New Build, Need Help

[chughes13x]

Hello Everyone,

Coming up within the next month I will be building my gaming pc. Now I will need everything but the GPU as that I will be receiving as a gift for christmas. Also I only require a 120gb boot ssd because I have a few TB WD blacks already. Thanks for any help you can provide

Approximate Purchase Date: This month
Budget Range: $500 after rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, watching high quality movies, listening to high quality music

Are you buying a monitor: No

Do you need to buy OS: No

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.com

Location: MA, USA

Parts Preferences: Intel > AMD (IMO)

Overclocking: maybe

SLI or Crossfire: probably in the future

Your Monitor Resolution: 1024x768

Additional Comments: Again, I just need a 128gb boot ssd for my games and the windows instally and I DO NOT need a GPU at this time.

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: My current PC is 10 years old with only a gig of ram

Again thanks so much,

Connor

 

[ckholt83]

If you're not buying right away, then this would only be a general guideline of what you might want to look for:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
Case: Rosewill REDBONE ATX Mid Tower Case ($32.00 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $408.94
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)


If you can buy during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales, you can likely get better parts by taking advantage of whatever deals are running at the time.

 

[chughes13x]

Bump.......

 

[chughes13x]

If you're not buying right away, then this would only be a general guideline of what you might want to look for:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($64.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($35.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($89.99 @ Microcenter)

Case: Rosewill REDBONE ATX Mid Tower Case ($32.00 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 550W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($49.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $408.94
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)


If you can buy during the Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales, you can likely get better parts by taking advantage of whatever deals are running at the time.

Your total price was short $100 for some reason

 

[ckholt83]

Well it looks like you've edited your original post and maybe updated some of your requirements? Overclocking potential is doable on that budget, but the option to SLI in the future would require a more expensive motherboard and power supply, which is really only feasible if you have a microcenter nearby.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($33.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($78.75 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($65.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $498.70
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-12 21:18 EST-0500)

 

[chughes13x]

Well it looks like you've edited your original post and maybe updated some of your requirements? Overclocking potential is doable on that budget, but the option to SLI in the future would require a more expensive motherboard and power supply, which is really only feasible if you have a microcenter nearby.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($33.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($78.75 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($65.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $498.70
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-12 21:18 EST-0500)

Sadly I don't have a MicroCenter nearby, and most likely I may just get a single GTX 650Ti or 660. Thank you for all you help, most likely going with this build

 

[chughes13x]

Best answer selected by chughes13x.

 

[chughes13x]

Well it looks like you've edited your original post and maybe updated some of your requirements? Overclocking potential is doable on that budget, but the option to SLI in the future would require a more expensive motherboard and power supply, which is really only feasible if you have a microcenter nearby.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($169.99 @ Microcenter)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LK ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($114.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($33.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($78.75 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 750W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($65.99 @ Microcenter)
Total: $498.70
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-11-12 21:18 EST-0500)

Also will there be problems with the challenger not having front panel USB 3.0 ports, or are they backwards compatible with 2.0?

 

[ckholt83]

Your motherboard will have USB2.0 headers as well as the USB3.0 header. So you would simply plug the Challenger's front panel USB ports into the USB2.0 headers and not utilize the USB3.0 header. You will still have the integrated USB3.0 ports on the IO panel of the motherboard itself.

So, you will still have USB3.0 ports, they will just be on the back of the computer instead of the front. All of the front panel ports will be USB2.0, which is totally fine for most devices.

It should also be noted that USB3.0 devices can be plugged into USB2.0 ports. You'd only notice a difference in speed if you had a USB3.0 compatible hard drive or flash drive and wanted to move a bunch of files, in which case you would just connect to the ports in the rear.

Where in MA are you? There's a microcenter in Boston. If that's still too far and you are planning on sticking to a single GPU (which I recommend) you may want to make some changes to the build to get it back inside your budget.

In particular, you could drop your motherboard back down to a B75 or H77 model, and you could get a lower wattage power supply as well. The Antec Neo Eco 520 would be a good option, and is on sale (today only) for $25 on newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

 

[chughes13x]

Your motherboard will have USB2.0 headers as well as the USB3.0 header. So you would simply plug the Challenger's front panel USB ports into the USB2.0 headers and not utilize the USB3.0 header. You will still have the integrated USB3.0 ports on the IO panel of the motherboard itself.

So, you will still have USB3.0 ports, they will just be on the back of the computer instead of the front. All of the front panel ports will be USB2.0, which is totally fine for most devices.

It should also be noted that USB3.0 devices can be plugged into USB2.0 ports. You'd only notice a difference in speed if you had a USB3.0 compatible hard drive or flash drive and wanted to move a bunch of files, in which case you would just connect to the ports in the rear.

Where in MA are you? There's a microcenter in Boston. If that's still too far and you are planning on sticking to a single GPU (which I recommend) you may want to make some changes to the build to get it back inside your budget.

In particular, you could drop your motherboard back down to a B75 or H77 model, and you could get a lower wattage power supply as well. The Antec Neo Eco 520 would be a good option, and is on sale (today only) for $25 on newegg:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

So do you recommend I go with B75 or H77? Thanks for all your help so far!