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$900-$1200 Gaming PC, any suggestions with parts?

Forum Homebuilt Systems : General Homebuilt - $900-$1200 Gaming PC, any suggestions with parts?

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goldcarbon   09-11-2009 at 05:23:43 AM

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: (Sometime in the next month) BUDGET RANGE: (US$900-$1200)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: (gaming, internet, watching movies)

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS)

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: (newegg.com, tigerdirect.com)

PARTS PREFERENCES: by brand or type ( AMD or Intel CPU... dunno enough about them to be too picky between the two. full tower case)

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: (1920x1200)

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: (would like a quiet PC)

Video Card: ~$155
SAPPHIRE 100259-1GL Radeon HD 4870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102801

CPU: ~$160
AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103675

Mother Board ~ $120
ASUS M4A78T-E AM3 AMD 790GX HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131366

PSU: ~$120
PC Power & Cooling Silencer PPCS750QBL 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703019

Ram: ~$65
CORSAIR XMS2 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1066 (PC2 8500) Desktop Memory Model TWIN2X4096-8500C5C G - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820145247

Optical Drive: ~$45
PLEXTOR Black 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 12X DVD-RAM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA 24X DVD/CD Writer LightScribe Support - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817703019

Hard Drive: ~$75
Western Digital Caviar Black WD6401AALS 640GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136319

Case: ~$140
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] ll%20Tower

Total = ~$950

Some additional information:

This will be my first attempt at building a computer from parts myself. With that in mind, I would like to get as much input as possible on my build. The current setup I posted above comes out to about $900 US. I have a bit of room to increase the price for a bump in proformance, so any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

1.) Are there any incompatible parts that you notice right away?
2.) Is there anything you notice that might be considered lesser than par and there is an obvious alternative for around the same price?
3.) For the budget of around $900 is this a decent build? (How would you rate it from 1 to 10?)
4.) I intend to use this for gaming, if you know of other good posts on this site for gaming computers around this price range, feel free to post them to me.
5.) Any other input is greatly appreciated

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tavernarijared   09-11-2009 at 06:11:49 AM
- 0 +

I would first recomend one thing .... I have an i7 setup and for $750 at newegg.com you can get 12gb of ddr3 trichannel ram ... which is 55% faster then ddr2. An i7 Processor 2.66 ... and a evga i7 board ..... which would leave you with $150.00 ... Comp Usa has extremely good cases that have been returned but function 100% ... and look cosmetically perfect ..... I would highly suggest looking into that cause my brother bought a $150 case for like $30 bucks and looks brand new .... Sli cards maybe cheaper, depending on where you look, but corssfire is just as good .... probably spend a hundred or two more then you were looking but i have this i7 and it does high end gaming and video editing super super fast .....

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to tavernarijared
dndhatcher   09-11-2009 at 06:20:57 AM
- 0 +

A month ago your build would have been about as good as you can do. Now that intel released the i5, PhenomIIx4s are overpriced.

Look at this post at the i5 "gamer" build. Its a good basis for what you want.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] 0#t1968923

Some things to keep in mind:
The i5 is intels new architecture and will overclock easily to give you better performance per $$ than the old PhenomIIx4.

You want a 64bit OS, preferably windows 7. Cheapest thing right now is to buy a vista 64 with win 7 upgrade.

More than 4GB ram will not benefit you if all you are doing is gaming and general use.

An i7 920 is no faster at gaming than an i5 until you get into over 1920x1200 resolutions and multiple GPUs. You will have to decide if it worth the $200 price increase from an i5.

It is possible that this weeks release of the i5 will cause PhenomII prices to drop soon. Its also possible that his weeks announcement of the 5870 shipping September 22 will cause all graphics card prices to go down sometime in the next couple weeks.


Message edited by dndhatcher on 09-11-2009 at 06:27:44 AM
Reply to dndhatcher
Outlander_04   09-11-2009 at 06:23:08 AM
- 0 +

tavernarijared wrote :

I would first recomend one thing .... I have an i7 setup and for $750 at newegg.com you can get 12gb of ddr3 trichannel ram ... which is 55% faster then ddr2. An i7 Processor 2.66 ... and a evga i7 board ..... which would leave you with $150.00 ... Comp Usa has extremely good cases that have been returned but function 100% ... and look cosmetically perfect ..... I would highly suggest looking into that cause my brother bought a $150 case for like $30 bucks and looks brand new .... Sli cards maybe cheaper, depending on where you look, but corssfire is just as good .... probably spend a hundred or two more then you were looking but i have this i7 and it does high end gaming and video editing super super fast .....




