$2200-2500budget. Dont know much about hardware. Want a gaming pc. :).

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Now, I don't know too much about hardware.. I know i5 or i7 is the way to go with CPUs nowadays, and i know there are different versions of each, some more expensive and more powerful than others.

graphics card wise, i've got the general sense that SLI'd 580s are the way to go as well, maybe 570s, and i've heard that the best card out there right now is the 590 or the 6990, one of the two. So i'm assuming that will be where i head if i go for a single card. As for power supply, 1000 watts is optimal, i think. Operating system wise, Windows Vista or Windows 7... one of the two.

RAM... 8gb? don't know if there's a need for more than that.
Everyhting else (motherboards, coolers, Power supply, etc.) I know next to nothing about.
I do, however, want to get a computer built for me that is very, very powerful for gaming. I'm looking for Crysis and Metro 2033, maxed out, with a 60+ frame rate.

Do you guys think that 2200-2500 dollars is an adequate budget for this performance? If yes, then could i get some suggestions in terms of hardware?

tl;dr: is 2200-2500 bucks good for a powerful gaming computer, and can i have some hardware reccomendations?
 
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Sure. This is a wishlist from Newegg that I literally made 2 days ago, and I title it "Expensive" lol, so it is definitely a quality build in my opinion. There are many places where I would consider cheaper parts, just for the sake of saving money, such as on the case, PSU, RAM, etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112249
Nice little Lian-Li case, not a lot of fans because I prefer less noise.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128488
SLI capable 1155 mobo by Gigabyte

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130595
2 superclocked GTX570's by EVGA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009
850W Corsair PSU...
i5-2500k /P67 mainboard is the defacto standard....; 8 gb is the new standard, 4 gb is the new minimum

Unless you are running 3 each 1920x1200 monitors, I consider SLI'd 580s to be pretty steep investment, given the performance of Crossfired 6950s at barely over half the price.
 
I don't do many reccomendations on this sort of budget but how about this?

Intel Core i5-2500k
2x4GB G.Skill Ripjaws X 1600Mhz
ASUS P8P67 PRO
2 x GTX 580 (Fermi) 1.5GB
1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3
80 SSD
Cooler Master HAF X or Antec 1200
1KW Antec Continuous Power PSU
Noctua NH-D14 Cooler

On that cooler, you should easily get over 4.5Ghz. Also GTX 580 SLI should get you the performance youre looking for in games. It will also feel nice and fast thanks to a SSD boot drive.
 
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Thanks for the responses guys, much appreciated.

jmsellars, thats some pretty beastly hardware... if that is not within my price range, what do you suggest to substitute to lower down the price a little?

mdd1963, I'm going to be using one 1920x1200 monitor. I really do want good performance, though... which graphics card(s) do you reccomend?

Also, seems i'm going to be going with the i5 2500k then.. worth the price? should i shoot for an i7 instead?
 
For games i wouldnt bother with the i7, the i5 should give you 98% of the performance in games for $100 less. Pretty sure you can get that stuff in your price range to be honest. If you can't i think you could get a 900W PSU to save a bit, or save a bit on the cooler, SSD or GPU's.
 

touchdowntexas13

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I'm just gonna throw this out there, but if you wanted to save some money, I think you could have a "beastly" gaming computer for anywhere from $1400-$1800. That much money put into a computer should be able to max out any current title, and has a pretty good chance of maxing out anything that comes out this year. If that budget range interests you then I will post a build, but I honestly dont know what I would do with a $2500 budget. I have a $1500 machine sitting next to me that I built last summer, and it maxes everything just fine.
 
Just added that build up on Newegg and you can get it within your budget quite comfortably.

Antec 1200 - $159.99
Antec CP-1000 1KW PSU - $134.99
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB - $69.99
2 x Gigabyte GTX 580 (Fermi) 1.5GB - £999.98
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) - $99.99
ASUS P8P67 PRO - $179.99
Intel Core i5-2500k - $224.99
Noctua NH-D14 - $89.99
Corsair Force 80GB SSD - $174.99

Total - $2134.90
 


As much as i have suggested high budget builds in this thread, i do agree here. The build i posted with a cheaper case and PSU and SLI'd GTX 560Ti's would be much better value.
 
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Thank you all for the generous answers and builds, i appreciate the time taken to help me out :)

jmsellars, that sounds pretty damn awesome, only thing is, i've never bought computer parts online.. is Newegg reliable? i mean.. 2200 is a looot of money right.. i don't want it wasted.

touchdowntexas, could you provide me with one of your 1400-1800 dollar builds? maybe try to up the ante on something like a processor or video cards, because my budget is a bit higher, but i wuold appreciate it if you provided a build.

 

touchdowntexas13

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Sure. This is a wishlist from Newegg that I literally made 2 days ago, and I title it "Expensive" lol, so it is definitely a quality build in my opinion. There are many places where I would consider cheaper parts, just for the sake of saving money, such as on the case, PSU, RAM, etc.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811112249
Nice little Lian-Li case, not a lot of fans because I prefer less noise.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128488
SLI capable 1155 mobo by Gigabyte

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130595
2 superclocked GTX570's by EVGA

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009
850W Corsair PSU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
i5-2500K

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227604
OCZ SSD for a boot drive and a few programs/games

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445
8GB performance RAM by G.Skill

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
1 TB HDD by Samsung for storage

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204
Asus DVD Drive

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185142
Scythe Mugen 2 Rev B CPU cooler, I have one for my i5-760 and it is awesome. You wont need a beefy cooler for the 2500k. [EDIT: when I say beefy, I mean expensive. the Scythe Mugen is actually quite a large air cooler.]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986
Win7 Home Premium

All in all, this build would cost somewhere around $1900. You could definitely build a computer with equal power for ~$250 less. Just ditch the SSD drive, get a cheaper case, go for some cheaper RAM, get cheaper model GTX570's, etc. If all you cared about was gaming performance, $1500-$1800 will definitely suffice.
 
