New PC ~$1500

Skingrad

May 10, 2011 8:07:15 PM

Due to my PC getting a bit old CPU mainly I have gathered a good amount of money over the last years to get a new good rig. Current rig will be sold to a friend for cheap it runs games that he plays. Any help or suggestions made will be appreciated.

Main thing I will be doing is gaming so since I am getting a new rig might as well build it to last. I will not purchase the rig itself until late summer when majority of the games will be released also hoping some prices will drop in that time as well. Fairly familiar with PCs this will be my 2nd PC but I have put together small time PCs for friends/family but not to this magnitude too really.

So far I have the following in mind:

Case:

NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Steel / Plastic Enthusiast ATX Full Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Motherboard:

ASRock P67 EXTREME4 (B3) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CPU:

i5 2500k
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

CPU fan:

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

GPU:

GTX 580
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

HDD:

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

SSD:

intel 320 Series SSDSA2CT040G3K5 2.5" 40GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

OS:

Window 7 Professional 64 bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Thats all I have planned so far. Getting a 1TB HDD for the simple reason of not needing another one ever again, the SSD will primary be the OS. I know I need some RAM and since there fairly cheap so a high amount is fine again any help would be appreciated to get the right parts and all I am not completely lost when it comes to PC but I know there is alot I need to learn :hello:

More about : 1500

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nd_hunter

May 10, 2011 8:20:57 PM

An i7-2600k nets you no performance gain (besides 100MHz) while gaming over an i5-2500k. In fact, it has been shown to lower frame rates in some instances. Save $100 and get the 2500k.

A 5400rpm HDD is fine for media (music, videos, etc) but you won't want to load programs off of it, and that 40GB SSD is too small for an OS and more than a few games, let alone any productivity software you might have (Office, Adobe, etc). If you don't want a larger SSD (they get spendy) look at the 1TB version of the Samsung F3. It's on Amazon for $60 and free shipping. 40GB is great for the SSD caching feature that Z68 offers. I believe boards will hit shelves tomorrow.

The ASRock P67 Extreme4 is $30 less than that Asus Pro board and offers the same features plus a front USB 3.0 bay drive that will mount an SSD.

Windows 7 Home Premium will suffice for $40 less, unless there is something you need that Professional offers.

8GB (2x4GB) of DDR3 1333 CL9 RAM will do.

And I just noticed you will buy this summer. You will want to come back then and post this question as things will change.

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IntelEnthusiast

May 10, 2011 10:16:45 PM

Nt-hunter is right, if gaming is to be your main use for this computer there is little real value between the Intel® Core™ I7-2600K and the Intel Core I5-2500K. Right now very few games will take advantage of more than 3 threads and while this may change the future most likely it will be far enough away that it won’t make a difference with this build. So it comes down to about $100 and 100MHz difference between these 2 processors. Now if you were planning to do some video/audio or other heavy multi-threaded work the Intel Core I7-2600K is the best processor for you.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

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Skingrad

May 10, 2011 11:02:56 PM

Ok, I will take that in consideration F3, i5, RAM, and MB.

How many years do you predict the i5 will be able to max games out that are heavy on CPU? and will it be much different between i7 and i5?

Also needs suggestions on a CPU fan and prolly will need a few more USB ports. Thats all I can think of atm..

Thanks for the help guys its appreciated.

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nd_hunter

May 10, 2011 11:54:41 PM

The Cooler Master Hyper 212+ is a good start. I've got it and hit 4.5GHz on turbo with good temps while gaming. 53*C is the highest I've seen on two of the cores. That's not even close to the limit. I rock low 20's when I'me just surfing or doing something non-intensive and I idle at 19. A Scythe Mugen 2 will do a bit better. Get a Megahalems and two nice pwm fans if you want to try your luck hitting 5.0GHz.