Noob customizing a gaming rig needs your help!!!

[Badcube]

I'm considering buying a new gaming pc from Ibuypower.com and have custimized it to fit a budget of $1600 or less...and less the better.

I bought a gaming rig 5 years ago and it died at the end of the 5th year so now I'm back again and have realized I don't know what I'm doing but I'm slowly educating myself.

Heres the specs I chose for this gaming rig plz give me your advise on anything you see wrong or I should upgrade?

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Gaming PC

Case -
CoolerMaster HAF 932 Full Tower Gaming Case

Black -

Power Supply - = Gaming Edition =] 1000 Watt Extreme Power Supply [Gaming Series] --- Quad SLI + Active PFC + 80 Plus Ready (I wanted to get this for the future when I feel like using 2x or 3x stuff?)

Processor - [New !!] Intel® Core™ i7 920 Processor (4x 2.66GHz/8MB L3 Cache)

Processor Cooling - Asetek Liquid CPU Cooling Fan System Kit (I don't know if I need a good cooler for that or should I just get the basic cheap fan? )


Motherboard - MSI X58-PRO Intel X58 CrossFire and SLI Supported Chipset w/7.1 Sound, Gb LAN, Triple-Channel DDR3, S-ATA Raid, USB 2.0, Triple PCI-E MB 3-Way SLI

( I chose the MSI because of the 24gb it can get if I wanted in the future but I know nothing about these motherboards so any help here would be great?)

Memory - 6 GB [2 GB X3] DDR3-1333 Triple Memory

Module Corsair Value or Major Brand

Video card - (Heres my problem I don't know which to get, I'm thinking ati since they seem cheaper and I heard they get the job done? so maybe a ati Radeon HD 4870 1GB PCI-Express x16?)

Hard Drive - 1 TB HARD DRIVE [Serial-ATA-II, 3Gb, 7200 RPM, 16M Cache]

External Hard Drives [USB 2.0/eSATA] - (I don't think I need one so I put none?)


CD-RW/DVD-RW Drive - [** Special !!! ***] LG 22X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive Black

Sound Card - Creative Lab Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer

Speaker System - iBUYPOWER 2.1 Channel Stereo Super Bass Subwoofer Speaker System

Network Card - Intel Pro 10/100/1000 Network Card (the Killer K1 lag reduction thing intrests me but I read it doesn't help?)

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and it all comes out to $1,559 with a monitor ...

I'd like to know if this is a good setup, and if there is anything wrong or could go wrong with it?

I really need your help badly I have no idea what I'm doing , google can only do so much.

The games I will play would be strategy games with a lot of stuff happening on the screen, new mmorpgs and pretty much any mmo you can think of, would this rig be able to handle the best games out there?

Of course I'd like to cut the cost a lil more, so if I could without hurting the graphics department area badly I wanna know.

thank you for taking the time to read this and any helpful advise would be fantastic, I have till next week to decide.

 

[gkay09]

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/261222-31-build-advice --> Please fill this and paste it here...Will be of good help for us to know better your requirements...

And here are few suggestion on your setup...

1. The case you have chosen is very good...

2. You would only need 1000W PSU if you are planning for running 2x GTX 295 in SLI or in simple terms, about 3 or 4 graphic chips/ cards...

3. i7 is no doubt the best but for gaming, you can very well save more cash going with the AMD PII X4 955 as both offer similar performance in gaming but if you still want to stick with i7 as your budget allows, then its fine...

4. You wont be needing water cooling unless you plan to run the i7 @ 4GHz overclocked all the time...A good aftermarket CPU cooler can run it nice and cool even at 3.8GHz...But if you have no plans for overclock, then the stock cooling is more than suffice...

5. You have better mobo options out there...

6. 6GB are the sweet spot for i7s, and better @ 1600MHz rather than 1333MHz...

7. There are so many options for the graphics...but it mainly depends on the resolution of the monitor that you have planned to buy...So give us the resolution and we could suggest the best for that...

8. HDD - WD Black 1TB offer very good performance and are pretty faster than standard 1TB drives...

9. I highly doubt you would need a sound card...The onboard sound on the X58 are very good and support HD audio and for that 2.1, they are more than suffice...

10. Please read that sticky and copy paste it here and fill it...

 

[fullmetall]

It's best if you build your own, as it would be way more cheaper.

Shwoing $1600 will get you a way better computer, make a new thread from the sticky and will help you along the way.

 

[kufan64]

It's best if you build your own, as it would be way more cheaper.

Shwoing $1600 will get you a way better computer, make a new thread from the sticky and will help you along the way.

+1 I agree that you can save a significant amount of money by building your PC yourself. They want to charge you $1600 for a PC that IMO is probably worth a little over half that. It's not too difficult to put everything together yourself, and there are a ton of people (myself included) that would love to help you out and give you advice on what is best for your needs.

Fill out that form that both gkay09 and fullmetall mentioned, and we will have a better idea of what to recommend for you.

 

[Guest]

you could probably save 400 dollars by building yourself at least. screw the water cooling. Those compact cpu kits aren't that amazing. Invest in a better air cooler instead since the water cooled radiator will still have a fan, its not silent or anything....

gkay09 got pretty much everything...

 

[Badcube]

Thank you Gkay09 and everyone else I have taken your advise and have changed a few things and lowered the price to $1300.

Building a pc on my own scares me I don't want to spend time putting it together and then finding out I did stuff wrong which will happen I want it put in and done for me.

I'm gonna go all out and get "ati radeon HD 4890 1gb pci- express x16" gkay did say theres better motherboards out there does he mean the "MSI X58-PRO Intel X58" is bad?

 

[kufan64]

I agree that assembling your own PC from scratch is a daunting task, but even with basic computer knowledge and access to the internet, anyone can do it! If you fill out the sheet and tell us what you normally do on the computer, we will make suggestions as to what parts you would get the best bang-for-your-buck out of. People tend to bicker when it comes to preferred brands of parts, but if you're willing to do a little research and make some final decisions for yourself, you'll not only get a PC that will beat the stuffing out of ANY similarly priced PC you can just buy from a store, and it'll also feel very personal and special because you know exactly what's in there part for part because you designed and built it.

The decision is obviously yours, some people prefer to have their computers pre-assembled, but I and many others are more than willing to offer you free, unbiased help if you need it. I've got nothing better to do at work most of the time, and I'm sure the same goes for most people who work in IT. I look forward to helping you with your build, if that is what you decide to do. Cheers.

 

[fullmetall]

Sign out the Advise sticky you were given and will give you a list of components you can buy for the best price in your range.

Building a computer is simple work, if you have a laptop or secondary computer, go to youtube and search it so you are able to listen and watch how it is built.

 

[Rain1406]

Drop the soundcard you don't need it, and don't go for watercooling, there are plenty of Good aftermarket HSFs which are MUCH less complicated/risky than watercooling. I'd recomend the Noctua runs silent in my HAF case, ifyou don't plan to overclock then the stockfan will be fine albeit louder than an aftermarket HSF. (however on an i7 920 you're wasting money if you don't overclock, cost vs difficulty you should)
Don't go for that PSU unless you're planning on Running seriously High end Graphics card.
I don't know about the K1 as I've never used one but the way I see it if you're plying online fine as it is it seems a bit of a waste of money. if you're restricted by your Connection then a new Network card isn't going to help.

On the plus side 6 GB of corsair ram should be fine and the case is a brilliant one.