Gaming PC - Budget $2000AU

[elgarta]

Hey all,

long time forum reader, first time poster.

I am wanting to build a new gaming PC for around $2000AU (less if I can get away with it). I live in Brisbane QLD, if anyone can also suggest a good place to buy parts from.

I already have a monitor, mouse and headset so I am not looking at these.

Currently I am using a system running an AMD Phenom X3 720 CPU, 4gb of Ram, ATI Radeon HD 5700 GPU, a WD 500gb SATA HD and I couldnt tell you the brand name or model of the Mobo, optical drive or PSU.

I mainly play games like WoW and the odd FPS game when my computer feels like running it. I am fairly limited currently since my PC doesnt want to run anything at high settings, and newer games have really struggled. I played Street Fighter (lol) a few months ago and it would run at like 3fps.

The systems I were looking at, and I am happy to adjust parts if needed, were:

Intel Core i7 950
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R Motherboard Rev2
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL8T-6GBRM (3x2GB) DDR3
Gigabyte GeForce GTX 470 1280MB Ultra Durable
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB HD103SJ (Storage)
Samsung SpinPoint F3 1TB HD103SJ (Storage)
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB E Series SSD (OS/programs)
Antec TP750
Coolermaster CM690 II Advanced
Zalman CNPS10X Performa


AMD AM3 Phenom II X4 955BE
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H
G.Skill-Ripjaws 4GB DDR3-1600
OCZ Vertex 2 60GB
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB/Western Digital Caviar Black
Powercolor PCS+ 1GB ATI Radeon HD5870
Coolermaster Storm Sniper Black Edition
Antec Truepower New 750W

(This build was recomended to me, but I am sure I only need one GPU right?)

I am looking to use it for running games at high settings, and looking to branch out to play games such as SC2, Farcry 2 aswell.

Also, if it is a better option to just upgrade specific parts instead of a new system I'd be happy to know also, but I know this is difficult to say without confirming what mobo and chipset I am using.

 

[mosox]

How about getting just the video card, your CPU is quite good. Or a video card and a CPU, for the motherboard try and find out with this
http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/System-Info/PC-Wizard-Release.shtml
it should have support for the latest AMD CPUs and DDR3 isn't better than DDR2.

 

[elgarta]

I can check that when I get back from work. I threw the boxes out for most of my parts previously.

Out of those video cards I listed above, what would be best? I randomly picked the 5700 without doing any research and it was pretty 'meh' to put it in one word.

I have upgraded just GPUs in the past and am left disapointed since I dont really know what to look for in them : /

 

[mosox]

What 5700? The 5750 is pretty weak, the 5770 is stronger but not very good for full HD/high settings. That Powercolor HD5870 is much stronger though, you'll be able to play your games on full HD/high settings. Very probably your mobo can take a quad like the Phenom II 955 or 965, but you will see a difference only in the games that use 4 cores.

http://www.grandtheftpc.com/2010/03/list-of-quad-core-optimized-games.html