Build or buy used?

thats the same era as my own pc (hover over my avatar image if you care) though i'm using some more expensive components.

the i7-920 is starting to feel its age. if running at stock clocks (only 2.67ghz) it may be a bit of a bottleneck. since you have a x58 board, decent ram and an aftermarket cooler you should be able to overclock it a bit to help compensate.

the gpu is definitely a step up from what i have (he upgraded it somewhere along the line) and he also must have thrown in a ssd somewhere along the line (like i did). if he was using the same components from when he bought the pc i would say the price was a bit high however with a gtx770 and a ssd its not a terrible price. you will want to most likely add a hard drive since 120gb is really small and you dont want to fill it past 80% capacity (meaning with 30gb windows install you're looking at only 66gb useable space which is tiny).

i do not play as many games now as i used to however it can certainly max out games like tera online and generally most other titles. i know it might struggle a bit in crysis 3 or battlefield 4 (but again a cpu overclock and a better video card like the one that system has woudl likely solve that). i'm generally happy with my i7-920 still though i will be overclocking to speed it up a bit now.


my thoughts?

its older however if you do a bit of overclocking it shouldnt be bad. its not really upgradeable though.

the best system you would get for the same price would likely be a fx-6300 and 270x as you stated in your first post. HOWEVER if you really watch prices or look around you may manage to snag a 8320. the benefit to getting a new system is that if you overclock the 8320 its compareable to an i5 and you can always throw in another 270x for crossfire a little down the road for some extra performance (or take advantage of mantle). oh and i'm going by $675 budget (the cost of that pc) i've seen the 8320 for $130 before

you could go either way. however since the amd system would be newer it might very well be worth looking at your build it new for $675 over looking at the used system.

which would give you better fps? likely the craigslist system once you o/c the cpu. all because of that gtx770 which is a few notches up from the 270x.

however... if you watch for rebates or manage to scrounge some cash from somewhere you could get a 280x for $350 which is on par or better than the 770. so for just a little more money you might be able to buy a new system which can compete on even ground if not better (as well as having mantle, usb3 support).

but... if you need to buy an operating system.... that cuts into the budget. it will cost you at least $79 (ebay price) for windows 7 64.

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just some thoughts for you to ponder.

personally i'd probably push a litle extra into a new build

though the old build would likely perform decent once you overclock it a bit.