$750ish gaming Pc

[sfan786]

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing. Gaming, c++ programming homework, web browsing/YouTube.
I dont play the most intensive games usually I play a godod bit of sc2 some LoL, probally going to play swtor. I may play some bf3 too.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread. Im thibking around $750 is acceptable for me definitively cant go above $800 atm.

3. What country YOU will be buying YOUR parts from. USA

4. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.
Well i pretty well set on a 2500k but otherwise no.
5. If YOU intend on using any of YOUR current parts, and if so, what those parts are.
have a old gaming laptop currently so no

6. IF YOU have searched and/or read similar threads.
yes

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.
Potentally but not in a rush or wan to do any crazy overclocking

8. What resolution YOU plan on gaming with.
1920x1080

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Not absolutely sure yet I could end up buying the build i have at newegg atm tonight or might just buy an 2500k while they have an -$15 coupon it othere wise i might wait a week or two before buying it

10. Don't ask for a build configuration critique or rating if you are thin skinned.
ok

I think im fairly set with my Asrock board What i am kind of wavering on is my gpu and my case I am very open to suggestions on those it would be nice to take advantage of the Batman deal that most nvidia cards seem to have atm. I am wanting to be able to sli / cfx down the line as a potential upgrade. I am looking to save money here in the best ways so that i still have a quality system.

I really would like some suggestions for a pretty good mid tower case that has a side window that cost about the same or less than the lian li

with promo codes the price of this is $758.30
https://secure.newegg.com/WishList/MySavedWishDetail.aspx?ID=17405072

 

[Ken g6]

have a old gaming laptop currently so no

Do you have a monitor or Windows license available? If neither, I think we should start from LOL_Wut_Axel's $400 gaming pc.

Weird: All the HDD free shipping and deals went away. Anyway, this Hitachi looks like your best buy at this point.

Generally, [thread=2192841]spend less on the mobo, PSU and RAM[/thread], and spend more on the GPU if you can.

 

[sfan786]

Yeah I have a Asus 24inch 1080p monitor right now and have a win 7 pro licence from my college program. I am not a huge fan of speneding that much money on a psu ethier but I have looked around and need at least a 700Psu for them to start coming with the power connectors to sli/cfx and that has a few dollars off on a promo code I probably pick another model if i don't buy it before the code expires. I also don't really need a huge HD although 500gb might be a little too small.

 

[Ken g6]

I'm sure you'll never sli/cfx with whatever card you get now, because newer models are coming in a few months. That said, if you intend to get two new cards later, the 750W PSU could be worth it.

On the other hand, with:
- A cheaper mobo + PSU, $160AR, not including promo on the PSU ending today.
- my favorite CPU/RAM bundle, $248 before CPU promo

You might have enough to buy a 6950, $220 AR

Edit: P.S. Are you near a Micro Center? CPUs are cheaper there.

 

[dpodblood]

OP will you be using the stock Intel cooler for your CPU? If so you're safe, but if you're using anything bigger you may want to think twice about that Corsair Vengeance RAM. The heat spreaders are quite tall and could easily be blocked by a big CPU cooler.

 

[sfan786]

Well im looking at the suggestions Ken gave me here might do what he is suggesting. As of now I was looking at the hyper 212+ cooler but I wasn't sure if i would purchase it immediately. Forgot to mention about this but if anyone has a good suggestion on the cooler be my guest.

 

[96Firebird]

If you don't get the combo that ends today, perhaps look at the XFX Core Edition 750W PSU over at NCIX US. $99.99 up front, but comes with a $30 mail-in rebate. If you don't mind rebates that is...

Just looked at Ken_g6's combo again, looks like the motherboard doesn't have 2x PCI-E slots, so you won't be able to go dual-GPU on it. Kind of a weird combo for Newegg to have, but since you were talking about going dual-GPU in the future you may want to look at something else.

And it you want to save even more money, SuperBiiz has the Extreme3 Gen3 for $124.99 - $5.00 (coupon code: DOVE) with free shipping. Beats paying $5 more, plus the $8 shipping at Newegg. Up to you though, just a thought if you decide to indeed go with that motherboard (I did, should ship soon).

Ok, one last edit - If you don't have a Micro Center nearby, you can try to price match the i5-2500k over at NCIX US. I did this, and they honored it. Got it for $179.99 with free shipping, even though the MC link says in-store only. Give it a shot, might save even more...

 

[sfan786]

Well rethinked my build with kens suggestions pretty much the exact things he listed above. sli and xfire dont make much sense for me if i buy before the new cards come out I understand now and then to buy one card that i would have to turn around and sell it or some thing to get an multi card set up probably wouldn't be worth it. Probably will look to put one beefier card on it in about a year after i build it anyways.

used this cooler master 430 case
and a run of the mill $19 dvd burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119227

Im pretty open for recommendations on a value case here just want to make sure they would fit a 6950 though. I do believe the 6950 does perform better than the 560 ti but if there is a good deal on that card I would be interested i know gigabyte has a similar deal with the card looking at the other threads but iI just need to stay with in my budget here is all.

