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Well, my three year old rig has given up the ghost. Won't even boot up now. Fortunately, I backed up everything before it croaked, and since I've been thinking of upgrading everything so that I'd be able to play the newer games, I've decided to just abandon this system and get a new one. Like last time, I'm going to bring a list of specs down to this computer market in Taipei, and they'll build it for me.

I had a look at Logical Increments (http://www.logicalincrements.com/) and decided I want to aim for their "Excellent" tier. That gives me a build of:

GTX 1060 6GB (or will the 3GB version be sufficient?)
i5 6400 to 6600 (Honestly don't know which processor I should go for)
ASUS Z170-P Motherboard
8GB DDR4
2TB HDD
240GB SSD
650W PSU
Plus whatever case and fan the guy at the computer market recommends.

Thoughts?

Is this for gaming? Definitely the 6GB 1060 over the 3, and as for CPU I recommend going with the fastest your budget allows, as it's usually the last component you replace and ends up being the oldest part of your rig.

Yeah, for gaming. I'm not going to go for the super-tier components, but on the whole I'm not averse to paying a bit more for future-proofing.

I would also recommend bumping the RAM to 16GB. 8 is fine, but RAM is relatively cheap and 16 gives a lot of headroom. But if you are trying to squeeze as much value as you can, 8 is fine for most current games, and you can always add to it later

just use my build:
(thanks to the techies of Halforums and Looking For Gamers for the final build)

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant
CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($299.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i GTX 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus SABERTOOTH Z170 MARK 1 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard ($249.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Dominator Platinum 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory ($239.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 950 PRO 512GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive ($315.62 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital BLACK SERIES 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 1070 8GB STRIX Video Card ($439.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define XL R2 (Black Pearl) ATX Full Tower Case ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair 760W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($148.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSC0B DVD/CD Writer ($20.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $2065.50
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-11-18 11:09 EST-0500

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:3
I like your build seems very solid for the budget gaming build.

-Your computer picked an unfortunate time to die. The full release of Intel's next generation CPUs (7th gen - Kaby Lake) is rumored to finally be happening in January 2017 (it was supposed to be out right now). So y'know, if you have some way to limp until then, you can get newer CPUs or a probable discount off the older ones. At the very least, consider whether or not you can hold out for a motherboard that can accept Kaby Lake (one based on a 200-series chipset - just checked, they don't look like they're out yet, either).
-The recommendation for the 1060 6GB is sound. The 1060 and 480 are practically the same price and run neck-and-neck BUT the 1060 uses less power AND is better for VR (and if you're going to be thinking about VR, you really DO want the 6GB version).
-I also second the recommendation for a minimum of 16GB RAM (2x8GB). Microsoft has now officially discontinued sales of every version of Windows except for Windows 10. You're going to want 16GB min.
-I would move up to a 500GB SSD (and possibly ditch the 2TB entirely-just get an external later). The Samsung 960 Pro (not the 960 EVO, and not the 950 Pro) is probably the top contender (it's the first drive definitively faster than the Intel 750!), but it's also about $300. There are other NVMe SSDs that can be had for much less, just make sure to try and get one that is MLC-based instead of TLC-based. TLC brings the price down quite a bit, but it also noticeably reduces longevity. Getting a SATA-based one (instead of NVMe) will limit you to about 550MB/sec speeds due to the overhead of SATA rather than the 2000-3000MB/sec speeds you get with NVMe.

I don't have any specific processor/mlb recommendations right now, I've been waiting until after the 7xxx-series is released to start my new round of digging and comparing.

--Patrick

I have a GTX 1060 3gb version, and as long as you're not doing 4k resolution, it should be sufficient to keep you pegged at 60fps on max setting for pretty much all the games for the next 3 years at least... at which time there will probably be another sub-$200 card which will do the same.

If you ARE doing 4k though, it's probably worth bumping up to the 1070.

GasBandit said:

I have a GTX 1060 3gb version, and as long as you're not doing 4k resolution, it should be sufficient to keep you pegged at 60fps on max setting for pretty much all the games for the next 3 years at least... at which time there will probably be another sub-$200 card which will do the same.

If you ARE doing 4k though, it's probably worth bumping up to the 1070.

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I would call 3G iffy for max settings, even at 1080p. Current gen games, and even some older, use up around 4GB of vram at max settings for 1080 resolution, and if he wants to move up to say a 2K monitor, he'll really appreciate the 6

Ravenpoe said:

I would call 3G iffy for max settings, even at 1080p. Current gen games, and even some older, use up around 4GB of vram at max settings for 1080 resolution, and if he wants to move up to say a 2K monitor, he'll really appreciate the 6

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What can I say, that hasn't been my experience. I'm running current gen games like Overwatch on a 1060 3gig and have video ram to spare for 10 minutes of shadowplay recording buffer.

GasBandit said:

What can I say, that hasn't been my experience. I'm running current gen games like Overwatch on a 1060 3gig and have video ram to spare for 10 minutes of shadowplay recording buffer.

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Overwatch isn't exactly demanding.

Shadow of Mordor requires 4GB vram to be able to run high quality textures, and it's practically ancient by now.

