Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

[Firewind]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

Please read my previous posts. He has a budget and I'm going for strictly cost/performance here. SSDs are nice to have but they are in no way essential to gaming. What I have been saying is that sure they are nice to have but really they should be the last thing you are considering if on any sort of budget.

[Malacite]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

If you really want the SSD then it seems pretty good. The only "improvement" is something you can so later which would be to get some external storage because a 1TB External HD is pretty cheap and is just so awesome to have.

I would still recommend just ditching the SSD so you can get either more RAM or a better GPU though but that is just me.

I don't see why you feel the GPU is hard to replace because it honestly isn't... it's much more of a hassle trying to disassemble and replace a motherboard or processor though. The benefits of having your games and OS on an SSD are totally worth the extra money. 12 GB RAM is plenty for gaming, and as I said the speed of the ram is much more important than the total size. Ideally you want 1600 for a good gaming rig. Here's what I got on my quote (and I'm still adjusting it)



Intel Core i7-3770 Quad-Core Socket 1155, 3.4 Ghz, 8 MB L3 Cache, 22 nm (Retail Boxed) Gen3 (BX80637173770) - $315

Antec ONE Gaming Series Mid-ATX Case - $50.00 (I got a $5 rebate on it)

WD Black (WD1002FAEX) 1000 GB (1TB) SATA 3 7200 RPM 64 MB Cache (OEM) - $90 (also $5 discount)

Gigabyte GA-Z77-HD3 Socket 1155 Intel Z77 CHipset | Dual-Channel DDR 2800 (O.C.) MHz, 2x PCI-Express x16 | GLAN, 4x SATA 3.0 Gb/s, 2x SATA 6.0 Gb/s, 1x USB 3.0, 4x USB 2.0 | DVI/D-Sub/HDMI ATX - $115 (10 off)

Corsair Enthusiast Series Modular TX750M 80PLUS Bronze Certified 750W PSU )CP-9020040-NA) - $130

Kingston HyperX Genesis 8 GB (2x4 GB) DDR 1866 Mhz CL9 DIMMs (KHX1866C9D3K2/8GX) - $90

Intel 520 Series 120 GB 2.5" SATA3 6 Gb/s SSD (SSDSC2CW120A3K5) - $155

Windows 7 64-Bit Home Premium - #110 (It's actually windows 8 listed but they gonna change it to 7 for me. Hope that drags down the price a tad)

Gigabyte (GV-N650OC-2GI) NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 2GB GDDR5 | 1110 MHz Clock, 6000 MHz Memory | PCI Exrpess 3.0, DVI-I, DVI-D, HDMI - $130 ($10 mail in rebate)


And then with taxes, OS install and labour tacked on it all comes to $1,478.17


That's the rig I got going atm, still playing with it a bit though to see where I can optimize some things.

[Firewind]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

If you really want the SSD then it seems pretty good. The only "improvement" is something you can so later which would be to get some external storage because a 1TB External HD is pretty cheap and is just so awesome to have.

I would still reccomend just ditching the SSD so you can get either more RAM or a better GPU though but that is just me.

[Malacite]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

The 650 is still a really good card (mine handles ARR beta on modest settings without any trouble and it's only a 465) and it's only like $100~110. Honestly, when I was getting my quote from the guy at Canada Computers we were comparing the 650 to the 660 and the 660 is a terrible deal - it's not that much stronger than the 650 and for double the price (unlike the 670 which costs a fair bit more but actually has the performance to back it). It also only has a max TDP of 64 watts which is nothing (the TDP on the 660 is 140, which is still a lot better than my own beastly 200 ><). Honestly, 750 is plenty for a power supply unless you plan to be running multiple GPUs in SLI/Crossfire and multiple displays.

You can probably reduce your SSD to 80 GB and still be fine as well, depending on how many games you want on there + your OS (I highly recommend having your OS on it).

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

Ok then... let's see if I can build it to those specs...

SSD
SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD120BW 2.5" 120GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Newegg.com

HDD
Seagate Barracuda STBD2000101 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Retail - Newegg.com

Motherboard
Newegg.com - MSI Z77A-GD65 Gaming LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

Processor
Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K - Newegg.com

Graphics Card
EVGA 02G-P4-2660-KR GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - Newegg.com

Power Supply
CORSAIR GS800 800W ATX12V v2.3 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply - Newegg.com

Memory
CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML16GX3M4A1600C9 - Newegg.com
or just...
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B - Newegg.com

Case
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Newegg.com

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So: 100+100+160+210+205+120+135+125= Just shy of 1200. If I downgrade the Power Supply to 750 and knock off 8 of those gigs of ram (that I can always buy later and add to it), I think I nailed the $1000.00 price point.

Anyone care to cross-check?

[Firewind]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

Ok guys... help me out here. I want to build the best PC possible (for gaming) and keep the cost under a grand. I'm buying all new everything and building from the ground up. Help me find the best possible combination out there.

I'm looking myself.

Two of the guides I linked show some pretty good baselines for Gaming PCs that come in your budget

System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: $800 Enthusiast PC - Building A PC: What Do We Get For $800?
System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: $1000 Performance PC - Can $1,000 Buy A High-End PC?

Anyone that says that Budget PCs are a Myth is an idiot and is just going to be telling you to buy stuff you don't need.

First: You just need to spend smart. CPU, PSU and Motherboard are the most important things to look at because they are the hardest things to replace. You can afford to say get a lower end version of the GPU you want or go for 6-8GB of RAM instead of 8-16GB if you know that you will be able to afford to upgrade those later on. If you are on a budget those three parts are by far the most important things.

