Best Mobo for New Budget Gaming Build?

Seminoi1e

Honorable
May 21, 2012
8
0
10,510
My price range is $120 USD and under and I'm looking for whatever is reliable and won't limit the other hardware I'm purchasing. Looking for obvious things like SATA 3, USB 3.0, AM3 etc. Any suggestions? Also, if anyone would like to comment on my build/offer any suggestions for anything else, I'd greatly appreciate it. Thanks!

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103727

Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345

Hard Drive: OCZ Agility 3 AGT3-25SAT3-120G 2.5" 120GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227726

Graphics: GIGABYTE Ultra Durable VGA Series GV-R685OC-1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125353

Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153

Power Supply: Rosewill RP600V2-S-SL 600W ATX12V v2.01 SLI Ready Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182032
 

willard

Distinguished
Nov 12, 2010
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19,960
Unless you have another hard drive lying around, I'm going to say that an SSD for this build is a huge mistake. 120GB is not a lot of space, especially for a gaming computer. Modern games commonly take 10-30GB. With all the other stuff that has to live on the drive, you're going to be running out of space in short order.

In my opinion, SSDs have no place in budget builds, especially budget gaming builds. You can always add one later and get the same performance benefit, but you're not going to be happy with the computer if you're having to clean out the disk every day just so you can keep using the computer.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator


Finally someone else agrees with me on this! I've been arguing this for the last few days and people are looking at me like I'm crazy. :lol:

I think he's talking about his motherboard. :p

If that's it I certainly wouldn't purchase a Phenom II when the i3-2120 beats it in every single benchmark for the same price.
 

Merueth

Honorable
May 24, 2012
412
0
10,810

Can't argue with that.

OP, I wouldn't trust that PSU. It's not even 80+ rated.

 

willard

Distinguished
Nov 12, 2010
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19,960

I say it pretty regularly, just haven't been posting as frequently the last couple weeks. Every time I said it some idiot comes out of the woodwork and says "But it's so much faster!"

Budget builds are about compromise, not about getting the fastest toys. If you get the SSD, then you have to skimp on something else and hurt overall performance. It's easy to add an SSD later, and only costs as much as the SSD. Replacing your video card with a more appropriate one means you've completely lost the value of the first card, and had to buy the more expensive card anyway.

It's shocking how many people don't understand this.
 

Seminoi1e

Honorable
May 21, 2012
8
0
10,510
I didn't include a mechanical hard drive yet because I won't be purchasing it right away - but I do plan on getting one soon after building the machine. Operating on a tiny SSD would be insane! Haha.

Thank you for the suggestions Merueth.
 

g-unit1111

Titan
Moderator


Yeah I completely agree - it is quite shocking. You don't cut corners on builds to get something that's not obtainable. For instance the $1K builds I see operating a 7970 or 680 are absurd because then you purchase junk cases, PSUs, and mATX motherboards when that fails the whole purpose of the build. I always like to balance out my systems for longevity and that sure as hell doesn't accomplish that goal.
 


I think Don Woligroski would like to speak with you :lol:

Last $1000 SBM
 

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