Gaming rig 2011

[tjscali]

Hello,
I am going to buy a pc to play battlefield 3 and I have a 1200 dollar budget.
If you were in my place, what pc would you buy?
Would you go custom? If so, where would you go to buy a custom $1200 rig?
No accessories needed.

Thanks in advance

 

[nadim615]

Ok, what I would do is buy it off of iBUYPOWER. Its a good site, I got mine off of there. If your going to buy it, I would buy it NOW, as they're having a labor day sale which ends in 2 days time... I'll give you some basic specs that you would probably want to choose to run BF3 nicely and be within your budget.

Case: Any
Processor: i5-2500k @3.3ghz
Cooling: I like liquid cooling, but if you want only fans, then get one of the more advanced ones (pricier ones, like an extra $20)
RAM: DDR3, get the 8GB as its a free upgrade from the 4GB due to the sale
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX560Ti -1GB superclocked
Free stuff: May as well select it, its FREE!
Motherboard: [SLI] ASUS Sabertooth P67
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 TRX-750M Labor Day Special! FREE Upgrade to Thermaltake 850 Watt
Everything else: keep as is...
Total price: $1113
The extra $87 you have should cover shipping hopefully This is the link for the computer that ive customized and selected parts for: http://www.ibuypower.com/Store/Game_On_E1_Special
Hope this helps

 

[tjscali]

Thanks nadim615, that looks like a great rig. What do you think about a small ssd? I don't know much other than you can put your os on it and boot faster.

 

[nadim615]

For the SSD, I would get the 60 GB Corsair Force Series 3 F60 SSD, its not too expensive and I've heard that its quite good. Now that might bring you just a bit overbudget, as its an extra $110. Now I'm reccomending this if you were to get one. In my opinion, you dont really need one. All its going to do for you is just transfer files faster, load programs faster, faster game patching, faster game loading, faster installing, but really its only going to do these things a couple seconds faster (installing maybe a couple minutes ) So really its not going to do anything to help you in-game. I dont have an SSD and everythings running smooth and fast for me, but its completely up to you

 

[tjscali]

You have been very helpful nadim, I really appreciate the info. I was looking at the transfer rates and the ssd looks like it is really slower than the regular hard drive when it comes to transfer rates.
Am I looking at it wrong? Its like 500 MB / sec for ssd and 6 GB / sec for hdd; do you know why it is so different

 

[nadim615]

I honestly dont know, lol.... I dont know much bout SSD's srry. All ik is that its good

 

[ervinelim]

Go with ecollegepc.com its better than ibuypower.

 

[tjscali]

I went to I buy power and got a good deal on a pc with a 5% discount for labor day. I went a little (ha ha) over budget with the ssd but I think it will be worth it!
I just have to wait a couple of weeks to get it.
Thanks for the help!

 

[nadim615]

np man Hope everything works out well!

 

[onefearlesssniper]

shoulda gone crucial m4, fastest SSD atm...64 gig version isn't alot

good luck with your rig!

 

[tjscali]

I found out that HDD are rated in Mb/sec, and SSD are rated in MB/sec, so SSD is a lot faster.
I did say I went over budget - I decided to just have a single drive for now; 120 GB Corsair Force Series GT SSD is what I got.
I think it's decent enough for a gamer, I think it's mid-range or a little above.
Any thought on the drive? I can still change it since ibp hasn't started the build yet.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

thats a fairly BIG drive... for an SSD. Overall, though, 120gb isn't that big nowadays. all of WoW with all updates is 16GB. more than 10% of the drive!

If you can swing it, you want to get a data drive too

 

[nadim615]

Well SSD wise, its not really gonna affect your gaming at all. Its pretty much just a really fast hard drive in other words. Really, most people only put their operating system on their SSD's (20GB for Windows 7 64 bit). So really you dont need that much space Unless of course you want to put other things on there for some reason. But well I just got 2 1tb HDD's, and well no SSD. And honestly, everythings pretty fast.

 

[tjscali]

Excellent to hear. I figure this is going to be my gamer for the next 3 to 5 years, I just want to run windows and what ever games off of it and I don't want to worry about putting things on one drive or the other.
If I decide to store more nusic and videos I will get a larger HDD for storage.

 

[chulex67]

ibuypower is a good site cuddos on ibupower, but then again, if you live in usa and you want to get the best bang for your money, It would be better to build one yourself part by part neweeg got good prices and combos.

the problem with ibuypower is that they dont tell you what brand they are sending you on ram or gpu, you have to pay extra to know lol. with 1500dlls you can get an ultimate Amd Pc, Or a Hig-mid Intel Pc.

ibuypower - Good Service and good for newbies.

Build it yourself - Fun , you will be learning alot about your pc, and you will get the best that your money can get you.

 

[tjscali]

I really did have the time to do it, but the effort just wasnt there! lol. I should just look and see how much money I can/could save building it myself!

 

[nadim615]

lol well building your own computer is kinda hard

 

[tjscali]

It seems like you can fry stuff if you don't do it right!

 

[nadim615]

It seems like you can fry stuff if you don't do it right!

yea....

 

[tjscali]

Best answer selected by tjscali.

 

[nadim615]

So are you buying it off iBuyPower? Because its definitely worth it to get a professional to do it. 1. They test it for you, and make sure everythings working before they send it. 2. They do it, well professionally so you know nothings going to screw up, especially since they did it for you. 3. The wiring is all neat and tidy, everythings placed in a position for best efficiency. This will reduce heat buildup a lot. 4. If anything ever does go wrong, you have a 3 year warranty with them.