Budget Ivy Bridge

[crds27]

Approximate Purchase Date: This week

Budget Range: Less than $1000; preferable range: 600 - 800

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Programming, Excel/word wok, gaming, etc

Parts Not Required: Display, mouse, keyboard, hard drive, speakers.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Amazon and maybe newegg

Country: USA

Parts Preferences: Intel Core i5-3570K CPU

Overclocking: Maybe

SLI or Crossfire: No

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: This computer will be used for work and light/moderate gaming. To that extent, I would prefer not to buy a graphics card.
As a result, I would like to construct this build with a Intel Core i5-3570 , allowing me a good combination of cpu power and decent gaming capabilities.

 

[TheBigTroll]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/aElv

i included the SSD as it is awesome and will make your system load things much faster than a hard drive. after you use the SSD, you will never go back to a hard drive.

the hd4000 graphics is good enough for low settings in most games

 

[crds27]

That looks pretty good, although I think I might replace the case with an antec 300 illusion instead of the 300 2.

Interestingly, it seems that, without a video card, I will only need around 180 ~ 250 watts of power(or 400 if i ever want to get a vid card) for this build. Do you have any recommendations for that watt range?

 

[TheBigTroll]

302 is better than the illusion. it has usb 3 and has much more space for cable routing

i chose this power supply since it is very high quality and is semi-modular making cabling very easy

 

[TheBigTroll]

the power supply should be able to handle any single GPU video card

 

[Merueth]

I added a basic discrete card, as Intel 4000 is pretty terrible compared to the GTS 450.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($121.50 @ Newegg)
Memory: Crucial Ballistix sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($46.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Mushkin Chronos 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($93.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTS 450 1GB Video Card ($99.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Power Supply: Rosewill 450W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($55.25 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($98.99 @ B&H)
Total: $804.68
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)

 

[crds27]

@TheBigTroll

USB 3 and more room ? Nice, I think I'll go with that case then. For the power supply, I was looking at the seasonic you suggested as well as this antec 550w , which seems like a slightly inferior model but I would save around $20. Everything else looks super .

@Merueth

I'm already set on a bunch of parts now, but the video card add on seems interesting. After checking out a bunch of benchmarks, it would see that purchasing a card like the gts 450 would more than double my graphics power. That is definitely something that I will consider, else I'll might get it down the road eventually.