Gaming Build

Hey guys, Friend asked me to build a computer for him explicitly under 2 Grand, so here goes.

Approximate Purchase Date: Pretty soon, maybe saturday.

Budget Range: Under $2000

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, and Adobe and Movie Editing stuff.

Parts Not Required: Just need the system hardware, no periphs

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg for now, just to get a good price estimation. Then cheapest places, I have a Tigerdirect and Microcenter near my house so I will probably go there for most of the stuff.

Country: USA

Parts Preferences: Intel, AMD GPU.

Overclocking: Yes

Crossfire: Eventually

Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080

The Build,

CPU: Intel i7 2700K

Cooler: Zalman CNPS9900MAX Blue

MoBo: MSI Z68A - GD80

Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X

Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB

Solid State: Corsair Force Series GT 120 GB

Video Card: Asus 7970

Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D

Power Supply: Seasonic X Series 1050w

Optical Drive: Asus 24x

Tell me what you guys think. All suggestions are much appreciated.

Some suggestions add to the cost but still good to consider.

CPU: i7 2600k would be pretty much as good and you could probably save a bunch.

CPU: cooler If you are spending that kind of money on a cooler, you might want to go all in and get a Noctua NH-D14.

Mobo: Good choice, Asus P8Z68-V Pro Gen3 possibly as well.

Memory: Possibly go for 16GB if he is serious about video editing, otherwise the 8 should be enough

SSD: That is a good option, Samsung 830 would be a great one as well and Crucial M4 as well.

Video Card: With this budget probably the best choice.

Case: Price range is right at least, Lots of other cases in the same range as well. If he likes that one it is a solid choice.

PSU: Can't go wrong with Seasonic, 1050W might be a touch overkill even, but at least it won't be a problem later


It is fine as is, above some comments on possible selections.

I would say 900W.

Here is a very good one at a cheap price: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6817371050

Sadly, there aren't any good quality Modular PSUs at the 900W mark.

The certification rating is good, but the brand is not.

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-2700K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($365.98 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($36.98 @ PC Mall)
Motherboard: MSI Z68A-GD80 (G3) ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($198.49 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($47.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($123.45 @ Adorama)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card ($588.49 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair CC650DW ATX Mid Tower Case ($169.47 @ Mac Connection)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 1050W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($231.82 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($26.97 @ Newegg)
Total: $1789.64
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-01-18 15:33 EST-0500)

It should have all the juice needed. For fraps it is important that the drive you record to doesn't have OS or the game you are playing it will greatly improve the experience.
So if you run the game and OS from an SSD and then record onto the HDD with that system you should be able to do it easily.

Extra memory obviously helps since you can just capture into memory instead then and write to disk when finished, or at some intervals.

What you have listed now seem to be fine. But it seems that the SSD got dropped out of the build at some point, so if that was the intended to be there, then that is missing.