~$1500 gaming system for end of 2009

[Maverick2002]

Hi,

I realize I'm planning ahead a bit, but for my birthday/Christmas of 2009 I'm requesting a new system from my gf/family. I will finance any leftover price. I'm looking to spend ~$1500. It will be primarily for gaming, in particular StarCraft2 (hopefully it comes out this year) and eventually Diablo3. I'm a Blizzard addict and although I'm sure I'll play other games, I've always spent 90% of my gaming in SC/WC/D2. Anyway, I want to have a system that will be able to play these games at 1920x1200, all effects maxed out, and decent (4x?) AA. I have a BenQ G2400W that I will be using as my display. I'll be purchasing new everything else (keyboard, mouse, 5.1 speakers, all components). I also want to OC this system a decent amount.

I won't be getting this system together until the end of the year so I'm sure prices will drop. Furthermore, optimal specs for either game havent' been revealed, but I'm sure they won't be far from the top FPS games now in terms of putting a beating on your system.

I spent some time on newegg and priced out the following for ~$1600 now:

6gb ocz pc1600
2x wd raptor 10k rpm 74gb in RAID 0 (app drives)
wd 1tb 7200rpm (storage drive)
core i7 2.66
corsair 750w
some case, depending on what I like in terms of style, function, reliability - we'll say 120 or less (antec 900 is 120)
evga core i7 OC mb
evga gtx260 core 216 896mb x2 (SLI)

I'm not completely up to date on all the latest stuff and I'm sure it'll all change somewhat in the next half year, but is this the general ballpark? Do I have any major bottlenecks with a setup like this?

Also, what do you guys think of pre-built systems from places like CyberPowerPC? It looks like there isn't much of a price difference. I've built all sorts of systems myself for almost 10 years now so I'm more than comfortable doing it myself, but I was just wondering if any of these places are worthwhile in your opinion?

EDIT: I have Vista Ultimate so OS isn't an issue.

 

[bamacre]

In 7-8 months anything and everything could change. Price drops, new models, whatever. I wouldn't even bother thinking about it yet.

 

[Hacp]

I'd go with Phenom II, a less powerful powersupply, a single 4890 card, and as many OCZ vertexes in raid 0 as you can afford Blizzard is generally known for requiring less graphics.

 

[somethingsketchy]

Originally posted by: bamacre
In 7-8 months anything and everything could change. Price drops, new models, whatever. I wouldn't even bother thinking about it yet.

+1

By then Core i7/Core i5 prices will have dropped, so who knows what $1500 could be spent on. I would personally take out the 74GB Raptors and go with a 300GB VelociRaptor or 2x 150GB Raptors, but that's just me. SSDs probably won't go down to a competitive price for quite some time. Maybe another 8-13 months (unless manufacturers start pushing the prices lower sooner.

Just a thought.

 

[Hacp]

Originally posted by: somethingsketchy

Originally posted by: bamacre
In 7-8 months anything and everything could change. Price drops, new models, whatever. I wouldn't even bother thinking about it yet.

+1

By then Core i7/Core i5 prices will have dropped, so who knows what $1500 could be spent on. I would personally take out the 74GB Raptors and go with a 300GB VelociRaptor or 2x 150GB Raptors, but that's just me. SSDs probably won't go down to a competitive price for quite some time. Maybe another 8-13 months (unless manufacturers start pushing the prices lower sooner.

Just a thought.

Actually, samsung's 32nm chips are set to be released in the 3rd quarter.

 

[polarbear6]

Dude, The end of 2009 is like ETERNITY in the computer hardware world.
Well just to start off with, There can be the nvidia 300 GPU's Intel's Core I5, SSD's getting cheaper, Maybe larabee, Windows 7, me getting married .........,,,,,,,,, etc

So its too early for any one in the forum to recommend you a build, Unless anyone here has a crystal ball.....

 

[TidusZ]

By the time you build this cpu, the change buried in your couch will be enough to afford a computer capable of playing all blizzard made games for at least 5 years... Around the time Diablo 2's 1.14 patch is released.

 

[AstroManLuca]

You definitely don't need to spend $1500 on a computer just to run Blizzard games. Spend $700 and use the rest for lap dances

 

[imported_Scoop]

$1500 system is a bit overkill for those games.

 

[Maverick2002]

Ok ... I'm not going to play ONLY Blizzard games. Also, while WoW is "graphically compatible" with lower end systems, there are some D3-clone games out there with decent geometry & effects that can put a bit of a beating on your system (such as Titan Quest). Also, I do enjoy the occasional FPS. I realize by end of year a lot will change, but I was just seeing if I'm on the right track or missing anything/making a less-than-ideal decision about any of the components for this task.

 

[Ichigo]

Ask later.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Originally posted by: Ichigo
Ask later.

This

Originally posted by: TidusZ
By the time you build this cpu, the change buried in your couch will be enough to afford a computer capable of playing all blizzard made games for at least 5 years... Around the time Diablo 2's 1.14 patch is released.

I believe you mean pc, not cpu And yes, Blizzard does have a tendency of releasing games that ~80% or more systems are already ready to play for the pure sake that their franchises have so many followers they don't need to be using cutting-edge tech to get huge sales.

Originally posted by: Maverick2002
Ok ... I'm not going to play ONLY Blizzard games. Also, while WoW is "graphically compatible" with lower end systems, there are some D3-clone games out there with decent geometry & effects that can put a bit of a beating on your system (such as Titan Quest). Also, I do enjoy the occasional FPS. I realize by end of year a lot will change, but I was just seeing if I'm on the right track or missing anything/making a less-than-ideal decision about any of the components for this task.

Any decent dual (or quad for the sake of WoW's sheer number of players) with a mid-range video card could handle those games without too much trouble, your proposed set-up in the first post is more than enough for those, plus most games for a few years.