Newbie Project: Budget Gaming Rig

[lolDragoon]

Hi!

I'm new to the forums and new to building my own rig. I've done upgrades and such before, but this will be my first go at a complete build. Any advice would be awesome. For the most part, this is a budget gaming rig and i'm looking at spending somewhere between 700-900 dollars.

Here are the parts i'm looking at:

*Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case $59.95


Core i7 870 Processor Boxed $229.99


Radeon HD 6850 1024B GDDR5 PCIe 2.1 x16 Video Card $199.99


ASUS P7H55-M LX LGA 1156 Intel H55 Intel Motherboard $82.99

*G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT 46.99

*CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply 89.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM 99.99

Total Price: 809.89

As far as mouse/keyboard, optical/hard drives, and a monitor i have those from my old PC. The hard drives are 2 500gig 7200 rpm drives and the monitor has a max resolution of 1920 x 1080. Again, any help or advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for any and all info and please forgive me if i've missed something.

*Update: I'd also like to stick with an ATI graphics card. I have more experience with them than nvidia.

*Updated Parts

 

[Blain]

Spend 2 hours reading through threads with similar goals as yours.

 

[Davidh373]

one second here...


I'll be back with a revised build with more reliable and efficient parts. You should really go i5, but since the i7 is so damn cheap why not?

323-02 ATX Mid-Tower Case $16.99 http://www.microcenter.com/single_pr...uct_id=0257843

I would never buy a cheap case like that. Get an Antec 300.

CORSAIR XMS 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 $129.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16820145324

Get GSkill 1333Mhz Ripjaws from newegg, they are lower voltage and you won't ever notice a difference in performance, and you'll save $30.

CORSAIR Builder Series CMPSU-500CX 500W ATX12V v2.3 Active PFC Power Supply $59.99 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139018

I wouldn't build anything these days with a PSU that doesn't at least have 80+ bronze efficiency. Look at the these

Seasonic 520W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-093-_-Product

Antec Eartwatts 500W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-035-_-Product

I know this increases your final cost a bit, but I think you'll find a great case and a more efficient PSU will treat you better.

 

[lolDragoon]

I checked for the GSkill 1333Mhz Ripjaws on newegg and found this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-311-_-Product. It does look like a better deal. I also don't know much about cases and how much they affect the overall performance of the PC. Any advice on that?

I also updated the main post to reflect the power supply change.

 

[Davidh373]

I also don't know much about cases and how much they affect the overall performance of the PC. Any advice on that?

Better case = better cooling, better cooling = better performance.

I actually just got the Antec 300 in the mail an hour ago, after recommending it like 400 times I am SOOO glad I did. So many nice features for a $60 case.

 

[Murloc]

I also don't know much about cases and how much they affect the overall performance of the PC. Any advice on that?

temperatures and cooling performance.

Remember that you have to to assemble the computer too.
Cases can have really razor edges, be cramped and make cable managing a hell.

 

[mfenn]

Thread title: Budget Gaming Rig.

With that in mind:

• Dump the 870 and go for the i5 760 (-$60, total -$60)
• Dump the 8GB of RAM and go to 4GB (-$53, total -$113)
• Swap the 6850 for a GTX 470 (+$30, total -$83)
• Need a higher wattage PSU like the 650TX (+$11, -$72)

Either pocket the extra cash, or take the ~$130 that you have left in your budget and get a 60GB SSD like the Callisto Deluxe.

 

[lolDragoon]

After doing some research on power supplies i found this 'Recommended Power Supply Wattages Calc' and with the current specs i have listed I need at least a 550 watt power supply.

Also in response to this:

Dump the 8GB of RAM and go to 4GB (-$53, total -$113)

Why should i dump the amount of RAM? I was under the impression more was better in this case.

 

[gJabberwock]

As far as dumping RAM thats a pretty easy upgrade for later. you can get a 768MB gtx460 for 130 (AR) from microcenter right now, but the 6850 will offer better performance while using a little less power (could probably get away without the psu upgrade)

 

[Davidh373]

Why should i dump the amount of RAM? I was under the impression more was better in this case.

games don't even use 4 yet, you'll be fine for a while.

 

[lolDragoon]

So i can bump down to 4 gig of ram and still have good performance.

I dropped to this like mfenn recommended.

I also upped the power supply to this 650 watt power supply.

I also spoke with a friend about the i7 and i5 and he said to stick with the i7 because the games i want to play are mainly processor intensive (ie bad company 2 and starcraft 2).

 

[Davidh373]

I also spoke with a friend about the i7 and i5 and he said to stick with the i7 because the games i want to play are mainly processor intensive (ie bad company 2 and starcraft 2).

your friend is wrong... i5 actually trumps the i7 in ~90% of games. Of course the i7 is tempting at that price given what I would use it for, but not for games...

 

[lolDragoon]

Would the i7 help more with video editing? i know its not the main goal of this system but I do a bit of that as well.

*Edit: i also plan on over clocking the processor. Are the results dependent on the processor choice?

 

[betasub]

^ For video-editing, it would depend on the software: whether it can utilise more than 4cores by taking advantage of the HyperThreading on the i7. But the i5-7xx are also quads, & are handy enough for those sort of tasks.

Overclocking is pretty much a wash (very similar), and will depend far more on getting lucky with a "good" chip, as well as relying on other components (motherboard, PSU, cooling).

 

[Davidh373]

^ For video-editing, it would depend on the software: whether it can utilise more than 4cores by taking advantage of the HyperThreading on the i7. But the i5-7xx are also quads, & are handy enough for those sort of tasks.

Overclocking is pretty much a wash (very similar), and will depend far more on getting lucky with a "good" chip, as well as relying on other components (motherboard, PSU, cooling).

Agreed! But depending on how often you edit, and your software, it could only save you a couple hours of render time, or 100 hours of render time. It all depends.

 

[mfenn]

^ For video-editing, it would depend on the software: whether it can utilise more than 4cores by taking advantage of the HyperThreading on the i7. But the i5-7xx are also quads, & are handy enough for those sort of tasks.

Overclocking is pretty much a wash (very similar), and will depend far more on getting lucky with a "good" chip, as well as relying on other components (motherboard, PSU, cooling).

Agree, and also you'll find that you will need to turn off the i7's Hyperthreading anyway if you want to get a good OC and decent temps.

Additionally, "Processor intensive" games still don't spawn a bunch of threads. HT really only helps out when you have a bunch of threads that are running at once, which is generally not the case for games.

Finally, did you swap out the GPU? That's the #1 most important thing in a gaming rig, and the GTX 470 is quite a bit faster than the 6850 (~20% in BC2).