Hey guys i have a question, prebuilt? or build your own?

1000 dollars can only make a machine to run every* game over 60 fps if you already have parts to recycle such as HDD etc.

When you build your own computer, your buck goes a lot further. Do you have any salvageable parts currently that could be re-used, particularly HDD/SSD's, power supplies, disc drives, case?

starting from scratch, 1000$ ground up build. any suggestions for parts (full list) i'd like a pc built by gamers for gamers

CPU: i5-2500k
Mobo: Asrock p67 Extreme 3 gen.3
Ram: whatever cheap 8gb 1600mhz kit you can find, look to g.skill
Case: Haf 912
CPU Cooler: CM Hyper 212
HDD: western digital caviar blue 500gb
SSD: can't afford and not important on this budget compared to other component budget
PSU: cheapest Seasonic/Corsair/Enermax/Antec 600W+ single 12v rail you can find, probably will be 80 dollar ballpark at minimum
GPU: AMD 7950 (xfx, sapphire, gigabyte, asus whoever you can find cheapest)

Will run you in the 1000-1050 range. That's what I would recommend in your ballpark.


re-use current keyboard/mouse/monitor for the time being.

For the record, this build will max ALMOST everything out there, aside from the most ridiculous, poorly coded benchmark style games such as Crysis on full max settings w/ custom mods, and even then might come damn close to maxing it, up to 1920x1200.

heres what i'm thinking any objections?

mobo: gigabyte intel z86 atx 2133 lga 1155

OS: win7 home premium 64 bit

CD: asus internal cd drive

Processor: i5 2500k

650 watt bronse power supply

Graphics: sapphire 6870

CASE: cooler master HAF 912 mid tower atx case

HDD: west dgitsl caviar black 1tb

and a couple fans to help cool while overclocking.

any flaws?

Use my recommendation. Without going into elaborate details, the graphics card is several tiers more powerful in my list and you're spending budget in places (caviar black) that aren't as important as others for maxing games (gpu). Everything else is fine though but I really recommend only the brands of PSU that I listed specifically.

Best of luck to ya bud. And don't worry too much about building things like fans into your initial budget. You can always add them a paycheck down the road, and the Haf 912 already gets great airflow from just a couple of fans, for being such a cheap case. You save a few bucks going with the p67 chipset as opposed to z68 and you won't be using intel onboard graphics, nor are you using an SSD in this initial build and the gains from both z68 optimization features aren't worth the sacrificed budget toward important components. Just my 2 cents.

agian, im not so computer/tech savvy and cant find a couple parts (PSU,GPU) and is ram, ram or is it you get what you pay for?

Aside from the minutiae of details, if you get an 8gb kit of DDR3 1600mhz cl9 ram rated at 1.5 or lower volts (this is the max recommended for i5-2500k systems), then ram is ram. It'll run you in the 40 dollar range presently. G.skill, Corsair, Kingston, Mushkin, etc all fine sources.

thanks much.