Edit - Firebird I took your advice and put an order in for a priced matched i2500k hopefully they will go ahead and honor it as well. And yeah I might look at the extreme3 motherboard again but I just dont know. I like having more than one picx slot but if im not gong to sli or xfire in the end it might not be worth it.

Edit2 - Price match accepted

 

[mfenn]

Well rethinked my build with kens suggestions pretty much the exact things he listed above. sli and xfire dont make much sense for me if i buy before the new cards come out I understand now and then to buy one card that i would have to turn around and sell it or some thing to get an multi card set up probably wouldn't be worth it. Probably will look to put one beefier card on it in about a year after i build it anyways.

used this cooler master 430 case
and a run of the mill $19 dvd burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119227

Im pretty open for recommendations on a value case here just want to make sure they would fit a 6950 though. I do believe the 6950 does perform better than the 560 ti but if there is a good deal on that card I would be interested i know gigabyte has a similar deal with the card looking at the other threads but iI just need to stay with in my budget here is all.

Edit - Firebird I took your advice and put an order in for a priced matched i2500k hopefully they will go ahead and honor it as well. And yeah I might look at the extreme3 motherboard again but I just dont know. I like having more than one picx slot but if im not gong to sli or xfire in the end it might not be worth it.

Edit2 - Price match accepted

The bolded is pretty much perfect logic IMHO. With Ken's deals and the money you save from the price match, you can get a better case like the Fractal Design Core 3000 or Antec Three Hundred.

 

[sfan786]

Well I took another look at the build again here folks

For one thing im still not settled in on my case just yet.

looks like i might get a cfx board after all and a 750w power supply that deal came in cheaper then the mobo and power supply suggested but that off course since those coupons expired. I do l;ike that it is modular it would make cable mangement much easier for me.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.750635

xfx 6950 came in cheaper than the gigabyte it seems I was really leaning to go with a 560 ti here but my second look at the powersupply changed things http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814150523

and ill stick with the PNY RAM i guess http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820178333 giong for $36 right now normally too. I'm still defiantly up for changes here but might take advantage of these deals i got and go for it tommorow witch is pretty much today.

 

[lehtv]

I would rather trust a different Mobo brand... people say MSI is unreliable, unfortunately I have no real evidence to back it up. For me it's still reason enough to rather go with a Asrock, Asus or Gigabyte.

A Thermaltake PSU is a bit bigger concern. Hardwaresecrets review. "Thermaltake TR2 RX 750 W is, according to our methodology, a flawed product that must be avoided at all costs."

Asrock Z68 Pro3 $105
Corsair CX600 V2 $60 after promo code, plus $20 off in rebates (40A on the +12v).

Since this is $35 cheaper after rebate than the MSI+TR2 combo, you might be able to afford XFX 6950 2GB dual-fan $250AR.

 

[BlahBlahYouToo]

i've used plenty of MSI with no issues.

I would rather trust a different Mobo brand... people say MSI is unreliable, unfortunately I have no real evidence to back it up. For me it's still reason enough to rather go with a Asrock, Asus or Gigabyte.

A Thermaltake PSU is a bit bigger concern. Hardwaresecrets review. "Thermaltake TR2 RX 750 W is, according to our methodology, a flawed product that must be avoided at all costs."

Asrock Z68 Pro3 $105
Corsair CX600 V2 $60 after promo code, plus $20 off in rebates (40A on the +12v).

Since this is $35 cheaper after rebate than the MSI+TR2 combo, you might be able to afford XFX 6950 2GB dual-fan $250AR.

 

[lehtv]

i've used plenty of MSI with no issues.

I don't doubt that

 

[sfan786]

Ok then ill see if I can go with a ram combo and that board. I was looking at that psu before but everything is looking good just not certain on the case. Also not sure on the gpu looking at maybe the evga superclocked 560 ti and if id stay with the 6950 do I really need a 2gb for 1080p.

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

 

[96Firebird]

So are you wanting to go dual-GPU in the future, or have you decided not to do that? I think that will be one of the factors on the size of the PSU...

 

[sfan786]

No its not looking likely I will go duel gpu with this build.

 

[lehtv]

Also not sure on the gpu looking at maybe the evga superclocked 560 ti and if id stay with the 6950 do I really need a 2gb for 1080p.

Need, no. Benefit yes. Some games already use more than 1GB, especially some of the recent ones
- Rage uses well over 1GB with 16K texture size
- Games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 use well over 1GB with modded textures
- GTA4, Crysis 2, Metro2033 AFAIK
- Civilization 5 uses over 1GB in DX11 (my experience)
- probably many future releases, may include BF3 and Skyrim

 

[sfan786]

Need, no. Benefit yes. Some games already use more than 1GB, especially some of the recent ones
- Rage uses well over 1GB with 16K texture size
- Games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 use well over 1GB with modded textures
- GTA4 uses over 1GB... so does Metro2033
- Civilization 5 uses over 1GB in DX11 (my experience)
- probably many future releases, may include BF3 and Skyrim

Well sounds good once I get time to go back to my laptop I will see how this all turns out.

