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LF $800 Gaming Rig for D3, WoW, CS and LoL

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Approximate Purchase Date: 2 weeks

Budget Range: $800(more or less)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Mostly games like D3, WoW, CS and LoL

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg & Amazon

Country: USA

Parts Preferences: by brand or type:

Overclocking: Maybe if it's not too difficult

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: I would like to be able to play the games listed with max settings and I don't mind paying extra for quality parts. Thank you all for your time and I really appreciate your input.

More about : 800 gaming rig wow lol

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I'd wait until the end of the month for Ivy Bridge and get a system based on the i5-3550. It should be about the same price as the i5-2400 with slightly improved performance and slightly lower power consumption. You also get native USB 3.0 and PCI-E 3.0.

Something like this should be more than adequate for the games and the SSD should make the whole system feel quick:

Intel Core i5-3550 - ~$195
G.SKILL Ares Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) - $41.99
ASRock H77M - $83.99
Powercolor HD 7770 1GB - $129.99
Seagate Barracuda 7200RPM 500GB - $79.99
Crucial M4 64GB - $84.99
Corsair CX-430 430W - $44.99
Fractal Design Core 1000 - $39.99

Total - ~$700

If you aren't too bothered about loading/booting times you could drop the SSD and swap the graphics card for the HD 7850 or similar. That would come to around $750 total and should ensure ultra high settings on your games.

I wasn't aware of the i5-3550 but thanks for the head's up. Is it overclockable? If so, would it be difficult to do on the ASRock? Also, I've only bought WD hard drives because I was told that Seagate's reliability went downhill so are they good to go now?

You can technically overclock that processor, but you wont get far, b/c the multiplier is locked.

One thing to think about is upgradibility. Are the games listed the only ones you will be playing for a while? In which case, Jmsellars' build is perfect (+1 Jmsellar). But if you feel like you will be interested in new games (especially the best looking FPS games), I would get a 550 W power supply, to ensure you can upgrade your video card in the future if you feel the need to, as well as not be constrained about additonal hard drives, sound cards etc that you may be interested in.
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The i5-3550 isn't overclockable, you will want the i5-3570K and a Z77 motherboard for that. Probably an extra $30 or so for the mobo and +$20 or so for the CPU.

EDIT: *Isn't overclockable by much

I have used only Seagate drives for the last 8 years or so and I haven't had a single failure personally. I've only had 2 in that time and I only replaced the first one because it was too small.

I think I'll go the i5-3570k, Z77 mobo and a larger power supply in case I want to upgrade to a higher powered graphics card in the future, especially since your build left me some extra money to play with. Are there any recommendations for the Z77 mobo and power supply?

I am not in the market for SSDs right now but I should be in about 6 months or so. Are there any specific brands or models I should pay attention to? My goal is to get a 240GB-256GB SSD. 128GB seems to be proficient but I'm afraid of somehow maxing it out. I could get a 128GB SSD if you feel that my fears are unfounded.

Most people see Intel as the most reliable brand for SSD's, they are quite expensive though. Crucial and Samsung are also pretty reliable and are at a much more reasonable price point. I would stay away from OCZ and some of the cheaper Kingston/Corsair drives though to be honest. Most of the cheaper Sandforce drives are quite unreliable.

Only you know how much room you will need. One thing I will say though, try to keep ~20-30% free all the time. Apparently it helps with garbage collection which will keep the SSD running nice and fast.

EDIT: This PSU is good value at $69.99 and gives you a bit more power along with better build quality and I imagine it's a bit quieter.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...
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