~ GAMING BUILD ~ $1200-1500

[MrMiyaNeko]

HELLO !
I'm trying to build up the best Rig for my budget so i could finally play my favorite and upcoming games without crying because i can't push it on High-Ultra.
No better place to ask for help and advice than on these forums

SO PLEEEEASE Tom's Hardware ! PIMP MY RIG !


Approximate Purchase Date: Around May 15th

Budget Range: $1200-1500

System Usage: GAMIIIIING ! I intend on playing TERA, Blade & Soul, Upcoming MMO's & Skyrim, Witcher 2, Crysis 2 and couple other FPS games.

Parts Not Required: Need everything ! Building from scratch !

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: I use www.shopbot.ca to find the best prices ! I love DirectCanada.com & Bestdirect.ca because their prices are really good and they ship for free. Additional websites would be NCIX.ca and Newegg.ca if there are good deals.

Country: Canada

Parts Preferences: Would like to go with Intel so not really sure if i'd decide on buying a IvyBride CPU but the mobo definitly needs to be IB compatible.
No particular preference on Nvidia or ATI.

Overclocking: Yes.

SLI or Crossfire: In the future surely Yes.

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080 ( Would prefere between 23" - 24" Monitor )

Additional Comments: Would need an after market cooling system. Air or Water. ( Only for CPU and shouldn't be ugly xD )
I am going to go with a HAF X Case, I don't think on changing my mind on that.

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What i already consider on getting: ( I await feedbacks and advice if anything should be changed or not )

Coolermaster Haf X EATX Tower Case $176.00

ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DirectCU II Fermi 830MHZ 1GB $218.54

OCZ FATAL1TY Series 750W ATX 24PIN SLI Ready Modular $66.24 ( after rebate )

Corsair Vengeance Red 8GB 2X4GB $66.28

Western Digital Caviar Black 500GB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 32MB Cache $102.60

Razer Naga Special Edition - Molten $59.99

Alienware TactX Keyboard (N495N) $79.99

ASUS VS248H-P 24IN Widescreen LED LCD Monitor 1920X1080 2MS 50M:1 $182.89

Lite-On IHAS124-04 Internal DVD Writer $17.99

TOTAL : 970.52

Thank you for your appreciated Help !

 

[azeem40]

Unless you plan on running more than 2 cards in SLI/CF, ditch the Full Tower Case. Get the 500R and use the $50 on a Radeon 7850. If you are willing to sacrifice the KB and Mouse, you can get a Radeon 7950, which will help a lot for gaming, moreso than the KB and Mouse.

 

[MrMiyaNeko]

Thank you for your response.

I do intend on running in SLI/CF, that is why i love the space in a HafX + I love the looks even if it's not that cheap.
I found alot of 7850s at around ~240-260$. Could i ask which one's should i get ? There are alot of non reference models :/ Should i get an OC version or not worth the extra $ if possible to achieve that on myself ?
Thank you !

 

[g-unit1111]

Unless you plan on running more than 2 cards in SLI/CF, ditch the Full Tower Case. Get the 500R and use the $50 on a Radeon 7850. If you are willing to sacrifice the KB and Mouse, you can get a Radeon 7950, which will help a lot for gaming, moreso than the KB and Mouse.

Actually I'd say go even lower and get the HAF 912 pr a Carbide 400R and then get a Radeon 7870 or GTX 670. I'd also ditch the expensive peripherals and get those later.

Try this setup:

Case: Corsair Carbide 400R - $109.99
PSU: Corsair TX650 V2 - $99.99
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77XP-UD3H - $169.99
CPU: 3.3GHz Intel Core i5-2500K - $219.99
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo - $34.99
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaw X 1600MHz 1.5V - $46.99
SSD: 64GB Crucial M4 - $99.99
HD: 1TB Seagate Barracuda - $109.99
Optical: Lite On DVD Burner - $19.99
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 - $349.99
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium - $99.99
Keyboard / Mouse: Logitech MK120 - $17.99
Monitor: Acer V233HAJbd Black 23" 5ms Widescreen LCD Monitor - $139.99

Total: $1524.87

A little over budget but you get a way better video card, an SSD, an awesome case and really good PSU. You sacrifice the keyboard and mouse but on the initial build I *NEVER* recommend plunking down $150 on peripherals when you can always get those later. Concentrate on getting the best GPU you can get for the money, get the accessories later.

 

[MrMiyaNeko]

Thanx g-unit1111

Yeah you guys are right, i'll ditch the Mouse/KB for now and get a way better parts with the extra $$
I don't really like the other cases as much as the HAFX so i don't know about that.
I found better prices for some of the parts you listed so i'm gonna look into that.
As for the graphics cards, i think i'll go with the 7850 rather than the 7870, i know it got better performance but not that much for me to pay 100$ on that. So my question is, should i get a card that is OCed and pay a bit more or do it myself ? 860ghz vs 920ghz OC.
And what about the CPU, shouldn't i wait for IvyBride ?

 

[azeem40]

You won't have a use for the HAF X.

 

[g-unit1111]

Thanx g-unit1111

Yeah you guys are right, i'll ditch the Mouse/KB for now and get a way better parts with the extra $$
I don't really like the other cases as much as the HAFX so i don't know about that.
I found better prices for some of the parts you listed so i'm gonna look into that.
As for the graphics cards, i think i'll go with the 7850 rather than the 7870, i know it got better performance but not that much for me to pay 100$ on that. So my question is, should i get a card that is OCed and pay a bit more or do it myself ? 860ghz vs 920ghz OC.
And what about the CPU, shouldn't i wait for IvyBride ?

The problem with the HAF X isn't just the size but the price - you don't want to cut back on the GPU if you can help it.

The 7870 is great - I hooked mine up last night and I was playing Skyrim on ultra high res settings on 1080p and it didn't skip a frame.

As far as the CPU goes - you can wait for Ivy Bridge but honestly I don't think it's going to be the significant performance increase everyone thinks it's going to be - the biggest selling factor that I can see is that it unlocks PCI Gen 3 - and if you plan to use a 680 - that's where it will benefit the most.

 

[azeem40]

Since he is building at that time anyway, I don't see a reason to not get IB considering that it will be the same price as when SB was released.