Good rig for under 1100$?

DoctorMudkipz

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Just want opinion since im starting to save up for a new build. Im looking to get a good build for under 1100$ for a couple reasons: Playing games at mid-high setting 60+ fps flawless and recording and editing stuff. Im thinking around an AMD processor, Asus mobo, 8gb 1600mhz ram, and a 660. Would that be good for my purposes?
My current specs:
Toshiba Satellite(from 3 years ago)
Cpu: I dont know at the moment
Gpu: Radeon 4150 (it is not HD)
RAM: 3gb of ddr2
HDD: 250gb
 
Heres a list of what I came up with. Mind you that it doesnt have OS (mainly cause im not sure if you want Win 7 Home Premium or Pro, so im leaving that up to you) and the case (theres plenty to choose from, just make sure you look into their mid tower cases). With that outta the way, heres my pick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136259
^dvd burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533
^hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131882
^mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127699
^660 video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005
^psu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371052
^psu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345
^memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
^cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192
^ssd
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150609
^7850 video card

So as you noticed, I posted 2 different video cards & psu's. If I were to go AMD (video gaming wise), I would def choose that video card since it comes w/ a life time warranty. Its just disappointing that nVidia cards dont come with that guarantee anymore (unless you're willing to spend extra $$ on it). I just happened to get a really good deal on my last nVidia card that came with a life time warranty & it paid off big time for me. Also the psu is frankly based on choice. I already have a similar 650w to that corsair. Never have had a single issue with mine yet (I think I still have like 2-3 years left on the warranty).

Doubt I missed anything real obvious. Oh, if you wanna do overclocking, then you search into that yourself. Almost everyone has their own lil unique taste when it comes to that dept. If you wanna save a lil $$, go for the AMD quad core instead of the 8-core. Most games still barely use 2 cores (at best). Ive noticed like 1-2 games start to ramp up, requiring 4 cores, but thats for those real hard core gamers.
 
Heres a list of what I came up with. Mind you that it doesnt have OS (mainly cause im not sure if you want Win 7 Home Premium or Pro, so im leaving that up to you) and the case (theres plenty to choose from, just make sure you look into their mid tower cases). With that outta the way, heres my pick:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827136259
^dvd burner
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533
^hard drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131882
^mobo
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814127699
^660 video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005
^psu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371052
^psu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345
^memory
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103961
^cpu
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192
^ssd
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150609
^7850 video card

So as you noticed, I posted 2 different video cards & psu's. If I were to go AMD (video gaming wise), I would def choose that video card since it comes w/ a life time warranty. Its just disappointing that nVidia cards dont come with that guarantee anymore (unless you're willing to spend extra $$ on it). I just happened to get a really good deal on my last nVidia card that came with a life time warranty & it paid off big time for me. Also the psu is frankly based on choice. I already have a similar 650w to that corsair. Never have had a single issue with mine yet (I think I still have like 2-3 years left on the warranty).

Doubt I missed anything real obvious. Oh, if you wanna do overclocking, then you search into that yourself. Almost everyone has their own lil unique taste when it comes to that dept. If you wanna save a lil $$, go for the AMD quad core instead of the 8-core. Most games still barely use 2 cores (at best). Ive noticed like 1-2 games start to ramp up, requiring 4 cores, but thats for those real hard core gamers.

Terrible RAM choice. You can get really nice RAM thats 16 gigs for that price. Definitely over priced just because of the heat separators at the top.
 
heh, pillar you picked an fm2 socket board for an AM3+ cpu, I went through and made list of my own, the preripherals pulled it over 1100 but the hardware itself is under 1100
 
Terrible RAM choice. You can get really nice RAM thats 16 gigs for that price. Definitely over priced just because of the heat separators at the top.

I disagree. The RAM is higher priced, but it's still good. And I don't know what RAM you're looking at for that price. All the searches I've done are off-brand products, and the lowest price I've found is a $100 model from Newegg (2x8GB)

The only thing I can think of is you're talking about getting two sets of 2x4GB DDR3 memory, and even there the cheapest generic brand price is $53 for 2x4GB set. Prices WERE lower a few weeks ago, but all those sales are now gone, so the prices have gone back up.

Which RAM are you looking at that shows a sub-$65 price for 16GB DDR3 1600MHz?

@Pillar If there's $30 room in the budget, you could kick his SSD up to this one

Samsung 840 SSD 250GB
 
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I disagree. The RAM is higher priced, but it's still good. And I don't know what RAM you're looking at for that price. All the searches I've done are off-brand products, and the lowest price I've found is a $100 model from Newegg (2x8GB)

The only thing I can think of is you're talking about getting two sets of 2x4GB DDR3 memory, and even there the cheapest generic brand price is $53 for 2x4GB set. Prices WERE lower a few weeks ago, but all those sales are now gone, so the prices have gone back up.

