System build suggestions - Mid-range gaming?

[darkstrike]

Hi all,

First time posting, but I've lurked for a long time on and off. I was referred to posting here by dpodblood, who is a good friend of mine. I apologize in advance for the long post.

I'm a little tight on funds right now, but my current 4-year old system is starting to get long in the tooth (Intel Core 2 Duo 2.4ghz, 6gb DDR2 RAM, Palit Radeon HD3850 1gb) so I'm starting to look into upgrading SOMETIME in the next year (hopefully much sooner than later) and hopefully while getting the best bang for my, unfortunately, miniscule buck. I'm not a gamer who requires everything to be on max settings all the time - I'll happily accept running things on medium settings, but I guess I should be aiming for a card that will last me for a decent number of years.

To follow the thread regulations for this type of request:

1. Used for: Gaming, sporadic "light" image/video editing in Photoshop/Sony Vegas (I don't do anything crazy or terribly fancy and my current system's handled these things fine for all I do with them), and normal "light" duties like surfing the web, etc.

2. Budget: Possibly a tall order, but preferably $800-$850CDN or less including tax...

3. Country: Canada

4. Potential Vendors: NCIX and Newegg.ca

5. Brand preferences: Not a HUGE fanboy of anything, but I do prefer Intel, ATi and especially Western Digital as I've had good experiences with them in the past (I have an old 80gb WD IDE drive that's currently at 74418 [that's about 8.5 years!!!] powered-on hours and still going strong!!!)

6. Current parts to be re-used: I will be re-using my current WD 320gb SATA drive as my OS drive and probably my old case including case fans; my case is an old iCute 0302SL like this one. It might be a bit cramped, but everything should still fit ok. As tall an order and as penny-pinching as this may sound, I wouldn't mind re-using my current IDE DVD-RW drive as I rarely need to use a disc drive anyway so spending $20 (saving money is saving money, right?) on a new one for something I don't use often seems a unnecessary, but I will if I have to. I don't figure any good current-gen mobos have IDE ports anymore though, so if I can't that's no biggy.

7. Overclocking: Not really planning on it, although possibly some light CPU overclocking, but that would be it.

8. Planned resolution: I've got an old 17" NEC AccuSync LCD71V LCD and can't afford a new right now so, for the foreseeable future, my resolution will be 1280x1024 max.

9. When: Not sure exactly, but possibly in the next two months.

X. Software: No, I've already got a copy of everything I need, but I will be running Win7 Ultimate 64-bit.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've got a rough "sketch" system planned out from NCIX, but it comes to $914CDN including tax, which is still a little too dear for me....I'm currently also saving up for some required $800CDN car repairs, so you can see where my grinchiness with the spending comes in

Current "idea" build from NCIX:

Proc: Intel Core i5 quad-core 3570K 3.4ghz
Mobo: ASRock A77 Extreme 3
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 2x4gb DDR3 8gb set
PSU: XFX PRO650w Core Edition
Video Card: XFX Radeon HD 7850 860mhz 2gb 4.8ghz GDDR5
Secondary "Data" Hard Drive: WD 1TB Caviar Blue (I could live with a 500gb too if there were any significant savings in it, but so far there doesn't really seem to be.)

I humbly request your kind assistance and suggestions! *bows*

 

[mfenn]

Luckily for you, a 7850 will absolutely eat up any game at 1280x1024. Also, getting a SATA optical drive is cheaper and much easier than finding a board with IDE or getting an IDE controller card.

You should be able to hit your cost target if you forget about overclocking (and really, you don't need to unless you find money for a 7970).

i5 3470 $190
MSI B75MA-P45 $65
Crucial Ballistix DDR3 1600 8GB $47
XFX Core 550W $50 AR
XFX 7850 2GB $170 AR
WD Blue 1TB $70
LG DVD Burner $18
Total: $610 AR + 13% tax = $689

That's a lot less than your budget for almost the the same performance as what you had listed.

 

[darkstrike]

That setup sounds fine with me! My only worry then, though, is how long would that computer last me and still be a decent performer running new games (I don't care if by 4 years I'd be running them on low, as long as they ran smoothly on low ).....3 years, 4 years...?

