Feedback on $1200 Gaming Build

[orionshadow]

Hey all,

Starting at the Budget Intel Gaming Build, I switched a few things around and added a couple to suit my needs. Let me know what you think.

Purchase date: this week

Budget: $1000

System Usage: Gaming/Dreamweaver/Photoshop

Preferred website: Newegg/MicroCenter

Country: USA

Overclocking: Maybe a little

Monitor Resolutions: 2 monitors(1920x1080 on one and 1680x1050 on the other)

!!! Microcenter has a CPU/Mobo Combo Deal!!!
Intel i5-2500k $179.99 MicroCenter
http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0354589

Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 $149.99 $100 from Microcenter with Combo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813128512

Sapphire Radeon HD 6950 2GB Video Card $264.99 $244.99 AR
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814102945

2x Samsung EcoGreen F4 2TB 6.0GB/S SATA $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136891

!!!Update! No longer a Shell Shocker, $139.99. Is this still worth it?!!!
Seasonic X650 80 Plus Gold 650W Power Supply $109.99 (Shell Shocker)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817151088

G.Skill Ripjaws X 16GB 4x4GB 240-Pin 1866 Desktop Memory Kit $99.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820231429

Coolermaster HAF 922 Mid Tower Case $99.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811119197

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total = $1002, but I got the bottom two items to sweeten my deal.

Optional (But purchasing anyway):

Antec Kuhler H20 620 Liquid Cooling System $64.84. Is it worth the money vs an air cooling setup
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16835209049

ADATA S511 120GB SATA III MLC SSD $190 (Had to include the SSD, but obv optional)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820211551

 

[Thermalzeal]

If your up for it, wait a week and see what AMD Bulldozer performance numbers are. At worst, it will have an effect on Intel pricing.

Here is my commentary:

Graphics: I haven't had the best of luck with Sapphire cards, although this one has 5 star reviews. I also don't like that it has only 1 display port output. If one day you would like to go multi monitor, you would be limited to 3 (You can't use the hdmi in conjunction with the displayport from my research) Also the 2GB of memory doesn't help that much. I would look at the XFX cards, they have some good deals.

Storage: I would suggest rethinking your storage strategy. getting an SSD today will blow your mind. Crucial has a good one that is 60 gigabytes after formatting. I recently bought one, and installed windows in 8 minutes. You have to do a couple things like moving your mydocuments and your media to a secondary drive, but your performance will be great. Also, with the amount of memory you have, you will need no paging, so you can turn that off.

As for the power supply, look at the corsair's I believe they have some on sale. I've been recently partial to the OCZ modstreams, as they have a nice quiet fan on em, and modular is great for clean case internals.

As always, everything is IMHO. Thus therefore, Intel PC's blow.

 

[munkle]

The x650 at $140 isn't worth it, I got my x750 for $120. Newegg drops the x650 to $99 once every few months or so.

 

[Piano Man]

If your up for it, wait a week and see what AMD Bulldozer performance numbers are. At worst, it will have an effect on Intel pricing.

Here is my commentary:

Graphics: I haven't had the best of luck with Sapphire cards, although this one has 5 star reviews. I also don't like that it has only 1 display port output. If one day you would like to go multi monitor, you would be limited to 3 (You can't use the hdmi in conjunction with the displayport from my research) Also the 2GB of memory doesn't help that much. I would look at the XFX cards, they have some good deals.

Storage: I would suggest rethinking your storage strategy. getting an SSD today will blow your mind. Crucial has a good one that is 60 gigabytes after formatting. I recently bought one, and installed windows in 8 minutes. You have to do a couple things like moving your mydocuments and your media to a secondary drive, but your performance will be great. Also, with the amount of memory you have, you will need no paging, so you can turn that off.

As for the power supply, look at the corsair's I believe they have some on sale. I've been recently partial to the OCZ modstreams, as they have a nice quiet fan on em, and modular is great for clean case internals.

As always, everything is IMHO. Thus therefore, Intel PC's blow.

Wait a week? Are we for sure getting some actual performance figures next week? I'm most intrigued...

 

[Thermalzeal]

Latest news is that it is shipping this week. Which means that Anand probably already has retail samples and is under NDA until they lift it.

