Cousin wants to build a beastly gaming rig!!

[college_student]

Hello all,

My cousin has asked me for help to build a beastly gaming rig.
Here are answers from the thread:

1. Will be used for playing the latest games; Crysis 2, etc..

2. Budget: Anything <$3K. Wants to get a powerful system that will last a while, but doesn't want to blow money unnecessarily. I told him its often a good idea to buy high end stuff, but not necessarily the "extreme" stuff, and then upgrade in a few years.

3. USA

4. No brand preference, but wants quality stuff. He rather pay a little more and get good stuff, than go cheap and regret it.

5. Have a windows 7 64-bit license, a keyboard and mouse. Need a monitor (1080p or better). He actually REALLY REALLY wants dual-monitors!!

6. He doesn't know how, and won't overclock. But he's open to the idea if it makes a big difference in performance.

Let me know if you guys have any suggestions.

Thanks,
-DV

 

[dmoney1980]

Well, before you decide on all of the core parts (CPU, videocard), he should decide on a monitor and it's native resolution. If I had $ to blow on a PC today, I would start with a 1440p IPS monitor (like this: http://microcenter.com/product/384780/EQ276W_27_IPS_LED_Monitor)
Why does he want dual monitors? Most gamers want 3 monitors, but at that resolution you're gonna need dual GPU's. I would recommend he decide on a monitor first

 

[ElFenix]

Well, before you decide on all of the core parts (CPU, videocard), he should decide on a monitor and it's native resolution. If I had $1500 to blow on a PC today, I would start with a 1440p IPS monitor (like this: http://microcenter.com/product/384780/EQ276W_27_IPS_LED_Monitor)

Why does he want dual monitors? Most gamers want 3 monitors, but at that resolution you're gonna need dual GPU's.

could go with the new dell 27", but it's twice the price of that.

the 3011 was on sale the other day for $1000, now that would be a beastly monitor. don't need dual full hd when one monitor has twice the pixels of full hd


anywho

• 3570k as gaming performance isn't much better with more expensive processors
• 256 GB SSD, either samsung 830 or crucial m4. the samsung is faster and 256 because 256. the 512s don't seem to have the value proposition yet.
• sli/xfire capable board such as asrock extreme 4
• nvidia 680 or ati 7970
• 16 GB samsung green ram 'overclocked'
• 1 or 2 TB disk drive
• the seasonic X750 that's on sale at the top of hot deals right now

with that you can overclock for more performance or go SLI/xfire as well.

if he goes with a 1080p monitor you can go with much lower spec'd parts (such as mfenn's midrange build at the top of this forum). 3 monitors or a 27" you'll want at least a 670/7950 imho.

 

[ther00kie16]

ElFenix hit pretty much everything although ram is where you can get any brand and GSkill has been popular and on sale lately. Anything that's 1600 speed or faster and decent reviews will do although this set appears to be crazy cheap right now:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820233296

As for 27" monitors, the Microcenter one is no better than the ebay Korean ones (just search 2560x1440). Those are $290 and the sellers will check to guarantee no dead pixels for a small fee ($30+ish). Only difference is those don't have displayport, which you'd need for additional displays using displayport on the cards.

 

[riversend]

Agree with dmoney on the monitor question. However he certainly has the budget to just go ahead and get the 670/680/7970 and a Crossfire/SLI board and see if he decides to go dual or triple. Get exactly the monitor(s) he wants, do not cheap out and get quality with a full feature set. Quality for less is always nice, of course, but in the monitor world there are (almost) always tradeoffs or risks to cheaper.

With that budget I would do several things different from mfenn's guide (similar to ElFenix recs):
1) Go ahead and bump up the RAM to 1600 or 1866. Only a couple of percent difference in performance, but with that budget why not for just a few dollars more?
2) Get the case he wants. It may be a little more, but this is often an aesthetic choice along with utility.
3) 256GB SSD, 830s are on sale all the time now.
4) Get a beefier power supply, he has the budget to "hedge" a little for future SLI. That does not mean 1200W, but more in the 750W range as ElFenix mentioned.

Do you live near a microcenter?

 

[college_student]

Agree with dmoney on the monitor question. However he certainly has the budget to just go ahead and get the 670/680/7970 and a Crossfire/SLI board and see if he decides to go dual or triple.

