PC build

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/8XzkLD thats my build.

honestly tho between i5 or i7 if your only looking to game you'll be fine with a i5. I ran into a video/articular it only makes a slight hair of a difference. That extra money you save could go into something else for your computer.

If there's any way you could afford extra $90, the i7 4790k would be a great investment. But as is, it is definitely a workable build that reaper linked. If you're planning to get into something a little more rendering heavy, then i7. If you're pretty sure you'll be focusing on gaming then just go i5. You can always upgrade later if you need to.

@Gudmoore I like that you just suggested the processor that I picked for my main computer 2 years ago and am still using to this day. It's definitely a good one. i7-4790k that is

It's supported in Win10 and DX12 beyond 4 threads, so there is meaning using i7 by the game use. But the order of priority is GPU first. The performance is rising fairly in the generation now, so it's expected.

Well, if you already got a motherboard just try goin with what fits the socket. If you plan to upgrade your cpu/motherboard and possibly ram you can probably pair the 970 pretty well with any i5 processor from several generations but personally I would stick with the most current. Newer gen core processors (intel) support the latest technologies which would also include storage (latest sata revisions) If you're looking to sli in the future you should go with an intel extreme processor. skylake is pretty good if you wanna sli and still have options to add other things to it but i haven't personally tested it. (dun have an intel chip) i5 are the way to go if you're on a budget, say you could get an i5 6500 or 6600k if you really wanted to and have a pretty decent gaming rig with the nvidia 970 card. if you want to get the best of the best, try getting the latest i7 6700k. last gen's i7 4790k ain't no slouch either! go to pcpartpicker and look for gigabyte's ud series boards, they're really good for the money. asus are pretty pricey and you don't always get all the features you want for the price compared to gigabyte. even msi boards are pretty nifty in terms of features and pricing especially on budget boards. if you go msi, you could go looking at boards under 200 and they'll work pretty well. cheaper boards around 100-150 are still good, just have less storage options, less fan controllers (or weird placements). by the way, gigabyte ud series boards support m.2 (two of them) so maybe you should look into it. i believe msi's xpower and mpwoer have m.2 sockets but don't quote me on that. keep in my that skylake k series chips need a cpu cooler so you can get by a hyper 212 evo if you're on a budget. if you get non k parts, they come with a stock cooler.

Prolly late to the party here; but eh, depends on your overall budget. My workstations use AMD hardware for the most part(FX series chips) and they run games fine but consume a little more juice overall. Servers use Intel(Xeon). As for your build, I'd say a i5 5th gen, or 6th gen Intel, but be aware if you don't want to use Windows 10 these chips will not be supported on any other Windows based operating system within the next year - or so they say. They claim the kernel of the system won't properly "support" the chips and you'll end up having security issues and BSODS all the time.. meh. The same rules that apply to AMD's next gen architecture. The only way to back out of this is to pick a 4th gen chip, which are getting increasingly harder to find. If you want to play games you would need atleast a true quad core with a decent clock frequency, probably exceeding 3400 MHz for a base block, and something higher in turbo. As for a cooler you could get a liquid cooler or an air cooler, you need to find one that can handle your chip's Thermal Design Power(TDP) which is usually in the specifications page. The higher the TDP the more power consumption is pulled on load, and the more heat the chip will emit to the cooler. Which is why there is a difference in size, and airflow when it comes to cooling a chip. A hyper 212 should work, or if you want something in liquid form look into an h100i(which is rather pricey). The TDP may be significantly higher than what's specified if you do any overclocking. The higher the frequency the more code the chip can handle per cycle, which benefits performance in high end applications and games. Physical cores benefit with multitasking, or large jobs - meaning they can work together if one core is no fast enough to handle the job - while logical cores(threads) benefit with multi-threading only(means only applications in which are multi-threaded will support them, unless your OS can utilise the threads and treat them as cores such as the Linux kernel. Not too sure about Windows). The i5 would give you good performance, while fitting in your budget. As for a motherboard I'd personally pick a Gigabyte one as I've had horrid experiences working with brands including those boards produced by Asus. Find one that fits the socket specified by the chip you plan to get with features. Usually the higher end ones offer more features, but in a lot of cases higher end boards are not really worth it unless you need those extra features. Such as 4-6 PCI-E slots, raid controller, massive amount of USB ports, or specific types of I/O connectors for devices such as S/PDIF or built on Wifi. Quality is another factor, but the quality factor also depends on manufacturer. You can pay a high price and still get a piece of junk. You should factor in the features that you will need, then what you plan to do in terms of upgrading(if any), look at reviews, and pick a brand to stick with. One tip though, make sure you read reviews when picking out hardware. Typically voltage regulators, or other small components which in certain circumstances become a fire-hazard if the manufacturer is cheap about it. These have been issues on MSI and Asrock boards in the past. Also I suggest you do not purchase components on sites like Amazon(if you ever do) they sometimes royally screw up in shipping.

http://puu.sh/q5iqf/bbaa7cbca8.png I have a 120gb SSD I'm planning to mount eventually. Haven't really backed up my C:// drive at all.