 

[Ken g6]

- The PSU is not and never really was a good deal. This PSU is a good deal.
- Given you mention Photoshop (CS5?) you may want an nVIDIA card. It's not officially supported, but you can hack it.
- If you're short on money, drop one 2TB drive, and get an SSD - at least this level. If you want 120GB, this might be better. P.S. Green drives are slow - if you get both I hope you RAID them on the 3Gbps ports.
- If you're overclocking a lot (e.g. you insist on over 4.5GHz), the liquid cooler might be worth it. If you're only overclocking "maybe a little", the stock cooler should be OK.

 

[Piano Man]

Not to push your budget OP, but HardOCP just raved about this due to its unlockability, OC, and cooling. Bascially gives you close to 580 power. Will cost you an actual 20-25 bones.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/29/sapphire_toxic_hd6950_video_card_review

 

[mfenn]

- The PSU is not and never really was a good deal. This PSU is a good deal.
- Given you mention Photoshop (CS5?) you may want an nVIDIA card. It's not officially supported, but you can hack it.
- If you're short on money, drop one 2TB drive, and get an SSD - at least this level. If you want 120GB, this might be better. P.S. Green drives are slow - if you get both I hope you RAID them on the 3Gbps ports.
- If you're overclocking a lot (e.g. you insist on over 4.5GHz), the liquid cooler might be worth it. If you're only overclocking "maybe a little", the stock cooler should be OK.

My interpretation of the OP was that he already bought the ADATA SSD. Also, Photoshop doesn't really benefit from CUDA AFAIK.

OP, everything looks fine to me except the PSU (as mentioned above) and the RAM. There's nothing wrong per se with what you've picked out, but it's not worth $100. Grab two of these Kingston kits for $42 ea.

 

[StrangerGuy]

Wait a week? Are we for sure getting some actual performance figures next week? I'm most intrigued...

He's probably one of those BD loving nuts who thinks spending $150 on a lousy Phenom II chip and a $200 AM3+ board now so you can put in another $200 BD chip just to match a 2500K is a good use of money.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

if youre waiting for BD WAIT FOR IT.
dont buy a lousy cpu to substatute it

 

[Ken g6]

Also, Photoshop doesn't really benefit from CUDA AFAIK.

Hm, you're right, but so am I. () It all depends on plugins; no builtin functionality uses CUDA.

 

[orionshadow]

Ok some big changes here based on feedback from boards:
Ive already purchased an i5-2500k and got in on a 128GB m4 SSD via shell shocker for $169.99.

Please look at the below selections and let me know what you think.

I wanted a PSU that was modular, single rail and had enough pci-e plugs for crossfire and the XFX is a seasonic based PSU quality-wise

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX
Support Video Card with Eyefinity

$299.99 - $30 MIR = $269.99

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 ASRock Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

$199.99 -$10.00 Instant $189.99

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
XFX PRO850W XXX Edition Semi-Modular 80 Plus Silver Certified 850 Watt Active PFC Power Supply

$154.99 -$30.00 MIR $124.99

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL

$54.99 $54.99

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
2 SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

$89.99 -$10.00 Instant $159.98

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1 Antec Kuhler H2O 620 Liquid Cooling System

$65.84 - $10 MIR $55.84

 

[orionshadow]

Not to push your budget OP, but HardOCP just raved about this due to its unlockability, OC, and cooling. Bascially gives you close to 580 power. Will cost you an actual 20-25 bones.

http://www.hardocp.com/article/2011/08/29/sapphire_toxic_hd6950_video_card_review

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/msi_r6950_twin_froz_iii_power_edition_unlocking,1.html

Pretty much the reason im going with the Twin Frozr III. Other than it being quiet as hell and powerful as hell and awesome as hell....etc

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Dont get the EcoGreen HDD, its only 5400 RPM
get one that has 7200 RPM

Why liquid cooling? waste of money

love the twin frozer series. totally BA

 

[mfenn]

The main problem that I see with that build is that if I had a nickel for everyone who bought an outrageous mobo and PSU with the intent to upgrade to Crossfire/SLI, but didn't actually follow through, then I would be a rich man right now. So, what I'm telling you is not to bother unless you can afford it right now. With that in mind:

- Swap the 6950 to this Sapphire model -$25
- Swap the mobo to the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 -$65
- Swap the PSU to the XFX Core 650W -$55
- Dump the faux liquid cooling for a Hyper 212+ -$27
- Buy the second 2TB drive later -$80
- Enjoy 6950 2GB Crossfire today +$245
Net savings: $7

 

[T_Yamamoto]

