Posted January 22, 2016
ET3D: Because the i7 was mentioned specifically.
I already suggested a PC with a GeForce 960. I think that's a decent choice, but one can also get a 970 for around £250 (£90 more than a 4GB 960) and that should be enough for 1080p gaming for a while. I do think that the 970 is worth the extra over the 960 for people who want high frame rate high quality rendering.
Still, no need to go wild with a 980 or more expensive. Money saved here and on an i5 vs. i7 will be enough to buy another mid-range+ card 3 years down the road, and on the whole I think that would be a better choice than a faster card now.
Phc7006: The GPU is indeed where you can save money. Not only the price difference between a 980ti and a 970 is much larger than between a i7 and i5, but the GPU is also much easier to replace in an already built system than the CPU ( especially with Intel's socket change policy ) . I already suggested a PC with a GeForce 960. I think that's a decent choice, but one can also get a 970 for around £250 (£90 more than a 4GB 960) and that should be enough for 1080p gaming for a while. I do think that the 970 is worth the extra over the 960 for people who want high frame rate high quality rendering.
Still, no need to go wild with a 980 or more expensive. Money saved here and on an i5 vs. i7 will be enough to buy another mid-range+ card 3 years down the road, and on the whole I think that would be a better choice than a faster card now.
The mobo as well, since the differences between gamer "top price" mb's are simply not worth the price compare to a good mid-range mb. You can save as much there as on a cpu, without much loss.
That's why for my own use I's still go for an i7 with the best chipset ( but not a gamer mobo) - but I'm not only gaming, also doing more serious things and I keep my systems a while - yet change my GPU after a time.
Went with the i7 6700k and msi gtx 970 for the witcher 3 and my old system was core 2 duo e6750 with the 750 ti which runs most of the games i play but was time for a new build.
Will be looking at new gpu in 4-5 years