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Attention Mid-Range System Builders - Updated 08/01/2015

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Alamat said:
Building a gaming rig with a budget of $800 max with OS and wired kb/mouse for my son's friend. Looking at the build at the front page, we're doing away with the SSD for now and step down to the 270 GPU. Won't really OC it, so maybe I can step down on the CPU? Having trouble getting all the promo codes for newegg...anywhere its posted?
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The promo codes are listed in green text on each product page. They do expire though, so some of the info might be stale by the end of the week.
 
New build posted. R9 280X prices are rising, but R9 280 prices are falling. Given the relatively small difference between the two, picking up the 280 and making this a $900 PC isn't a bad idea.
 
New build posted. R9 280(X) prices keep creeping up, but some better Z97 combos and a good PSU deal counteract that.
 
New build posted. There's a good deal on the CPU + mobo combo and R9 280(X) prices are falling back down. The R9 290 is also there at $345 if you'd like to spend just over $1000.
 
New build posted. Great deal on the CPU+mobo combo this week plus a nice little deal on the PSU. AMD GPU pricing is trending upwards again though.
 
New build posted. I didn't see any good CPU+mobo combos on Newegg, so those are separate for the first time in a while. The ASRock Z97 Pro3 is a solid board though. Pretty ridiculous R9 280 deal right now as well, might be worth picking up over the R9 280X.
 
conti154 said:
@mfenn

Do you hate NVIDIA? In your recent builds, you always went for Radeon.
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I won't speak for mfenn, but since he and I are often in a similar boat on the GPU point I'll give my perspective.

Nvidia and ATI/AMD take turns owning the price/performance crown. I owned a Radeon 9800 Pro (ATI) back when it was the card to beat, and then subsequently bought an 8800GT (Nvidia), GTX460 (Nvidia) and HD7950 (AMD).

Anyone who tells you that either brand is across the board better or has a history of driver problems doesn't know enough about graphics card or is too heavily biased to be giving advice. They BOTH have a history of driver problems, but they both also generally put out solid, reliable drivers and make an honest effort to fix any big bugs that come up.

Right now if you have the budget for a $250-300 graphics card AMD probably offers the best value in that range, but that hasn't always been the case and won't always be the case. Every generation of cards is different, and you can never count out the possibility of a steep sale on one card or another, although it's rare in the GPU arena that a sale is big enough to swing the price/performance pendulum from one manufacturer to the other.
 
DSF said:
I won't speak for mfenn, but since he and I are often in a similar boat on the GPU point I'll give my perspective.

Nvidia and ATI/AMD take turns owning the price/performance crown. I owned a Radeon 9800 Pro (ATI) back when it was the card to beat, and then subsequently bought an 8800GT (Nvidia), GTX460 (Nvidia) and HD7950 (AMD).

Anyone who tells you that either brand is across the board better or has a history of driver problems doesn't know enough about graphics card or is too heavily biased to be giving advice. They BOTH have a history of driver problems, but they both also generally put out solid, reliable drivers and make an honest effort to fix any big bugs that come up.

Right now if you have the budget for a $250-300 graphics card AMD probably offers the best value in that range, but that hasn't always been the case and won't always be the case. Every generation of cards is different, and you can never count out the possibility of a steep sale on one card or another, although it's rare in the GPU arena that a sale is big enough to swing the price/performance pendulum from one manufacturer to the other.
Click to expand...

:thumbsup: Exactly.

conti154 said:
@mfenn

Do you hate NVIDIA? In your recent builds, you always went for Radeon.
Click to expand...

No, I don't hate Nvida, in fact I have a GTX 780 in the machine sitting next to me. I've owned many GPUs from both companies over the past 16 years (basically since Nvidia got serious in the GPU game with the Riva TNT).

The reason I've been recommending the R9 270/280/280X for the past few months is that they're simply better values in the price bracket that the midrange build targets.

I don't keep a history of every build I've ever done for this thread (weekly for ~3 years, so ~150 builds), but there have been plenty of streches where I've recommended Nvidia cards. For example, earlier this year when AMD cards were priced through the roof due to cryptocoin mania, the GTX 770 was a mainstay.
 
New build posted. A good combo deal on the CPU+mobo, and a crazy good deal on the PSU brings the price down to $906 for the base machine. I recommend picking up the upgraded RAM or GPU option this week.
 
Newegg is having a 10% off sitewide sale if you use Visa Checkout (which allows you to use other forms of payment besides Visa) so you could shave even more $ off your build.

Ends....tomorrow?
 
New build posted. Slight increases over last week, but we keep the killer NeoECO 620C deal and swap in the superior 200R case.
 
New build posted. Minor changes this week, probably the biggest is EVGA's new FSP-built Bronze 650W unit is on sale for $50 AR.
 
New build posted. Minor changes to the PSU and mobo this week. Overall it's pretty similar to last week's build.
 
New build posted, mostly the same except the really good Neo ECO 620C deal is back. Also, the R9 280 is only $181 while they blow out the stock. It might even be worthwhile over the R9 280X given that they're $80 apart and not too different in terms of performance.
 
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