$600 - $650 Gaming PC Advice Needed

get a CPU mobo combo at microcenter u can pick up nice P67 mobo for dirt cheap
Nvidia recommends at leas 550W PSu for 560Ti so no .. will not work

If you going to a microcenter.

Get a CPU+ motherboard combo. Get a z68 motherboard not a P67.

Yeah, the 560ti will work with a 450w. Make sure it is 80% efficient. don't overclock.

Thanks guys. I've not built a PC in over 5 years so i'm completely lost if you cannot tell. What is the difference in a z68 and p67 motherboard?

Also I updated my first post with a motherboard that has enough expansion slots for me.

It's newer tech.

One main feature to get it over the P67. Imagine if your GPU suddenly conked out, with a p67 you can do nothing until you replace the whole thing. If you had a z68 motherboard, the motherboard can make use of the IGP that the CPU has and you would still have a working computer.

You might want to grab this at your local microcenter if it has a deal on em.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Or an Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 z68 board.

Thanks for the info cutebeans.

I just looked on microcenter.com but didn't see any i5 bundles. I guess I'll go in store on my lunch break one day this week to see if there are deals not advertised online.

Thanks for the links/models. I'll check in store this week to see what I can find. Maybe they will have some black Friday deals too.  

Thanks again  

Your corsair 450w is a quality unit, and will have no problem with your current card. If anything, the 2500K will be even more efficient than your current cpu.

I do have a problem with the ocz 700w unit. You might want to read this:
http://www.eggxpert.com/forums/7/323050/ShowThread.aspx It can deliver 46a on the +12v rails.

By comparison the Antec EarthWatts EA-650 GREEN 650W can deliver 54a, well worth the $10 difference.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

The GTX560Ti needs 500w with 30a on the 12v rails plus two 6-pin PCI-E power leads.

A TX580 needs 600w with 42a on the 12v rails plus one 6-pin and one 8-pin PCI-E power lead.

A lesser psu would do your job, but a quality unit of any wattage will still cost $70 or so.

Do some shopping, any unit from Antec, Corsair, PC P&C, XFX, or seasonic will be of good quality.

Last I saw, microcenter had the 2500K for $180 for walk in customers.

Yeah don't worry. I think most deals are not advertised online.

Good to know. I never actually knew about Micro Center (didn't have one close to my house during my last build) until I started researching this build. I've yet to get into the store. Thanks for all your tips! I'll post up what I find and hopefully I can get back into my price range with a combo deal  

In regards to the PSU my current one is efficient up to 85% and offers 33A on the 12V rail. So it seems it should be good with no overclocking.

The PSU calculator also showed that 700W would be good enough to overclock to 4.8ghz with 2 GTX 560 Ti. However, should i go with a 750-800W PSU since I may also overclock the GPU(s) later?

It is not wrong to overprovision the psu a bit. A psu will run quieter and more efficiently in the middle third of it's range. It will only consume the wattage that it needs.
You are looking at $100-$150 for a quality 750w unit.
My short list of quality units would include Seasonic, Corsair, Antec, XFX, and PC P&C.
Keep your eyes open for sales this time of the year.

I would not count on much from overclocking a graphics card. The manufacturers are wise to this and bin their chips. The best ones go into superclocked cards which can be sold for a slight premium. One exception may be the EVGA "classified" cards which are designed to be overclocked highly. They come at a price premium.

I believe this

$69.99 - PC Power & Cooling Silencer 760W]PC P&C Silencer 760W meets the specs you listed earlier. It's also $69.99 in store.
It has 62A on the +12V rail, so it should run 2 GTX 560 Ti right?

cutebeans said:

You might want to grab this at your local microcenter if it has a deal on em.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

Or an Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 z68 board.

They had neither of these boards in store. However, they had quite a selection of other boards.

I narrowed down the in store choices to these three motherboards, anything I should look at when choosing one over the other? Note: (prices are before the $60 discount)

$149.99 - GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H

$139.99 - GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3

$129.99 - MSI Z68A-G45 G3


I also saw 2 cases that seemed decent in the store and would cost about the same as what I have selected now.
Cases:

Current selection: $42 NZXT GAMMA Classic Series GAMA-001BK

I found these cases in store, any thoughts?

$39.99 - Cooler Master Elite 430

$34.99 - Antec Three Hundred



Also, is there any reason to spend the extra $10 on the MSI Twin Frozr II 560 Ti over the GIGABYTE 560 Ti?

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better cooling for MSI
also don't listen to people who say 400W is enough for ur system
500W minimum

I guess I'll stick with the MSI since it's only $10 more.

Also, I guess I'll probably just upgrade to 760W PSU when I get the GPU just to be safe since I found one locally for $75!

Thanks!


Now to bed, and tomorrow I'll research my case and motherboard options more in hopes of narrowing those down before the sales this weekend.

Ok guys, thanks to all your help. I think I have my list nailed down pretty good but with one last question.

Is there any reason to get the $149 motherboard (below) over the $139 one (below)? As far as I can tell the main difference is the ports that are available and the color? Is this correct?

• $149.99 - GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H
• $139.99 - GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3


Thanks!

Without looking the links, I would guess the $150 is a better overclcoker.

http://www.gigabyte.us/products/comparison/list.aspx?ck...
looks pretty much the same just quantity of ports is differnet

thanks guys. I'm going with the more expensive board since its only $10 and the black will go much better with my red RAM. It does seem to have a few additional features as a bonus too.

I did change the heatsink and case to more than offset the cost difference however   I now feel that this is a pretty powerful $630 build! However, I'm hoping to find some Black Friday or Cyber Monday deals to get my price below the $600 mark  

Got all my parts in today. Unfortunately, the A70 will not fit because of the cooling fins on my RAM.

What kind of performance hit will I take if I run the memory in channels 1 and 2 instead of 1 and 3 like the motherboards states?

it might not run .. u have to put it in those slots ... shouldve got low profile one

Reread your motherboard manual. Usually you can run using either pair of slots, depending on how they are numbered. 1&3 or 2&4.
If you put all sticks on the same channel, you will run in single channel mode, assuming the mobo is ok with that. That is not really a bit performance hit. perhaps 2%fps?

Also, you should be able to slide the impacting fan up higher on the cooler so it misses the ram heat sinks.
Missing a little area won't hurt at all.

Thanks Geo. The A70 has a shroud that surrounds the fins on all 4 sides. However i starting playing with it at your suggestion and found a little extra space on one side. I then rotated the fan and put the extra space at the top and it now fits without modification, and with the RAM in the right slots!

Thanks again. Now to get it booted up!





Yeah, I unfortunately didn't do enough research on the heatsink. I was wondering why it had a shipping weight of over 4 lbs until I received it. This thing is larger than my power supply with the fans installed. Luckily I got everything to work.