Gaming PC at or around $1000

[mushrambio]

Greetings friends. I'm new to the site but from what I've seen from looking around there seems to be great input and knowledge so I decided to test my fate for my upcoming gaming machine. I've gathered the template and here is what I'm looking for:

Approximate Purchase Date: First week of May 2012

Budget Range: At or around $1000 (rebates or not)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, video/music editing and storage, web browsing

Parts Not Required: monitor, keyboard, speakers, mouse

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: i only really know of newegg and tigerdirect

Country: (e.g.: India) US

Parts Preferences: Intel processor but I can be convinced to go AMD - that's about it for preference

Overclocking: N/A

SLI or Crossfire: not sure

Monitor Resolution: n/a

Additional Comments: the quieter the better; i've dealt w/ a noisy fan for 4 years.

Thanks guys, I look forward to seeing what you come up with. I appreciate the help!!

 

[g-unit1111]

Here you go:

Case: Fractal Design Arc MIDI - $99.99
PSU: Seasonic M12II 620W - $89.99
Motherboard: Asrock Z77 Extreme 4 - $169.99
CPU: 3.30GHz Intel Core i5-2500K - $219.99
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo - $34.99
RAM: 8GB G.Skill Ripjaw X 1600Mhz 1.5V - $46.99
HD: 1TB Samsung Spinpoint F3 - $109.99
Optical: Lite On DVD Burner - $17.99
Video Card: Power Color Radeon HD 7850 - $249.99

Total: $1,039.98

 

[mushrambio]

Nice!!! Quick response too, I appreciate it! I'm also looking into adding a solid state drive in addition to the HD; thoughts, suggestions, insight? Also maybe replacing the DVD burner w/ a solid/good priced Blu-Ray/DVD combo burner? Not too sure of anything else, but are there any alternatives to what you've provided around the same specs/price? I don't want to sound un-appreciative; I just want to see different options I could go with. Again, I appreciate the research and help!!!

 

[g-unit1111]

Nice!!! Quick response too, I appreciate it! I'm also looking into adding a solid state drive in addition to the HD; thoughts, suggestions, insight? Also maybe replacing the DVD burner w/ a solid/good priced Blu-Ray/DVD combo burner? Not too sure of anything else, but are there any alternatives to what you've provided around the same specs/price? I don't want to sound un-appreciative; I just want to see different options I could go with. Again, I appreciate the research and help!!!

If you're going to up your budget to include an SSD and/or Blu Ray burner you should really put that money into the GPU first if gaming is your priority - the right GPU can often make or break a build's performance.

If gaming is second and you're using your computer for other tasks I can definitely see where an SSD or BD-R burner would come in handy but most cases make adding or removing drives easy anymore - you can always add those after you get the build up and running.

 

[mushrambio]

Good point - so what alternative GPU's do you suggest for the additional money instead of adding a SSD?

 

[Hucklecat]

I'v always been a nividia fan boy so if you want to up the ante with GPU, I'd personally go to a 570ti geforce, heres a helpful site for comparing benchmarks.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/293?vs=306

I'm not exactly as computer savvy as some of these others guys are though, but its all personal preference I believe when it comes down to AMD or Nividia.

 

[g-unit1111]

Good point - so what alternative GPU's do you suggest for the additional money instead of adding a SSD?

Depends on how much you want to spend - I just bought a 7870 and it's quite amazing - around the $350 range. The 7950 can be had for about $50 - both are amazing.

I'm interested to see what the 660 and 670 bring to the table but that won't be for another month or two.

 

[aicom]

I'd second the 7870. It's a fantastic card.

 

[mushrambio]

Depends on how much you want to spend - I just bought a 7870 and it's quite amazing - around the $350 range. The 7950 can be had for about $50 - both are amazing.

I'm interested to see what the 660 and 670 bring to the table but that won't be for another month or two.

If it's worth it, I'll spend the extra money that's required for a solid card that will last me a few years. If you think the 7870 will do the trick for some time I'll go with that instead, or the nVidia counter-part (the 570?)

 

[mushrambio]

Also, it may be a dumb question but will it work with the i5 cpu you suggested?

 

[odwillia]

If it's worth it, I'll spend the extra money that's required for a solid card that will last me a few years. If you think the 7870 will do the trick for some time I'll go with that instead, or the nVidia counter-part (the 570?)

Go with g-unit's build and add the 7870 instead of the 7850 and you will not regret it. I also just added a 7870 as well and it is a great card.

