My first custom "budget" gaming rig...

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rlakhani11

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Aug 8, 2013
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Hi,

First of all I'm really sorry if this query by any chances resembles or duplicates any previous one. But I believe that it shouldn't according to the amount of reading/research I've done here so far. I'll try to make it as different as possible.

So I'm building my first "budget" custom rig ONLY for gaming purposes (no OC/no SLI/1920x1080p) but I'm really not aware of any hardware technicalities and nitty gritties that you guys are experts/specialists of. I know this is the best and only place I can get all my difficulties resolved, out of trillions of other forums out there!

Below are the items I've already selected based on my research, making GTX 770 the core of the solution and expanding from there:


Gigabyte GTX 770 WF 3X 2GB
Gigabyte GA-H77-DS3H / i5 3470 (Should a cheaper AMD equivalent work?)
Corsair Vengeance 16GB 1600Mhz DDR3 (Is it enough?)
Liquid Cooling System (Is this really necessary? If yes, which one will give the best bang for buck?)
SSD SATA-III 6Gb/s (Is this really necessary for gaming? If yes, which one will give the best bang for buck?)
ITB 7200RPM HDD (WD might be a good choice. But not entirely sure about the Caviar colors - green/blue/black/red.)
750W PSU (What should be a recommended/budget option?)
Tower Gaming Case (Full or Mid? Or may be Mini, in which case the mobo shall be replaced with GA-B75M-D3H or an equivalent AMD one.)
23"/24" LED (Please advise a recommended/budget one.)
Sound (Creative SB reigned ages ago. No idea which one is good now a days :(...)
Headphones/Gamepad (No idea at all!)

I want to save as much as possible so that I could replace the LED with a 27" one, to have 1440p at my disposal too. I believe GTX 770 should handle it quite comfortably on maxed-out setting @30~40 fps. Please correct me if I'm wrong.


Well thanks very much guys in advance. Any support/advice shall be greatly appreciated.
 
Solution
quilciri
A few questions.

- what is your total budget?

- I see that you need a monitor. Do you also need to buy an OS, mouse, keyboard, and speakers/headphones?

- do you have any preferred/excluded websites, or are you open to whatever gets you the best deal?

- are mail-in rebates acceptable?

A few suggestions

- Your selected processor is a locked model. The stock cooler is plenty for the CPU. You don't need watercooling, or even an aftermarket air cooler. The largest benefit to a different cooling solution on that CPU is making the PC quieter.

- For a gaming machine, an SSD is unnecessary. It would speed up loading screens, but gives almost no in game benefits. Also if you play multiplayer, its even less useful, since you need to wait...
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quilciri

quilciri

Splendid
Mar 16, 2012
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A few questions.

- what is your total budget?

- I see that you need a monitor. Do you also need to buy an OS, mouse, keyboard, and speakers/headphones?

- do you have any preferred/excluded websites, or are you open to whatever gets you the best deal?

- are mail-in rebates acceptable?

A few suggestions

- Your selected processor is a locked model. The stock cooler is plenty for the CPU. You don't need watercooling, or even an aftermarket air cooler. The largest benefit to a different cooling solution on that CPU is making the PC quieter.

- For a gaming machine, an SSD is unnecessary. It would speed up loading screens, but gives almost no in game benefits. Also if you play multiplayer, its even less useful, since you need to wait for everyone to load in anyway. SSD's are good for improving overall system responsiveness, but for a pure gaming system, you're better off putting that money into the video card or processor.

- a quality 550w PSU is more than enough for any single GPU gaming system. If you plan on a second video card later for SLI/crossfire, then by all means get a 750w. If you plan on sticking with a single GPU, get a quality 500-550w PSU.

- a quality ATX mid tower is enough for pretty much all gaming builds. Full towers give you an extreme amount of space - for running 5+ HDD raid arrays, or fitting Extended ATX motherboards (extended ATX gaming motherboards tend to be the ones you need when you want to use 4 video cards in SLI/crossfire).

answering question

- WD green/blue/black are their cheapest-> most expensive consumer level drives. black drives have more cache and tend to be a bit faster (and are reputed to be more reliable, but that's debatable). The speed difference between green and black drives is negligible in overall system responsiveness. The red drive is a "special" drive WD came out with for consumer raid arrays.

I use quotes because any drive can be use in a raid array, unless the manufacturer put in EXTRA work to prevent them from being used that way, which WD did with the green and blue drives. (i.e. dick move on WD's part). The Seagate equivalent of WD's green drive (barracuda) has no such restriction.

 
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rlakhani11

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Aug 8, 2013
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Firstly, I thank you very much for taking the time to write a detailed response/clarifications.

- what is your total budget?
=> Let's say it's around $1500. But you may already be aware that prices differ (sometimes significantly) region-wise.

- I see that you need a monitor. Do you also need to buy an OS, mouse, keyboard, and speakers/headphones?
=> No mouse/KB. I guess Win 7 Ultimate x64 will do.
=> And yes for the monitor/LED and budget/acceptable performance sound card and headphones. I was just exploring/researching the options and found so far that Creative SB X-Fi Titanium HD and ASUS Xonar Essence STX are the top choices I have. But both of them seem to be out of my reach and a bit cheaper equivalents would be better. Which brands would you suggest for these items?

- do you have any preferred/excluded websites, or are you open to whatever gets you the best deal?
- are mail-in rebates acceptable?
=> I'll purchase everything locally.

- Your selected processor is a locked model. The stock cooler is plenty for the CPU.
=> Yeah. Won't be doing any OC stuff (if I understood you correctly). So no other cooling solution is required for the GPU too?

- a quality 550w PSU is more than enough for any single GPU gaming system.
=> Nvidia recommends 600W PSU for GTX 770. But I think I should stick with 750W PSU as I do have plans for SLI in a year probably. So which brand do u suggest then?

- a quality ATX mid tower is enough for pretty much all gaming builds.
=> So what I save on liquid-cooling, SSD and full-tower casing could be utilized on other things like an SLI Mobo (GA-Z77X - if it does fit within a mid-tower casing. Would it?), higher CPU, more RAM or 27" LED. Which one do u think is worth spending on and which brand?

- The speed difference between green and black drives is negligible in overall system responsiveness.
=> I don't remember for sure but I definitely saw someone mentioning somewhere that Caviar Green is more for storage purposes and less for running OS and games, which means it'll affect the read/write time. Is it true? And do u think I should go on and get the Blue one (if it's 7200RPM) for a better compromise between price and speed? Or do u think Seagate will be better?

Well thanks a lot once again man.
 
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rlakhani11

Honorable
Aug 8, 2013
234
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10,690
Here's what I have in mind now (going for extremely shrunk budget for the necessary items to be able to throw in a good sound card and a 27" LED, if possible)

i5 3470
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H
Gigabyte GTX 770 WF 3X 2GB
Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600Mhz DDR3 8GBx1 (will this be enough for optimal gaming with XMP enabled, or 16GB is a must? and if I go with XMS3 8GB 1600Mhz instead of Vengeance, will its XMP-1.65v create problems?)
Seagate 1TB 64MB Cache HDD (is 64MB cache and 7200RPM absolutely necessary for gaming?)
Gigabyte GZ-G2 Casing (is this one ok for housing GTX 770? not sure if it's ATX or mATX)
Cooler Master G600 PSU (aligning with nvidia's recommendation. is it good/ok?)

Thanks.
 
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