• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Suggestions Needed: $1,650 Gaming Rig

T

ThorofThunder

Member
The great people of AnandTech! I've spent weeks researching every single part of this build and I've finally compiled a list of components--here it is! I've listed my conditions below to hopefully assist with any suggestions. I thank you for all of your help in advance.🙂

With this build, I plan to:
1. Play video games
2. Overclock the GPU to just-under 5870 stock speeds. I will also add another 5850 down the line when the price drops.
3. Overclock the RAM to around 1800mhz while keeping timings respectable
4. Buy a 64-80GB SSD down the line when the prices aren't ridiculous
5. I will use a 64bit version of Windows 7
6. I have a mouse already
7. Will run this at 1920x1080
8. I live in California
9. My budget is flexible, just try not to push $1,750 (before taxes)
10. Already bought the i7 930 from Micro Center for $199
11. The "free shipping" next to brick-and-mortar stores is for continuity's sake. All of them are within minutes of my house.
12. I will not be able to put this rig together until the 1st of June, so I have about a month and a half until I can put this together. I plan on waiting to buy its parts when I return home unless an excellent deal appears. (These prices are all up to date as of 4/11/2010 before Fermi's official release)

Here it is! If you can suggest anything I would greatly appreciate it! Also, as a sidenote, that OCZ Platinum set of RAM is about $60 off its normal price... if it's the real thing, that's quite a steal.


CPU:
Intel Core i7 930 (FPO/Batch#: 3001A125)
-----$199.99 [MC] free shipping


GPU:
XFX or Diamond Radeon HD 5850 (reference card)
-----$299.99 [Buy.com] free shipping
---AC Accelero Twin Turbo Pro (will need to bend/shorten 11 fins)
-----$39.99 [eWiz.com] free shipping


Motherboard:
eVGA 141-BL-E757-TR x58 ATX SLI LE
-----$239.99 ($209.99 after rebate until 4/30) [TigerDirect] free shipping


RAM: (3x2GB DDR3 Triple Channel Sets)
G.Skill 6GB DDR3 1600 9-9-9-24
-----$169.99 [Newegg] free shipping
OCZ Platinum OCZ3P1600LV6GK 7-7-7-24
-----$154.17 [TheGreatGuys.com] free shipping
Corsair XMS3 TR3X6G1600C8G 8-8-8-24
-----$169.99 [ZipZoomFly] free shipping MIR: $10 exp 4/30/10
[Any ideas on which I should choose here?]


Power Supply:
Antec EarthWatts EA650 650W Continuous Power ATX12V
-----$79.99 [MC] free shipping


Monitor:
Acer H233H 23" (5MS)
-----$199.99 [Bestbuy] free shipping


HDD:
WD Caviar Black 7,200 RPM 640GB SATA 6GB 64MB Cache
-----$79.99 [Newegg] free shipping


CPU Cooling:
Scythe Mugen 2 Rev. B
-----$44.99 [MC] free shipping


Keyboard:
Logitech G15 R2
-----$71.99 [Beach Direct + BCB] free shipping


Case:
Antec 1200
-----$129.99 [MC] free shipping
---Scythe Slipstream 120mm 24dBA 68.54CFM 1200RPM
-----$8.99 x2 [Newegg] $5.99 shipping


Drive:
Lite-On DVD+/- RW
-----$31.99 [Newegg] free shipping


Paste:
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Paste 3.5g
-----$9.99 [MC] free shipping


Total: (including shipping, excluding rebates)
$1621.84 (With 8.75% Tax: $1763.75)

Rebate Total:
$40

Note: I will use Bing's Cashback program on as many of the products that I will purchase online as possible.

I tried to flesh this out to make it as clear as possible, I hope it helps. Again, I thank you guys for all of your help and patience!
 
Powernick50 said:
Personally. I'd go with the corsair version of that power supply.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-005-_-Product

74.99 after a 20 dollar rebate.

QUALITY power supply. Pull the trigger on that as soon as possible.
Click to expand...

Congrats on your 1,001 post nick, by the way. 🙂

I had that exact PSU selected for a long time, but I changed it because of what I read about single rail PSUs vs. multi-rail PSUs (safety and longevity concerns with single rails).

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll keep it written down and when the time comes to buy, I'll snag whichever is cheaper. 🙂
 
Earthwatts psu's are solid, but honestly, I've used a bunch of corsair PSU's, and theyve never let me down. I buy them exclusively now. just some food for thought.
 
