Gaming PC - Up to 4K u$

emzk · Apr 27, 2012

Hi, I'm from Brazil and I want to buy PC components as my mother is going to travel to USA and things are a lot cheaper there than in Brazil.
I'll try to build it myself here, if things get hard, I'll pay to someone to build it.
I see a lot of people saying that 2k-3k is more than enough to build a gaming PC. All I want is a gaming pc that will play games like BF3, Skyrim, Diablo 3 with everything maximized, or almost everything. And a PC that can last for 2-3 more years.
The less I spend, the better.

Approximate Purchase Date:
05/06/2012 - 05/18/2012

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Budget Range:
Up to 4.000,00 U$

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System Usage from Most to Least Important:
Gaming, watching movies and web surfing.

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Parts Not Required:
Monitor, Speakers, Case and OS

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Country:
Brazil, but I'm going to buy the components in USA.

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Preferred Website(s) for Parts:
I'd prefer retail stores, if there are any near my mothers hotels Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino Las Vegas (didn't find the address) and Millenium Biltmore Hotel LA (http://www.millenniumhotels.com/millenniumlosangeles/index.html).
The two stores I know from USA are newegg and bestbuy

Does Newegg have a retail store? I sent an email asking if I can buy from Brazil and ask my mother to pick up the stuffs at their pick up store (I checked google maps, it says it takes 30-40 mins to get there from my mother's hotel, is that right?)
Bestbuy is also an option, but I don't know if everything they have listed on their site is really available at any of their retail stores.

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Parts Preferences:
CPU = Intel
Motherboard = ASUS*

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Overclocking:
Maybe, never did it. I'll try it if I see it's nothing hard.

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SLI or Crossfire:
Maybe. Do I need SLI or XF to attend the conditions I mentioned above?

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Monitor Resolution:
1920x1080

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Additional Comments:
Will I need a sealed WC or air cooling should do fine?
Need to know, so I can choose my case.
I want a quiet PC, I guess with a sealed WC I won't have anything to worry regarding maintenance.
Something like a Corsair H100 should do fine?

I guess the 3 good options I have here in Brazil are:
-Thermaltake Level 10
-Thermaltake Level 10 GT
-Corsair 800D
I guess these three can fit everything.
If there are other options, can you tell me? I'll see If I can find it in Brazil.

Thanks in advance, and sorry if I wrote something wrong.

vitornob · Apr 27, 2012

Do not forget to add the 50% tax in parts that you buy there.
Easily you could bring an i5-2500k + GTX 680 (if found available, if not, go with 7970)

niknovacain · Apr 27, 2012

If you have 4k you should do multiple GPU's. Why not. And you know you can't have an AMD mobo with an intel processor right?

emzk · Apr 27, 2012

I don't really need to worry about the taxes. Things would be different if the stuffs were sent via post mail.
I only found the GTX 680 on Best Buy's site, but I don't know if it will be available at the stores.

There is no problem using differents brands, and I don't thinkg I need multiplu GPU's for gaming.

FinneousPJ · Apr 27, 2012

$1500-$2000 max is all you need if you're not going for eyefinity and all that.

hellfire24 · Apr 27, 2012

emzk · Apr 27, 2012

Thanks for the suggestion.
Is Gigabyte a good mobo brand?

This chart is very good.
If I SLI GTX 680 or XF 7980, how many FPS can I achieve in 1920x1080?

Also I was thinking in buying a OCZ Revodrive X2 SSD, but I don't understand about the PCIe connections.
If I SLI or XF, what mobo should I get to be able to use the OCZ Revodrive X2 SSD?

Why you say sealed WC doesn't worth? Well I don't know, but I don't think 100U$ is expensive, maybe I could use the H100.

About the cases, I think these are the best options I can find here.
I'll try to see if I can find this Corsair 500R here.
What are the good cases brands?

87ninefiveone · Apr 27, 2012

Gigabyte is a great brand. They've been around forever and are very trusted. I can't speak to how good the warranty service out of Brazil might be though...

A single GTX 680 will easily get you 60-100 fps in any game out there on ultra at 1080p. That card is an absolute monster, it's basically the equivalent of having two GTX 560 Ti's in SLI minus the heat and noise problems.

