PC Build Guide – January 2014
Welcome to the January 2014 version of our PC build guides. As with before, we have implemented hard price limits ($500, $800, $1300, $1800) on ourselves and have had to make tough decisions with each build. Your personal budget will likely be flexible, but we hope this article will give you a baseline. You can of course spend more or spend less, but you run into a case of diminishing returns at either end. Please keep in mind that pricing information is immediate and may not necessarily reflect real prices by the time you have read this article.
Rising RAM prices and products coming to the end of their life/availability has made this month’s edition of the build guides completely and utterly rage-inducing a bit difficult. We’re still focusing on your bang-for-the-buck and keeping a clear/quick/easy upgrade path where we can help it. You might note that only the Starter includes an AMD video card this time around, as the 7000 series supply has dried up. The higher-end R9 parts are both scarce and inflated in price, partially due to their popularity with the crypto-currency mining community (gotta make dat_internet_money, after all).
Our Starter build this month focuses on the essentials, allotting almost 30% of the overall budget to the GPU. Climbing prices on the GTX 650 Ti Boost forced our hand to select an R7 260X in order to retain at least 2GB of VRAM, as only GTX 650 1GB cards were in the ballpark. RAM prices limited us to 4GB, which shouldn’t be a huge problem with a bit of responsible memory management. Just keep an eye on the start-up applications, and be careful opening too many browser tabs–how many subreddits do you need to browse at once, anyway?!?
This month, we came across a deal on a solid Z87 board from ASRock carrying the Fatal1ty moniker that we slotted in three out of the four builds. This board supports a wide array of RAM speeds (up to DDR3-2800), includes a Killer E2200 NIC, 2-way SLI/CrossFire support, and a bunch of other great features you can learn about from our buddy Paul at NeweggTV. Please note that this board does not have a legacy PCI slot, and if you need that, this is not the board you’re looking for.
After a bit of discussion, our Professional build this month features the GeForce GTX 780 Ti, rather than an SLI solution. In general, we preach that a single GPU solution is better than dealing with SLI or CrossFire quirks, and a single card will certainly make your life easier should you choose to record or livestream. A non-reference design R9 290X would be an excellent substitution if you could actually find one–hopefully supply will catch up with demand in the coming months. Early reviews of the non-reference 290X designs are extremely positive. Check out these reviews of the ASUS R9 290X DirectCU II and Sapphire R9 290X Tri-X from PC Perspective.
The Starter ($500 maximum)
Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2uTpq
- CPU: Intel Core i3-3240 ($109.99 @ Newegg)
- Motherboard: Asus Z77-A ATX LGA1155 ($79.99 @ Newegg)
- Memory: Kingston HyperX Blu 4GB (2x2GB) DDR3-1600 ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz)
- Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($59.98 @ OutletPC)
- Video Card: Asus Radeon R7 260X 2GB ($144.99 @ NCIX US)
- Case: Antec GX700 ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
- Power Supply: Corsair Builder 430W ($19.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $497.92
The Sweet Spot ($800 maximum)
Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2v2gH
- CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K ($219.99 @ NCIX US)
- CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper TX3 ($20.70 @ NCIX US)
- Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer ($114.99 @ Newegg)
- Memory: Kingston Black 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
- Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($58.99 @ NCIX US)
- Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 760 2GB ($239.99 @ Microcenter)
- Case: Antec GX700 ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Newegg)
- Power Supply: EVGA 500W ($34.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $794.63
The Enthusiast ($1300 maximum)
Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2uXq4
- CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K ($299.99 @ NCIX US)
- CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO ($29.98 @ OutletPC)
- Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer ATX LGA1150 ($114.99 @ Newegg)
- Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-1600 ($134.99 @ NCIX US)
- Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5″ SSD ($98.98 @ OutletPC)
- Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($58.99 @ NCIX US)
- Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 4GB ($383.99 @ SuperBiiz)
- Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
- Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W ($64.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $1276.89
The Professional ($1800 maximum)
Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2uYfh
- CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K ($299.99 @ NCIX US)
- CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i ($99.99 @ NCIX US)
- Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty Z87 Killer ($114.99 @ Newegg)
- Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-2133 ($156.99 @ Newegg)
- Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5″ SSD ($160.99 @ Amazon)
- Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($83.99 @ NCIX US)
- Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 780 Ti 3GB ($699.99 @ SuperBiiz)
- Case: Fractal Design Define R4 (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
- Power Supply: Corsair RM 750W ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1796.91
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