$1200 gaming PC

You would definitely be served best by an i5-760 build over an i7-based system.

Intel i7-950 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115211 - $295

Haf 922 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119197&cm_re=haf_922-_-11-119-197-_-Product - $90

GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128423 - $210

SAPPHIRE 100283L Radeon HD 5770 - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102858&cm_re=radeon_hd_5770-_-14-102-858-_-Product - $145 x 2 = $290 (free shipping)

G.SKILL 3GB (3 x 1GB) DDR3 1600 Tripple Channel Ram - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231224 - $80

Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB HDD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185 - $70

Corsair 850TX 850 Watt - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009&Tpk=Corsair%20850 - $130 (15% off promo code)

DVD burner/reader - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204 - $20

= $1185

I'd just show u my sub $1k gaming config ^^



HD6K: single/CF review
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3987/amds-radeon-6870-685...


Optional Items

60GB Sandforce based SSD $118AR Free Ship
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Scythe YASYA cooler $35
http://www.directron.com/scys1000.html

Review
http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/3274/scythe_yasya_scys...

I am also looking for advice on my budget build. This pretty much my final version, unless somebody discovers some glaring compatibility problem that I missed.

Case: Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower ($110)

CPU: AMD Phenom II X6 1055T 2.8GHz ($200)

Motherboard: ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AMD 890GX ATX AMD ($140)

GPU: Sapphire 100314SR Radeon HD 6870 1GB ($240)

SSD: OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SATA II ($140)

HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32 MB Cache ($70)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix 4GB (2x2GB) SDRAM DDR3 1600MHz ($90)

PSU: Corsair CMPSU-650TX 650W ATX 12V ($90)

Cooler/Heatsink: Cooler Master Hyper 212 120mm sleeve CPU cooler ($30)

DVD/Blu Ray Drive: LG WH10LS30K 10X Blu-ray Burner ($100)


Total cost: $1210

Hope this helps.

Edit: I thought your budget limit was $1300. If the ten dollars makes that much of a difference, I would recommend switching out the Crucial memory for some Kingston ValueRam.

I wouldn't want a terrorist hijack my plane so don't hijack his post, make your own.

+1
edit: actually i think that was alright, just letting the guy know about his $1200 build for an example. all he said at the beginning was "unless someone finds a compatibility issue".

So a couple of you are recommending AMD and some are recommending Intel. Is that based more on performance or cost savings? Is there any gaming performance advantage gained in going with i7 over i5 now or in the future?

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/common_cpus.html look for yourself i7 950 all the way.
AMD generally runs cheaper, the proccessor and mobo so you could get something else like a SSD, but I'd go with the i7 for sure!

The i5 will be a bit faster per clock in games, and the platform+CPU cost should be at least 200$ less than an i7. Unless you do productivity (photoshop, video rendering, matlab), the i7 is a significantly worse value and slightly worse performer than the i5-760.

I'm not a huge fan of the above link because that's a canned benchmark, and not an accurate representation of acutal use. For example, realworld gaming the 1090T is typically behind the i3-530, but not by any significant amount because you're GPU-limited.

I just don't really like the mobos for i5's  

"With rapidly-increasing prices over $200 offering smaller and smaller performance boosts in games, we have a hard time recommending anything more expensive than the Core i5-760. This is especially the case since the Core i5-760 can be overclocked to great effect if more performance is desired, easily surpassing the stock clock rate of the $1,000 Core i7-980X Extreme Edition.

Perhaps the only performance-based justification we can think of for moving up from a Core i5-760 is that LGA 1156 processors have an inherent limit of 16 PCIe lanes for graphics use. This is an architectural detail that the LGA 1156-based Core i5 and Core i7 processors share, so if a gamer plans to use more than two graphics cards in CrossFire or SLI, the LGA 1366 Core i7-900-series processors are the way to go." (He said yes to SLI or crossfire. Read the last paragraph.)

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-gaming-cpu-upgradable-processor-phenom-ii-x6,2731-5.html

http://hardocp.com/article/2010/08/23/gtx_480_sli_pcie_...

So that's kinda moot point.

And I think most tellingly,

To summarize, while we recommend against purchasing any CPU that retails for more than $200 from a value point of view (sink that money into graphics or an SSD instead), there are those of you who have no trouble throwing down serious money on the best of the best.

ooeeh nice, I didn't even know that top part hehe. +1

I am not looking for my advice on my build here. Just putting forward a build that I am working on as an example/reference. I have already researched the parts/prices and, like I said, I'm fairly sure everything works together. Since mine also runs around $1200, I thought it could be a good starting point for nd4vr.

Most of the pre-builts I've used in the fast had Intel processors in them, so I thought I would give AMD a try and see if it gives good performance for a cheaper price. I chose X6 instead of X4 to try and get a couple more years before I will need to replace the CPU.

X4 beats X6 in gaming everytime  

Actually for the most part games aren't even optimised for quads as yet @@


The Game Rundown: Finding CPU/GPU Bottlenecks, Part 2
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/game-performance-bo...

+1 the X6 is utilised with some video editing software, and I think with converting file types.

btw that i7 build with 2x 5770 is lol

if this is a gaming build at all u dont start off w/ crossfired 5770s especially with the 6850 and 6870s out now