Building Gaming Rig on Budget

First, I would like to thank all of you who have responded for your input. I feel like I am gaining more and more information about computer hardware as a result!

Here is what I just came up with on iBuyPower. I did some research and found that the price on NewEgg is almost identical to that of iBuyPower.

Price: $990

Case - NZXT Source 210 Gaming Case

Motherboard - ASUS P8Z68-V LX -- Lucid Virtu Technology

CPU - Intel? Core? i5-2500K Processor (4x 3.30GHz/6MB L3 Cache)

GPU - AMD Radeon HD 6870 - 1GB

RAM - 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module

Primary Hard Drive - 120 GB ADATA S510 SSD Read: 550MB/s ; Write: 510MB/s

Data Hard Drive - 500 GB HARD DRIVE -- 16M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s

Optical Drive - 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD?R/?RW + CD-R/RW Drive

Sound Card - 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard

Please tell me any changes that should be made. I am not on a super-strict budget. If I need to go to the upwards of 1100 to 1200, I will. I want to build a PC that can handle newer games on great settings with great fps!
 
Not a bad build. Pretty impressive price as well. Only place you could really upgrade would be the gpu. Maxing some of the newest games on 1080 or 1200p would require a 6950 or 6970. However, ibuypower can charge a bit more to upgrade a vid card than it would cost to simply buy a new one from newegg or amazon. That is one option to save money. Additionally, you may want to buy the ssd separately as well as they likely charge a bit of a price premium for that as well. Not sure if you have a coupon or something to bring the price down to that, but those are a few ways you could possibly cut even more and then just buy those parts separately.

Finally, what is the power supply you chose?
 
I'm your huckleberry said:
Not a bad build. Pretty impressive price as well. Only place you could really upgrade would be the gpu. Maxing some of the newest games on 1080 or 1200p would require a 6950 or 6970. However, ibuypower can charge a bit more to upgrade a vid card than it would cost to simply buy a new one from newegg or amazon. That is one option to save money. Additionally, you may want to buy the ssd separately as well as they likely charge a bit of a price premium for that as well. Not sure if you have a coupon or something to bring the price down to that, but those are a few ways you could possibly cut even more and then just buy those parts separately.

Finally, what is the power supply you chose?
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I chose an 800 watt power supply because I was told it could never hurt to go over the minimum (which was like 600).

Thank you for the response. I will look into the price of the 6950 on iBuyPower otherwise I may get it through NewEgg like you said.

This desktop was listed under the March Madness sales for $699 before I customized the GPU, SSD, etc, so I think that I think this build may cost around $1100, 1200 on iBuyPower normally instead of $1,000 because there is some amount reduced for the sale.
 
One thing I would change is the power supply. There 800W generic one is most likely junk. I would definitely go for the Corsair TX 650W which says it has a free upgrade to the 750W version. That is a quality unit from a known brand. I assume that means if you choose the 650W one, you actually get the 750W version.

That ssd is actually a good deal at the moment. Looking through the vid card choices, none of the options really appear worth it. Getting a second 6870 would probably be a better option than paying the prices they have.
 
Okay, by upgrading the gpu to crossfire 6870s and the power supply to a corsair 750w, the total now reachs $1286.

I am assuming that the crossfire 6850s are better than any single card, correct? Is it worth it to spend to extra money to get them, is what I am asking.
 
Any gpu pros out there,

which is the best option:

radeon hd 6870 crossfire, nvidia gtx 570, or radeon hd 6970.

Those are the three best options in my price range and I'm not sure which the best is.
 
Turmoil said:
Okay, by upgrading the gpu to crossfire 6870s and the power supply to a corsair 750w, the total now reachs $1286.

I am assuming that the crossfire 6850s are better than any single card, correct? Is it worth it to spend to extra money to get them, is what I am asking.
Click to expand...

Crossfiring them would preform like a gtx 580 which is around a 500$ card now. (At least I'm quite sure)
 
After doing some research of my own, I have found that the 6870 crossfired does provide better performance than some higher end single cards but only in games that support crossfire (which appears to be most). When a game does not support crossfire, it still seems that the 6870 can hold its own as a single GPU.

As of now, the build will stand with the 6870 crossfire. I am going to update the original post with the current specs and I will edit it whenever I make a change.

Another question: Because I am not someone who uses up much room on my hard drive, would it be wise to invest in one good, large SSD versus a small SSD and a 500g hard drive which I probably won't use much of?
 
120gb ssd for os and programs is good with a separate mechanical hdd for files.

Crossfire 6870s are going to be better than single gpu options. However, you will have added heat from your second gpu, so you want proper cooling in your case. The source 210 has only a single fan in the rear of the case included which may not provide adequate cooling:

FRONT, 2 X 120mm
REAR, 1 X 120mm @ 1200rpm (included)
TOP, 2 X 120/140mm
BOTTOM, 1 x 120mm

However, this list shows you can add more fans to your case, but that is an added cost and requires some work on your part. You could also upgrade to something like the haf 922 which also comes with huge 200mm fans on the front and top in addition to the rear exhausting fan (though this has a $50 upgrade cost which is very close to the actual price difference on newegg). Additional 120mm fans can run $7 a piece for some cheap ones.

You may also want to upgrade the mobo to Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 which has sli support, x16/x8 pcie configuration (which will help with dual card setups though is not necessary for your current setup).
Just some thoughts.
 
