Hardware & Technical PC Spec - Advice required

[Para Handy]

I don't normally get involved in these type of threads as you often find people weighted towards a particular architecture (me too). However there are a few things that I think are worth pointing out:

1. Yes the Pentium G4560 does a good job, but it is really limited for future use. You get it, you are stuck with it - an i5 would be a much better low-cost option.
2. There is a lot of hype around Ryzen - if you want to wait and see if it really is good then fair enough, but then again you can always wait for the next "thing".
3. Graphics cards - the 900 series now are basically dodos. I have a 970 in my secondary (older) PC and it is only there because I needed to replace a burnt-out 660ti and couldn't wait for the 10series. A 1060 will outperform it, is cheaper, less power-usage and is just a better bang-for-buck option. (I would never fit another AMD graphics card but that's just past experience.)
4. Case - no need to get a huge gaming case, a mid-sized case will provide all the airflow you need but bear in mind what CPU cooling you will want to accommodate (but don't go mini-tower).
5. Cooling - by far the most effective and quietest CPU cooling is a sealed liquid cooler, can be had for a good price and is actually easier to mount than air-cooler.
6. OS - some people think W10 is great - I hate it - I use Windows 7 pro 64-bit which can be bought from Amazon for £35 - that's where my last one came from and it activated fine online.

Those are just my opinions, make up your own mind.

 

[MickyG1982]

I don't normally get involved in these type of threads as you often find people weighted towards a particular architecture (me too). However there are a few things that I think are worth pointing out:

1. Yes the Pentium G5460 does a good job, but it is really limited for future use. You get it, you are stuck with it - an i5 would be a much better low-cost option.
2. There is a lot of hype around Ryzen - if you want to wait and see if it really is good then fair enough, but then again you can always wait for the next "thing".
3. Graphics cards - the 900 series now are basically dodos. I have a 970 in my secondary (older) PC and it is only there because I needed to replace a burnt-out 660ti and couldn't wait for the 10series. A 1060 will outperform it, is cheaper, less power-usage and is just a better bang-for-buck option. (I would never fit another AMD graphics card but that's just past experience.)
4. Case - no need to get a huge gaming case, a mid-sized case will provide all the airflow you need but bear in mind what CPU cooling you will want to accommodate (but don't go mini-tower).
5. Cooling - by far the most effective and quietest CPU cooling is a sealed liquid cooler, can be had for a good price and is actually easier to mount than air-cooler.
6. OS - some people think W10 is great - I hate it - I use Windows 7 pro 64-bit which can be bought from Amazon for £35 - that's where my last one came from and it activated fine online.

Those are just my opinions, make up your own mind.

Malc... The Pentium G4560 & current intel "i" series chips all use the same slot, he wouldn't be stuck with anything, indeed he could put the i5 from his current PC into the build I suggested & it would work just fine. It's a cheap bargain basement budget setup that will work with anything up to the latest & greatest i7 if the OP wants to push it that far.

 

[Para Handy]

Malc... The Pentium G4560 & current intel "i" series chips all use the same slot, he wouldn't be stuck with anything, indeed he could put the i5 from his current PC into the build I suggested & it would work just fine. It's a cheap bargain basement budget setup that will work with anything up to the latest & greatest i7 if the OP wants to push it that far.

Ah - I didn't realize it used the LGA1151 slot - so my apologies on that point (and excuse the typo in the numbering) - so yes it could be a cost-effective build.

P.S. I also like that ASUS board you recommended, looks like good value - much cheaper than the recent ASUS builds I did with a Maximus VIII HERO and a Sabretooth Z170. In fact you can build your suggested system for about the cost of the CPU I used! LOL

 

[Madcowz]

Blimey I'm confused.

Every time I step away from PC building everything changes.

I currently have a Gigabyte NVIDIA GTX 970 WindForce OC in my PC. Would a EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING 6GB GDDR5 be an upgrade?

Some of the charts say yes, others show a higher bandwidth on the 970. This is where I get confused.

If the 1060 was an upgrade I might pop that into my machine then hand the 970 down.

 

[Zetta]

The 1060 is better but not by a massive margin, you're probably looking at a 10% increase.

 

[The Chairmaker]

Blimey I'm confused.

Every time I step away from PC building everything changes.

I currently have a Gigabyte NVIDIA GTX 970 WindForce OC in my PC. Would a EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING 6GB GDDR5 be an upgrade?

Some of the charts say yes, others show a higher bandwidth on the 970. This is where I get confused.