With that budget I would do several things different from mfenn's guide (similar to ElFenix recs):
1) Get exactly the monitor(s) he wants, do not cheap out and get quality with a full feature set. Quality for less is always nice, of course, but in the monitor world there are (almost) always tradeoffs or risks to cheaper.
2) Get the case he wants. It may be a little more, but this is often an aesthetic choice along with utility.
3) 256GB SSD, 830s are on sale all the time now.
4) Get a beefier power supply, he has the budget to "hedge" a little for future SLI. That does not mean 1200W, but more in the 750W range as ElFenix mentioned.

Do you live near a microcenter?

Thanks to all for replies.

1. I have convinced him to just go for a single 27" monitor for now. He mostly wanted dual monitors for non-gaming tasks (which he just told me). But I think he's ok with a single 27" monitor now.

2. He doesn't live near Micro Center, but I'm like an hour away from one, and I don't mind driving there for him.

3. I was thinking SSD + HDD might be better? He has a lot of games, and I don't want him to run out of space. Maybe SSD for OS and a HDD for games? Or is it better to get 2 SSDs?

4. Asked him about the case, his response: "don't really care what it looks like..as long as its not super ugly." Haha..

Thanks,
-DV

 

[dmoney1980]

If you plan on going to MicroCenter, you can pick up a CPU and motherboard bundle for a discount. Their current promo is $40 off any z77 series motherboard with the purchase of a core i5 or i7 k series CPU. I would recommend a i5 3570k with the ASrock z77 extreme 4. Both would cost about $265.

While you're there, you can look at hard drives and cases.
This is a pretty good deal on a HDD- http://www.microcenter.com/product/...ATA_60Gb-s_35_Internal_Hard_Drive_STBD2000101

I would recommend he pick up a 256GB SSD for his OS and primary games, and have a dedicated HDD for media. Stick with Samsung, Crucial, and intel and looks for the best deal on a 256GB drive

Micro Center also carries Corsair, Antec, Cooler Master, and some Bit Fenix cases.

Your cousin can have a very powerful gaming pc for a lot less than $3k, no need to spend that kind of money unless he's triple monitor gaming or looking to break overclocking records

 

[riversend]

Thanks to all for replies.

1. I have convinced him to just go for a single 27" monitor for now. He mostly wanted dual monitors for non-gaming tasks (which he just told me). But I think he's ok with a single 27" monitor now.

2. He doesn't live near Micro Center, but I'm like an hour away from one, and I don't mind driving there for him.

3. I was thinking SSD + HDD might be better? He has a lot of games, and I don't want him to run out of space. Maybe SSD for OS and a HDD for games? Or is it better to get 2 SSDs?

4. Asked him about the case, his response: "don't really care what it looks like..as long as its not super ugly." Haha..

Thanks,
-DV

1. Great, then easy on the gaming front and not needing multi-gpu. Your PSU can go down into the 500W range, you can use the one from mfenn's guide and you should be fine.

2. If you are willing to head there then also great, good deals on the 3570k and Z77 mobos, among other things.

3. I recommend a 256GB for OS and some games (I have my Steam games on my 256GB, not a deal breaker but is nice). Otherwise putting the games on a separate HDD is just fine. Most folks I believe go that route.

4. Nice. That makes case selection a pick'em.

So based on what you have said, my general input would be to go with mfenn's guide as a baseline and then tweak here and there where you can since you are not bound to a difficult budget to meet.

 

[mfenn]

So based on what you have said, my general input would be to go with mfenn's guide as a baseline and then tweak here and there where you can since you are not bound to a difficult budget to meet.

Agree. My midrange build is really easy to scale up or down with only a few parts changes (we will not need touch $2k, let alone $3k:

- Get the i5 3570K and ASRock Extreme4 at MC, should actually end up saving $50 off of Newegg
- While you're at MC, pick up the Auria that dmoney linked ($400). MC salespeople work on commission, so they should be motivated to let you inspect it before you leave the store
- Take the RAM to 16GB using the XMS3 that ther00kie linked (+$21)
- Take the SSD to the 256GB model (+$70) You might want to grab that one right now, the 830 isn't being produced any more, so stocks will dry up.
- Up the case to something a little nicer like the Antec Eleven Hundred (+$550)

That's about it for about $500 more dollars than the midrange or $1500 total. You can certainly take the GPU power (and thus PSU wattage) higher, but the GTX 670 is quite powerful even at 2560x1440.

I don't really recommend a GTX 680 because its such a poor value compared to the GTX 670. The next logical step for me is GTX 670 SLI. For example:
- Double the GTX 670 in the build (+$370)
- Swap the PSU to the Capstone 750W (+$40)

That would put you at about about $1900 and would get you a machine that's probably in the 99.9th percentile in terms of gaming power.