i3-8100 & GTX1060 Build Spec & Advice

[speeddeed]

Hi,

I have never built a PC before and know very little about gaming. My son will be 14 soon and I'd like to buy all the components necessary to build a machine and give them to him for his birthday - we can then build it together. He currently uses an HP gaming laptop (i5-6300HQ & GTX950M) and mostly plays Fortnight, Overwatch etc.

I spent all day yesterday watching you-tube and reading articles on building a PC. I'm thinking of the following base components:
i3-8100 (latest socket so we can upgrade the CPU in years to come)
GTX1060
500GB SSD
8GB Ram
Corsair 570X case and (for kerb appeal and upgradeability)
We already have a budget full HD monitor which he currently uses with his current laptop.

My key questions are:
1. Does this base spec seem in balance?
2. What specific Motherboard should I use? What are the factors here?
3. How does one decide between all the various GTX1060 brands out there? e.g. a Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX1060 6GB is £209 but you can pay much more for other GTX1060 6GB cards...
4.Will this be considerably faster than his current laptop?
5. It seems to me that if we go slowly and carefully we should be able to build a PC together - am I missing something here?

I really appreciate any advice on any of these points.

Thanks very much indeed!

 

[Danny75]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

1. Does this base spec seem in balance?

Hard to say without knowing the budget for it. My guess is no because a £200 case is insane for what the budget might be, given the other parts. Cases far less than that (without going budget all the way) are just as upgradable, perhaps more so in some instances, and look nice too.

i3-8100 (latest socket so we can upgrade the CPU in years to come)

...

2. What specific Motherboard should I use? What are the factors here?

See, this is why knowing budget is important, because already a Ryzen 2XXX series can match an Intel CoffeeLake CPU at the same clockspeed. And that i3-8100 does not boost beyond 3.6GHz (strictly speaking that's the max speed, they don't have boost). And the AMD AM4 socket is a bit more upgradable with new Ryzen 3XXX CPUs arriving in summer.

3. How does one decide between all the various GTX1060 brands out there? e.g. a Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX1060 6GB is £209 but you can pay much more for other GTX1060 6GB cards...

You don't. GTX 1060 is old series. Play about with the budget and fit a considerably faster GTX 1660Ti instead (given that the games he's enjoying favour Nvidia).

4.Will this be considerably faster than his current laptop?

The CPU on his laptop is also a quad core with no hyperthreading and only 400MHz slower than i3-8100, so you'd see more improvement from the graphics card and also from the SSD if laptop uses HDD.

5. It seems to me that if we go slowly and carefully we should be able to build a PC together - am I missing something here?

All it takes is a bit of faith and will.

I really appreciate any advice on any of these points.

Thanks very much indeed!

Get your son to spot another case that he likes, and he can get better CPU, GPU, maybe 16GB RAM which is recommended nowadays for gaming if possible.

 

[speeddeed]

Thanks very much Danny75.

I don't have a fixed budget, but I'd like to spend as little as possible but give myself a sensible upgrade path for years to come. I thought that if I bought a motherboard that had the latest intel socket then I can pop-in a better CPU later. If I start with a GTX1060 then I can pop-in a better card later.

I realise the £150 on the Corsair case is somewhat crazy in relation to everything else, but again he'll be living with this for many years so I thought why not splash on that at the outset because he can keep that for years and years and he will definitely love the aesthetics.

So, case aside, I'm looking for something pretty budget, but which will have a practical upgrade path for years ahead. So I guess I'm thinking case and motherboard are key, with budget components slotting in to start which can be upgraded piecemeal moving forwards. My logic (as a complete newbie) was to start with a case and motherboard which will last for 10 years, and all other components can be upgraded over the years. It seemed a GTX1060 and i3-8100 would give a very appreciable performance improvement over his HP laptop. I guess that is the key question - will he see much improvement...

Does that make sense?

Thanks again for your advice!