If the 1060 was an upgrade I might pop that into my machine then hand the 970 down.

The 970 will be perfectly fine for a couple more years, unless you decide to start playing games in resolutions greater than 1080p, then you would need to think about something more capable.

The 1060 and RX480 from AMD are both upgrades on the 970, most noticeably in Direct X 12 games, however unless for example you purchase a 1440p Freesync capable monitor and are interested in the benefits of having an AMD GPU capable of benefiting from that feature. Then you are fine with what you have got.

 

[Para Handy]

..............

I currently have a Gigabyte NVIDIA GTX 970 WindForce OC in my PC. Would a EVGA GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING 6GB GDDR5 be an upgrade?

..................

I agree with the others that the 1060 is probably not much of an improvement, as I said my 4GB 970 ran a 1440 monitor in ultra with no issues. The 1070 is a huge improvement though but if you are not going to stretch to a 8GB version of one of those then a 1060 should give your PC a slight improvement and the 970 can be "handed down".

 

[Madcowz]

I agree with the others that the 1060 is probably not much of an improvement, as I said my 4GB 970 ran a 1440 monitor in ultra with no issues. The 1070 is a huge improvement though but if you are not going to stretch to a 8GB version of one of those then a 1060 should give your PC a slight improvement and the 970 can be "handed down".

I play in 5760x1080 with my 970 and am "happy with it" as in there are plenty of other things on the car and around the house that should get an upgrade first.

Rather than go for a circa 10% increase for me, I will look at a 1050 for him instead and then perhaps in a year/2 years we can both upgrade if required. Will prob pair this with a Pentium G4560 as the benchmarks look pretty good and it also gives us scope to upgrade via the 1151 socket and paired with DDR4 2400 gives a nicely balanced system.

 

[Para Handy]

I play in 5760x1080 with my 970 and am "happy with it" as in there are plenty of other things on the car and around the house that should get an upgrade first.

Rather than go for a circa 10% increase for me, I will look at a 1050 for him instead and then perhaps in a year/2 years we can both upgrade if required. Will prob pair this with a Pentium G4560 as the benchmarks look pretty good and it also gives us scope to upgrade via the 1151 socket and paired with DDR4 2400 gives a nicely balanced system.

Sounds like a plan - good luck. [up]

 

[MickyG1982]

The 4gb 1050Ti is a very good card for gaming at 1080p, it should manage about the same performance as a 4Gb GTX 960 but for a much lower cost when new.

But, and here's the kicker, if you don't mind buying second hand, you may find the GTX 970 at around the same price...

 

[racer1]

These suggestions (for GPUs) are all considerably faster than the recommended specifications that are shown on the 'frontier store'. Are the recommendations there inadequate?

"RECOMMENDED PC SPECIFICATIONS:
OS: Windows 7/8/10 64-bit
Processor: Intel Core i7-3770K Quad Core CPU or better / AMD FX 4350 Quad Core CPU or better
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GTX 770 / AMD Radeon R9 280X or better
Network Broadband Internet Connection
Hard Drive: 8 GB available space"

I have an R9 270 2G and it is mostly fine but struggles in particular around close binary planets, with 3 planets close it really struggles.

Saying that though I play regularly with default graphics settings and 99% of the time it runs at 30-60 fps. Running at 1080p.

For reference rest of my spec is i5 4670K, 8G RAM.

 

[jmg]

Really depends on your budget. You can get a decent i3/i5 w/ 16 gigs ram, an NVidia 1050, and a nice ssd for well under $1000. If you want something small, you can build a nice system with an Asrokz170 micro ATX board , 6700, and a 1060, for well under $1,100. I'm not a fan of AMD-- their stuff has been crap for so long now, I'd just as soon stay away until they have a proven track record.

 

[proffrink]

Agreed. Would go for a 6600 and a 1060 for ED at a minimum though - even on 1080p if you plan on playing Horizons. Avoid AMD products for the reasons above - they've not been viable for a while tbh. If you want to wait for Vega then that's fine of course.

 

[jmg]

Agreed. Would go for a 6600 and a 1060 for ED at a minimum though - even on 1080p if you plan on playing Horizons. Avoid AMD products for the reasons above - they've not been viable for a while tbh. If you want to wait for Vega then that's fine of course.

agreed. And you can wait on Vega, but .. why bother. Intel/nvidia make killer products at mid to low price points. and you always have a very good upgrade path if you go with intel. Who the heck knows what AMD is going to do.