Also, what do you think about the AMD Fx-8150 (8 x 3.60 GHz (8 mb L2 cache)) vs the Intel Core i5 2500k?
 
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2500k is better. Nvidia should start releasing their gpus by the end of the month, so hopefully you will have a few more choices and prices could drop. As for $600 to spend, dual card setups will give you more performance, but they require added heat and power than a single card setup. Your psu is enough to handle any of the dual card setups you would consider, so that is not a problem.

As for that budget on gpus, currently, 7850 crossfire appears to be the best you could get. Whether it is actually worth it is hard to tell. 6870 crossfire is as good as you need right now at 1080p, but that could change with new releases. 7850 is almost 6970 performance, and they definitely overcharge for the 6970s. At the moment, for the cost, nothing is worth the upgrade over the upgrade to the 7850s (as in, they cost too much to upgrade compared to the cost to upgrade to 7850s). One definite benefit of the 7850s over the 6870s is 2gb vram vs only 1gb which could be important in the future. But with the faster dual card setup, you would probably want to upgrade your mobo to the one I suggested also so your cards aren't bottlenecked by the x4 slot.
 
I'm your huckleberry said:
2500k is better. Nvidia should start releasing their gpus by the end of the month, so hopefully you will have a few more choices and prices could drop. As for $600 to spend, dual card setups will give you more performance, but they require added heat and power than a single card setup. Your psu is enough to handle any of the dual card setups you would consider, so that is not a problem.

As for that budget on gpus, currently, 7850 crossfire appears to be the best you could get. Whether it is actually worth it is hard to tell. 6870 crossfire is as good as you need right now at 1080p, but that could change with new releases. 7850 is almost 6970 performance, and they definitely overcharge for the 6970s. At the moment, for the cost, nothing is worth the upgrade over the upgrade to the 7850s (as in, they cost too much to upgrade compared to the cost to upgrade to 7850s). One definite benefit of the 7850s over the 6870s is 2gb vram vs only 1gb which could be important in the future. But with the faster dual card setup, you would probably want to upgrade your mobo to the one I suggested also so your cards aren't bottlenecked by the x4 slot.
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Thank you for all of the input you have been providing me with. I will update the build in the first post momentarily as I have made many changes.

Another thing: I want to make sure the computer has more than enough cooling. It says that it comes standard with liquid CPU cooling, but should I upgrade to the Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System (Intel) and then get the ARC Dual Silent High Perfornamce Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow)? It's about an extra $60, but I think it may be worth it.

Would it be worth it to upgrade to Intel? Core™ i7-2700K Processor (4x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache) for an extra $80?
 
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Turmoil said:
Thank you for all of the input you have been providing me with. I will update the build in the first post momentarily as I have made many changes.

Another thing: I want to make sure the computer has more than enough cooling. It says that it comes standard with liquid CPU cooling, but should I upgrade to the Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System (Intel) and then get the ARC Dual Silent High Perfornamce Fan Upgrade (Push-Pull Airflow)? It's about an extra $60, but I think it may be worth it.

Would it be worth it to upgrade to Intel? Core? i7-2700K Processor (4x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache) for an extra $80?
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if u really need HT and no game really needs it, i will say go for the 2600k if its cheaper
 
Turmoil said:
Would it be worth it to upgrade to Intel? Core? i7-2700K Processor (4x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache) for an extra $80?
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I'm kinda thinking it would really depend on how much money is an issue on this one. If someone told me it wasn't all that big a deal then the extra L3 Cache could be worth it since that's not something you can tweak later.
I would think that the more one overclocks, the more beneficial it becomes to have the extra cache to keep a greater set of instructions close to the cores rather than having to go out to memory as often, which will inevitably slow things down.

On the other hand, if someone has budget in mind, I'd tell them the i5 2500k is a great chip that has a lot of life to it yet and from everything I've read, overclocks very well. Especially if you're going with liquid cooling. Performs great for gaming. Unless you have a specific use in mind that you know would benefit from the extra cache, I'd bank the money.
 
Yeah, 2700k probably isn't worth it, but it could definitely prolong the life of the computer as you hope to do. You probably will not notice any immediate impact as of now, but later down the road is where it could improve.

As for the cpu cooler, most of those are fairly close in temps due to them all being pretty much the same design. You may get a couple degrees improvement in temps, but unless you need the maximum overclock (which neither of those would even be ideal for in comparison to other custom coolers), then I stay stick with the standard one. As for the fans, never heard of those fans and I do not know how good they actually are. If noise is important to you, it may be worth it. As for doing two fans, this will possibly save you another couple of degrees, but diminishing returns is key here.
 
By the way, when you mentioned 7850s crossfire, how do you know how well they compare to the 6870s? I tried looking up benchmarks of the 7850s and I can't find any. Are they even out yet?
 
I'm running crossfire 6850s right now. I will attest to the performance being great, however it is overall more of a headache with gaming. Games almost never have crossfire support on release date. It's usually a week or two, and in some cases like Brink, it never comes. Not to mention that sometimes support doesn't get rid of all microstutter. And then there's the obvious heat and noise issues. With stock fans my cards would idle ~50C with fans loud enough to disrupt movies. If you're into benchmarking and always tinkering with settings crossfire may be good for you, but I wouldn't recommend it if you just want to chill and game.
 
I wouldn't recommend the 7800 series quite yet; Nvidia has yet to release their rebuttal. Wait for the 600 series to come out and prices to become less ridiculous. $350 for the mainstream is at least $100 too much.
 
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