Be careful with Revodrives. They're great for performance once started up, but they delay system startups substantially as the card goes through self check at each power up. A good quality SSD will hugely speed up system boots while still providing great load times once you're up and running.

H100 is a great cooler. Do beware though that there are a lot of complaints with problems out of the box. Corsair has impecable customer service in my experience but replacement service to/from Brazil may be slow.

Corsair, Antec, Lian Li, Coolermaster, and Silverstone all make great cases. Once you get into the $100 range on casses the amount of features and quality go up dramatically compared to some of the stuff priced under $100. I own both Corsair 500R and 600T cases and they're both great. I like the styling of the 600T better, but the 500R has better cooling and features (LED's can be turned off, fan controller is better, more fans).

Finally, as stated previously $4,000 USD is overkill. You can build a killer system for half that, or a really decent system for a quarter of that amount.

emzk · Apr 27, 2012

Will a Corsair Force GT be a good choice? They seem to have the best read/write speed.

I think GTX 680 are out of stock almost everywhere.

I guess Corsair should have a good service here in Brazil too.

I heard about Lian Li, but this one I know I can't find here. I've seen some Coolermaster.

I was just thinking to spend a little more because here, everything is too expensive and I don't know when I'll have another opportunity to get these components for a cheap price. So I want this computer to last 2-3 years more running games on ultra.
Just to have an idea. Prices here in Brazil are 1.8x in sites like eBay and + 2.0x in good stores.

neon neophyte · Apr 27, 2012

i wish people would stop mentioning the gtx 680 like its actually a choice for a builder atm. it was a paper launch people... it may as well not been released

CaedenV · Apr 27, 2012

OK, a few things.
1)Intel and AMD are completely different platforms and cannot work together for CPUs and Motherboards. AMD graphics cards will work fine on an Intel system as they are platform agnostic.

2) ASUS and Gigabyte are the 2 top brands right now for motherboards, and ASRock and MSI are good budget boards (though with your price range there is no need for a budget board). Something in the $150-200 range should suit your needs, and make sure it has a z68 or z77 chipset on it with a 16x and 8x, or 8x and 8x PCIe configuration (for duel cards it does not matter if it is PCIe2 or 3)

3) For SLi and xFire you can expect somewhere between a 50-80% increase in FPS at 1080p on any given game with any given settings. However, anything over 60fps is just wasted horsepower unless you have a monitor that happens to be 120Hz/fps capable (but that is still pretty rare today). Most likely a single GTX680 or 7970 will last you quite well for a very long time, and in a year or two when you feel the need to upgrade you should have no problem picking up a 2nd card for 1/2 the price, or replacing the card with the next best thing. Keep checking online stores for availability. The GTX670 will be released soon, which will push demand for the 680 down a little bit, and production is still ramping up, so in a few weeks you should have no problem picking up one of these cards.

4) EVGA for nVidia cards, and Sapphire for AMD cards is generally the way to go, but any high end card maker is going to be pretty good.

5) Quad core is all you need, and hyper threading is simply not supported by video games, so an i5 2500 or 2550 is about as good as you can get for gaming unless you are using more than 2 GPUs. This may change in 2 years when the next gen consoles come out, but quad cores will still be more than enough horsepower for most games at extremely high settings (or at least higher than console settings). Plus in 2 years we should have Haswell CPUs out which should have 6-8 cores in them anyways. The only exception to this is if you are willing to wait for the Ivy Bridge i5 CPUs to come out in a month or so, which will have the advantage of PCIe3 support, but really this is not required.

6) For ram look for 1.5V DDR3 1600 or 2133 ram, and stay away from sticks that have really tall heat sinks (like the Corsair Dominator series). They work fine, but can interfere with some oversized coolers. Timings really do not matter unless you are doing extreme OCing with your memory which is not suggested unless you really know what you are doing. Personally I like Corsair and g.Skill, but there are plenty of other decent brands out there for memory.

