Yeah, I would. The 1070 would be ideal for 1080/144hz gaming. You'd want a 1080 if you plan to go 1440/144hz.

Also I'm trying to buy everything on amazon since I have amazon prime and their credit card to get cash back.

So my total on amazon right now is $1254 with Sin's build.

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HcHwKZ

If you live near a microcenter, you'll want to pickup the CPU and motherboard there. They discount 30 or 40 dollars when you buy them together on top of the CPUs being cheaper than everywhere else.

sum1else wrote (View Post): › An i7 isn't really necessary for gaming. Even if you're playing a processor intense game, an i5 will do you fine. i7s are pretty much overkill for gaming, unless you're planning on doing some content editing and need the render power. Also if you plan on streaming, the i7 might make a little sense, but an i5 should still do just fine. Despite my own advice, when I'm going to build my computer, I'm getting an i7, but I'm going balls to the walls and doing a custom liquid loop just because I think it will be fun. air can be pretty good, but I'd go with an all in one liquid cooler, since they tend to dissipate heat slightly better than air (not that much) and tend to be quieter since you can have the fan speed turned down a bit. I didn't look at the parts lists, but regardless of what games you're playing, an i7 is overkill. Any bottlenecking is very rarely at the CPU. That's only if you have like 2 Titan XPs and a non-unlocked i3 and are trying to play in 4k with max settings on something like Witcher 3.

sum1, we normally agree on pretty much everything tech-related but in this particular case, I'll have to disagree with you. Yes you don't need an i7 for gaming (strictly speaking you don't even need an i5) but it's nice to have. There's definitely tangible benefits to an i7 in gaming: Off the top of my head I can think of at least 3 games that absolutely need i7s if you want to max them out and still get 60+ FPS @ 1080p. And going forward, games are only going to keep becoming more and more well-threaded so the more threads you have, the better. The growing trend for the past few years has already been to make games better optimized to use all the threads available to them...and now now that Ryzen is a thing, you can bet your ass this is definitely part of the game plan for most AAA devs.

Sin wrote (View Post): › The 1060 3 gb card is a total piece of crap. An RX480 8gb version is the same price after rebates and performs better and supports the much cheaper Freesync monitors. Also does way better in DX 12. If you prefer the green tax than just jump up to the 1070 because the RX480 blows the doors off the 1060 at its price range. It also brings up a good point about his monitor. Is he going 1080/60hz, 1440/60, 1080/144hz, 1440/144hz?

Ah shit, I didn't notice I picked a 3 GB card. This is what I get for replying while on my phone lol. I definitely agree the RX 480 is a better card than the 1060 but I tried to stay with the same brands quick had picked since I figured he picked them for a reason. That's why I also kept the ASUS board in there instead of going with a cheaper board from some other reputable manufacturer. Although I'll admit I love me some ASUS boards too

Sin wrote (View Post): › If you're buying anew PC and want to play new games, you don't buy an I5.

That's too much of a blanket statement, Sin. You can definitely play new games on lesser hardware. You need to qualify that:

quick, if you want to play new AAA games at maxed out settings at 1080p/60 or above then you definitely need an i7 since there's definitely going to be games that take advantage of the extra threads.

quick wrote (View Post): › For now I'm going 1080/60Hz, will probably upgrade later in the future. So based on that, should I still go with the 1070? I really don't want to have to upgrade the graphic card for a while.

That depends on how soon you'll be upgrading. If you're not gonna upgrade your monitor in say the next 3 years, don't go for the 1070. By the time you upgrade your monitor and need the extra horsepower the 1070 can bring you, there most certainly will be better cards in the market.

But if say you're planning to upgrade your monitor within the next year, I'd say go with the 1070 now.

quick wrote (View Post): › Also I'm trying to buy everything on amazon since I have amazon prime and their credit card to get cash back. So my total on amazon right now is $1254 with Sin's build. https://pcpartpicker.com/list/HcHwKZ

The build looks solid to me. I still think you can save some money by going with 8 GB of RAM instead of 16 GB but other than that, looks great.

Also, are you planning on OC'ing? Because if not, you could go for a cheaper cooler. Shit, you could probably get someone on /r/hardwareswap to send you a stock Intel cooler for free! Those do the job just fine if you're not going to OC.

Jayd wrote (View Post): › Also, are you planning on OC'ing? Because if not, you could go for a cheaper cooler. Shit, you could probably get someone on /r/hardwareswap to send you a stock Intel cooler for free! Those do the job just fine if you're not going to OC.

If it's absolutely necessary I will. But more than likely I won't. The only thing I really overclocked was my Evga gtx 460 -- never really touched cpu OC'ing.

Do you guys honestly trust r/hardwareswap? Lol

You definitely don't need to OC, but since you're getting an OC'able CPU and a motherboard that supports OC'ing, there's no reason not to. It's literally free performance you're leaving on the table. But yeah if you're not planning on OC'ing or are only going to OC lightly (lets say 500 MHz or so) you can get something cheaper like the perennial favorite, the Hyper 212 EVO. That's the cooler I use and it does me just fine.

I buy from /r/hardwareswap all the time. Most people there use PayPal so if you don't get your product, just ask for a refund from PayPal. They'll take care of it. I had to do that once already.

@Jayd, ok I'll go w/ your 8GB ram suggestion, I guess 16 is overkill

https://pcpartpicker.com/list/Vrncjc

Only thing i have to add to this, Your 500 GB SSD drive will be nice, but i would honestly recommend adding a less expensive dedicated 1gb (minimum) SATA just for your steam and game installs. Those things fill up fast, especially when some of the higher end games this days take 5-10 GB by a piece. Currently i have 700 GB of games installs.

Quick, don't listen to JayD about your ram. If you are buying a new pc, just get the 16gb, youll thank me later. 8gb seems to me like youll be scrapeing by. While Im gaming with GTA5 or Rust, my memory usage goes to about 50-60% and I have 16gb. Granted, I have multiple programs running while I'm gaming. For the money/not worrying about ram usage, just get 16gb

I agree with sin and Jayd about everything else tho. I just showed you my build to let you know about how much it will cost. Def go with the newer cpu like you are, and like I told you about my mobo, its stupid expensive, so the mobo you selected is perfect. Like I told you, I just bought the pg279q 1440p 165hz monitor and my 970 does really well handling 1440p. G-sync really does help. If you plan to buy a 1440 monitor within the next year, id recommend the 1080. If not, 1070 will be fine.

He doesn't need 16gb of ram. You probably have a chrome tab open with a ton of tabs when you're gaming. And just because your system says its using 50-60% of your ram doesn't mean it actually is and probably it isn't. It reserves higher amounts of ram than it needs.

If hes spending that much on a pc, spend the extra $30 to get twice the ram. Its a no brainer to me.

I have to agree with Venom on the ram, get 16GB. I've had DS3 & Siege crash from lack of memory on 8GB

Ok I'm gonna have to agree w/ venom + allagor on the memory - I pulled the trigger. Hoping to get parts sometimes next week.


Thanks for all your guys' help - I'll post pictures once I've finished assembling.

Pictures of the finished build with that SEXY ass case!

Congrats! Looking forward to pics of the build process and the finished product.

P.S. Good call on the RAM. Thanks for V3n and allagor for chiming in on that.