gannon17001

Distinguished
Dec 29, 2011
4
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18,510
Hi all, I plan on pulling the trigger for most of these today since a lot of sales and rebates end today, but I just wanted to see if this build is okay for a first timer. General usage will be gaming, internet, etc. Hopefully it will last me a decent amount of time. My budget is ~$900-$1000, but I need windows 7. Also debating whether or not I should get a new monitor since my old one is a 6 year old 19 inch Dell. Thank you!


Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 912 $50

GPU: SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 $150

PSU: COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M600 $60

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) $44

MOBO: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard $125

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K $205

Cooler: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO $35

HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500 GB SATA III 7200 RPM 16 MB $85

Optical Drive: Asus 24xDVD±RW Drive $22

OS: Windows 7 $100
 
Solution
I have a grudge against two things. That case and that video card...

If I were you, I would save myself $10 and get a Rosewill Challenger case. The case looks roomy, has a MoBo cutout, and looks like it has some pretty good cable management. Also, Rosewill is a part of Newegg so you really can't go wrong with them.

The video card... If I were you, I would spend $15 more (after rebate) and grab an EVGA GTX 560. They have a decent performance increase over the 6870. But, if you really wanted to hit the sweet spot in terms of the performance/dollar ratio then I would COMPLETELY recommend going with a gtx 560 ti. 2 of those in SLI (later down the road) blows any other single selling card on the market! They're GREAT. The lowest one out...

NeutralEnergy

Distinguished
Nov 22, 2011
186
0
18,710
I have a grudge against two things. That case and that video card...

If I were you, I would save myself $10 and get a Rosewill Challenger case. The case looks roomy, has a MoBo cutout, and looks like it has some pretty good cable management. Also, Rosewill is a part of Newegg so you really can't go wrong with them.

The video card... If I were you, I would spend $15 more (after rebate) and grab an EVGA GTX 560. They have a decent performance increase over the 6870. But, if you really wanted to hit the sweet spot in terms of the performance/dollar ratio then I would COMPLETELY recommend going with a gtx 560 ti. 2 of those in SLI (later down the road) blows any other single selling card on the market! They're GREAT. The lowest one out there right now is a Gigabyte gtx 560 ti and it's $210. Well worth the money to get one.

Oh and also... That motherboard scares me. Especially that company. AsRock tends to be extremely buggy with their products (I'm on one right now). I recommend getting an Asus or Gigabyte motherboard. Both are great top-of-the-line manufacturers. Their motherboards are definitely worth getting.

Hope this helps!

-Neutral
 
Solution