7) LianLi use to be one of the best case manufacturers back in the '90s, but over the last 10 years they have really not kept up, and simply tend to be expensive with no added benefit. They still make some neat and slick looking cases, but there are several other better manufacturers out there now. Personally I like Corsair and Fractal Design for looks and features because they make cases that look very sleek and professional while offering tons of features even in their budget models. Thermaltake and Cooler Master also make some decent cases, but they often delve into designs that look like something that a teenager with too much money to burn would like... which really does not suit my tastes; but to each his own.

8) Newegg does not have a retail store. For PC parts try Bestbuy (which tends to be expensive and lacking in selection), Fry's electronics (which has excellent prices, but tends to have lower quality products, but has an excellent return policy... which you cannot take advantage of in Brazil), or Microcenter (which actually beats online stores on some prices like CPUs, Mod parts, SSDs/HDDs, Ram, but has terrible prices on other things like motherboards, software, and accessories).

9) While watercooling is fun it often has very little effect on cooling performance unless doing major overclocking and is simply not a requirement for extreme builds like it use to be. I have an i7 2600, and even at 4.2GHz I am only running ~40*c when under full load with a $30 CPU cooler. Granted you may need a little extra cooling power in Brazil where things are quite a bit hotter than where I live, but you should still be able to have sufficient cooling with a $30-60 air cooler even when pushing a system up to 4.5GHz or beyond.
If you do choose to do a water cooler then be careful about shipping if you assemble the computer before moving it down to Brazil! The last thing you want is to get water, or whatever other cooling fluids are used in LCLs all over your parts, and you have no idea how rough transport companies are going to be to your equipment.

10) With your budget consider getting a bigger/higher resolution screen. 1080p is just a starting point these days. I like my 1200p screen, and would love to have 1600p if I could afford it. According to Intel we should expect screen resolutions to skyrocket in the coming years

Well, that is about it. Hellfire has an excellent set of parts, and if you deviate from them just be sure to take my suggestions when looking for alternatives. $2000 should be an overkill computer that will play at the highest settings for a good long time, and provide a platform that will have reusable parts for several rebuilds.

boulbox · Apr 27, 2012

neon neophyte :

well it is the best choice for how much he is spending so why not mention it.

7970 are great to but don't perform as well as a 680.

If you want your system now XFX Double D FX-797A-TDBC Radeon HD 7970 Black Edition 3GB

its a great GPU you can go to the cheaper one slightly cheaper ones as performance wouldn't be that much of a difference but the cooler on this one is excellent.

NOTE: you won't see a difference in 1-5 frames per second.

neon neophyte · Apr 27, 2012

because it was a paper launch...

emzk · Apr 27, 2012

Thanks for the information. It did help me.

My mistake. It should be Asus motherboard, not AMD.

When I get home I'll check Gigabyte mobos and also these stores you mentioned.

I'll use air cooling. Any brands suggestion or can I stick to the ones that comes with the case? I heard a lot about Noctua.

Yes, I was trying to find 120hz monitors, but I just can't. Didn't find any 1200/1600p monitors here. Guess they didn't arrive here yet.

For now:
Processor - i5 2500K
Graphic Card - GTX680 if available, if not then 7970
Keyboard - Logitech G19

boulbox · Apr 27, 2012

emzk :

Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm

these are great but look a bit ugly on a lot of computers as it doesn't fit in the color scheme

other than that zalmans and coolermaster are great

zero888 · Apr 27, 2012

Just watch out for the parts when being brought over. You may get a customs fee and it's quite likely a part may come damaged since your bringing it over from another country. Also account for the time it will take to RMA a product in case the above happens.

Other than that you should have no problem building a gaming pc with $4k. These guys give good opinions on what you should choose for your configuration.

-Note- create 3 diffrent configs: budget, mid-range, and high-end to compare the prices and see whether you can make changes to configure a better system while at the same time save $$$.

emzk · Apr 27, 2012

About the custom fees, I don't think it's going to be a problem as my mother will bring the components in her luggage.
I will ask her to wrap the boxes with a lot of clothes to prevent possible damages.

