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Looking for advice on assembling a good mid-range gaming PC.

M

matthewjer18

Junior Member
) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? In order of importance: Mid-range gaming, DVD/Blu-Ray reading and browsing.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? Including tax and shipping, I would like to remain within the $1000-1100 range. Any monthly deals or rebates to minimize cost would be appreciated, especially from Newegg.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible. I live in the United States. My state is New Jersey.
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? Case
HDD
Video Card
PSU
Memory
Mobo
Processor
Cooler
SSD

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model. None.
6) Will you be overclocking? Possibly, although it would be very minimal at best.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it? Still looking for a monitor.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC? ASAP (preferably within the week).
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc. None in particular, although I suppose SLI support for future upgrades would be appreciated. I want a mid-range gaming rig that has some measure of flexibility.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit? No.

As for any brand preferences I may have, I was looking to stay with Intel for the processor, although I'm open to any suggestions if I could find different brands for the other components that may come with special deals, competitive performance, etc.

For some background, I've gotten several build recommendations on countless forums, only to have another forum critique the build and offer something alternate. I'm at a stage where I'd like to finalize a build - and I hope that happens here. Thanks.
 
So, do you want to include the cost of the OS and/or the monitor in your $1000-1100 budget? That's the reason for the "exact parts" question.

Do you live near a Micro Center? That's the reason for the city question. They have up to $120-off deals on CPU+motherboard!

Are you a student? If so, MS lets you save on Win7.
 
Well, if I could find a way to incorporate at least the monitor in my budget, I would greatly prefer it, but it's not something that I absolutely *need* to do if it would compromise the quality of the core components I'll need. I'm fine whichever way it goes.

I live about 1 hour and forty-five minutes from a Micro Center. Never been to one before, no idea what deals I should be looking for there if I were to go to one. If someone could list a recommend build with parts that link to Micro Center, I'd be willing to check out any deals they might have. I'm essentially building up from nothing - no components to start with.

I'm not a student.
 
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+1 to mfenn's example build

I think it has everything you need. If you want, add the monitor to that price (e.g. Asus VH238H 23.6" 1080p $170 from newegg), or swap the SSD for a monitor. If you don't plan to overclock, swap the 2500K for a 2500 or 2400. (You either do it or you don't, there is no "a little bit". Sandy bridge is just so highly overclockable.)

I think it'd be best if you tried to look around micro center for the parts in the example build. If you don't find the exact parts, swap to something similar and then we'll discuss your choices. If you want SLI/Crossfire as a possibility, pick a 750W PSU from Antec, Corsair, Seasonic or XFX.
 
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matthewjer18 said:
I live about 1 hour and forty-five minutes from a Micro Center.
Click to expand...
lehtv said:
I think it'd be best if you tried to looked around micro center for the parts in the example build. If you don't find the exact parts, swap to something similar and then we'll discuss your choices
Click to expand...
And you want him to drive there twice?!

Here's the September Specials. Page 27 is the one with all the good deals. There's a good ASRock micro-ATX if you don't mind that, for example, or a good ASUS.
 
I like the MSI GPU. Mainly because I have a 460 that looks just like that. 😎 You might want to switch to this PSU (for a couple bucks less!) if you get it, though; it takes a little more power than the AMDs do.

The MSI Military Class boards, on the other hand, have some surprisingly bad reviews. What are you looking for from them that you aren't getting from ASRock? Two PCIe x16 slots for SLI?
 
matthewjer18 said:
Unfortunately, the parts that my local Micro Center has the best discounts on are in-store only. Since I'd be spending additional money on fuel for a 3 hour drive there and back, that would lessen the savings considerably enough to make the whole trip rather pointless.

I was wondering what you guys thought of two modifications I made to the mobo and GPU, though:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814127565
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813130573
Click to expand...

As for the GPU, I'd rather have a 6950 2GB with normal cooling than a 6950 1GB with fancy cooling.

The mobo is no great shakes either. I agree with Ken and Takumi, what need doesn't the Pro3 fill? If there is one, the ASRock Extreme3 is the next logical upgrade from the Pro3.
 
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