The main problem that I see with that build is that if I had a nickel for everyone who bought an outrageous mobo and PSU with the intent to upgrade to Crossfire/SLI, but didn't actually follow through, then I would be a rich man right now. So, what I'm telling you is not to bother unless you can afford it right now. With that in mind:

- Swap the 6950 to this Sapphire model -$25
- Swap the mobo to the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 -$65
- Swap the PSU to the XFX Core 650W -$55
- Dump the faux liquid cooling for a Hyper 212+ -$27
- Buy the second 2TB drive later -$80
- Enjoy 6950 2GB Crossfire today +$245
Net savings: $7[/QUOTE]
NICE :awe:

 

[orionshadow]

The main problem that I see with that build is that if I had a nickel for everyone who bought an outrageous mobo and PSU with the intent to upgrade to Crossfire/SLI, but didn't actually follow through, then I would be a rich man right now. So, what I'm telling you is not to bother unless you can afford it right now. With that in mind:

- Swap the 6950 to this Sapphire model -$25
- Swap the mobo to the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 -$65
- Swap the PSU to the XFX Core 650W -$55
- Dump the faux liquid cooling for a Hyper 212+ -$27
- Buy the second 2TB drive later -$80
- Enjoy 6950 2GB Crossfire today +$245
Net savings: $7

I love your math. Unfortunately, I do plan on going CrossfireX with the next month's paycheck :-D and I wanted the PSU to be modular and the extra 200w headroom isnt bad

I like the Extreme4 over the Extreme3 because it has more SATA3 ports and the additional goodies so its worth it to me.

The MSI is quieter, more powerful and unlockable And has a $30 MIR (if it comes back) so its pretty much even. Worth $25 imo

Yes, the Antec Kuhler is a "faux" cooler, but in all honesty I just wanted to check it out and see if I liked it vs the Hyper 212 (which is pretty big). I wanted my first clean build.

I appreciate the work you put in but it pretty much validates my choices as the next tier of components. This is my first build in 3 years, so I wanted to go bleeding edge without cutting my wrists on the prices.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Well, looks like its what you want xD

 

[mfenn]

I love your math. Unfortunately, I do plan on going CrossfireX with the next month's paycheck :-D

Guess how many times have I heard that one before?

and I wanted the PSU to be modular and the extra 200w headroom isnt bad

I like the Extreme4 over the Extreme3 because it has more SATA3 ports and the additional goodies so its worth it to me.

The MSI is quieter, more powerful and unlockable And has a $30 MIR (if it comes back) so its pretty much even. Worth $25 imo

Yes, the Antec Kuhler is a "faux" cooler, but in all honesty I just wanted to check it out and see if I liked it vs the Hyper 212 (which is pretty big). I wanted my first clean build.

I appreciate the work you put in but it pretty much validates my choices as the next tier of components. This is my first build in 3 years, so I wanted to go bleeding edge without cutting my wrists on the prices.

I can't force you to buy anything of course, but just be aware that with those components, you are spending $250 for little to no performance benefit.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Well it is his money, and he does have reasons to keep those things

remember that guy with a 5k budget and wanted only 1 GPU and 1 monitor? LMAO

 

[mfenn]

Well it is his money, and he does have reasons to keep those things

remember that guy with a 5k budget and wanted only 1 GPU and 1 monitor? LMAO

I know, I just don't think that they are very good reasons. :awe:

Kidding aside, maybe I am just jaded. I just don't think that the "new and shiny" argument is very convincing.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Well if you could get a new car, wouldnt you want one?

 

[orionshadow]

I know, I just don't think that they are very good reasons. :awe:

Kidding aside, maybe I am just jaded. I just don't think that the "new and shiny" argument is very convincing.

I understand where you are coming from, but this is the first time I could actually afford to build a $1200 computer and not be hurt afterwards. Guess that means im an adult or something. But I wanted to get components I wanted to get and not because I couldnt afford to spend the extra $50 on them to save a few $$

 

[mfenn]

Well if you could get a new car, wouldnt you want one?

And spend another 3 years paying it off? I don't think so!

 

[mfenn]

I understand where you are coming from, but this is the first time I could actually afford to build a $1200 computer and not be hurt afterwards. Guess that means im an adult or something. But I wanted to get components I wanted to get and not because I couldnt afford to spend the extra $50 on them to save a few $$

Yeah I get where you are coming from. If I were you and was really really set on doing Crossfire, I'd wait until you get your next paycheck so that you could go Crossfire right off the bat. You never know when having all of the parts within the same 30-day return window will come in handy.