Finalizing a budget build

[mohomine]

Approximate Purchase Date: Within a month
Budget Range: ~$1000
System Usage: Gaming
Parts Not Required: Keyboard & Mouse
Country: Eastern Europe - forget about components that are not mainstream and special offers
Overclocking: No and not planning to ever
SLI or Crossfire: No and not planning to ever
Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050

Current draft is as follows:
* Intel i3 2130
* ASRock P67 Pro3 (B3)
* EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 448 FTW 012-P3-2066-KR
* Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX (750GB 64MB cache)
* LG 22" E2210T-BN
* 2x2GB of 1333MHz RAM(Corsair or Kingston most likely)

Only PSU and the case left. PSU should be simple enough, but the case... if anyone can recommend me a good case with as little bling/bloat as possible that would be great.

Sadly, 64MB cache version of Caviar Black 500GB or 640GB is unavailable here so I'm forced to go with 750GB. It's not all bad though as I planned on short-stroking the HDD anyway(Three partitions, 50GB each, rest left empty). I am kind of worried about the Caviar Black hovewer because you can only find the 1TB+ versions of tomshardware HDD 2012 charts. Do low sized Caviar Blacks suck? Or are the charts simply for top-end rigs?

The monitor is pretty much set in stone because it's absolute WASTELAND here when it comes to 16:10. It's a miracle that I managed to find one with such amazing brand-new technology as LED.

The rig is for gaming but I have no qualms about turning settings down and constant 30+ FPS is enough for me. Hovewer I do want it to last a long time(~5 years, depends on how soon the next generation of consoles will roll out since that's the driving force behind graphics quality nowodays...).

Can I expect price drop on Sandy Bridge when Ivy rolls out?

 

[jmsellars1]

Looks OK, I would go for a cheaper H67 (or H61) motherboard and a cheaper 500GB hard drive in favour of an i5-2400 though personally. I think a quad core would last you a lot longer.

For cases around the $40-60 mark, take a look at the Antec 100 or 300. They're both good cases. The Coolermaster Elite 430 is another good one. The Xigmatek Midgard and Bitfenix Shinobi are also good.

 

[g-unit1111]

Looks OK, I would go for a cheaper H67 (or H61) motherboard and a cheaper 500GB hard drive in favour of an i5-2400 though personally. I think a quad core would last you a lot longer.

For cases around the $40-60 mark, take a look at the Antec 100 or 300. They're both good cases. The Coolermaster Elite 430 is another good one. The Xigmatek Midgard and Bitfenix Shinobi are also good.

The Antec 100 or Elite 430 would be the best out of those case choices.

I really hate H61 though and will never recommend it unless it's like a budget HTPC build - on a full desktop system - H61 is a huge no due to the limited expansion and upgrade options. This is usually the H67 board I recommend: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813121508

Can I expect price drop on Sandy Bridge when Ivy rolls out?

No - I thought prices on X58 CPUs would drop when Sandy Bridge was released - but they're still going for $300 - $400.

The rig is for gaming but I have no qualms about turning settings down and constant 30+ FPS is enough for me. Hovewer I do want it to last a long time(~5 years, depends on how soon the next generation of consoles will roll out since that's the driving force behind graphics quality nowodays...).

If you're considering a 560TI - you might want to see if you can track down one of the new Radeon 7850s (not sure what what brands are available in Eastern Europe). They're based on a far newer architecture than the 560TI is and easily beat it in multiple benchmarks:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/radeon-hd-7870-review-benchmark,3148.html