Requesting custom PC build assistance
 

Alright I'm planning on building my first custom PC and I've been doing some research and milling around reddit.com/buildapc asking for recommendations. I have a budget of +/- $1000 and I'm looking for the ability to play current and next-gen stuff at near max quality, or as high as my budget will allow.

Here are the two builds I have been recommended for around the same budget:

Intel build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($224.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($117.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($329.99 @ NCIX US)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN3800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($32.65 @ OutletPC)
Case: Antec Eleven Hundred ATX Full Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $1035.57
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-04 22:10 EST-0500)

AMD build:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($193.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock 970 EXTREME4 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($99.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($89.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($59.99 @ B&H)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB Video Card ($415.91 @ Newegg)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WDN3800 802.11a/b/g/n PCI-Express x1 Wi-Fi Adapter ($32.65 @ OutletPC)
Case: Antec Eleven Hundred ATX Full Tower Case ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $1071.98
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-04 22:11 EST-0500)

I will be adding an optical drive in there too.

I guess I want I would like to know is what you guys think, first of all, and should any changes be made?

Maybe a mix and match? Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Edit: I was JUST recommended this build as well:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($224.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.26 @ OutletPC)
Motherboard: MSI Z87-G45 Gaming ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($140.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Sandisk Ultra Plus 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($94.94 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($81.53 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card ($335.30 @ SuperBiiz)
Wireless Network Adapter: TP-Link TL-WN725N 802.11b/g/n USB 2.0 Wi-Fi Adapter ($8.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 ATX Mid Tower Case ($99.99 @ Microcenter)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($52.99 @ NCIX US)
Total: $1093.96
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-12-05 19:45 EST-0500)

What do you do on a normal basis on your computer?

Well I'm on a 2009 Asus laptop, so not as much as I'd like, obviously, but I want to be able to use the PC for all of my daily needs. Work, gaming, leisure, etc.

As far as gaming needs: I've never had a rig that could play the real current titles, and I'd like to experience that. AKA modded Skyrim at ultra settings for example-battlefield 4 high-settings-type rig.

In all honestly, $1k might be A BIT overkill for my needs, but I'm planning for futureability as well.

http://www.logicalincrements.com/

This is your gospel

thank you for that site. been looking for it for a week now because I'm planning out a build over xmas

errrrrm...seems to me you're planning on running a current gen 64 bit OS with your setup.

Take your first build list. Remove the SSD and put that money towards 16gb(or for pimp mode, 32) of ram. You will have an easier time loading...just about everything and having that 90 bucks of leeway will help in the "oh shit I forgot to include 'this'" department.

Also, what is not included is the OS, monitor and other peripheral options.

If you have a mouse/kb then whatever, but what about monitor? 7.1 audio?...and that means speakers AND sound card(I know, blah blah blah integrated well EFFFFFF YOOOUUU the stutter is crap even on current mobos)

Suffice to say need more details to give best info

I haven't decided if I want to go Windows 7 or 8. I can get 8 pro through my university for like $15.

As for monitor I'm going to go for a 21.5" monitor, so 1920x1080 resolution.

Sound card I plan on investing in at a later date, any recommendations?

DO NOT BUY WINDOWS 8
 

As the title says, "DO NOT BUY WINDOWS 8"

If I were you I would cut my budget by $200.00 minimum.

You can build a PC that will run todays and tomorrows games at max settings for $800. Anymore and you are wasting your money by buying too early. PC Hardware prices drop fast and quickly become obsolete, you cannot future proof.*

*The future is unknown, manufacturers of today have no idea what you will need tomorrow.

Again going on the idea that we are not going to waste money, but maximize our half-life, I would recommend buying an AMD system.

Intel will post 15-20% performance gains on comparable AMD systems in benchmarks, there is no denying this. But 15-20% is not much in the computer world in the PC world. The It sector has a 3-5 year development cycle and there can be leaps and bounds in performance between the different cycles.

Texas Department of Information Resources "PC Life Cycles Guidelines for Establishing Life Cycles for Personal Computers"

Here are the things I would invest my money into.

AMD 8core processor
4 ram slots with ddr3 1600mhz capability
2x pci-express x16 slots
Any modern video card with minimum 1gb but prefere 2gb buffer x2(if you want to spend the money which you dont need to do) BTW I prefere Nvidia Cards but others will argue otherwise.
Sata II x4 (minimum prefere 6)
USB 2.0
SSD Sata 2 drive (32/64gb is fine, you want to install operating system files and core games only)
Dual monitors. If you don't already have this you need to spend your money here over any other peripherals. It makes a world of difference.

First, you do want a cheap SSD, even if it is for simply booting. Grab a 128 on the cheap and a 2 TB HDD for all installs (you can still install programs you use alot on the SSD) but you can store all videos etc on the 2tb HDD.

Second, go AMD. Cheaper and you can put the money you save towards a better video card and more RAM. When I was at microcenter, the inter CPUs were all full and AMD empty. You can snag great deals there on AMD CPUs. Also AMD CPU/GPU's work well together.

If you get get 8 for $15 do it. Just install classic shell and gg.

Hope this helps!

I've been considering the AMD FX-8350, but I have a couple reservations:

1. I just read that AMD will no longer be producing CPUs, but will instead focus on APUs. Wouldn't that mean a loss of driver updates/support?

2. Reviews on the 8350 state that the processor gets loud and hot even when idle.

3. 8 cores is not really needed for gaming at the moment.

Also, what is classic shell? Thanks for your input!