- Jan 8, 2009
- 17
- 0
- 18,510
~800$ primarily gaming build, adapted from the 1000$ June SBM. I don't care about appearance (I disabled the lights in my case as I sleep next to it); quieter is better; price is very flexible.
All prices from Newegg.
Pretty well settled on the following parts:
CPU: i5-3570K, 230$
GPU: Sapphire 7870 OC, 280$
PSU: Corsair 600W V2, 70$
Case: Antec 300 Illusion, already owned
HDDs: 4xSATA, already owned
Optical: Asus something, already owned
Major questions:
Cooler: I've never been able to tell much of a difference between coolers. Quiet is good, though. I don't know what is and isn't reliable; I've never had one break or malfunction. Do I really need one beyond stock?
SSD: At this point, can I get an SSD for <$100 that will actually give me a performance bump that I'll actually care about? How much shuffling data around is involved in getting use out of an SSD? I tend to cycle through games pretty quickly; am I going to spend a lot of time uninstalling and reinstalling them just to get minor performance increases from the SSD? I assume it doesn't really help with maneuvering through my 10TB+ of media since that's still going to be on HDDs.
Minor questions:
Mobo: ASRock Z77 seems like a good choice, but there are several models within the same general price range (Pro3--95$, Pro4-110$, Extreme4--135$, Performance--140$, etc), and I can't really tell if the minor differences are worth it. I'm leaning towards the Pro4 for no particularly good reason, but I'd love some advice.
Memory: 2x4GB Ares? (45$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231544)
GSkill is my go-to, but at some point they diversified the line to the point where I can't tell what's what other than that Ares is low-profile and I may as well get that in case of... whatever.
Can I save money, quiet it down, or increase reliability anywhere in this without sacrificing performance? Or increase performance significantly somewhere for not much money?
Thanks everyone, these forums have been spectacularly helpful every time I've been here.
All prices from Newegg.
Pretty well settled on the following parts:
CPU: i5-3570K, 230$
GPU: Sapphire 7870 OC, 280$
PSU: Corsair 600W V2, 70$
Case: Antec 300 Illusion, already owned
HDDs: 4xSATA, already owned
Optical: Asus something, already owned
Major questions:
Cooler: I've never been able to tell much of a difference between coolers. Quiet is good, though. I don't know what is and isn't reliable; I've never had one break or malfunction. Do I really need one beyond stock?
SSD: At this point, can I get an SSD for <$100 that will actually give me a performance bump that I'll actually care about? How much shuffling data around is involved in getting use out of an SSD? I tend to cycle through games pretty quickly; am I going to spend a lot of time uninstalling and reinstalling them just to get minor performance increases from the SSD? I assume it doesn't really help with maneuvering through my 10TB+ of media since that's still going to be on HDDs.
Minor questions:
Mobo: ASRock Z77 seems like a good choice, but there are several models within the same general price range (Pro3--95$, Pro4-110$, Extreme4--135$, Performance--140$, etc), and I can't really tell if the minor differences are worth it. I'm leaning towards the Pro4 for no particularly good reason, but I'd love some advice.
Memory: 2x4GB Ares? (45$ http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231544)
GSkill is my go-to, but at some point they diversified the line to the point where I can't tell what's what other than that Ares is low-profile and I may as well get that in case of... whatever.
Can I save money, quiet it down, or increase reliability anywhere in this without sacrificing performance? Or increase performance significantly somewhere for not much money?
Thanks everyone, these forums have been spectacularly helpful every time I've been here.
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