 

[96Firebird]

The best thing to do is look at benchmarks of the games you play at the resolution you play at. Here is the latest Starcraft II benchmark that I could find that includes both the HD6950 2GB and the GTX 560Ti. The 560Ti barely beats the HD6950 at 1920x1200, not enough to make a difference. You can either wait until BF3 comes out and see what those benches look like, or maybe use BFBC2 as a reference. Not sure how the two will compare though...

 

[mfenn]

The best thing to do is look at benchmarks of the games you play at the resolution you play at. Here is the latest Starcraft II benchmark that I could find that includes both the HD6950 2GB and the GTX 560Ti. The 560Ti barely beats the HD6950 at 1920x1200, not enough to make a difference. You can either wait until BF3 comes out and see what those benches look like, or maybe use BFBC2 as a reference. Not sure how the two will compare though...

Here's some benchmarks on the BF3 Beta

As you can see, it favors Nvidia cards a bit, as the GTX 560 Ti performs better than the 6950 2GB even though the 6950 is generally acknowledged as the more powerful card. However, you have to be careful when looking at beta performance because there are likely to be driver bugs and/or missing optimizations.

 

[mfenn]

I would rather trust a different Mobo brand... people say MSI is unreliable, unfortunately I have no real evidence to back it up. For me it's still reason enough to rather go with a Asrock, Asus or Gigabyte.

A Thermaltake PSU is a bit bigger concern. Hardwaresecrets review. "Thermaltake TR2 RX 750 W is, according to our methodology, a flawed product that must be avoided at all costs."

Asrock Z68 Pro3 $105
Corsair CX600 V2 $60 after promo code, plus $20 off in rebates (40A on the +12v).

Since this is $35 cheaper after rebate than the MSI+TR2 combo, you might be able to afford XFX 6950 2GB dual-fan $250AR.

:thumbsup: To this, though based on the preliminary benches, he might be better off with a GTX 560 Ti.

 

[aviat72]

1. Do you have to pay sales tax to Newegg? If Yes then consider Amazon, TigerDirect also.

2. If you have a Microcenter nearby their $280 on 2600K with $80 off a Z68 board deal is unbeatable

3. If you have a Micorcenter nearby go to that first and get a $2 can of air-sweeper while joining their program. They will give you a 5% certificate valid after a week. Go back and use that to take 5% off the 2600K to pay for your sale tax.

4. If buying hard-disks or memory buy from Amazon if price is comparable because of newegg's sucky return policy. I bought 2 Vertex Plus SSDs. After seeing the torture folks were going through, had to Ebay them for a $15/ssd loss since Newegg will not accept returns even on a certified bad product. The product had not been used.

5. Not a gamer but people were going ooh-aah on this thread about a refurbished (12 month warranty) Visiontech card which had a top of the line older gen gpu
http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1642692


6. Check out Ebay and forum classifieds for nice cases. Many times you can get excellent Lian Li cases well off their retail price. A case will last you literally forever so it is an investment worth making. Right now they have 20% off on many Lian Li cases
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...ATCH&N=-1&isNodeId=1&Description=lian+li+case
That full size A70F is very tempting.

7. Checkout newegg's shell shocker deals also. Right now they have an OK deal on P8P67 board with GSkill ram.

 

[sfan786]

To the poster above have you read this thread and i already bought an i5 2500k.

Well I wanted to tid things up and show you guys what i had in mind atm.


MB and RAM combo z68 ASRock pro3 /PNY 8gb 1366 (2x4gb) $136.98

GPU GIGABYTE GTX560Ti OC 1GB with dual fans $234.99 -$30 rebate and free arkham city

CASE HAF 912 $59.99

PSU Corsair 600w CX600 $59.99 w/ promo code and -$20 rebate

HD Hitatchi 1TB 7200RPM satahd $59.99 w/ promo code and -$20 rebate

Maybe i could get by with out a dvd drive for some time Im pretty much a big steam junky now a days. I may have to pick up a wifi adapter of some kind though my campus outsourced there dorm internet to apogee and now there is a wifi access point thing using the only Ethernet port i could use and I'm not allowed to unplug it apparently not like id want too with all my WiFi devices I have to see if they will hopefully might be able to give me a splitter.

I will say this i couldn't fit the 6950 2GB recommended into my budget easily and I personally like the free game choice better than dirt3 but im still open for any suggestions here Just need to wait until the money is accessible for me to do this. Hopefully tommorow but I would like to have something ready by monday.

 

[lehtv]

That looks really good, nice find on the mobo+ram combo.

 

[sfan786]

Forgot to say that it comes in at $577.26 without calculating that $50 in rebates