Decent mid gaming build? rate 1-10. (Advise and Questions)

All looks good to me, 650w should be ok for crossfire, think most would go 750w for the extra headroom though. I wouldnt bother with the I7, you will see no performance boost in games.

Thanks, Yeah will look into that!

Are you sure you need the sound card? Also, I've heard many good things about the Extreme3 Gen3 as a mobo. Lastly, if you're overclocking, get a CPU heatsink (Hyper 212 is fine).

Oh, and what games do you want to play? The 7850 will get most games running fine on High, and with your resolution (and a single monitor, right?), it'll probably be able to do Ultra. Especially if you overclock (the GPU)

Not too sure on the sound card, I just thought it might be cool as I've got 5.1 speakers. I will look that MOBO up thanks  . I don't really understand MOBO's. I've not thought about OC but I will look up how to do it. I'm sure it's easy enough.

Errm Skyrim, BF3, Diablo 3, Guild Wars2 when its out, Crysis 2, MW3. All of the games out and the minute and hopefully some in the future. Yup single monitor and also I will overclock the GPU when I read up on it.

Thanks for your help  

Overclocking is easy, but here's what it boils down to (also, I'm not sure about motherboards and GPUs overclocking... don't know if the chipset affects that. Ask someone in the motherboard section   )...

For a budget/low end system, you don't overclock. Ever. This is because it costs extra money to get necessary components/cooling.

For a mid-range system (yours), people tend to overclock. This is because for that upgrade (from, say, $500 to $800... yes, I'm in USD, but yours is even higher), you can get a LOT more performance. But in your build, you have (rightly so, you're playing fps games) invested more in your GPU. Because of that, you have to cut corners elsewhere. Generally, it's in the CPU. Check out tomshardware's latest build ($600 I think)... they had a great GPU but a not-so-great CPU. I don't recommend using their build, since it's not as good as yours, but you can see what they've done... dispensed with overclocking.

So here's what this boils down to. You seemed like your budget was a little flexible. Because of that, I WOULD recommend overclocking (or at least being able to) your CPU. If you are, get the i5-2500k, Extreme3 Gen3 (or Pro3 Gen3, or another good one, like Gigabyte), and Hyper 212. Correct me if I'm wrong, rest of community  .

If, however, you ARE over budget, then cutting out overclocking won't hurt you very bad. This is because the games you listed (or at least BF3, MW3, and other first-person-shooter like games) are more GPU intensive. Starcraft, on the other hand, is more CPU intensive.

By the way, I'm fairly sure the 7850 can max out (or come really close to) most games out there. BF3 is iffy, but you'll get 30fps in it easy. 40 fps isn't crazy, either.

Thanks!, I will have a look. Overclocking does seem a good option indeed! I am toying with the idea of stretching even further getting an i7 but still OC with the correct cooler for ultimate performance! and hope to futureproof for a few years without any more upgrading.

An i7 won't give any performance boost in games, the cash would be better spent on a GPU.

^Exactly what he said. Seriously... the i5-2500k is all you need. It's GREAT for gaming. Anything higher just isn't worth it. I'm not kidding. If you look at most $1500 builds, they've got an i5-2500k too. Tomshardware says it's the highest you should go.

Trust us. You don't need an i7. Especially if all you're doing is gaming (and not mathematical calculations 24/7)

Ahh ok, Thanks for that, silly me. I am really new to this  . So this maybe gives £40 for a better GPU? What would you guys recommend?, I'm not sure on GPU's either is it better having NVIDIA or AMD? and what could I get for say £240 in terms of GFX

I would spend less on the case and get a 7870.

Sounds like a good idea, especially since the case doesn't really matter that much in terms of performance. Is it crucial to have a 'full tower' or is a mid tower just fine?

Mid tower is fine a 912 should save you about 50 quid http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

since you wrote i5 2550K
http://ark.intel.com/products/65647/

well and most people who wrote are saying this

i5 2500k
http://ark.intel.com/products/52210

so if I were you it's better to get the i5 2500K it's cheaper (on most stores) and it's a better buy even if it's just 1$ cheaper


if your looking for bang for buck then i still think the 6850 or the 6870 amd radeon of sapphire is a better buy than the gtx560ti (more expensive) unless they go down the same price tag

Thanks Tavo and Ivan the case looks really good.I think the 2500k is £12 cheaper here in UK. Is that extra 50k and 0.1ghz not worth it at all then ?

I would go with the 2500k it has integrated video (quicksync) and you can overclock the 2500k anyways to get the extra .1 ghz. the i5-2550 is the 2500k without integrated video.

I wouldn't get the 6850 or the 6870 as tavo suggested.

Used can be the same price.  

Ok doke. I'm thinking of getting the 7870 now or the 7850. Depends what I feel is best value at the time. How do the Nvidia cards shape up?? Vs AMD?

Try not to be bias   dependant upon which one you use haha  

Atm, the only new NVIDIA card that has been released is the GTX 680, and that is comparable to the Radeon 7970. You would have to wait until Kepler cards matching the 7870 are released to determine how they fare against Tahiti/Northern Islands/Southern Islands.

The new mid range Nvidia cards aren't you yet so hard to tell. You should be able to play everything at ultimate with the 7870 at 1080p and you can crossfire later when the price drops.

Brilliant!. That sounds great thanks for all the help guys! I will keep you all update and I'm sure I will have many more questions in the future, please post any other useful information on GPU's CPU's etc as I am one big noob with all of it  .

Thanks again

IMO get the I5-2500 and the 7870 even if you have to drop the sound card which I've heared is realy nice and get a cheaper case if thats what it takes.

I will do!, I'm so excited though!   Might end up spending way over budget on stupid LED lights and silly peripherals haha!

You can always get case fans with LEDs for your HAF  

Apart from that, atm Radeon is looking better for mid-range cards. The only thing Nvidia really has to offer is the GTX 560 Ti in terms of competitiveness... the 7850 and 7870 generally trump the GTX 570, and so on (in terms of efficiency). Also, I saw somewhere that Radeon/AMD GPUs are better for BF3. I'm not trying to be biased, and I can't remember where I saw that, but they had more stable framerates with less fluctuations.

I'm not a fanboy, though. I'm getting the GTX 560 Ti for my build, but that's cause I can't afford a 7850/7870. Oh, and someone vouched for 6870. Don't. Just don't.  

HD 7850/70 are great choices, If you are going to overclock the graphics card I'd get the HD 7850, if not get the HD 7870. (The HD 7850 is a great overclocker.)