 

[orbitalwalsh]

I5 9400 or ryzen 2600 if your on a budget. Don't drop to ryzen 1400/2400 or intel i3 8100 .

For ryzen 2600 to match 9400 you'll need to clock it to 4.3ghz all cores and run with 3466hz with rtx 2060 GPU and above at 1080p .
Intel still has a better IPC and IMC . But...ryzen 3000 should change .if you go ryzen means in 3 years time and threw in a second hand ryzen 3000/4000 CPU

Intel.. no idea. But guessing like amd will have anew socket for DDR5 in 2020 .

Meant that be a refresh for Corsair 650/750D case but hasn't been shown yet

Also, hold off to Thursday/Friday for gtx 1660 ... Faster then gtx 1060 and meant to be replacement for 1060 3GB power wise . Though will just sit behind 1660ti and beat gtx 1060 6GB

 

[Danny75]

Thanks very much Danny75.

I don't have a fixed budget, but I'd like to spend as little as possible but give myself a sensible upgrade path for years to come. I thought that if I bought a motherboard that had the latest intel socket then I can pop-in a better CPU later. If I start with a GTX1060 then I can pop-in a better card later.

I realise the £150 on the Corsair case is somewhat crazy in relation to everything else, but again he'll be living with this for many years so I thought why not splash on that at the outset because he can keep that for years and years and he will definitely love the aesthetics.

So, case aside, I'm looking for something pretty budget, but which will have a practical upgrade path for years ahead. So I guess I'm thinking case and motherboard are key, with budget components slotting in to start which can be upgraded piecemeal moving forwards. My logic (as a complete newbie) was to start with a case and motherboard which will last for 10 years, and all other components can be upgraded over the years. It seemed a GTX1060 and i3-8100 would give a very appreciable performance improvement over his HP laptop. I guess that is the key question - will he see much improvement...

Does that make sense?

Thanks again for your advice!

Don't worry, we get it concerning upgradability. It's just a question of the best choice of parts for that. You'll have to decide two things about the CPU so that you can make your motherboard choice. First, which CPU you are going to get. Secondly, which CPU you plan on upgrading to. A motherboard good enough for a 9600K may not be good enough for a 9900K, for example.

Also remember this - there are a few downsides to spending too much on upgradability all around. In some years' time, even if you upgrade to 9900K, the PC will be a semi-potato compared to newer and faster processors. So you can't really leave the upgrade too long, otherwise a cheaper motherboard and slightly faster CPU now (such as the ones Orb suggested), would have been better. All the processors which you can use on current Intel platform are already in existence. There will not be any newer ones that will work on the current motherboards.

If you aim to make the system last a long time, you should also invest in a quality power supply.

One point about the SSD and if you need to save money there - the Crucial MX500 and WD Blue 3D NAND are just as good and faster at some operations than the Samsung 960 EVO, and also come with 5 year warranty. You can't go wrong with any of those, so you can safely get the cheapest available when you buy.

Also, hold off to Thursday/Friday for gtx 1660 ... Faster then gtx 1060 and meant to be replacement for 1060 3GB power wise . Though will just sit behind 1660ti and beat gtx 1060 6GB

Was wondering when those would be arriving, good advice Orb.

 

[varkanoid]

Seriously save money on the case. If he's anything like my kids they dont care what the PC looks like just whats on the screen.

 

[orbitalwalsh]

@Danny75 was told the 1660 would sell better then 1660ti - can see why as its not much off the 60ti - bit like gtx 1070ti with 1080 .

needs to hit £190-230 to really damage rx 570-590 sales .

 

[ExoMale]

unless you need intel your better off with a ryzen build to keep costs down. as for a 1060, fastest and cheapest 6gb you can afford, but the newer ranges of 60 series are not much more really.

 

[Ezyryder]

I reckon we are going to see some bottom of the barrel pricing for the 580 and cheaper pricing for the 590 when these new Nvidia can launch