PLEASE Rate My $600 CoreI5 Gaming Build

[gayan]

Guys

I was looking to buy a new PC for gaming and got the following over the Black Friday shopping time, please rate the full build on the following 2 scales, and tell me whether I could have spent the money more wisely.

1) Value for money - 1 to 10
2)Performance - 1 - 10

Here are the stuff I got

Processor - Core I5 - for $149.99 at the local Micro Center
Mobo - Gigabyte P55 -UD2 for $105.00 on Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128405
RAM - 4 Gig DDR3 1333 for $ 69.00 on Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231275
PSU - Corsair 450W for $55.00 on Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139003
VGA - Asus 8800GT carried over from my older machine
HDD - Western Digital 640GB Black for $50 on Newegg http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136319
Monitor - Acer 22' for $120 on Tigerdirect http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4516440&SRCCODE=WEBLET03SHIP&cm_mmc=Email-_-WebletMain-_-WEBLET03SHIP-_-03ship
Case+mouse+keyboard - $50

Total cost = $600

Do let me know how you would rate it on both Value For Money and Performance

 

[p55ibexpeak]

Well, rating is a subjective matter so don't take it personally.

1) 9

Everything except the psu were steals. The psu could've been cheaper but you had to get it on the same day. No comment on the lcd until I see the model #.

2) 9

I love that cpu. I have it. Your ram is running at 1066mhz? Unless you overclock it or override the bios ram settings. So any ram over 1066 will run at 1066 regardless. But the price was a steal. For a gaming pc, it's not really a huge upgrade. I would've looked at what your old pc was and upgrade the parts accordingly. Most likely I would put an emphasis on the gpu.

My 775 gave up the ghost, so I had only a few hours to do all the research & get the parts. I didn't want to wait for shipping. I have no patience. lol. Thankfully, I did read a ton on P55 & then some a few months back. So I knew what to get.

ASUS P7P55D ~150
Patriot PGS34G1600ELKC ~100

They were local deals. I saw your board for about the same price, but decided on this one to leave some room for overclocking when I get a better than stock cooler.

 

[dndhatcher]

Looks like you did really well on prices for an i5 system.

Now you need to replace that 8800 with a better graphics card or you might find your performance worse than on your old monitor.

 

[gayan]

Well, rating is a subjective matter so don't take it personally.

1) 9

Everything except the psu were steals. The psu could've been cheaper but you had to get it on the same day. No comment on the lcd until I see the model #.

2) 9

I love that cpu. I have it. Your ram is running at 1066mhz? Unless you overclock it or override the bios ram settings. So any ram over 1066 will run at 1066 regardless. But the price was a steal. For a gaming pc, it's not really a huge upgrade. I would've looked at what your old pc was and upgrade the parts accordingly. Most likely I would put an emphasis on the gpu.

My 775 gave up the ghost, so I had only a few hours to do all the research & get the parts. I didn't want to wait for shipping. I have no patience. lol. Thankfully, I did read a ton on P55 & then some a few months back. So I knew what to get.

ASUS P7P55D ~150
Patriot PGS34G1600ELKC ~100

They were local deals. I saw your board for about the same price, but decided on this one to leave some room for overclocking when I get a better than stock cooler.

The LCD is this http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4516440&SRCCODE=WEBLET03SHIP&cm_mmc=Email-_-WebletMain-_-WEBLET03SHIP-_-03ship
and yeah, I could have got a corsair 600W(on Cyber Monday) for the same price I paid for the 450W(on Blackfriday)...

actually my earlier PC was a P4 Dual core 1.86 GHz ... So apart from the VGA there was nothing I could have saved up for this build...

 

[Foxer57]

1) 9

You have some really good steals, nice job shopping around!

2) 6.5

By today's standards, you aren't rubbing up against top end components. My biggest concern is that you are going to feel the GPU bottleneck right away. If you really want to dig into your pockets deeper(which is hard to come by now-a-days), I would suggest going for either the Radeon 4870 or the 4890. The next major problem is your power supply's power. The 4870 requires 500 Watts with the 4890 requiring 550, so you really limited yourself for upgrading without getting a new power supply later down the road.

Beyond that, you got yourself one hell of a great deal with a fast CPU, RAM, and Hard Drive. I have never heard of prices so low before.

 

[gayan]

1) 9

You have some really good steals, nice job shopping around!

2) 6.5

By today's standards, you aren't rubbing up against top end components. My biggest concern is that you are going to feel the GPU bottleneck right away. If you really want to dig into your pockets deeper(which is hard to come by now-a-days), I would suggest going for either the Radeon 4870 or the 4890. The next major problem is your power supply's power. The 4870 requires 500 Watts with the 4890 requiring 550, so you really limited yourself for upgrading without getting a new power supply later down the road.

Beyond that, you got yourself one hell of a great deal with a fast CPU, RAM, and Hard Drive. I have never heard of prices so low before.

Hi Foxer57, yep... the PSU was the only thing that I feel that I could have done better with ... there was a 600W Coolermaster for $55 on Cybermonday but by then I had already bought the Corsair 450W....

My plan is not to upgrade for atleast the next 6 months and then by that time the 4890 aswell as 500W PSUs would have gone down in price by atleast 50% and will be able to sell off my 8800GT and the current PSU and put in the change and get the new VGA+PSU...

Apart from that I'm happy that I could get some really good stuff for such a good price.....