Building a Budget PC

[ncasolo]

I have approximately $200 to allocate to a motherboard and RAM for a gaming PC I'm looking to build. The CPU is going to be an i5 3570K and if overclocking isn't rocket science I'm going to consider overclocking. The motherboard itself should support an AMD 7970 video card, the afore mentioned CPU, and I won't go over 8GB of RAM.

I'm only going to install 1 optical drive and 1 storage device (likely a SSD). Onboard sound and onboard network (non-wifi) would be preferred. I would like the motherboard to support a case that has USB and sound ports on the top/front. I haven't picked a specific case yet.

Thanks for any suggestions and advice. It certainly isn't necessary to spend the full $200 on the two.

 

[Ry4n]

Maybe the Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 Motherboard, And Corsair 8GB ram 1600

 

[ncasolo]

Maybe the Asus P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 Motherboard, And Corsair 8GB ram 1600

Is there a significant performance difference between the 1600 RAM and say 1833 and on up? Does it require a different motherboard to get the higher end RAM and would I see many benefits while gaming with better RAM?

 

[Ry4n]

Well the RAM I said is what I have because it's compatible with my MOBO, You could check the Motherboards website to check if your ram is compatible.
http://uk.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/P8Z68V_PROGEN3/#specifications
and also I think you can compare products on the manufactures website. (I think)