Its not true to say that ddr 3 ram is 55 % faster than ddr2 because of a MHz difference . Latency plays a major part here and DDR3 is much slower thanks to higher latencies . At most the difference in system performance is 2 -3 %
And no one needs 12 gig for gaming . Most people dont need more than 3 gig for gaming .
[ for a whole bunch of reasons , but starting with Windows CANT use more system RAM on a game than there is RAM on the gfx card . A 512 mb gfx card , windows will ONLY use 512 mb of system ram .]

For just over the $1000 mark and the OP's monitor resolution its hard to go past the
15 750
x 55 mb
2 x2 gig of ram
samsung f3 500 gig hard drive
a 4890 , or gtx 275 , or a pair of 4870's
650 watt psu
and if you want quiet spend some iof that money on an Antec p182 case

Message quoted 2 times
Reply to Outlander_04
dndhatcher   09-11-2009 at 06:34:18 AM
- 0 +

Outlander_04 wrote :

For just over the $1000 mark and the OP's monitor resolution its hard to go past the
15 750
x 55 mb
2 x2 gig of ram
samsung f3 500 gig hard drive
a 4890 , or gtx 275 , or a pair of 4870's
650 watt psu
and if you want quiet spend some iof that money on an Antec p182 case


Pssst -- thats a p55 motherboard
and you might as well mention that is 2x2GB of DDR3 ram.

He already has picked a good 750W PSU that will allow a second 4870 or 4890 later.

I should have noticed the caviar black 640. A samsung F3 is as fast and cheaper - good call.

And dont forget the CPU cooler. $30 well spent wheh it allows you to boost your CPU speed 25-50%.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835103065

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by dndhatcher on 09-11-2009 at 06:38:18 AM
Reply to dndhatcher
Outlander_04   09-11-2009 at 06:53:00 AM
- 0 +

dndhatcher wrote :

Pssst -- thats a p55 motherboard
and you might as well mention that is 2x2GB of DDR3 ram.





What can I say? P55 is just too new , but i will catch on in a week or 2 LOL

Definitely ddr3 , and it has to be low voltage so its probably worth looking for kits that are marketed as being for i5 set ups
or at least checking the mb's web page for compatible RAM

Reply to Outlander_04
jackamo   09-11-2009 at 07:32:16 AM
- 0 +

Outlander_04 wrote :

Windows CANT use more system RAM on a game than there is RAM on the gfx card . A 512 mb gfx card , windows will ONLY use 512 mb of system ram .



Wait, what? Never heard that before. So if I'm contemplating adding more RAM (2gig now, 512 GPU, WinXP) to extend the life of my aging system, it may not make a difference gamingwise?

(I know XP wont see all 4 gigs, but RAM is cheap)

Message quoted 1 times
Message edited by jackamo on 09-11-2009 at 07:43:47 AM
Reply to jackamo
Outlander_04   09-11-2009 at 08:23:07 AM
- 0 +

jackamo wrote :

Wait, what? Never heard that before. So if I'm contemplating adding more RAM (2gig now, 512 GPU, WinXP) to extend the life of my aging system, it may not make a difference gamingwise?

(I know XP wont see all 4 gigs, but RAM is cheap)



windows runs the game in system RAM
its then mirrored in gfx card RAM
and then rendered on screen by the gpu

easy to see why system ram use cant be higher than gfx card ram use

Hit ctrl alt + del one time and see the processes tab while you are running a game and take a note of the memory allocated to the game .
If you have XP 32 bit then I doubt you will see any gain from adding more RAM than 2 Gb . Maybe a tiny bit ... but its not cost effective IMO .
XP runs apps faster with 2 gig than Vista will with 4 gig anyway .

Reply to Outlander_04
goldcarbon   09-11-2009 at 09:03:05 AM
- 0 +

Thanks everyone for the suggestions and information.

Reply to goldcarbon
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