Need to round out this mid range gaming build

[loki993]

1. gaming primarily 2. 1000 3. USA 5. Nvidia 7. Maybe overclock a little
8. 1920 x 1080 or better
9. Now
X. No

Ok so I just bought most of what I need for a mid range gaming build. So far I have

I5 4670K 179.99
Gigabite Z87X-UD3H 139.99, 109 with processor bundle ....this is going back though
8 gig Corsair Sport 1600 76.99
Corsair 750 power supply
WD 2tb mainstream storage drive, I know but it was cheap and Im going to get an SSD for booting and games. 69.99

I got about 560 in so far with a max budget of a thousand. I need a graphics card an SSD and monitor to round it out. The monitor isn't really counted in the thousand.

Update...apparently that motherboard as terrible newegg reviews..I bought it because it was in my price range, looked like it was decent and on Manufacturer name recognition.

Not sure on the card....would like to stay Nvidia and keep it in the 200 to 250 range so that's basically a 660, 660ti or a 760 on the high end.

Really not sure on the SSD ad I don't know a ton on these. In not sure I want to really spend more than say 150 on one and maybe a bit less. Again just for windows and programs....all storage will be on the 2 tb drive.

Im also looking for a monitor, would like IPS if possible if I need it and no smaller than 24 inches and would like to run at least 1080p if not better..this LG seems like a good deal..but Im not sure

http://www.microcenter.com/product/410039/27EA33V_27_Slim_LED_IPS_Monitor

Anything better for a similar price?

So as you can see I've already gotten the bulk but still need a couple main components to finish it up.

 

[loki993]

So apparently that motherboard has terrible newegg reviews..I bought it because it was in my price range, looked like it was decent and on Manufacturer name recognition.

So I could use a Mobo recommendation as well.

 

[deerslayer]

These are supposed to be decent for SSD and it fits in your $150 budget.
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00BQ8RM1A/...xtension-kb-20

 

[loki993]

Wow..thats a lot of SSD for 130 bucks....

 

[deerslayer]

I have the 250gb 840 evo in my main rig. I'm probably using around half of it between OS and games.

 

[Charlie98]

So apparently that motherboard has terrible newegg reviews..I bought it because it was in my price range, looked like it was decent and on Manufacturer name recognition.

So I could use a Mobo recommendation as well.

I would stick with the mobo... you have it and Gigabyte is a decent builder. You have to take NE reviews with a grain of salt... people like to complain, what you are not seeing are the 'this works great!' reviews that hardly anyone posts, or the 'it was my fault I shorted out the board' reviews.

 

[loki993]

Looking at the reviews on that Crucial I may be more comfortable with the performance of the one of the Sammys....

Usually I would agree on the board, or people complain about CS, RMA process or shipping like that's the boards fault...but with a cursory look a lot of the complaints were memory corruption with 4 DIMMS, BSODs, bad drivers.....etc....

Its a shame because it seems like a decent board spec wise and it looks good. Ill do some more research and see if the issues have been resolved...or if they exist at all. Though I've had bad boards before and its no fun. Though that was well before places like this existed on the internet.

 

[Charlie98]

Looking at the reviews on that Crucial I may be more comfortable with the performance of the one of the Sammys....

Meh... my Samsung 840Pro died in less than a year, for no apparent reason. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

As far as performance, you will see it in benchmarks but not in real-life usage. Buy what you want or what you can afford... I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Samsung, or a Crucial, or another leading brand SATA3 SSD.

 

[loki993]

Meh... my Samsung 840Pro died in less than a year, for no apparent reason. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

As far as performance, you will see it in benchmarks but not in real-life usage. Buy what you want or what you can afford... I wouldn't hesitate to buy another Samsung, or a Crucial, or another leading brand SATA3 SSD.

Yeah I was more looking at the performance of the drive alone....Seems the Samsungs are some of the fastest and the Crucial is just Meh....I dont know it will be my first SSD so I just want to make sure I'm not wishing I got something else because Im not happy with the performance...

But your basically saying in the real word I wont be able to tell the difference? If this is the case than why not go bigger for cheaper....

 

[schmuckley]

So apparently that motherboard has terrible newegg reviews..I bought it because it was in my price range, looked like it was decent and on Manufacturer name recognition.

So I could use a Mobo recommendation as well.

Hi-Fi z87x3d or z87w
Strong board for cheap price.
As for GPU 660-770..I'd probably go for something with more VRAM.
7950?

 

[mfenn]

I wouldn't panic over some Newegg reviews. You're already got the board in hand, so you might as well try it out. If it's DOA, take it back to MC just like you would any other board.