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Thanks again for all the kind responses.

I guess my last question is, is there somebody I can find to set up my omputer for me?

I mean, given that i'd order the parts from newegg, i don't know how to set the actual computer up myself - is there anybody that i can pay 100 bucks or whatever to do it for me?
 

touchdowntexas13

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Ummmmmmm lol

I really have no idea. There are obviously online sites that sell custom built computers, but you have to be careful when doing that. As far as getting someone to build it for you, your best bet would be finding a family member or a friend (someone you know well enough to trust) that has built high end machines before. If you don't know anyone, I would check around for any small, local computer stores (and i don't mean Best Buy). They might offer to build it for you for around $100, but I have never been to such a place. Honestly, you would be better off learning the ins and outs of all your expensive components and how to build the computer yourself (its really not that hard), but I understand that you may not have time to do that.

Just another thought, but if you did decide to spend only $1500-$1900, you could always put the extra cash into 2 extra monitors and run Nvidia Surround for a truly "high end" experience :)
I don't have the cash for anything like that, but someday...
I'm not sure how well 2 GTX 570's handle such a high resolution, but I would guess pretty darn well. And you could always turn down the settings or play on only a single monitor if a new game came out that you couldnt max out.
 
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Heh, i won't be playing on 3 monitors. don't worry :p But, I'm a bit of an enthusiast (if you couldn't already tell) in that i refuse to have sub-40 fps quality.. I don't think 2 GTX 570s would suffice with even one monitor, to be honest. I'm shooting for 2 GTX 580s, at this point.
 

touchdowntexas13

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HA!

Well if you really wanna spend the cash on 2 580's, be my guest. But 1920x1080 is a measly resolution that 2 570's would eat for breakfast. Even after applying moderate/full amounts of AA/AF. Maybe you should look at the reviews for a SINGLE 570...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-570-gf110-performance,2806-11.html

Read that and try and tell me that not even 2 570's will be enough. Benchmarks may not be an exact science, but they don't lie either.

Take for instance, my 2 GTX470's and an OC'ed i5-750. I have v-sync on for every game because I consistently get way over 60 fps. Even with my 470's individually being 25% slower than the 570's, I don't foresee any games within the next 8 months that I will not be able to max out.

Just my thoughts, but I'm sure someone else may have a different opinion.
 
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I suppose you've got a point, but you have to remember they were testing battlefield BC2, not the most graphics intensive of games

I'm shooting for crysis maxed out, 1920x1200, with antialiasing... without having the fps drop below 50
with one, or even two 570s, on one 1920x1200 display, at those settings, i just don't think will cut it..
To be honest, i'm just trying to play the safe route here
 

touchdowntexas13

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Well I can definitely understand going the safe route. I don't recommend using Crysis as your performance benchmark unless that's the game you play the most. But just for your reference, here are a few Crysis benchies with SLI 570s. Maybe they will shed some more light on what I'm trying to say.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/crossfire-sli-3-way-scaling,2865-5.html

http://www.guru3d.com/article/geforce-gtx-570-sli-review/11

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/geforce-gtx-570-sli_4.html#sect4

In any case, enjoy your new computer. It sounds like it will be a beast of a machine :)

 
I'd say Newegg is definitely reliable yeah, everyone on here uses it. Also, i would learn to put the computer together yourself if you have the time, i actually like building computers personally. There is a really great guide on here for it. There are few places where you can go wrong enough to break something, so long as have an anti static band and you arent too rough with things like CPU chips and you screw everything in properly i dont see how you can go wrong.
 
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Quick update for you guys, in case you all were at all still interested :p

I ended up getting a 590, with an i7 2600k (may as well, right :p) and 8gb of Ripjaws RAM.

Thanks all for your contribution, and i can't wait to get this computer back to test crysis on :)
 

Taylor422

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Using a GTX 590 on a single screen 1920 x 1080 is like hammering a nail with a semi truck. Way too much power. Not to mention that two GTX 570s in SLI beats down a 590. Pissing away money, man...
 

raptorjesus

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Trust me on this, I run two OCed 570's at 1920x1080. On crysis warhead with max enthusiast settings and maintain framerates of around 75-80fps in all except the final level with the massive amounts of explosions on screen at which point it dropped to around 65fps.

It is brutal overkill, but it will last for a few years running max settings. 590 is a garbage card that has almost no overclocking overhead. 2x 580s will literally run anything out there into the ground, even Metro 2033 on max with DOF and high AA.
 

touchdowntexas13

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I tried to explain that a 590 was just a big waste of money but with no luck. There's really no point in discussing it anymore seeing as how he already built his computer. What counts is that he got what he wanted.
 

vibhas

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Dual cards are never twice as strong as normal cards.

a) GTX 570s in SLI aren't twice as fast as a single GTX 570, so even if there are 2 cards running in a different setup, the dual gpu setup (together), its not double.
b) A dual-gpu setup such as this has each individual card inside 'toned' down in clock speeds. Majorly.
c) The GTX 590 only has 1.5GB of VRAM per card, and it doesn't add up 1.5+1.5.

The GTX 590 is actually rather a terrible card when you compare it to the other options; all the problems of a dual-gpu setup, without double the performance kinda.... 2 570s are generally the preferred option..
 
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