I randomly made $584 and I feel like upgrading...

[Foxhound7]

Hey guys!

So, my best friend wants a gaming PC, but he doesn't want to pay big money for one. I recently came into some unexpected money, so I offered to sell him mine for $300. It has a 6 core Phenom processor, 8GB of ram, a 700w PSU, a Radeon 6850, an okay mobo, and a Cooler Master case so he should be all set for what he wants to do.

So, that $300 plus my $584 gives me at least $884 to put towards my new build. I'm thinking Intel this time around with their new Ivy Bridge chips out. Below is what I've come up with.

SAMSUNG 830 Series MZ-7PC128D/AM 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (for the OS)
Price: Free (already had it)

1TB Western Digital 3.5" HDD (for all my games and stuff)
Price: Free (already had it)

Windows 7 Ultimate
Price: Free (already had it)

Nvidia GeForce GTX 560
Price: Free (already had it)

Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139005
Price: $179.99

ASUS SABERTOOTH Z77 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131821
Price: $239.99

Rosewill Xtreme Series RX750-S-B 750W Continuous @40°C ,80 PLUS Certified, ATX12V v2.2 & EPS12V v2.91, SLI Ready CrossFire Ready, Active PFC Compatible with Core i7, i5 Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182067
Price: $89.99

Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504
Price: $229.99

CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ16GX3M4A1600C9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233143
Price: $97.99

KINGWIN HDM-225 Internal 2.5" to 3.5" HDD Metal Mounting Kit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817990015
Price: $5.99

TOTAL: $843.94 (before shipping)

I don't mind spending a little more money out of pocket if you think an i7 would be worth the jump. I'd just like to know what you guys think. I'm a gamer (obviously) and I'd like something that will be able to play most everything on max settings. I have Crysis 2 and I was able to max that out on my old rig and have it run between 30-40 FPS (as long as there weren't TOO many explosions on screen, lol).

Also, I've gotten into the Source Filmmaker beta so I'd like to know if this will be able to handle the rendering and whatnot required to capture the in-game footage and be able to output it into an .avi or .mp4 file without too much trouble (or too much time). I'm using my machine at work right now and the picture quality there is pretty abysmal (I do work at a video game company, though, so the machines there aren't too bad).

As always, I appreciate all the help you guys have given me over the past couple years. Hope you all had a good 4th of July!

Cheers!
Ben

 

[shubham_66]

If you want to do hardcore gamming with light to meadium video rendering, then i5 is perfect.
But for high video editing, go for an i7.

You dont need a 750W PSU unless u r planning for SLI and overclocking.
550W will do just fine.

If planning for SLI in future and some OC, then get 600-650W PSU

 

[FinneousPJ]

You're spending too much on case, mobo, RAM. You only need 8 GB RAM for gaming.

If you're looking at max settings on everything you need more GPU power first and foremost. Simplest would be to get a second 560 for SLI or to sell yours and go for a HD7870-7950 or whatever your funds allow.

 

[Foxhound7]

I chose that case because a friend has it and I've gotten to see it first hand. It's a pretty awesome case. The MOBO has everything I'll need, as far as I can tell, plus it has a 5 year warranty and the thermal armor looks so damn cool. As far as the RAM goes, I figure it's an extra $40 to double up from 8 to 16 so why not? I went with a 750w PSU because I do want to do SLi down the road and don't want to have to upgrade it again. My only concern is that the PCI Express ports apparently run slower the more you plug into them? I'm not exactly sure, they explain it better in the video review they do of it on the Newegg product page. Can anyone explain how that works?

 

[boiler1990]

I chose that case because a friend has it and I've gotten to see it first hand. It's a pretty awesome case.

Keep in mind that a case is a case in the end. Corsair's certainly look nice, but other than that I have found no reason to spend $150+ on one of their mid towers when I could get a better full tower for under that (case in point - Silverstone RV02).

The MOBO has everything I'll need, as far as I can tell, plus it has a 5 year warranty and the thermal armor looks so damn cool.

It's seriously just plastic. It also has no real function since the parts that get hot have metal heatsinks as usual. You can usually get better deals off of Gigabyte and ASRock boards.

As far as the RAM goes, I figure it's an extra $40 to double up from 8 to 16 so why not?

You're on a relatively small budget, so $40 here and there adds up. Cut out $100 from the case, $40 from the RAM, $120 from the Mobo, and you're looking at a GPU better than the GTX 560 (GTX 660 is supposedly coming out first week of August around $250-300).

I went with a 750w PSU because I do want to do SLi down the road and don't want to have to upgrade it again.

There are better 750W units for the same price, and GTX 560s in SLI won't draw close to that much power. If you upgrade to a GTX 6XX card, you'll end up with a very low power card (GTX 670 draws 170W max).

My only concern is that the PCI Express ports apparently run slower the more you plug into them? I'm not exactly sure, they explain it better in the video review they do of it on the Newegg product page. Can anyone explain how that works?

PCIe controllers can handle a certain amount of information through those ports, referred to as bandwidth and represented by a number: x1, x4, x8 or x16 (higher = more bandwidth). Those slots are generally fixed bandwidth or can vary. As long as the slots do a minimum of x8 (which they should), you won't notice any issues or differences.