 

[boulbox]

BTW if you are near a microcenter or at least cane drive/bus ride go over there they have a great deal on i5 2500k if you can get there u can probably spend some extra cash on a 64gb ssd just to boot up fast if not a 128 gb crucial m4 or mushkin either will do the trick just a fan of crucial for their service(note: win7 takes about 60 gb of space but u can reduce it to 30) also since it said N/A on overclock u can also move down from i5 2500k to i5 2400(i5 2500 isn't that worth it since its about $20 cheaper than the unlocked version)

build if you are not near a microcenter:
Case/Ram: IN WIN Dragon Rider Black 1.0 with Kingston HyperX 8GB @ 1600 - $162.98 (note: this case is kind of big i hope you will have room)
Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo - $34.99
MOBO/CPU combo: BIOSTAR TZ77XE3 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 with i5 2500k - $319.98
PSU: SeaSonic X Series X650 Gold - $139.99 (I'm a fan of Seasonic but an alternative can be CORSAIR Professional Series HX650[url] it is very cheap right now at 110 with rebate)
Optical: [url=http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827106289]Lite On DVD Burner - $17.99
HDD: Samsung by Seagate Spinpoint F3 500gb - $79.99
SSD:Crucial M4 64gb - $84.99
Video Card: EVGA 012-P3-1570-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) - $299.99
$1140.90 w/o rebates a little over budget if it is to over budget you can get rid of the ssd and upgrade the hdd to a TB

 

[mushrambio]

which 7870 should i go with? i noticed g-unit you have the sapphire...

 

[g-unit1111]

Also, it may be a dumb question but will it work with the i5 cpu you suggested?

Yeah - GPUs aren't CPU specific - anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.

As long as your motherboard has one x PCI x16 lane you're good to go.

which 7870 should i go with? i noticed g-unit you have the sapphire...

Sapphire makes solid cards - you can't go wrong with them. My work PC is using an older 5830 that I've had for 3 years and it still works fine for what I need it to do. XFX and Power Color are also good choices for Radeon cards.

 

[mushrambio]

@boulbox - thanks for an alternative build! it's good to have options, and you bundled some thing also which were pretty neat.

though, i'm leaning towards g-unit's build mainly because of the parts brands and the reviews i've seen on them. but i do like the ssd you included (pretty fair price) and the PSU you showed was pretty nice also!

 

[mushrambio]

Yeah - GPUs aren't CPU specific - anyone who says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about.

As long as your motherboard has one x PCI x16 lane you're good to go.

which 7870 should i go with? i noticed g-unit you have the sapphire...

Sapphire makes solid cards - you can't go wrong with them. My work PC is using an older 5830 that I've had for 3 years and it still works fine for what I need it to do. XFX and Power Color are also good choices for Radeon cards.

what do you think of the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H as an alternative to the Asrock?

 

[Pezcore27]

for the extra $20, if you can swing it I would. It's a nicer board. I have one waiting for me when I get home from work. Will be doing some upgrading this weekend

 

[g-unit1111]

what do you think of the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD5H as an alternative to the Asrock?

I've been going back and forth between getting one of those two boards for my system - I've had good success with Gigabyte for my last two builds, either one is good.

 

[mushrambio]

I've been going back and forth between getting one of those two boards for my system - I've had good success with Gigabyte for my last two builds, either one is good.

this might sound dumb but will the asrock work w/ ivy bridges (for future upgrade)?

 

[Pezcore27]

this might sound dumb but will the asrock work w/ ivy bridges (for future upgrade)?

any Z77 motherboard will work with the Ivy Bridge processors straight out of the box. The older Motherboards like the Z68, H67, H61 will need a bios update to work with them.

 

[mushrambio]

is there a third possible mother board option around the same price that could potentially out-do these two or are on the same lines?

 

[azeem40]

More solid Radeon brands are MSI and GIGABYTE. The Twin Frozr III is stays very cool.

 

[mushrambio]

More solid Radeon brands are MSI and GIGABYTE. The Twin Frozr III is stays very cool.

those are gpu's tho right?

 

[g-unit1111]

those are gpu's tho right?

I'm personally more of a fan of the smaller vendors like Sapphire and EVGA because they're wise to overclocking and will not only tweak their products accordingly but actually encourage it.

 

[boulbox]

@boulbox - thanks for an alternative build! it's good to have options, and you bundled some thing also which were pretty neat.

though, i'm leaning towards g-unit's build mainly because of the parts brands and the reviews i've seen on them. but i do like the ssd you included (pretty fair price) and the PSU you showed was pretty nice also!

if you are stuck on his build here is a $20 off for the same cpu and mobo combo

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.877692