Just a wee bit of help...

[Lhoraxia]

HI!
when i first decided to build a "gaming rig" i was like, "its like expensive legos! how hard could it be?"
so i started doing research and immediately fell in love with all of the intricacies, and finer details of building my own PC... and now that i feel i have hit a plateau with what i can figure out on my own i decided to seek out some aid, and maybe be able to help others too!

my budget is 600USD, however 500 is better. may be able to go as high as 700 but that is seriously pushing the limit. so thats my incredibly obscure budget.

what i want to do is run games like skyrim, crysis, farcry 3, S.T.A.L.K.E.R series and the like, on full blast (high to ultra settings with highres txture packs) but only in 720p since i game from the couch on my t.v. and i find the hud difficult to read on higher resolutions.

my current "rig" is a HPg60 laptop lol... all i can play is FFXI, Black Isle games, deus ex, system shock 2. not complaining, but anything is a step up from here.

so here is what i got!
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CASE: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153
Rosewill challenger $50
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HDD: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136771
WD blue 250G $60

don't need too much storage i usually only istall a few games at a time.
and i thought i could save some money here untill prices go back down for me to
upgrade.
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VGA: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125443
Gigabyte GTX660 OC 2g $230

i wanted to spend the most on this componet because i dont want to try to upgrade
this anytime soon. AC3 is a lame free game... farcry 3 looks SO much better but from
what i have read... radeon cards make me nervous. i need a card that is durable,
and will last me at least a year. also, reliability with drivers and stuff. no scary
"this game doesnt work with your $200 card right now, but we will fix it in a month or 2"
went with gigabyte cause it looked like it ran the coolest, but at the expense of blowing all
the heat everywhere else.
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PSU: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817152028
Raidmax hybrid 2 530w dual 12v rails v2.2 $40

this choice makes me a little nervous cause in all my hunting i've only figured out
what watt i need but the amperage factor is confusing to me... also... this is really
cheap. i dont want to run the risk of my new build getting fried cause the quality of
the psu wa snot up to par.
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Memory: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231277
g.skill ripjaws 4g $27

its 1600 ram... might go 2x 4 gigs though
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MOBO: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128550
GIGABYTE GA-H77-DS3H LGA 1155 Intel H77 $100

i went here for the price, gigabytes customer service, as well as the pci 3.0 support
H77 to save money since i dont plan to sli
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CPU: www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116775
intel i3 3220 ivy $130

again price/performace thought about the amd 4170... but it didnt bench as well for my
needs... i will use amd for my music recording/htpc build though.
also ivy bridge pci 3.0 support. but will this bottleneck?
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if there is a way to shave 50 or 100 off and still suit my needs/ without being too
risky on quality that would be awesome! but if i need to spend more to soothe my
fears (like the psu) then i guess i'll have to turn anorexic for a month and look gross

is newegg a good place to buy? i've read they use some kind of really bad delivery
company that had a bad reputation for delivering to the wrong addy all the time...


THANK YOU SO SUPER MUCH IN ADVANCE!

 

[smorizio]

if you have a local micro center or one that you can drive to the i3 3225 is less money then the new egg cpu and micro center giving you 40.00 if you bundle it with one of there mother boards. look at micro center flyer under computer parts. also they have 500g sata drives for 57.00. myself i would pick up 8g of ram and a good 650w power supply. as your not playing it on a pc monitor at high rez you could drop down to a 7770 or 650ti card.

 

[twelve25]

At this price range, I'd go fx-6300 and a Radeon 7870. for games the fx6300 is as good as an i3, but for most other things the 6 cores of the AMD really shine. The 7870 outperforms the GTX660 for less money. If you've heard B.S. like Nvidia is more reliable and has better drivers, that's fanboy talk from 15 years ago. If you really feel like you have to go Nvidia, then that's up to you, but you are going to pay a little more for a little less.

That raidmax is not something I would buy. Also, I think for $60 you can find a 500GB on sale.

I'll try to throw together a build for $600-700. Remember to add another $90 or so for windows, too.

 

[twelve25]

What do you know, after my Nvidia lecture, the GTX660 ended up being the best price right now! I still think 7870 is a little better, so definitely watch out for deals.

Here's what I'd buy with your budget:

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tt1H
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tt1H/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/tt1H/benchmarks/

CPU: AMD FX-6300 3.5GHz 6-Core Processor ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970A-D3 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($89.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Blu 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($63.72 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($207.55 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($54.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Rosewill Green 530W 80 PLUS Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($49.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($16.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Total: $636.21
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2012-12-21 00:32 EST-0500)

Parts flexible of course. Motherboard was chosen because you like Gigabyte and that had a good combo deal with the 6300.