Well Intel, Asus, EVGA and Sapphire they all have RMA in Brazil. Maybe they can complain about the product being bought in USA and not in Brazil, but in the worst case I guess I can pay them.
Noctua doesn't have RMA here and Corsair does. But I guess I won't have any problems with Noctua fans, only hear good things about them, right?
Or maybe I should get a Corsair fan to get RMA.

Yes, I'll dig a little more and post here so you guys can give me more opinions.

zero888 · Apr 27, 2012

emzk :

Noctua fans are great and have heard they cool your system really good, however I wish they could at least have a different color scheme. Btw how big is the luggage your mom is using cause all that stuff is pretty big and heavy too lol.

emzk · Apr 27, 2012

She can bring 2 luggages with 32 kilos each. She's going with a friend and her friend won't bring anything, so I could have an extra space.

zero888 · Apr 27, 2012

emzk :

Ah my bad. Read that you didn't need the case so all is well XD

emzk · Apr 28, 2012

Yes, she won't bring the case.

As I don't know what will be the availability of the components, I'll be making a list with more than 1 option.
From the most wanted to the less wanted in each component:

Maybe I still change for IB generation.
Processor:
1) Intel i5 2500K
2) Intel i7 2700k (Before 2600K because the price difference is not big)
3) Intel i7 2600K
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I know everyone says 4GB is enough for gaming, 8GB is more than enough. But I think with 16GB I'll be more future proof.
Memory RAM:
1) 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Dominator GT Series
2) 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill Trident X Series
3) 16GB (2x8GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X Series
4) 16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Vengeance Series
5) 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Dominator GT Series
6) 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Trident X Series
7) 8GB (2x4GB) G.Skill Ripjaws X Series
8) 8GB (2x4GB) Corsair Vengeance Series
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Besides EVGA for NVidia and Sapphire for Radeon which one are also good? Trying to extend my option list. ZOTAC, XFX, Diamond? Also, in case I decide SLI/XF, will I need anything else beside the 2 Video Cards?
Video/Graphic Cards:
1)EVGA SC Signature GeForce GTX 680
2)EVGA Superclocked GeForce GTX 680
3)EVGA GeForce GTX 680
4)Sapphire OC Radeon HD 7970
5)Sapphire Radeon HD 7970
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I think if she can't find none of these, I'll see how it goes with the original fans (I guess these processors come with a CPU Fan in the box) and then if necessary, change them here in Brazil. The same for the other case fans.
Cooling:
1) Corsair H100
2) Antec H20 920
3) Intel RTS2011LC
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Keyboards:
Need more options! Help please!
1) Logitech G19
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Mouse:
Keyboards:
Need more options! Help please!
1) Cyborg R.A.T. 9
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Headset:
Need more options! Help please! I don't think I can find this one in stores, only in their online site.
1) Astro A40
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The motherboard Still my biggest problem, which one should I get from Asus or Gigabyte (Z77)?
With my budget I guess I can buy a good one, if not the best.
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Just an opinion about the PSU, I'm going to buy it here in Brazil. Corsair 1200AX is a good option? What other brands are good?

Everything Ok? Opinions/suggestion please!

Thanks for the help guys.

hellfire24 · Apr 28, 2012

^let me make it short for you-
2500k+8gb ripjaws x+evga gtx 680+612 pwm+sidewinder x4+g500+fatal1ty+ud5h=a great high end rig!
links to the components-
612-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103106&Tpk=612%20pwm
x4-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823109191&Tpk=sidewinder%20x4
g500-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104318
fata1ty-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826158082
ud5h-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128545

azeem40 · Apr 28, 2012

CaedenV :

OK, a few things.
1)Intel and AMD are completely different platforms and cannot work together for CPUs and Motherboards. AMD graphics cards will work fine on an Intel system as they are platform agnostic.

