- Apr 10, 2011
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- 18,510
I am looking to leave my Xbox360 behind and make the move to PC gaming. Research has so far led me to consider the following components for a build. Prices listed are from DirectCanada.com (free shipping!). I would like to keep the cost of the tower under the $1000 mark, and not have it be obsolete in a year:
-CPU:
AMD Phenom II x4 975BE ($187)
Comparison reviews such as,
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Core-i5-2500K-vs-Phenom-II-X4-975-BE-CPU-Review/1163/10
have shown that with a decent graphics card, the 975BE performs equally well compared to the i5 2500K in gaming applications. I would only be using this PC for gaming, and not any video encoding, or other CPU intensive tasks requiring more than 4 cores, so the money saved by going with the 975BE is attractive. My biggest concern is the 975BE becoming a bottleneck. I doubt that I will be doing any overclocking, so the abilities of i5 in that department do not matter. The above link is the only one I found comparing the two directly. Do these gaming results seem accurate?
-Motherboard:
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 ($140)
ASUS lists this board as being future AM3+ compatible with a BIOS update. If this is the case, an eventual upgrade path would be to a Bulldozer.
-GPU:
Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 ($155)
Alternatively to this card I am considering a 6870, but the >$50 price increase doesn't seem to justify the mere 10 fps increase shown at stock speeds in most games. Next year I would also likely put in another 6850 for Crossfire.
-4GB of compatible DDR3 1600 RAM
:$75) (eventual upgrade to 8GB)
-500GB 7200RPM HDD:$50)
-Whatever quality PSU will support my intended upgrade to Crossfire.:$100)
-Thermaltake Level 10GT case ($270). I know this case is a bit of overkill, but I love the way it looks, and the plethora of removable dust filters are a must because the computer will be in the living-room where my dog is most of the time.
I intend to play fairly demanding games like X3 Terran Conflict, STALKER: Call of Pripyat, Crysis, and ARMA II. I do not require to be able to crank these games up to ultra settings and obscene resolutions, but want to run them well on high settings at 1280x720 (on a television). Do you think that this system is capable of that, and will last me for around 3 years with the intended upgrades to Crossfire 6850s and 8GB RAM?
Thanks in advance for any input. This has been bothering me for a while.
-CPU:
AMD Phenom II x4 975BE ($187)
Comparison reviews such as,
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/Core-i5-2500K-vs-Phenom-II-X4-975-BE-CPU-Review/1163/10
have shown that with a decent graphics card, the 975BE performs equally well compared to the i5 2500K in gaming applications. I would only be using this PC for gaming, and not any video encoding, or other CPU intensive tasks requiring more than 4 cores, so the money saved by going with the 975BE is attractive. My biggest concern is the 975BE becoming a bottleneck. I doubt that I will be doing any overclocking, so the abilities of i5 in that department do not matter. The above link is the only one I found comparing the two directly. Do these gaming results seem accurate?
-Motherboard:
ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 ($140)
ASUS lists this board as being future AM3+ compatible with a BIOS update. If this is the case, an eventual upgrade path would be to a Bulldozer.
-GPU:
Gigabyte Radeon HD6850 ($155)
Alternatively to this card I am considering a 6870, but the >$50 price increase doesn't seem to justify the mere 10 fps increase shown at stock speeds in most games. Next year I would also likely put in another 6850 for Crossfire.
-4GB of compatible DDR3 1600 RAM
:$75) (eventual upgrade to 8GB)-500GB 7200RPM HDD
:$50)-Whatever quality PSU will support my intended upgrade to Crossfire.
:$100)-Thermaltake Level 10GT case ($270). I know this case is a bit of overkill, but I love the way it looks, and the plethora of removable dust filters are a must because the computer will be in the living-room where my dog is most of the time.
I intend to play fairly demanding games like X3 Terran Conflict, STALKER: Call of Pripyat, Crysis, and ARMA II. I do not require to be able to crank these games up to ultra settings and obscene resolutions, but want to run them well on high settings at 1280x720 (on a television). Do you think that this system is capable of that, and will last me for around 3 years with the intended upgrades to Crossfire 6850s and 8GB RAM?
Thanks in advance for any input. This has been bothering me for a while.
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