 

[smorizio]

twelve if there a micro center near the op the 7870/7850 are cheaper then new egg listed price it in there flyers and online.

 

[twelve25]

twelve if there a micro center near the op the 7870/7850 are cheaper then new egg listed price it in there flyers and online.

There aren't very many Microcenters in the country, so I generally assume that's not an option.

 

[Lhoraxia]

this is true... i looked up the nearest microcenter and the closest one to me is a 10 hour drive.... yikes!...

okay... so... i have some burning questions,

disclaimer: i am not a fanboy i swear, all of the following statements are true to the best of my knowledge, but may be entirely false and i am willing to accept that...

SO... 2 componets are challenging my paradigm right now.

1. cpu... as i understand it, intel is totally the way to go with a gaming pc. even the toms hardware article on best gaming cpu q4 2012 admits to that. in a fx4170 4.2 ghz against the i3 3.1 ghz benchmark the i3 does way better. and only uses 55w instead of amds 125w i was not sure how this was possible until i read that it had to do with the architecture and the way it handles single threads (maybe i'm butchering it but i'm sure you guys get what i'm trying to say)
moreover, games these days barely ever use more than two cores... some might use four on occasion. so when i think about buying a six core AMD based on the previous "facts" i wonder if thats really the way to go for my gaming build. and if it is... i would love to know why, so that when i buy it i can know exactly why i bought it instead of an i3 or i5...

2. VGA... i can see how nvidia fanboy talk might be the case, however... id really would like to try radeon. i just cant find a card that compares to gtx660 in performance at the same price with similar power consuption...
but i honestly can't find too much info about radeon... what about it is better aside from being a "budget" card... my biggest thing is not taxing the card, i will not OC, and i want a card that WOULD run games on high-ultra in 1080p but run them in 720 cause i want the card to have a decent lifespan (is this school of thought false?) i hear that radeon is also not reliable in the longevity area...

all the info i've found says to go intel/nvidia for gaming... but whenever i look at what people actually BUILD i see AMD/radeon EVERYWHERE! its really confusing! WHY!

i'm totally fine going AMD/radeon or anything really... i just want to know why its a good way to go... if you got links to benchmarks and stuff that'd be cool too... not trying to start a debate... just havent found much info supporting AMD and radeon for gaming...

 

[Lhoraxia]

also... can i edit the title of this tread... as it is no longer just a "wee-bit" of help, which i feel is very misleading... and i feel kinda sorry now...

oh yeah... and what about nvidias phys-x... it looks to make a huge difference ans seen in the newegg "borderlands 2 on gtx 660" video...

and does the amd fx zambezi support pci x 3.0?

 

[twelve25]

The FX 4100 series (last gen) were pretty weak. I would not recommend one of those. (or 6100 or 8100 series) but the new generation (those with a 3 in the second digit) perform very well with reduced power usage. They still use a little more power, but the 6300 definitely keeps up with the i3 for single core stuff while outperforming on multi-core most of the time. That's why I wouldn't get an i3 unless you really, really care about those 35W a ton or are trying to build something with poor cooling. And many new games DO use multi core now. Having more than 2 cores can really smooth out the gameplay even if sometimes a dual core intel might have higher peak fps.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/fx-8350-8320-6300-4300_6.html#sect0



GTX660 and 7850/7870 are all in the same ballpark. Most benches put the 660 in between the 7850 and 7870, but a few have the 660 pulling ahead. Power consumption is essentially the same, but if anything the 7800 series are slightly ahead:

http://www.techspot.com/review/572-nvidia-geforce-gtx-660/page11.html


Regardless, you will be happy with any combination of i3, fx6300 and 7870,660. If your gut is telling you to go Intel/Nvidia, then do it. I'm just giving my opinion. In the end we sit and argue over 5fps and 10 seconds of video encoding time like it's ever going to make a bit of difference in real life.

 

[Lhoraxia]

oh wow... i didn't realize it was that close! lol... okay cool... ummm what about phys-x... i'm not sure i fully understand that concept yet... and does the 6300 support pci express 3.0?

 

[twelve25]

I don't think any AMD chipsets support PCI 3.0, but it's a non factor. I don't know of any video cards that can saturate x16 2.0 slots.

I don't know anything about physx myself, but not that many games even make use of it.

 

[Lhoraxia]

thanks... i'll work on another build and come back later tonight... THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE HELP!