Need some serious advice on desktop build

Hey, I am rather new to the build your own PC scene but after a few weeks of researching (with very little idea on what I was doing) I have put together a few parts. I am fairly certain they are compatible but not at all certain whether they are what I am looking for. I have a budget of up to $1500 and I am trying to put together a rig that can handle games like far cry 4 with a decent frame rate at 1080p (I do not need to spend all my money). I don't need a monitor or hard drive or any of the peripherals but I do need advice on whether the parts I have listed are what I am looking for or whether I can save some serious money if they are a bit of overkill.
-Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor
-ASRock Z97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard
-G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
-Crucial BX100 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
-EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB FTW ACX Video Card
-Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case
-Corsair CX 430W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply

Thanks heaps for the help!

So far your components look good are compatible. You might want to wait for someone else to chime in and give you fine tuning advice. I'm not that up date currently.
A question I have though is, where are you located? Your build adds up to about 800 USD if I see it correctly. I would definitly look forward to a more powerful GPU if you have the budget. I'm thinking something like a GTX 970 maybe.

Everything looks compatible for sure, but I would say that if you are looking to max out FarCry4 and other newer graphical games, you will be looking for a better video card than the 750ti. I would look at the GTX970, as your budget has plenty of room for the improvement and it's a pretty significant leap.

Really sorry, I forgot to mention that I am from Australia. I did not know whether I could get away with a cheaper video card as I have been looking at the GTX970 and I can see it is a very popular card with fantastic reviews but it was almost twice the cost of the 750 TI. Will this video card (or any of my other parts) be held back by my mother board for example or another component I have chosen?

I would really doubt any bottlenecking by your CPU. That is plenty. Personally I would go for the 970 since you build from scratch and obviously can afford it. Or are you already at 1500$ with your build in Australia?

Hi there.

The rig looks good in my opinion, but I would just like to suggest few things.

First, are you going to overclock the CPU? Because of you intend to do so, then I would suggest to look for an additional CPU cooler since the stock one won't be enough (especially if you're going for a massive overclock), but in case you are not planning to do so you can easily go with the locked version of this processor.

Also, are planning to upgrade the parts in the near future? For instance to add another GPU, extra RAM sticks, etc.? Because if you do, then I would suggest to go with a slightly bigger PSU in order to have few wattages aside.

Another thing is that the RAM you've selected runs at 1.6V, and your motherboard has the recommended maximum of 1.5V which basically means that the motherboard will not automatically increase the voltage to that level. So if you want to run it at the rated speed, you will have to go into the BIOS and manually set the voltage higher and tell it to use the XMP (extreme memory profile) settings or manually enter the memory settings, or you can just look for a memory that runs at 1.5V as well and replace the one you've selected.

And lastly, are you planning to add an HDD to the build or you're going to stick only with 1 SSD?

Hope this helps.

Cheers!

Extremely helpful mighty miro, I did not notice the RAM, making the mistake that I could slap any stick I liked in there. I do not intend on upgrading very soon but I will probably look into a few more watts any way (in case I change my mind). I also don't intend on overclocking just yet and if I do I have a friend who is going to help me out with a cooling system.

I also have a hard drive I will be using as well as the SSD.

Don't worry about the ram, you have to set it up manually any way by using XMP profile and the board will set it to the voltage listed in the XMP spec for the ram.

mstew said:

Extremely helpful mighty miro, I did not notice the RAM, making the mistake that I could slap any stick I liked in there. I do not intend on upgrading very soon but I will probably look into a few more watts any way (in case I change my mind). I also don't intend on overclocking just yet and if I do I have a friend who is going to help me out with a cooling system.

Click to expand...

You're always welcome!

As for the second drive, I asked because personally I've always preferred to have more than one storage location in my computer mostly for having one drive for, let's say games, and the other one for mass storage (movies and music). Especially, though it's not the case here, if it comes to dual HDD configuration which will also allow you to do such things as write to one drive while playing from another without any lag, and being able to defrag one of them (for example), and still have the other one open for use.

I wouldn't worry about the PSU, both the 750Ti and 970 will easily be run by it even with huge overclocks on the CPU and GPU. The RAM is also fine, just as has been said, you will manually have to go into the UEFI and set XMP. Most fast sticks run at 1.6-1.65v.

Solid build, aside from the GPU. I definitely recommend going with the 970, so long as your budget affords.

Thanks for taking the time to look at my build, I will probably be going with the 970 but as for the RAM I don't really know what you guys are talking about when you say I need to enter the UEFI and set the XMP manually. Is it a difficult process or do I simply need to look into it further?

It's not a difficult process, enter the BIOS, do what you came for and touch nothing else (unless you know what you are doing). And don't worry, you can always reset the changes made there. Basically your RAM or RAM in general has certain settings which it is rated for / runs on. Sometimes, like in your case, the mainboard will not load that settings automatically therefore you have to do it. Lucky you there are profiles (XMP) you can choose which have all the right settings. It all comes down to change one voltage setting and selecting the profile, very simple. Have a look at this site.