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$3500 Budget what would you do.

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  • components
  • build-your-own
Last response: in Components
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June 18, 2013 9:13:18 AM

I have a budget of $3500 for just the tower i have the external stuff taken care of. This tower will be for gaming, across triple monitors at some points. I was wondering what someone much more experienced then myself would build with this kind of budget on a tower.

More about : 3500 budget

June 18, 2013 9:46:00 AM

CPU: Intel Core i7-3930K 3.2GHz 6-Core Processor ($499.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Cooling MX-2 4g Thermal Paste ($4.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty X79 Professional ATX LGA2011 Motherboard ($259.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Corsair Dominator 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($249.99 @ Best Buy)
Storage: Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($129.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Western Digital RE 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($287.87 @ Amazon)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX Titan 6GB Video Card ($1019.99 @ NCIX US)
Sound Card: Asus Xonar Essence STX 24-bit 192 KHz Sound Card ($179.99 @ Amazon)
Case: Corsair Obsidian Series 800D ATX Full Tower Case ($279.98 @ Newegg)
Case Fan: Corsair Air Series AF120 Quiet Edition (2-Pack) 39.9 CFM 120mm Fans ($27.09 @ NCIX US)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional Gold 1200W 80 PLUS Gold Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($259.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS DVD/CD Writer ($18.99 @ Amazon)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $3388.81

As a side note, you may want to add more fans. I just put 2 x 120mm because you need them anyway. For example, you want to keep the stock fans, but only replace 1 of them, I'm not sure. So it is up to you on how you want to do that.
June 18, 2013 10:03:35 AM

That's too much to spend on a tower that will only be used for gaming. There's just not much appreciable difference between a $2k build and a $3k build unless you're using some totally insane monitor setup, like 3 QHD monitors oriented vertically to give you one mega-monitor.

CPU: You're not going to see a difference after a $200 i5
MoBo: The most expensive MoBo that would be useful to you is a $200 tri SLI capable
Memory: Memory is never the bottleneck for video games. So you only need to spend $50 unless you're into pretty RAM.
Storage: 500GB SSD $400
PSU: Even if you want tri-SLI, your 800W PSU shouldn't cost more than $200
Case: $100
Optical Drive/OS: $100

So before you get to the GPU, you've only spent $1350, and those were very liberal figures (you could get lower).

GPU: It's tough to budget without knowing what you're playing it on. If you're only doing 3x1920x1080, you could do a single 690 or dual/triple 680s.

Edit: What I'm trying to get at is that you shouldn't just buy expensive parts because you can; you should be pushing as much of your budget toward GPUs and monitors; memory, CPU, motherboard, and overclocking hit the law of diminishing returns very quickly (edit2: for gaming, that is), and it is silly to spend more than $200 on any individual part (especially the memory). However, GPU investments are not affected by the law of diminishing returns until you start spending ~$3k, so basically, build an adequate computer and stick crazy GPUs in it.
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June 18, 2013 10:12:29 AM

Understood, at the same time though i am looking to spend a lot and keep the tower for a while not having to replace it for a good while.
June 18, 2013 10:37:34 AM

That's a great goal. When future-proofing, you need to be aware of platform changes that will come in the near future, one of which is the CPU socket. If you go with Intel, you should consider an LGA 1150 socket motherboard, since that socket just came out. It corresponds to the H87/Z87 (8 being the important number) chipset, so that when Intel makes a new CPU in 3 years, it will be compatible with your motherboard.

Other than that, it's not like you can buy DDR4 compatible hardware, or a PCIe 4.0 motherboard right now.

When new technologies like the next iteration of USB or thunderbolt come out, those features are often available via PCIe/PCI devices. If these upgrades are going to be important to you, make sure that whatever motherboard you get comes equipped with lots of lanes/expansion slots. This is especially important if you're going to have more than 1 GPU hogging space. However, since you're gaming, I can't think of a reason why this would be important.

If, say, USB4.0 is going to be a world-changer for you, but you have to purchase a motherboard before it comes out, you should abandon the LGA1150 socket and get the LGA2011 socket, even though it is older, because it has 40 PCIe lanes to LGA1150's 20 PCIe lanes. That will mean the cheapest CPU you can get (which would be more than sufficient for your performance needs) will be $200.

As for the case, any ATX mid tower case--or even Micro ATX Mini tower, depending on which LGA2011 motherboard you get--is going to be fine. They're not going to change that standardized spec any time soon.

But the biggest future-proofing area is in the GPU. Games are rapidly becoming more GPU intensive. Even other applications are becoming more GPU reliant rather than CPU reliant. So if you're actually concerned about 'future-proofing' you would be wise to get the beefiest GPU setup you can afford.

Another thought: applications are becoming more and more compatible with multithreading, so make sure that whatever CPU you get has multithreading (Intel calls it hyper-threading).
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