2) ASUS and Gigabyte are the 2 top brands right now for motherboards, and ASRock and MSI are good budget boards (though with your price range there is no need for a budget board). Something in the $150-200 range should suit your needs, and make sure it has a z68 or z77 chipset on it with a 16x and 8x, or 8x and 8x PCIe configuration (for duel cards it does not matter if it is PCIe2 or 3)

3) For SLi and xFire you can expect somewhere between a 50-80% increase in FPS at 1080p on any given game with any given settings. However, anything over 60fps is just wasted horsepower unless you have a monitor that happens to be 120Hz/fps capable (but that is still pretty rare today). Most likely a single GTX680 or 7970 will last you quite well for a very long time, and in a year or two when you feel the need to upgrade you should have no problem picking up a 2nd card for 1/2 the price, or replacing the card with the next best thing. Keep checking online stores for availability. The GTX670 will be released soon, which will push demand for the 680 down a little bit, and production is still ramping up, so in a few weeks you should have no problem picking up one of these cards.

4) EVGA for nVidia cards, and Sapphire for AMD cards is generally the way to go, but any high end card maker is going to be pretty good.

5) Quad core is all you need, and hyper threading is simply not supported by video games, so an i5 2500 or 2550 is about as good as you can get for gaming unless you are using more than 2 GPUs. This may change in 2 years when the next gen consoles come out, but quad cores will still be more than enough horsepower for most games at extremely high settings (or at least higher than console settings). Plus in 2 years we should have Haswell CPUs out which should have 6-8 cores in them anyways. The only exception to this is if you are willing to wait for the Ivy Bridge i5 CPUs to come out in a month or so, which will have the advantage of PCIe3 support, but really this is not required.

6) For ram look for 1.5V DDR3 1600 or 2133 ram, and stay away from sticks that have really tall heat sinks (like the Corsair Dominator series). They work fine, but can interfere with some oversized coolers. Timings really do not matter unless you are doing extreme OCing with your memory which is not suggested unless you really know what you are doing. Personally I like Corsair and g.Skill, but there are plenty of other decent brands out there for memory.

7) LianLi use to be one of the best case manufacturers back in the '90s, but over the last 10 years they have really not kept up, and simply tend to be expensive with no added benefit. They still make some neat and slick looking cases, but there are several other better manufacturers out there now. Personally I like Corsair and Fractal Design for looks and features because they make cases that look very sleek and professional while offering tons of features even in their budget models. Thermaltake and Cooler Master also make some decent cases, but they often delve into designs that look like something that a teenager with too much money to burn would like... which really does not suit my tastes; but to each his own.

8) Newegg does not have a retail store. For PC parts try Bestbuy (which tends to be expensive and lacking in selection), Fry's electronics (which has excellent prices, but tends to have lower quality products, but has an excellent return policy... which you cannot take advantage of in Brazil), or Microcenter (which actually beats online stores on some prices like CPUs, Mod parts, SSDs/HDDs, Ram, but has terrible prices on other things like motherboards, software, and accessories).

9) While watercooling is fun it often has very little effect on cooling performance unless doing major overclocking and is simply not a requirement for extreme builds like it use to be. I have an i7 2600, and even at 4.2GHz I am only running ~40*c when under full load with a $30 CPU cooler. Granted you may need a little extra cooling power in Brazil where things are quite a bit hotter than where I live, but you should still be able to have sufficient cooling with a $30-60 air cooler even when pushing a system up to 4.5GHz or beyond.
If you do choose to do a water cooler then be careful about shipping if you assemble the computer before moving it down to Brazil! The last thing you want is to get water, or whatever other cooling fluids are used in LCLs all over your parts, and you have no idea how rough transport companies are going to be to your equipment.

10) With your budget consider getting a bigger/higher resolution screen. 1080p is just a starting point these days. I like my 1200p screen, and would love to have 1600p if I could afford it. According to Intel we should expect screen resolutions to skyrocket in the coming years

Well, that is about it. Hellfire has an excellent set of parts, and if you deviate from them just be sure to take my suggestions when looking for alternatives. $2000 should be an overkill computer that will play at the highest settings for a good long time, and provide a platform that will have reusable parts for several rebuilds.

Actually, ASRock is about to steal the #2 spot from GIGABYTE soon.

neon neophyte · Apr 29, 2012

asrock make the nicest boards, id say. overall, in general

emzk · Apr 29, 2012

About SSDs, between Corsair Force GT and OCZ Vertex 3, which one is better?

Gaming PC - Up to 4K u$

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