Yeah, games that require lots of textures will eat VRAM like Doritos™.

--Patrick

PatrThom said:

Yeah, games that require lots of textures will eat VRAM like Doritos™.

--Patrick

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Doritos enlarged to show texture.

I love my 1070. What a beast! Sad i missed the window for the 960 pro. But my 950 pro is still crazy fast.

Ravenpoe said:

Overwatch isn't exactly demanding.

Shadow of Mordor requires 4GB vram to be able to run high quality textures, and it's practically ancient by now.

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Shadow of Mordor's got issues though. Most games are able to do more with less.

GasBandit said:

Shadow of Mordor's got issues though. Most games are able to do more with less.

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That issue was patched, both from WB (who we can all agree are shit, just as an aside) and by nvidia optimization, which is why it needs 4 GB now instead of 6. But it's not the only game. Your big AAA games, your call of battlefields, your falling Titans, your grand theft sandbox, are all vram intensive. That isn't to say you can't get by with 3GB, it just means sometimes you might have to lower a setting here or there.

Ravenpoe said:

That issue was patched, both from WB (who we can all agree are shit, just as an aside) and by nvidia optimization, which is why it needs 4 GB now instead of 6. But it's not the only game. Your big AAA games, your call of battlefields, your falling Titans, your grand theft sandbox, are all vram intensive. That isn't to say you can't get by with 3GB, it just means sometimes you might have to lower a setting here or there.

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I didn't play battlefield or titanfall, but GTA 5 only needed more than 3gb if you were going above 1080p.

Bones said:

just use my build:
(thanks to the techies of Halforums and Looking For Gamers for the final build)

:3
I like your build seems very solid for the budget gaming build.

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Mother of... your build just gave me an erection![DOUBLEPOST=1479517583,1479517467][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, I've been looking at GPUs a bit more, what do you guys think of the GTX 1070?

Appreciate all the advice so far, btw. You guys are awesome.

bhamv3 said:

Mother of... your build just gave me an erection![DOUBLEPOST=1479517583,1479517467][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, I've been looking at GPUs a bit more, what do you guys think of the GTX 1070?

Appreciate all the advice so far, btw. You guys are awesome.

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GTX 1070 kicks ass.

bhamv3 said:

Mother of... your build just gave me an erection![DOUBLEPOST=1479517583,1479517467][/DOUBLEPOST]Also, I've been looking at GPUs a bit more, what do you guys think of the GTX 1070?

Appreciate all the advice so far, btw. You guys are awesome.

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The 1070 is pretty amazing. The x70 series of nvidia cards tend to be pretty stellar overall, and more cost efficient than the 1080, which only a madman would have.

Yeah. NVIDIA knows AMD doesn't have anything to compete with the 1070 and 1080, and as such they are priced like you would expect for a card with no competition. The 1070 offers you ~50% better performance than the 1060 but at twice its price.

--Patrick

Whelp, here I am, typing on my new computer.

Went for the GTX 1070 in the end. They didn't have Win7 available any more, which was disappointing, but right now I'm busy configuring Win10 to my liking, and so far so good. Two strips of 8GB DDR4 too, thanks for that suggestion.

I ended up buying a 2TB hard disk in the end, which I'm feeling a bit of buyer's remorse for, since I didn't even fill up my 1TB the last time around. But oh well.

Thanks again for everyone's help. Now it's time to install Steam and download ALL the games!

bhamv3 said:

Whelp, here I am, typing on my new computer.

Went for the GTX 1070 in the end. They didn't have Win7 available any more, which was disappointing, but right now I'm busy configuring Win10 to my liking, and so far so good. Two strips of 8GB DDR4 too, thanks for that suggestion.

I ended up buying a 2TB hard disk in the end, which I'm feeling a bit of buyer's remorse for, since I didn't even fill up my 1TB the last time around. But oh well.

Thanks again for everyone's help. Now it's time to install Steam and download ALL the games!

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dont feel bad I have a 4TB, i didnt even fill half of my 2 last time.

I have 4 1Tb, and 3 of them are full (the 4th I use for video recording games, so it fills up, then empties, then fills up... then empties..)

bhamv3 said:

They didn't have Win7 available any more, which was disappointing

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Microsoft ended all retail sales of Win7 quite some time ago. Then ended even OEM sales a couple of months ago, I think.
Now it's either WinX or roll your own. There's no longer a choice.

--Patrick

GasBandit said:

I have 4 1Tb, and 3 of them are full (the 4th I use for video recording games, so it fills up, then empties, then fills up... then empties..)

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Dass' a lotta boobs.

PatrThom said:

-Your computer picked an unfortunate time to die. The full release of Intel's next generation CPUs (7th gen - Kaby Lake) is rumored to finally be happening in January 2017 (it was supposed to be out right now). So y'know, if you have some way to limp until then, you can get newer CPUs or a probable discount off the older ones.

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Just FYI those next processors are finally being reviewed and tested in the wild.
tl;dr: It performs almost the same as the 6xxx series, except for being slightly faster and bringing new built-in 4k HEVC video decode. This is when being used in 100-series motherboards. No idea if 200-series motherboards bring anything else since the NDAs on those haven't expired yet.

--Patrick