Hey guys, I’ve been interested in building a gaming rig for about a year now as I’ve been playing on an AMD A8 3520M laptop with HD6620G gpu. Short story, really bad not meant for a good gaming experience. Looking to build everything more or less of $1500 Canadian. Interesting how 970’s are around 300 in the US while in Canada is 400+. First Spoiler goes into more detail of price comparison. Sites such as Amazon.com (Murica) and B&H Photo sell things for much cheaper.
Should I just stick to the Canadian Neweggs/NCIX etc? Or should I purchasing some of these parts through Amazon.com and pay for the duty deposit? Good example is the MSI GTX970 on the Murican Amazon is going for 330ish, with tax and deposit it ends up at 400 compared to 430-460 here in Canada. I’m just not sure if the estimated calculations are correct and just all together avoid purchasing from Amazon.com (Shipped and delivered by Amazon) and go with Canadian online stores.
CPU Comparison 419$ vs 338$:
http://www.ncix.com/detail/intel-core-i7-4790k-4-0ghz-fclga1150-8c-108716-1770.htm
vs.
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?N=11060510&InitialSearch=yes&sts=pi
As for CPU, I’ve decided to go with the I7 4790k because I will be both video editing and streaming content from time to time (Something that I’ve always wanted to do and have tried with video editing but it was difficult due to hardware limitations..aka the projects looked horrible due to low frames and graphics).
What to achieve in a nutshell: Anything less or over 1500 is fine, 2000 is Max but rather not spend that much.
Possibly overclocking (If it’s not needed for this type of setup that’s fine), Low temperature, power usage, and lastly quiet as possible.
Build List So far
CPU: I7 4790K
GPU: MSI GTX 970 ME (Has a backplate compare to the regular one, prevents sagging scratches to the pcb?)
MOBO: Really confused. z97’s are to go to? A decent sound card would be great if possible as I love listening to music (Audiophile – FLAC, Headsets, all that jazz)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH D-15? Kraken x61? Corsair series? My only concern for the Noctua is the size and weight/stress it could put on the MOBO with the GPU.
RAM: 8GB vs. 16GB. Also not sure what speed and DDR is recommended. Leaning towards 16GB for streaming and running multiple files as well as editing videos. I hear that it’s all/not possible on an 8GB back and forth so rather confused.
SSD: Was looking at Samsung 850 PRO 256gb but seems like the EVO is more popular. Is the price difference for the performance worth it?
HDD: 1TB seems good enough, currently using 750HDD. Seems like 1TB Western Digital Blue is popular for being the sweet spot between green and black for performance and noise. Other recommendations will be great as well.
PSU: Just like the MOBO, completely clueless on how much I’ll need and as well to avoid too unnecessary power use racking the bills and apparently it can cause coil whine on graphics cards?
Case: Don’t think I’ll need a full tower, about a year ago, NZXT H440 seemed popular for sound isolation and just an all round good case. Not sure what would be great for my build. (Would like a quiet gaming rig however, or least required moving parts/fans to do so)
Monitor: I hate contrast ratios on laptop screens, especially the cheaper models like mine. I’ve been brainwashed my Linus to get an IPS monitor. But not sure what’ll be great for both games like Counter Strike GO or any other FPS and beautiful looking ones such as GW2, Witcher 3, upcoming MGS Phantom Pain etc.
Keyboard: I’m currently at Cherry MX Reds for FPS games – Not sure how well it’ll work with MMORPG games like GW2, any other recommendations will be great. Also is there a way to still use the Numpad keys if I get a 10keyless? Possibly a module type of keyboard even where I can attach and detach if needed.
Extra Fans inside the case?
Mouse and headphones already have (razer naga epic and kingston cloud 2)
Hope I didn’t leave anything out for building my first gaming/editing rig, if so please feel free to give me a heads up!
Would really love to learn and have people guide me through this. I know it’s a lot of info and I apologies for not making it simple as some other threads. But I had to really get everything off my thought.