Budget Gaming/All-round PC build

snakez0r

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Sep 23, 2008
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Hey guys,

I'm building a PC mainly to play games at a half decent res/quality. I haven't built a PC for at least 5 years so I'm really out of the whole tech loop and I need some advice!

After browsing over people's advice in the forum and some of the great articles on TH, I've come up with this build:

Actually I'll stick to the template, here goes:

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Within the next 2 weeks

BUDGET RANGE: $1000 AUD ($800 USD)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming, Watching movies, Browsing etc.

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: Keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: Doesn't bother me. I've used my local PC store's site which has the best prices in my area. Yes I'm from Australia. G'day mate ;D

PARTS PREFERENCES: AMD for price, but I can definately be convinced to go with Intel

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe, not too fussed. Might do some basic stuff that doesn't require extra cooling.
SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1680x1050


Video
Sapphire HD4870 512M GDDR5 PCI E TVO
http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=82&bid=5&sid=32200

Mobo
Asus M4A78T-E AM3 790GX HT5200 4DDR3 2PCIE2.0 RAID VGA GbLAN 2FW HDMI ATX
http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=105&bid=5&sid=38462

CPU
AMD PhenomII 720 TripleCore CPU
http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=14&bid=5&sid=37744

HDD
Seagate SATAII NCQ 1TB 7200RPM 32mb Cache
http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=129&bid=5&sid=26598

Case/PSU
Antec Sonata III MiniTower Case - Piano BlackW/500W PSU
http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=139&bid=5&sid=25353


Cheers for the help guys. Love your work :)

Ben


PS. My weakest knowledge is of the PSU and what is needed to run the build. Any extra information on the PSU side would be awesome
 

snakez0r

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Sep 23, 2008
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18,510
I also run a lot of music production and mixing software but that might just require some extra RAM

Oops I've missed out RAM... I'm not sure whether or not to go DDR3 or not
 
Because prices there are super high i suggest getting 2 kits of this ram, and you have to go DDR3 because of your motherboard choice
http://umart.com.au/pro/products_listnew.phtml?id=10&id2=153&bid=5&sid=36975
I cant justify an 80% price increase for slightly better timings with the OCZ.

That PSU will be fine, its an Antec Earthwatts 500, it has enough power to run a 4870 safely.

I dont think the price increase is worth the suggestion of a caviar black HDD either so your build actually looks quite good.
 

snakez0r

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Sep 23, 2008
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18,510


Yeah I was thinking of that RAM too. Looks like a decent choice, cheers.



Sweet that's good to know. I gave them a call and it's the 7200.12 so I'm in the clear.