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Input On New Budget PC

Gospel

Junior Member
Hello everyone, I'm building a new pc to replace the one I built 6 years ago. I'm trying to build something that's reasonably quiet/energy efficent. I plan to use the WD caviar green for a few months until I can afford a SSD, which I will then use as my boot drive and have the WD for storage. I'm mainly looking for advice on a video card, and conformation that I'm not doing anything I'll regret.

1) Mainly gaming and watching movies/vidoes.
2) Budget is $600.
3) Buying all the parts from the US.
4) No brand preferences besides WD.
5) I already have the case, power supply, OS, and monitor/peripherals.
6) May do some light overclocking.
7) Plan on gaming with 1680x1050 resolution.
8) Going to build it within the next few weeks.

Components so far:
CPU: Intel Core i3-530
mobo: ASRock H55M Pro LGA 1156 Intel H55
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
Harddrive: Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS 500GB
Optical Drive: Sony Optiarc 24X DVD/CD Rewritable Drive Black SATA Model
GPU: ?
Total without video card: $422
 
I wouldn't bother with the Caviar green. The Caviar black edition is substantially faster and really not much worse in terms of power draw or however they're trying to sell the green edition these days.

500 gig Black is $70 and the 640 gig (WD's fastest platter) is $75. Most definitely worth the premium. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16822136319

The rest of your build looks very good.

Unfortunately the video card market is a touch overpriced currently. I'd go with a 4850, 5770, or wait for Nvidia's GTX 460, which should come in around $250 and be very potent.
 
Any "Green" or "Eco" drive as a system drive = you gnashing your teeth because you new computer is really damn slow.

In your price range, AMD Radeon 5770 is probably your best bet for GPU.
 
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