Second: You don't NEED a SSD. That is a huge chunk of the budget right there. So what if you miss out on faster boot-up times and almost-instant application launches. You gain nest to nothing on Benchmark results with a SSD when running applications which is what you really need to be looking at.

Third: For the love of god get a good case. You want your parts to last for a while and getting a good case with good air flow means that you save a lot i nthe long run because you need fewer fans to keep things cool. Again I highly recommend getting a good Cooler Master tower since even the budget cases are still going to be fantastic at giving your machine a good air flow.

Finally: Yes if you are on a budget you will be sacrificing convenience for performance/price parts. Like I noted above, SSDs are not needed for any modern game and take up a huge chunk of the budget. What is better? Slightly faster boot times, but you end up bottlenecked and things break because you cheaped out on the motherboard and case to get the SSD and stupid powerful GPU, or a PC that performs better in the big picture because you were smart and invested in a good CPU, Motherboard and PSU?

[Malacite]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

^ ditto. In part because it really can't be helped, but also because you're hurting yourself in the long run if you skimp out on the important pieces.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

I don't believe in budget gaming PCs. I think they're a fairy tale.

[Malacite]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

Under 1k? That's gonna be a challenge but OK.


Definitely go for an i5 then, or AMD equivalent. Not sure on exact models but you can probably swing an x79 model MOBO. 8~12 GB RAM, nVidia 650, 80~120 GB SSD + 1 TB HDD... hmm.

[Yygdrasil]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

Ok guys... help me out here. I want to build the best PC possible (for gaming) and keep the cost under a grand. I'm buying all new everything and building from the ground up. Help me find the best possible combination out there.

I'm looking myself.

[Firewind]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

With the development of hardware outstripping the demands of games, honestly it seems more efficient to just build something that will last for longer than 5 years.

[Malacite]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

5 years is the average isn't it?

I've had mine since about 2007 I think (might have been late '06 I honestly forget) and the piece of crap's held up just fine with only 2 upgrades the entire time I've had it - my GTX 465 and the power supply both of which I got right before XIV came out. So altogether that's like $1800 I spent on this machine over the course of 6~7 years. Fairly decent investment, though a painful reminder of why I tend to prefer console gaming over PC.

[cidbahamut]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

I went with an i7 over an i5 because I intend to use this PC for a good 4 to 6 years and I have no intention of ever upgrading the CPU. It sounds like your turnaround time on a tower is shorter than mine so the i5 is probably a better choice for you.

[Malacite]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

he insulted me first.

Also, yeah Cache is far more important than clock speeds.

I guess I have my own bias towards i7 as I intend to eventually be doing video editing and streaming while gaming, so that's going to require an i7 - you probably can get by just fine with an i5 and really fast RAM. My only concern with the AMD processor is how that cache is setup - if it's a global cache that's fine, but if it's divided among each core (and since a lot of apps currently don't use more than if even 4 cores) that's basically a bunch of wasted memory, and probably why people tend to favor Intel models more since pretty much all of them work on a unified cache.

- - - Updated - - -

o.o ooo, there's a 770 out this month as well? nice to know.

I just checked it out, it's not that much weaker than the 780, and uses 20 less watts too. If I had to guess, I'd wager it around the $500 range - which I'm hoping translates into a price drop on the 670 which honestly is the best nVidia card on the market right now (without destroying your wallet anyway).


I'm going for a 650 for myself right now because it's only like $110 and still vastly outstrips my old 465 - as I said, GPUs are easy to replace. Motherboards and processors aren't.

[Firewind]

Re: Yyg, Cid and Mal's Gaming PC Construction Thread (open discussion)

Thanks, I used to work in a store that made Custom PCs so knowing that info is pretty helpful when helping people build a Custom PC. I also helped write the stuff on TvTropes about Computer Specs so a lot of the stuff in the spoiler tags were pulled from my own notes that I still have on here.

The prices on Tom's Hardware are in £ so if you want to know how badly we get gouged over here, as of today £1 = $1.51 so multiply each price by 1.5 to see what those things cost over here. Thankfully it should all be cheaper for you if you just look up the prices in the US.

Honestly if you want to stay within your budget the AMD FX-Series is the way to go and to be honest it is hard to justify throwing down the extra money for the i7 when the FX-Series really aren't behind at all in terms of performance. It is a similar situation with ATi vs nVidia: the nVidia cards tend to be ahead on the benchmarks and then you look at the price tags and ask yourself if you really need that tiny bit extra.

- - - Updated - - -

This is a VERY good guide on what are currently the best GPUs.

Best Graphics Cards For The Money: May 2013 - Best Graphics Cards For The Money, May Updates

The guide is strictly Price/Performance so if you're wondering why some cards are missing then they simply aren't worth the money.

There's an SSD one too that is a few months old: Best SSDs For The Money: March 2013 - Best SSDs For The Money, March Updates

There's also some guides on building a PC with different budgets:

System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: $600 Gaming PC - Gunning For Gold At $600 - $600 Budget
System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: $800 Enthusiast PC - Building A PC: What Do We Get For $800?- $800 Budget
System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: $1000 Performance PC - Can $1,000 Buy A High-End PC?- $1000 Budget
System Builder Marathon, Q1 2013: $1,600 Alternative PC - The Magic Of Anticipation- $1600 Budget