$400 gaming pc?

[kevin83]

I'm on the quest for a $400 gaming pc for modern games like Crysis 2 and BF3 on mid-level settings. I've found a set of components that does the trick:

Case + PSU: Rosewill R218-P-BK-450W - $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147082

Motherboard: H61M-DGS - $50
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157315

CPU: Pentium G860 - $90
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116405

RAM: G.Skill NS 4GB (2x2GB) - $24
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231396

Graphics: EVGA GTX 560 SE - $130
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130770

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 250gb - $55 after promotion
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136771

Which comes to $399. My biggest questions have been if it would be a huge problem to go with a scorpio blue drive instead while prices are so high and if anyone knows about the overclockability of the GTX 560 SE. Any other suggestions are welcome.

 

[guerrero]

Go for the HDD now, I might get it.

 

[Hotshot805]

Also, I suggest buying some type of optical drive, otherwise you won't be able to download BF from a disk. And with that, if you are going to try and overclock then you might need to buy a cooler or more fans, because I don't think 1 fan will do.

 

[Sephypoo73]

Looks fine to me, I'd stick with what you have there... switching from a 7200RPM drive to a 5400 RPM wouldn't make much sense if you can get the Caviar Blue for $55-60.

The GTX 560SE is certainly better than anything else at that price, whether it has much overclocking headroom or not. Personally I wouldn't push it too hard anyways if you don't have much in the way of case cooling.

 

[jerreddredd]

with that psu that is in the case I would not be worried about OCing the GPU, I would be more worried that it doesn't the PSU doesn't fry.

realizing that you are on a budget, so you are sort of stuck with the rosewill case/PSU combo, I suggest you go with this GPU instead.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127664

the HD 7770 performs as well, if not better than the 560SE and use 48% less power and runs very cool. it is also overclockable.

Go for the HDD, since HDD's are so high right now.

 

[Sephypoo73]

with that psu that is in the case I would not be worried about OCing the GPU, I would be more worried that it doesn't the PSU doesn't fry.

realizing that you are on a budget, so you are sort of stuck with the rosewill case/PSU combo, I suggest you go with this GPU instead.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127664

the HD 7770 performs as well, if not better than the 560SE and use 48% less power and runs very cool. it is also overclockable.

Go for the HDD, since HDD's are so high right now.

^This is a much better idea if you're on a budget actually. Slightly cheaper and much more power efficient... which is a nice bonus if you have a sub-par psu as you don't want to push it to the max.

 

[kevin83]

Okay I'm definitely convinced about the 7770 being much more power efficient than the 560 se but I still can't find a good benchmark of the card. It will probably be a toss up depending on the usage environment.

 

[Altiris]

Can you actually play decent games with this? I was looking at the CPU and noticed its a Pentium, but the graphics card is good. So could you give me a list of what you think it could run, like Call of duty and Left 4 dead 2?

 

[kevin83]

The recent system builder marathon used a cpu with 85% of the power and a graphics card with twice the power to run very high end games like BF3 at 1920x1080. I believe that it would probably be a better idea to stick with the pentium 860 and use lower settings.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

Okay I'm definitely convinced about the 7770 being much more power efficient than the 560 se but I still can't find a good benchmark of the card. It will probably be a toss up depending on the usage environment.

the 7770 was benchmarked here on tom's when it came out, it fell just a bit under the 6850 in capability, at much lower power usage.

 

[kevin83]

sorry I meant a benchmark of the gtx 560 se. Yeah I know it is certainly quite powerful for the price segment.

 

[guerrero]

Can you actually play decent games with this? I was looking at the CPU and noticed its a Pentium, but the graphics card is good. So could you give me a list of what you think it could run, like Call of duty and Left 4 dead 2?

It's a Sandy Bridge from September I believe

 

[jerreddredd]

sorry I meant a benchmark of the gtx 560 se. Yeah I know it is certainly quite powerful for the price segment.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?279314-Early-Benchmark-of-nVIDIA-GTX560-SE
http://community.futuremark.com/hardware/gpu/NVIDIA+GeForce+GTX+560+SE/review
http://www.3dcenter.org/news/erste-benchmarks-zur-geforce-gtx-560-se

 

[kevin83]

So The 560 se is slightly better than the 7770, with a lot of overclocking potential, and the 7770 is more power efficient than the 560 se and vastly more powerful than the 550 ti. Makes sense.

 

[guerrero]

The se is more powerful then the ti? :0

 

[jerreddredd]

So The 560 se is slightly better than the 7770, with a lot of overclocking potential, and the 7770 is more power efficient than the 560 se and vastly more powerful than the 550 ti. Makes sense.

I would say the 560se and 7770 are about equal, both have OC potential and both are significantly better than a 550ti. you can't go wrong with either pick. my concern is really, the weak PSU in your system. I would go with the 7770 because of that alone.

 

[dansgas1000]

Pentium + gtx 560 ti is bottle neck I think gt 640 would actually be good and it's very cheap.

 

[guerrero]

Pentium + gtx 560 ti is bottle neck I think gt 640 would actually be good and it's very cheap.

Its not a ti and for the toms hardware $500 pc they used a celeron and 560ti lol

 

[kevin83]

Best answer selected by kevin83.