Alphasus

If by beating the 1060 in DX12, you mean winning ~30-40% of DX12 benchmarks then sure(and Hitman 3, which is an AMD partnered game in the same way that games exclusively using GameWorks are unfair to AMD cards). Fact still stands that a 950 should be mathematically faster. Lets wait till 8/8.

It will be a long wait... About 1 month after the release, the inflation is likely to stop, as with the 14nm and 16nm GPUs so far. In that time, the 950 75W(or pure 950) should have dropped in price enough to be an option(1080p High). And the 950 75W is 1.35-1.5x faster than a 750 Ti. The RX 460 is projected to be 1.3x faster than a 750 Ti. The 950 should then be close to an RX 470. That puts a 950 at 15% faster than an RX 460 at best, and about 4% faster at worst, while having a similar TDP. And if you can find a 770... do it, its like a 960 at a 950 pricing in exchange for more watts needed.

Its fine. Wait for @cantab or @Camacha to optimize it for price though. Its paying E30 more for a better start, I guess. The bare minimum for most new systems is an APU, and a step above that is the 750 Ti in that build. A 750 Ti can run most games at medium with a few settings tweaks(anecdote from a friend who accidentally had his GPU underclocked for a year).

What do you use now?

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/vvWK4C Sorry about that. Fixed your compatibility there. That won't KSP too well because the CPU is quite slow for its time. But the APU portion is pretty nice. KSP would look very good though. I know that @Camacha runs or ran KSP on a GTS 450, an inferior card to said on-die R7. http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/BcTjpb I did blow your budget by about £30 including Windows OS. That has an i3, which is very good for KSP in comparison to the APU, and a video card that is faster by quite a bit.

http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/WCdMcc I matched you. Same specs, but a slightly better PSU. You save about 15 euros with something non-prebuilt, and you get a clean OS.

I routinely use 4 different OSes... Primary:Windows 10/Mac OS X 10.11 Testing: Ubuntu 16.04, Windows 7 Sometimes: Windows 8, Windows XP Rarely: OS X 10.6-10

$30 is irrelevant for 4k support, a bit of performance, and multi-monitor. Have fun with that!

The Gaming X has better monitor tech support, better overclock potential due to better binning, and the armor costs the same. It has DP 1.4, and more HDMI 2.0 ports if you every go multi monitor in addition to clock speed. Good choice.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/290519-28-units-wear-time PSU capacity^ The 960 is a dead, useless video card anyways. The 1060 is better, the 1050 will be better once released at the same price point. He could take a 380 but it cuts him off from the nice extras, like: -bigger SSD -quiet cooler -quiet case

I entirely agree, however the issue is that his friend already has the mobo. I'd personally do a 1060 build with H170 or H110 if that wasnt the case. His actual budget for non monitor, non OS is around $750 judging by his first build though. You can't actually put a 6600k and 1060 together in his budget without killing the creature comforts on the build. 2GB version isn't actually worse than the 4GB version... The card(both of them) aren't fast enough to actually need 4GB VRAM.

He went with a $75 water cooler. I swapped it for something better. Also, 450W isn't more than he needs. Its about 50W more than peak, and PSU output degrades. The 380 was $210, and the 960 was $160. That gave money space for a case and a larger SSD. http://wccftech.com/nvidia-evga-gtx-960-ssc-amd-xfx-r9-380-oc/

http://pcpartpicker.com/list/QWKJ8K If you really need a liquid cooler, get one. I kept it out because 880Ks don't run that hot. The PSU was also swapped for a higher efficiency and quality PSU at a closer wattage to what you need. The 960 is a cheaper card now than the R9 380, which is its AMD counterpart in performance. I also left you with a very nice air cooler that is quieter(according to benchmarks by third parties), and should let the CPU run cooler than on water. With money saved, the SSD size increased. From personal experience, a 120GB SSD isn't really enough. Maybe 2 games and the OS and thats it. 250GB gives you more options. See if your friend will like the case, as it comes really close to the price of the Define S windowed, which has better cable management features, and in my opinion looks better. And then further, do you need a DVD drive? If so, the Define S won't work, but a Define R5 Windowed would. They both come with great large fan mounts, and should be pretty quiet. Define R5s also muffle internal noise, making them extremely quiet. If you don't need a DVD drive, also look at the NZXT H440 and S340. A 760 is rather close to a 960, maybe a 10-20% difference in performance. The 760 is growing a bit long in the tooth, though, so if you replace it, get the more expensive 1060.

I said that triple does get a bit loud. 65 C is pretty reasonable, but a card(well cooled) should throttle in the 70s. So if the card ramps up fans to stop throttling, that makes sense. 80 C is pretty warm for a video card too, and many are only rated to about 75 C for prolonged use.

I accept your concession. @Spartwo

A large card should thermal throttle less. Anything with dual or triple fans, but preferably dual fans(triple gets a bit loud) should work well. A Mini 1060 likely will throttle more, overclock worse, and have a lower factory overclock. Edit: The 1060 Armor you showed has better multi monitor support than MSI's non-Armor edition, extra power delivery(8 vs 6 pin), and more DP 1.4 ports.

Does it need to be a laptop?

I first inspected the damage, and decided to attack the Eversor. I cleared all debris as well. The burn is shown in the album(all maneuvers before the burns in the album sequence). I fired a missile, and the Eversor was declawed. Alioth reascended to 200km orbit afterwards, and I cleared debris. Alioth has 3 small missiles, Eversor is heavily damaged, Tristar can't fire, and Palisade is fully functional. https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B3IvrPbGhZWFV1ZoUkZ0Mi1vYVE

Yeah, but the pin connections limit the 1060 to 225 W(it also has better thermals so it can overclock better on water, which I'm sure will exist. If not, a 1060 on custom water will be a beastly overclocker), and it uses 120W. The RX 480 has 1 6 pin, so 150W, and it uses around 130W or so(bit low estimate, likely closer to 135W, and most board partners say 150W). Even if you limit a 1060 to 150W, it should, according to power constraints, outperform an RX 480 brought to the same wattage. Also, almost anyone who has overclocked a 1060 can bring it to 2 GHZ for about a 7% increase(which should also cancel out the driver upgrades over the life of the 480). That was all sourced from MSI, who have both RX 480s and GTX 1060s. I used those power connectors as guidelines. Otherwise, the 1060 still overclocks better because it uses less power, and has the same available wattage.

Hmm. Hate to put it like this, but an extra ship disadvantages me more than extra tonnage. Extra tonnage can still be killed, and likely needs the same amount of missiles. An extra ship cannot be(I usually one shot anyways so it shouldn't matter). Go ahead with the heavy fighter, and don't forget, you have first move, but the fighter must move first.

@quasarrgames Status update?

Same with me on the Macs. I prefer their laptops, but a custom anything will always do better.

Future-proof... Nothing is future proof. Might want to swap that GPU for a 1060 though, and go with a 2x8 GB RAM. That way you have extra slots. A build can only be somewhat future proof if it has an upgrade path. The RAM would help with that, and since the GPU is faster, it can last longer.

The 6400 is a more modern and faster CPU... and the motherboard should be as good or better.

A 6% increase amplifies 105% on the 480 to 112%, and a 9% bump increases it to 116% over the 480, validating(in a very very very twisted way) their 15% faster claim.