First Build for Gamer

[jordanpr]

Hi Anandtech,

Got a surprise holiday bonus, and after being a gamer for 20 years (I'm 25) and always buying pre-built/friend built/barebones + upgrade systems, I'm finally ready to blow some good earned cash on a gaming machine that makes me giggle. I've never played anything on the highest settings until like 6-7 years after the game comes out. This is going to be silly. List of games:

HoN/WoW/Civ4,5/Borderlands/Skyrim/Battlefield/MMO's/etc.
All RPGs/Strategy, and some shooters, usually prefer multiplayer shooters.

My main questions are: 1. Should I shift my build if it's only 1920x1200 versus the 2540x1400 or whatever that is? 2. Overclocking? 3. If I took off $200 from this build it would seriously hurt performance, right? 4. SSD's? I think I get why they rock but I've never used one -- just put your operating system on it right?

Thanks everyone!

LITE-ON DVD Burner $17.99
NZXT Source 220 CA-SO220-01 $49.99
Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM $79.99
SAMSUNG S24A450BW-1 Black 24 $289.99
SAPPHIRE 100351SR Radeon HD 7970 3GB $379.99
XFX Core Edition PRO750W (P1-750S-NLB9) $89.99
Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 $35.99
ASRock Z77 Extreme3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA $124.99
Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) $219.99
Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2 2.5" 128GB SATA III $109.99

1. What YOUR PC will be used for. That means what types of tasks you'll be performing.

Gaming.

2. What YOUR budget is. A price range is acceptable as long as it's not more than a 20% spread

$1,400 all-in

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

US

5. IF YOU have a brand preference. That means, are you an Intel-Fanboy, AMD-Fanboy, ATI-Fanboy, nVidia-Fanboy, Seagate-Fanboy, WD-Fanboy, etc.

Best value, that's it

7. IF YOU plan on overclocking or run the system at default speeds.

Default speeds but open to overclocking -- I have never done it before

8. What resolution, not monitor size, will you be using?

1920x1200

9. WHEN do you plan to build it?
Note that it is usually not cost or time effective to choose your build more than a month before you actually plan to be using it.

Soon/Now

X. Do you need to purchase any software to go with the system, such as Windows or Blu Ray playback software?

Naw.

 

[Sleepingforest]

You have basically enough to go 1440p. Check out mfenn's 1K build, and then add on this $400 Microcenter Auria. They ship the panel.

Overclocking is really easy with a K series CPU. You literally slowly bump up the CPU multiplier to around 42 (go in 100 MHz increments) and bump up the voltage if necessary for stability. You can get some software (Sapphire Trixx, MSI Afterburners) to overclock a GPU too, and those benefits will be more obvious for gaming.

 

[lehtv]

+1 to the above suggestion. I'd want enough PCIe lanes and PSU wattage to support dual graphics cards for that resolution, e.g. z77 extreme4 $120 and xfx 750W $65 AR

 

[riversend]

You could make the jump to the higher res, but it will come with long term performance costs (i.e. more money) for gaming. Sounds like the surprise bonus is the reason for the upgrade, in which case I would work at x1200 but double the size of the SSD so you can put more games on it.

 

[lehtv]

Performance costs can also simply translate to lower image quality settings, but it's true that you'd probably end up spending more money on graphics card performance over time. If that's a problem, a Dell 1920x1200 IPS panel is a good choice.

 

[Sleepingforest]

I think basically the choice comes down to large (1440p) screen with medium-high settings or 1080/1200p with high-ultra settings. I would personally prefer the former because I feel the larger screen allows for more immersion that a little extra eye candy. It also helps to have a larger screen for productivity.

 

[mfenn]

I think basically the choice comes down to large (1440p) screen with medium-high settings or 1080/1200p with high-ultra settings. I would personally prefer the former because I feel the larger screen allows for more immersion that a little extra eye candy. It also helps to have a larger screen for productivity.

For me, personally the productivity benefits of a 2560-wide display are big enough to make me "look the other way" when it comes to graphics details.

It really depends on what all the OP does with his machine though. If it's gaming only, I can see a good argument for getting a 1080p 120Hz screen for that same $400.

 

[lehtv]

Fully benefiting from a 120hz screen is going to be just as costly as running 2560x1440 smoothly. The difference to 60hz is mostly noticeably when framerates are well above 60, preferably above 100. And 1080p @ 120hz runs a much higher risk of CPU bottlenecking than 2560 @ 60hz which potentially increases the cost of CPU cooling and may tighten the CPU upgrade cycle.

 

[riversend]

I would certainly prefer the 1440 for most use cases, but my long time between upgrades would be prohibitive I think.

OP, I think you will be happy either way, but you will certainly make the biggest splash by going with the 1440 monitor.

 

[mfenn]

Fully benefiting from a 120hz screen is going to be just as costly as running 2560x1440 smoothly. The difference to 60hz is mostly noticeably when framerates are well above 60, preferably above 100. And 1080p @ 120hz runs a much higher risk of CPU bottlenecking than 2560 @ 60hz which potentially increases the cost of CPU cooling and may tighten the CPU upgrade cycle.

Sure, but there is no downside to "only" getting 60 FPS on a 120Hz screen. There is a big downside to getting 30 FPS on a 2560x1440 screen.

 

[lehtv]

Indeed, that's why I said fully benefiting.

 

[mfenn]

Indeed, that's why I said fully benefiting.

Sure, I was just pointing out the nuance.