_Pharaoh said:

You can. It's call "Limited Overclocking" You can OC non K chips by 400Mhz.
Look up i5-2300 on hwbot, I currently hold the fastest record

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Congrats SP, that's quite an accomplishment. I've never had a record in anything. House wide, school wide, city wide, or world wide.

cool, my motherboard is b75, but have an Intel 3570k, i guess i probably can't oc that right? or this mobo still has Limited Overclocking ?


let me google that :O

and i got lots of record

my fastest typing record 100wpm

my highest gpu overclock : 1100Mhz core

edit:
as i knowi can't oc with b75, i thought its the same with H81

Parts list edited to include the 2 sticks of 8GB (thanks you guys/gals for costing me more ), plus the 3TB mechanical drive, plus a few DVD RW's drives.

kyij said:

plus a few DVD RW's drives.

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That's a few more than all of my PC's combined

good

i don't have a cd drive, i physically have one but only connect it when i get a game or something ! (can't close my case door with it)

kyij said:

Parts list edited to include the 2 sticks of 8GB (thanks you guys/gals for costing me more ), plus the 3TB mechanical drive, plus a few DVD RW's drives.

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That looks better
I like it.

Got the OS covered? Win8?

ATMINSIDE said:

That's a few more than all of my PC's combined

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I know what you mean.. My main desktop have 2 drives but really the one was mainly for making buckup games for my 360 still. I have the second mainly for aesthetics anyway.

DVD RW's (at least the SATA ones) are one of things I could not throw right into the trash when I was clearing everything out. So to get rid of some I am giving em' to him. Plus the case I think is missing 2 of the 5.25" bays so it will only look right to be filled. Other then making an occasionally backup of some COD game I don't think I have used a DVD drive in years as everything is mountable or I store it in my server.

Oh, and ATMINSIDE, you better make your 10,000th post a good one..

Silver_Pharaoh said:

That looks better
I like it.

Got the OS covered? Win8?

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Yea, I am doing Windows 8.1.

There goes another day building a PC.. I am not going to lie, I loved (still do to an extent) building computers but after awhile it kinda becomes a chore especially with Windows updates but I guess it is better then if I had to use Windows 3.1

Slipstream the updates into the install... work smarter, not harder!

EarthDog said:

Slipstream the updates into the install... work smarter, not harder!

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Never even heard of slipstreaming updates, but just looked it up. Never knew you could do that

I typically just tried getting the latest .iso I could find and then just used my key. Hmm, I guess this could work pretty well. Thanks for the info.

kyij said:

Oh, and ATMINSIDE, you better make your 10,000th post a good one..

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I'll be sure to troll a bit

kamran said:

cool, my motherboard is b75, but have an Intel 3570k, i guess i probably can't oc that right? or this mobo still has Limited Overclocking ?


let me google that :O

and i got lots of record

my fastest typing record 100wpm

my highest gpu overclock : 1100Mhz core

edit:
as i knowi can't oc with b75, i thought its the same with H81

Click to expand...

The 3570k has an unlocked multiplier so, yes you can overclock it easily as long as your motherboard bios has overclocking tools. All the "k" series chips have unlocked multipliers.

trents said:

The 3570k has an unlocked multiplier so, yes you can overclock it easily as long as your motherboard bios has overclocking tools. All the "k" series chips have unlocked multipliers.

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A B75 board won't have multiple settings, to my knowledge.
Most likely won't have voltage settings besides RAM.