As for the 840 EVO's performance, you gotta keep in mind that most benchmarks hit the sweet spot for Samsung's TurboWrite feature. Sustained performance is much closer to the M500. They're both good drives, but the real-world performance difference between them isn't great, so I'd go with whichever costs less. That's the Crucial at the moment.

By my reckoning, you have about $310 left to spend on the GPU ($1000-560-130). Is there any reason that you're constraining yourself to $250 cards?

 

[loki993]

Ive done a bit more research on the board and it was basically what I thought, A BIOS and driver updated fixes most of the issues. Also Windows 8 and unapproved ram. Im keeping the board. The RAM I have isnt actually on the approved list for it but its Crucial and Im only using 2 slots so I dont see that there will be any problems.

All of the benches and tests I see on the M500 in the 240 range don't recommend it, once you hit the 480 it a little better but somehow they really peglegged the 240 and under. All of the comparison tests I see with nearly any other drives the M500 240 is way behind....so I may spend the extra 20 on the 840 just so I feel better at least....will I notice..who knows....but Ill never think what if.

As for the Graphics card....Not sure I think the 250 was just a soft limit I out on it because frankly spending 300 on a graphics card seems insane....but I do know this is where you get the benefits and this is where you should buy as much as you can afford.

So 310 would put in nearly into a 770 right so whats the best 770 I can get for that? Do I need to worry about 2 gigs or 4 gigs? Though I think the 4 gig is out of my price range....

 

[Cerb]

All of the benches and tests I see on the M500 in the 240 range don't recommend it, once you hit the 480 it a little better but somehow they really peglegged the 240 and under. All of the comparison tests I see with nearly any other drives the M500 240 is way behind....so I may spend the extra 20 on the 840 just so I feel better at least....will I notice..who knows....but Ill never think what if.

You won't. Spending on the bigger drive would not be a bad choice, IMO, but having a modern SSD, with decent flash onboard (yes, I'm talking about Kingston), is 99% of the real-world performance gain. The benchmarks showing such differences are made to stress the SSDs. Faster SSDs have made the reviewers come up with new tests to show greater differences, but that hasn't changed normal use of the drives, as they've all gotten faster and faster. If you're going to send more for a faster drive, make it a bigger drive, too.

That said, it's more like $30 more, than $20. The Sandisk Ultra Plus 256GB is $140 (Adorama is legit), slightly faster than the m500 at 240GB, slightly larger, and only slightly worse in terms of GB/$.

I can tell the difference between an oldish well-used SF-2281 drive, that's had time to get slow from sparse writes, or an old M4 w/o TRIM, and a new SSD, like an M500, Q, or 840 Pro (I use those, at ~500GB regularly). But, between those an Ultra Plus, 840 Evo, smaller M500, fresh SF-2281, etc.? Not a chance, outside of benchmarks. They're all so fast at reading with QD>1 that you have to have special uses for it to make a difference worth paying for.

 

[Charlie98]

but having a modern SSD, with decent flash onboard (yes, I'm talking about Kingston)

In what regard? They are just about giving away the Kingstons... I wondered if they were decent or not.

 

[Cerb]

In what regard? They are just about giving away the Kingstons... I wondered if they were decent or not.

That the V300 might be as fast as most other SF-2281 drives, or it might be only a little faster than a Sandisk U1xx.

There's a thread about it in M&S:
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2316409&highlight=v300
Short version: reviewers and early buyers got all fast sync NAND, that performed pretty well for an SF drive, while new buyers are just as likely to get a much slower drive as they are the drive they were expecting.

 

[mfenn]

So 310 would put in nearly into a 770 right so whats the best 770 I can get for that? Do I need to worry about 2 gigs or 4 gigs? Though I think the 4 gig is out of my price range....

The 2GB is definitely the card to go for. As for which specific card, this ASUS for $320 AR has the best cooler of all the low-priced cards.

 

[Cerb]

So 310 would put in nearly into a 770 right so whats the best 770 I can get for that? Do I need to worry about 2 gigs or 4 gigs? Though I think the 4 gig is out of my price range....

Get 4GB for a single display only if you plan to play games with lots of high res textures, like heavily modded sandbox RPGs. If you don't already have 100GB of Rockstar and Bethesda game folders, on account of added models and textures, or won't use multiple cards for high res gaming, it won't matter.

 

[loki993]

I missed that recco. I ended up choosing the EVGA 770 based on reviews either from here or Toms hardware cant remember. I also picked up the seagate 600, it was the same price as the Crucial and had pretty good speed comparatively, good performance consistency and endurance.

Now I just need to find a monitor.

 

[mfenn]

That LG you linked looks pretty good as long as you are down with the 27" 1080p form factor. It's big, but being only 1080p the pixels will be larger than they would be on a 2560x1440 panel. That can be either a good thing or a bad thing depending on how small you like your text and how much desktop real-estate you need.