THE SPARTAN

Winter is coming, and with it comes the special pricing of computer parts. Add in the anticipation of impending releases for new games like Fallout 4 and there's bound to be some interest in building a new PC this holiday season. I've personally spoken to several people who've expressed interest in having a new rig built for their gaming needs, so I've put together what I consider a no nonsense, bang for the buck system I call the Spartan...

RATIONALE
I designed the Spartan as a sort of no nonsense gaming rig, as the name implies there's few frills here. There's not even a side panel window to show off your internals. I started with a budget of $1000, I figure this is roughly what most people will expect to pay for a gaming system. I've provided both an i5 and i7 variant of this build, which gives some more price range options and end user options.

The i5 build is basically as standard as it gets, 8GB of RAM and a 4690 will give you dead solid gaming performance. I expect this to be the variant the vast majority of gamers will want. The i7 variant gives you hyperthreading and 16GB of ram, this version is more of a niche, with the virtual cores and extra ram you have a machine that's going to be fantastic for streaming and video editing, as well as dual-boxing. Additionally, with new games like Fallout 4 leveleraging the additional power potential of hyperthreading this could also have some additional benefits in more games in the future, for now though most games don't care about hyperthreading so this is sort of a niche enthusiast market.

Just remember with the i7 build, you're paying an extra $100 for the more powerful processor and extra ram so you'll have to ask yourself if it's worth it. With that said, let's address the elephant in the room...

NO SKYLAKE
I know what you're probably thinking, it's almost 2016 and you're still suggesting an 1150 build for a gaming rig? Didn't you just build a Skylake PC yourself? WTF is wrong with you? Well, hold on fake person I made up to prove a point.

Skylake is nice, I'm actually pleased with the overclock I managed on mine. However, the performance gains of this generation over the last aren't significant enough in my opinion to warrant the price jump, especially at the i7 range. And even more so for the unlocked processors (which I'm sure I'll be talking about in a later post). Additionally, the move to Skylake ends up costing a premium for things like the motherboard. There's only a $5 difference between the 4690 and the 6600 for example, but then you pay an additional $30 for a compatible motherboard.

As I said before, winter is coming -  and with it come Cyber Monday deals, lots of people are going to be upgrading to Skylake. And if the launch is any indication, we could be seeing shortages in those processors and premiums for the ones that are available. With the 4690 and 4790s however we have the exact opposite, there are plenty on the warehouse shelves. And we're likely to see some good prices for the older gear this holiday season as a result of the new hotness and an interest in making room for it. So yeah, I fully expect the price of the parts listed below to actually go down in the coming weeks I don't know that I could say the same for a comparable Skylake build. Now, with that out of the way I do have to admit, compromises were made with this build...


COMPROMISES
Let's be honest, there aren't a lot of upgrade options for a build like this. However, I also don't feel that there really needs to be at this price point. And ultimately the compromises I've made here have paid off in terms of price to performance. By going with a locked CPU we only save $5 versus the unlocked variant for the i5, for the 4790 however it's a savings of $30 sticking with the locked CPU. By avoiding the overclocking we also save $20 on the motherboard, and since staying with a single video card we save an additional $30 on the power supply. That leads to some significant room for more powerful components in the rest of the system such as the video card, by going with the 390 we have 8GB of video buffer and a card that's more than capable of pushing 1080p or 1440p. Additionally, if you choose to give Linux a try you'll find that driver support for the 300 series is far and away better than the green team. But without wasting anymore time, let's have a look at the builds themselves...

PARTS LIST I5
CPU: Intel Core i5-4690 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor | $213.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard: ASRock H81 Pro BTC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard | $58.99 @ SuperBiiz
Memory: Mushkin ECO2 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $35.99 @ Newegg
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon R9 390 8GB PCS+ Video Card  | $279.99 @ Newegg
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.4" Solid State Drive | $44.99 @ Amazon
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $43.00 @ Amazon 
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case | 56.66 @ Amazon
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  | $49.99 @ Newegg

Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts.
Total before mail-in rebates: $833.60
Total after mail-in rebates: $783.60

Generated by [PCPartPicker](http://pcpartpicker.com) 2015-11-12 11:11, prices subject to change.  

PARTS LIST I7
CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 3.6GHz Quad-Core Processor | $292.99 @ SuperBiiz
Motherboard: ASRock H81 Pro BTC ATX LGA1150 Motherboard | $58.99 @ SuperBiiz
Memory: Team Elite Plus 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $68.99 @ Newegg
Video Card: MSI Radeon R9 390X 8GB Video Card | $379.99 @ Newegg
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 120GB 2.4" Solid State Drive | $44.99 @ Amazon
Storage: Hitachi Deskstar 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $43.00 @ Amazon 
Case: Corsair 200R ATX Mid Tower Case | 56.66 @ Amazon
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 750W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  | $49.99 @ Newegg

Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts.
Total before mail-in rebates: $945.60
Total after mail-in rebates: $895.60

Generated by [PCPartPicker](http://pcpartpicker.com) 2015-11-12 12:09, prices subject to change. 

UPGRADES & ADDITIONS
The Spartan is intended as a no bullshit gaming rig, I'm going to go against the words of Samuel L. Jackson on this one, if you're reading this your more likely to go with the I5 build. And with that assumption in mind, what options do you really have in terms of upgrades? Not much, you could add more storage of course, or upgrade the RAM. But you probably don't need it really. However, we did come in under the 1k mark by a significant margin with this one, so what else could we do with the remaining cash?

If you already have a top notch monitor, mouse, keyboard, headset, etc. I'd say upgrade the video card. For another $100 you could get a 390x. Or if you're willing to double down on the video card you could actually fit a 980 TI in this system, which would bring the total price up to $1100. At that point you'll have an absolute beast of a machine.

If however you're on an old 1080p screen and would rather go with the build as written and get a good monitor you have a few options. First, there's the Korean monitors on eBay. The X-STAR DP2710 LED 27" 2560x1440 (Samsung PLS) will give you eye candy at $200. At that price, you can pick up a Windows key online and be right at $1k with the I5 build. Of course, if you have all the bases covered and just need a box to plug into, you can always use the left over cash on G2A.com or the Steam Winter sale to load up on games, after all winter is coming. Game on...

K