I wouldn't touch OCZ RAM with a 10 foot pole. Multiple DOA kits received by myself and other people I know. You probably don't need an aftermarket cooler for the GPU, as the stock cooler is sufficient for overclocking, especially to numbers just under the 5870. Fan starts to make noise ~35%, but if you're gaming, you probably won't notice that. Probably drop the case down to either the 900 or P183. I don't see the need for a full-tower anywhere. I know people with both the XMS and plain G.Skill kit. Either is fine really, but I prefer G.Skill myself. Corsair's probably the more popular PSU, but either brand is really reliable. This might be a weird suggestion, but I think the Saitek Eclipse is a hell of a keyboard for what you pay, meaning I wouldn't drop $72 for the G15. That might just be me though...

Rest looks fine.
 
MisterDonut said:
I wouldn't touch OCZ RAM with a 10 foot pole. Multiple DOA kits received by myself and other people I know. You probably don't need an aftermarket cooler for the GPU, as the stock cooler is sufficient for overclocking, especially to numbers just under the 5870. Fan starts to make noise ~35%, but if you're gaming, you probably won't notice that. Probably drop the case down to either the 900 or P183. I don't see the need for a full-tower anywhere. I know people with both the XMS and plain G.Skill kit. Either is fine really, but I prefer G.Skill myself. Corsair's probably the more popular PSU, but either brand is really reliable. This might be a weird suggestion, but I think the Saitek Eclipse is a hell of a keyboard for what you pay, meaning I wouldn't drop $72 for the G15. That might just be me though...
Click to expand...

Good to know about the OCZ memory thing. I've read that in several places. About the Saitek: I've actually owned one for about 5 years. I absolutely loved it, but the backlighting drove me crazy. I never, EVER had it turned on, but I always wanted illuminated keys.

About the case: I considered the 900 or the 902 for a while, but I decided on the 1200 for the extra space because I'm a cable management/air flow freak. The mid-size tower I was considering was the Coolermaster 690 II Advanced. It's cheaper and its expandability is almost limitless--would that one work as well?
 
ThorofThunder said:
Good to know about the OCZ memory thing. I've read that in several places. About the Saitek: I've actually owned one for about 5 years. I absolutely loved it, but the backlighting drove me crazy. I never, EVER had it turned on, but I always wanted illuminated keys.

About the case: I considered the 900 or the 902 for a while, but I decided on the 1200 for the extra space because I'm a cable management/air flow freak. The mid-size tower I was considering was the Coolermaster 690 II Advanced. It's cheaper and its expandability is almost limitless--would that one work as well?
Click to expand...

My most recent build for somebody was actually out of a CM 690II. I'd probably go for that if you are a cable management freak. It has most of the "hiding holes" pre-made (not like my Antec 900, but it was fun doing it) and some decent airflow (Probably not as good as the 900 because of the two intakes on the 900, and the CM fan is a piece of spinning crap). All in all though, it's a brilliant case (very consumer-oriented, imo). I wouldn't really go for a full-tower unless you had enough HDD to justify it. The P183 or NZXT Whisper are both really good cases if you want silence, which seems to get more and more popular nowadays.
 
BTRY B 529th FA BN said:
I would take a serious look at this motherboard for 169$ which also comes in a USB & SATA III version for 199$
Click to expand...

Came in here to post this!

Don't spend $240 on a mobo. With the saving you would be close to getting an SSD now! An SSD will make much more of a difference than the mobo. I mean, can you reeeaaally feel that extra $70 worth of mobo once you put it together? 😀
 
mfenn said:
Came in here to post this!

Don't spend $240 on a mobo. With the saving you would be close to getting an SSD now! An SSD will make much more of a difference than the mobo. I mean, can you reeeaaally feel that extra $70 worth of mobo once you put it together? 😀
Click to expand...


I had that very ASRock mobo chosen for the build due to its outrageously low price and more hit-than-miss reviews, but the eVGA x58 SLI LE has been going for $195 for quite a while now. (Newegg)

529th: I didn't know there was a USB 3.0 version of the ASRock available... that's very good to know. I don't have any peripherals, and won't in the foreseeable future, that are USB 3.0 compliant, so I can use that to my advantage to find a cheaper motherboard. I won't be running any kind of RAID setup, either, so the SATA III isn't as attractive a feature to me. (Is SATA III used for anything else? I'm new to the SATA realm and I don't know if it contributes to the speed of the motherboard.)

