Hello everyone.
I've been looking into building my ~first~ desktop gaming rig and the build I'm going for is high-end but also best bang for the buck. Originally I was going for an i5-3570 and a GTX 670, but after seeing several benchmarks (such as youtube.com/watch?v=CQAbBU43mpo), I noticed that all of the 670, 680, 7950, 7970 and even the new-ish 770 have nearly identical performance but the 7950 is priced at $299 with the performance of a 670 instead of that of a 660ti.
Here's the latest version of my build components plus related questions:
(All prices are from Amazon)
Case:
Is there a specific case you recommend? I'm not looking for anything fancy. It just has to support USB 3.0 and lots of expandability.
Main Board:
$100 Z77-G45. Are all Z77s pretty much the same? Which variant of the Z77 do I buy? Or do you recommend a different main board entirely? I'm not looking for anything extreme. It just has to support the things I'm plugging into it, and at most a two-way crossfire/SLI, and be somewhat future-proof; all for the lowest price possible.
System Drive:
I'm still undecided about whether to get a 1TB HDD, a 4TB HDD or whether I should finally get a 512GB SSD ($350-370 Crucial m4). This I'll have to decide later for myself, so no questions here.
PSU:
How much wattage do I need? I'm going to be putting an i5-3570K and a 7950. Maybe I will be adding a second 7950 in crossfire later on. Do I need 600W? Do I need less? Which specific PSU do you recommend?
RAM:
Do I get 8GB RAM, or will it bottleneck performance? Do I have to get 16GB RAM to avoid bottlenecks?
Optical Disc Drive:
$40-50 BD-ROM/DVD-RW. Any specific brand or model you recommend? I'm looking for durability and reliability.
CPU:
I think the i5-3570K is high-end and best-bang-for-the-buck. I've chosen the unlocked K variant not because I know I'll be overclocking, because I won't, but just in case. Do you know of an alternative CPU (either Intel or AMD) that has nearly identical performance to the 3570K but at a significantly lower price?
Also, I'm thinking of waiting until Intel releases Haswell desktop processors.
Graphics Card:
Like I said above, after viewing a lot of benchmarks and real-world FPS tests, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 is the best value.
Other than a keyboard and mouse, what other components did I forget to mention? For a screen, I'll be using a 32" 1080p TV.
And thanks in advance for your help
I've been looking into building my ~first~ desktop gaming rig and the build I'm going for is high-end but also best bang for the buck. Originally I was going for an i5-3570 and a GTX 670, but after seeing several benchmarks (such as youtube.com/watch?v=CQAbBU43mpo), I noticed that all of the 670, 680, 7950, 7970 and even the new-ish 770 have nearly identical performance but the 7950 is priced at $299 with the performance of a 670 instead of that of a 660ti.
Here's the latest version of my build components plus related questions:
(All prices are from Amazon)
Case:
Is there a specific case you recommend? I'm not looking for anything fancy. It just has to support USB 3.0 and lots of expandability.
Main Board:
$100 Z77-G45. Are all Z77s pretty much the same? Which variant of the Z77 do I buy? Or do you recommend a different main board entirely? I'm not looking for anything extreme. It just has to support the things I'm plugging into it, and at most a two-way crossfire/SLI, and be somewhat future-proof; all for the lowest price possible.
System Drive:
I'm still undecided about whether to get a 1TB HDD, a 4TB HDD or whether I should finally get a 512GB SSD ($350-370 Crucial m4). This I'll have to decide later for myself, so no questions here.
PSU:
How much wattage do I need? I'm going to be putting an i5-3570K and a 7950. Maybe I will be adding a second 7950 in crossfire later on. Do I need 600W? Do I need less? Which specific PSU do you recommend?
RAM:
Do I get 8GB RAM, or will it bottleneck performance? Do I have to get 16GB RAM to avoid bottlenecks?
Optical Disc Drive:
$40-50 BD-ROM/DVD-RW. Any specific brand or model you recommend? I'm looking for durability and reliability.
CPU:
I think the i5-3570K is high-end and best-bang-for-the-buck. I've chosen the unlocked K variant not because I know I'll be overclocking, because I won't, but just in case. Do you know of an alternative CPU (either Intel or AMD) that has nearly identical performance to the 3570K but at a significantly lower price?
Also, I'm thinking of waiting until Intel releases Haswell desktop processors.
Graphics Card:
Like I said above, after viewing a lot of benchmarks and real-world FPS tests, the AMD Radeon HD 7950 is the best value.
Other than a keyboard and mouse, what other components did I forget to mention? For a screen, I'll be using a 32" 1080p TV.
And thanks in advance for your help
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