Building new $750 gaming PC - advice needed

Forum Systems : New Build Building new $750 gaming PC - advice needed

CyberPower

I'm planning on getting a new PC. Since I'm on a budget I can't afford a high-end pre-built PC, so I'm buying all the parts separately.

So far I've come up with this:

Hard drive: None
The prices are way too high ATM, so I'll be using my old hard drive in this new build.

RAM: Corsair vengeance 8 GB (2 x 4 GB) ddr3 1600 MHz - $45.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] PDKIKX0DER

Chassis: Cooler Master HAF 922 - $89.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] PDKIKX0DER

Power Supply: Corsair System Builder series CX 600 v2 (600 watts) - $69.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] PDKIKX0DER

Video Card: EVGA Geforce GTX 560 Ti DS Superclocked 1024 MB - $239.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] PDKIKX0DER

Processor: AMD FX 4100 @3.6 Ghz - $109.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] PDKIKX0DER

Motherboard: Asus m5a97 - $99.99
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] PDKIKX0DER

Optical Drive: Liteon iHAS324 - $19.89
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] PDKIKX0DER

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper N520 - $34.45
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B [...] TVCJXLAJ4K

Total Cost: $709.29

My budget is $750 (without shipping, tax, etc.) Since I already have keyboard, mouse and monitor I don't need those. This build will be mainly used for gaming and surfing the web I'm planning to play Battlefield 3 with it. I'm running a resolution of 1440x900 so that GTX 560 Ti is probably overkill right now. But I'm going to upgrade my monitor anyways.
I also will not be using SLI/crossfire-x.

Any suggestions? Will my PSU handle it? Should I upgrade my MOBO to something better?

Message edited by shockdude on 12-28-2011 at 10:13:37 PM

Reply to shockdude

here's my suggestion, working off newegg. The following system included a 1920x1080 monitor and is faster than the 4100 system you were looking at.

i5-2400: $189.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115074

AS Rock Z68M/USB 3: $89.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813157270

Patriot 8 GB DDR3-1600: $34.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820220569

Corsair CX500W PSU: $49.99 w/ Promo code. plus $20 rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817139027

HIS HD6870 w/ free DiRT 3, plus $20 rebate: $159.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814161389
Not as powerful as the 560-ti, but solid anyway, and enough cheaper to get the monitor

ACER 21.5" 1920x1080 monitor: $109.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824009306

Hitachi 500 GB 7200 rpm hard drive: $79.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822145299

LG 22x DVD burner: $16.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827136240

Rosewill R102 case: $29.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811147111

total: $761.91
shipping $22.99
Rebates: $40

$744.90 after shipping and rebates

------------------------------ We have no wish to offend you, unless you're a twit.
My PC: I5-2400, ASRock H61-VS, Mushkin 4 GB 1333, HD 6850, 2x Seagate 500 GB HDD, Corsair 430W, Rosewill R102 case
HTPC: Phenom I 9650 2.3Ghz, 4 GB DDR2-800, 120gb hdd, HD4850 512MB, Ultra 500W
Reply to ScrewySqrl

Get rid of that FX CPU. Any FX CPU will bottleneck a growing number of game titles and the quad core variants aren't much better than a quad core Athlon II chip. I would put the quad core FX chips between the quad core Athlons and the quad core Phenoms, much closer to the Athlons. Since gaming tends to utilize highly parallel CPUs like the six and eight core FX CPUs extra cores pretty poorly more cores does not help much if at all, depending on the game being played. Phenom II quad core chips represent the best of AMD's gaming performance right now. They are pretty far behind Intel since they are three or four years old so yeah... not good for AMD.

Battlefield 3 is very CPU intensive and will be bottlenecked by pretty much any AMD CPU. The quad core Phenoms may be okay with it if you overclock one of them (Phenom II x4 955 BE or better) but otherwise you would be much better off with a recent Intel quad core chip, preferably the i5-2500K for overclocking and the i5-2400 for non-overclocking systems.

If you are upgrading your monitor to something capable of higher resolutions than 1920x1080 then you will be better off with a similarly (or better) performing video card with more than 1GB of video memory.

Due to your constrained budget I would not recommend this but I will recommend switching to a Radeon 6870. It has similar performance to the GTX 560 ti but can be found much cheaper than the GTX 560 ti.

Grab a Radeon 6870 for about $170 or less. You can also get the Cooler Master Hyper 212 CPU cooler instead of your choice for about $20. It will still take decent overclocks and can get the i5-2500K up to around 4.4GHz easily enough and maybe a little farther with a second fan installed for a push-pull configuration. I own this cooler and put a second fan I had on it and it works great for me. If you get the i5-2400 instead of the i5-2500K then you can either get the hyper 212 or just stick with the stock cooler that comes with the CPU.

Message edited by blazorthon on 12-28-2011 at 11:58:15 PM

Reply to blazorthon

If the monitor is not included in your budget you can switch that i5-2400 in the above poster's build with the i5-2500K and get a decent case because that case is kinda small.

Reply to blazorthon

the case is small, but it works fantastically. You're just limited to 9.25" or smaller video cards (which isn't that hard to do nowadays).

Can that Radeon 6870 fit in that? I don't know how large it is.

Reply to blazorthon

that 6870 from HIS is 9.0" long. In the same case, I have a 6850 that is 9.1" long, so
it will fit.

No problem then but I just don't like small cases like that... I like more room.

Personal preference though, size of case will not effect performance unless heat becomes a problem and I really don't think it will.

Reply to blazorthon