Can't believe I missed that Crucial RAM at that price - pretty good deal considering it's not on sale...how's Crucial for reliability, I've had no experience with them before? (I've only ever had Kingston, OCZ and G-Skill RAM in the past).

I know that the 3470 isn't unlocked, but is there any headroom for a little bit of overclock performance gain with that CPU/mobo combo if I did want to eventually up it by a few hundred mhz to help make the system last a little longer before having to buy a new one?

 

[dpodblood]

Crucial is a well known brand, and is a lot more reputable than OCZ. As for the processor locked is locked. You cannot overclock it even 1MHz.

 

[lehtv]

Great rig, mfenn . @ dpodblood - untrue, the i5-3470 is semi-locked. On Z77 you can OC the max. turbo multi by 400MHz, but on B75 you can't, of course.

 

[dpodblood]

DAMN! Proving me wrong already this morning!

 

[darkstrike]

Thanks lehtv - I was actually reading up a bit on that proc after I posted that message and I saw that it was semi-locked, which I would be fine with....even a slight OC gain is decent enough for me and I wouldn't be going all out anyway (would prob be running the stock heatsink which would be enough).

One of the reviews I read said they were even able to bump the i5-3470 up to 4ghz even though it's not fully unlocked - pretty impressive....although not sure how stable it would be were somebody to leave it there for an extended period of time. I would prob only try to bump it up a little from its stock speed to 3.6ghz or some such, but it would prob just stay at stock for quite awhile before I bothered.

@ dpodblood - no worries, you are forgiven...this time *insert maniacal laughter here*

 

[T_Yamamoto]

I would change the HDD to an SSD because he's reusing his HDD

 

[lehtv]

Thanks lehtv - I was actually reading up a bit on that proc after I posted that message and I saw that it was semi-locked, which I would be fine with....even a slight OC gain is decent enough for me and I wouldn't be going all out anyway (would prob be running the stock heatsink which would be enough).

Can't OC on the B75 chipset. Need Z75 or Z77 and I don't think the extra cost is worth it to you.

One of the reviews I read said they were even able to bump the i5-3470 up to 4ghz even though it's not fully unlocked - pretty impressive....although not sure how stable it would be were somebody to leave it there for an extended period of time.

It would be fully stable even with the stock cooler, just a bit hot. Only after about 4.2ghz do you need to start increasing core voltage beyond the stock setting.

 

[darkstrike]

I would change the HDD to an SSD because he's reusing his HDD

I am re-using my 320gb HDD, but I would like to have more space, so I will be using my 320gb as my main, OS drive, and I want to pick up a decent 500gb or 1tb drive as my "Data" drive. In other words, as much as I would like an SSD for faster performance, I don't need one right now as I'll save some money and use my 320gb SATA!

@lehtv - thanks for the info, I figured the stock cooler would be fine for all I am going to do with it. Am I using terminology wrong or are there multiple models of the 3470? You're saying I CAN'T overclock the i5 3470...? What about the reviews and threads I've seen talking about just that...? (ex: this example )

 

[Danimal1209]

You can only overclock the models that end with a K

3570K is one, anything that doesn't have a K is locked and not overclockable.

 

[lehtv]

You can only overclock the models that end with a K

3570K is one, anything that doesn't have a K is locked and not overclockable.

Once again, that is not true. Non-K i5's and i7's can be overclocked by 400MHz max. turbo boost, plus a little base clock OC.

 

[T_Yamamoto]

Once again, that is not true. Non-K i5's and i7's can be overclocked by 400MHz max. turbo boost, plus a little base clock OC.

This is very much true.

 

[mfenn]

@lehtv - thanks for the info, I figured the stock cooler would be fine for all I am going to do with it. Am I using terminology wrong or are there multiple models of the 3470? You're saying I CAN'T overclock the i5 3470...? What about the reviews and threads I've seen talking about just that...? (ex: this example )

You can't overclock an i5 3470 in a B75 motherboard. You have to have a Z75 or Z77 motherboard to do that.

Like lehtv said, getting that extra 400 MHz is not worth it. You either get a Z77 board and a fully-unlocked i5 3570K or a B75 board and an i5 3470. For a gaming machine, I would not spend the extra money required to get the Z77 and 3570K unless I had already maxed out the GPU.