Looking to build first gaming System for around $800 to $900

Pferguson · Mar 28, 2013

As the title says i'm looking to build my first computer, for gaming purposes, and i have friends who have done it and loved it.

I've looked on Newegg and put together one that i thought would be pretty good.

Western Digital WD Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power
Kingston HyperX 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 Desktop Memory XMP HyperX Blu Model KHX16C10B1K2/16X
ASUS P8Z77-M LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Micro ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K
SAPPHIRE 100355L Radeon HD 7850 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready Video Card

Please tell me what you all think, and the games I'm looking to play are SWTOR, Diablo 3, Far Cry 3, and Tomb Raider.

swilczak · Mar 28, 2013

It all looks good, but for your hard drive I would recommend a 256gb solid state drive instead of or in supplement to your 1TB western digital. Install your OS on the solid state drive and any modern games so things load up much faster. Here's a really fast one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233403

pacioli · Mar 28, 2013

If that's within your budget it will work nicely. If you wanted to make any changes you could decrease the RAM to 8 gb and put the rest of the budget toward upgraded graphics.
Very good job.

Pferguson · Mar 28, 2013

The reason i dropped the SSD is that they cost more and the only thing that I've seen that is really different between the 2 is the wait times for Start Up and loading screens on games... Or am i completely wrong in this and that SSD's are just straight up better?

swilczak · Mar 28, 2013

Pferguson :

It improves the waiting times by a lot and some games load from the hard drive as you are playing which slows things down a lot. If you use a standard hard drive you are bottlenecking your computer.

Pferguson · Mar 28, 2013

swilczak :

So just drop the 1tb HD for the SSD? And as an after thought would this fit in a mid tower or Full?

swilczak · Mar 28, 2013

I would get the SSD instead, it makes a world of a difference. It will fit in a mid or full size case. Some people like to get the mounting bracket for it, but I've found that you can just screw it right into the side of the 3.5 inch hard drive bay just like you would with a standard hard drive.

xFriarx · Mar 28, 2013

Not to bad a build if it fits in your price range. As others have said, 16 GB of ram is a little overkill for gaming, 8 GB is the gaming sweet spot, so to speak.

As far as the SSD, it is a great overall performance increase, not FPS increase, but overall system responsiveness increase. I definitely recommend them, but at the price range you are at, I think you would be better served investing the money into a stronger vid card. IMO (others may disagree with me), I would not sacrifice CPU/GPU performance just to fit a SSD into your budget. I'd say stick to your build for now (minus the SSD), as you can always drop a SSD in later, you would have to re-instal windows, though, so your SSD is your boot drive.

As far as performance, depending on your resolution (assuming 1080p) it will run everything listed. Farcry 3 will have to have mediumish setting probably, should be able to max everything else, except maybe tomb raider, not sure on that game as I haven't looked at any benchmarks for it.

Pferguson · Mar 28, 2013

Thanks guys so right now I've changed the Ram to 8gbs and dropped the 1tb HD for a 120gb SSD. With this it gives me some more room for a better video card... Is there anything that is better than the radeon HD 7850 for around 220$?

swilczak · Mar 28, 2013

The 7870 is a step above, it has more shaders and better performace.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202025

Pferguson · Mar 28, 2013

Great total price now $900 pretty much exactly. Thanks guys, you guys have now pushed me more to building my own CPU.

xFriarx · Mar 28, 2013

Just a word of warning, 120GB will fill up FAST. Windows 7 alone takes approx 50-60+ GB depending on how you have it configured, so your only left with 50-60 GB for games, which depending on game sizes can be 2-5 games. Most builds have an additional 500+ GB HDD for extra storage. Which speaking of the OS, did you have that included in your pricing?

Pferguson · Mar 28, 2013

xFriarx :

I have a 500 gb external hard drive already but thx for the warning

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