I do plan on running a CF setup of 5850's in the future on this motherboard as well as a decent sound card. Would these three fit onto the $170 ASRock x58 Extreme? Maybe it would be a good idea to invest an extra $25 for SATA III and USB 3.0 just to keep my options open with the ASRock x58 Extreme 3...
 
There are more than 1 SSD drives out there right now that will take advantage of a SATA III port. Currently the ones I know are the Cruacial Real300 & the OCZ Vertex LE version (in sequential read) I have the 169$ Asrock X58 Ex. version and it's been great! From what I hear, it has alot of overclocking headroom. Personally I'm done with any moderate to heavy overclocking. The recent best updgrade I did was the OCZ Vertex LE (aka Vertex Pro 2)

You can find reviews on both the Asrock X58 Extreme and the Vertex Pro & Vertex LE here on the front pages of Anandtech; and they are pretty good reviews.

If it were me know buying a board with this SSD I have, i'd go for the SATA UPB III version.

Good Luck
 
Last edited:
I would go with the SATA III/USB 3.0 if you plan on keeping this system for 2+ years.

Also some thoughts on SSD's that I think you should consider....
80gb X-25M around 225
40gb X-25V around 110
64GB Kingston Gen2 SNV425, around 140

The Intel drives are faster, but 40gb might not be enough for you, and the 80gb is pricey.

I know you want to wait, but the SSD will give you the most noticeable increase in speed for your system.
 
ATC9001 said:
I would go with the SATA III/USB 3.0 if you plan on keeping this system for 2+ years.

Also some thoughts on SSD's that I think you should consider....
80gb X-25M around 225
40gb X-25V around 110
64GB Kingston Gen2 SNV425, around 140

The Intel drives are faster, but 40gb might not be enough for you, and the 80gb is pricey.

I know you want to wait, but the SSD will give you the most noticeable increase in speed for your system.
Click to expand...

I can actually grab the 40gb SSD for $105 and the 80gb for $210 right now (the Intel X-25M) at Tigerdirect with BCB. How many gigs does the 64bit of Windows 7 Premium take up? I've read 20 and 32...

What do you guys think:

$75 for a 640GB 7,200 RPM Western Digital HDD.

Or

$175 for a 640GB 7,200 RPM WD HDD & a 40GB Intel SSD (boot drive)

Or

$210 for a 80GB Intel X-25M

On a side note: I've never been able to fill up more than 30 gigs on any one drive. I only ever have 2 games installed at one point in time and I've only got about 15-20 gigs of music.
 
If this rig is strictly for gaming (which I see in the first post), the only benefit you'd get from an SSD is a faster boot time. I'd just go with something large enough to fit Win7 and a few apps. I'm using the X25-V as my boot drive and it's fast enough for me. I have yet to need faster sq speed. Everything else goes on my WDCB 640gb. So in conclusion, go with what's cheaper with just enough space.
 
^ This guy gets it. 🙂

The only thing I would add is that ThorofThunder also likes FRAPS'ing games, and an SSD would significantly reduce the performance hit from writing to the hard drive. But those could then be offloaded to the larger hard drive, so the just-enough-space SSD would be a good pick. It would cost more overall, though.
 
I have the Antec Earthwatts 650 that you are ordering, and it works great, but if I had to do it again I would pick up one of those excellent deals on 500-700W Corsairs that have been flying around. You can get them cheaper then the Earthwatts 650 in some cases. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817139006

I also have OCZ RAM. The first set was DOA, and the even with the working set, I had to manually set my timings in my BIOS, they were not auto detected. I would get Crucial if I was doing it over. Not pretty RAM, but very functional and overclocks well.

As others have said, get the USB 3/Sata 3 support on your MB, but don't spend $200!

Look for Combo deals on Newegg for your CPU, you can probably get a CPU + Cooler at a discount. When I ordered my AMD PII 720, I got a OCZ Vendetta for $24 and it had a $15 MIR, and I had a $16 combo discount and free shipping.
For example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboD...t=Combo.374101

Failing that, look for combo deals with your CPU + RAM. There are probably 30 different RAM kits that qualify for a discount with that CPU, some with MIR as well.

Cases are personal, but check out some of the Lan Cool cases. The reviews I've read say are excellent at cable management. I have an Antec 900, and while it's fine, Cable management is not the best.

As for SSDs... I'd wait a few more months. Once the new process SSDs (28nm?) start to roll out at the end of the year, the current offering prices will drop like a rock to empty inventories. I'm planning on snatching one up then.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top