Which RAM are you looking at that shows a sub-$65 price for 16GB DDR3 1600MHz?

@Pillar If there's $30 room in the budget, you could kick his SSD up to this one

Samsung 840 SSD 250GB

I only paid 30$ for 2x8GB XMS3 Corsair RAM and it has been perfect for me. For the same price you could easily get another set to make it 16 gigs.
 
I only paid 30$ for 2x8GB XMS3 Corsair RAM and it has been perfect for me. For the same price you could easily get another set to make it 16 gigs.

That may have been true during a sale, but that is NOT true as the price stands now. The cheapest version comes at $54 now on newegg.com You cannot set a standard price based on a sales price and give advice base on that. Like I said, you must shop around because these prices are ALWAYS changing when sales and discounts are phased in and out.

Give me a link to an existing sale at that product price and then I'll agree with your recommendation.
 
I have a Satellite and the socket doesn't support Intel does it?
toshiba didnt make desktops back then, this is a scratch build

My list:
Case: NZXT Phantom 410 Gunmetal
CPU: AMD FX 8320 Vishera 3.5ghz AM3+
Mobo: Asus M5A99FX Pro R2.0 Socket AM3+
GPU: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 FTW Sig 2 Edition
PSU: Corsair 600m 600w 80+Bronze
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600mhz (2x4gb)
Cooler: Corsair Hydro Series H80i Closed Loop LCS
OS: Win7 Home Prem x64
HDD: Western Digital WD Blue 1tb 7200rpm SATA3
DVD: Asus 24x burner
Compound: Arctic Silver 5
Keyboard: Microsoft Sidewinder X4
Mouse: Roccat Kone XTD
Mouse Pad:Roccat ROC-13-400 Alumic-Double Sided

I went for an SLI PSU since I might buy another 660 and throw it into SLI with the other. Its hard to find an HDD that doesnt have DOA reviews on it's first page.
 
SATA3 means nothing for an hdd though. Only an ssd could take advantage.

And I would invest in ivy or even sandy bridge before throwing money at AMD who has already admitted defeat to intel. Instead of blowing that much money on an h80i, I would cut down to a hyper212 and get an ivy bridge. Or go for something like the thermalright true spirit 120 or 140 if you want a little more cooling capacity. Or wait until haswell, probably the smarter move to make anyways. But there is no reason to go for an 8 core inferior processor unless you really need 8 cores (which doesn't seem to be the case).
 
Sounds like a big jump from your current system. I too like AMD Vs Intel when it comes to gaming. Did you try Newegg.com? They have great prices and good service
 
SATA3 means nothing for an hdd though. Only an ssd could take advantage.

And I would invest in ivy or even sandy bridge before throwing money at AMD who has already admitted defeat to intel. Instead of blowing that much money on an h80i, I would cut down to a hyper212 and get an ivy bridge. Or go for something like the thermalright true spirit 120 or 140 if you want a little more cooling capacity. Or wait until haswell, probably the smarter move to make anyways. But there is no reason to go for an 8 core inferior processor unless you really need 8 cores (which doesn't seem to be the case).

i do realize that and the list might change, ive never heard of thermalright. By the time I do save enough, haswell will be large and in charge and still expensive. Btw this is a machine that will have to render stuff and more than likely stream stuff as well. The octo cores will probs help offload some of the stuff, but it is actually lower in power than an intel hex or quad. And the system will probs run full blast a lot of the time if I get into metro or battlefield when it comes out. Intel is always kinda pricey which puts me off a lot. sure they have PCIe 3 an all,(Asus is holding out on us amd folk) which can put it up. I'll have to look through and try matching price with intel stuff later.
 
Here are the things you have to consider: it sounds like you're gonna be doing either photoshop work or video editing along w/ streaming stuff on video. All this means performance. You do need to understand that the cpu is only part of the solution. You will need to get 16gb of ram in order to handle what you're talking about. However, I do agree that you should wait (unless this is like an immediately project that you're needing to get done asap) so that you can find the best deals.

Newegg is always having deals on various items like cpu's, memory, hard drive, psu, etc. If you get their newsletter, they send out at least 2 of em every week with some good deals. I have noticed that Newegg has really been trying to push the 16gb models as of lately, so maybe you can get a good deal on those sometime. They recently got an amazing deal on the Corsair 2x4gb ddr3 1600 sticks for $47-48. Now mind you that ive gotten G.Skill memory in the past, but all the stats were the same, but it was the price that got my attention.
 
Here are the things you have to consider: it sounds like you're gonna be doing either photoshop work or video editing along w/ streaming stuff on video. All this means performance. You do need to understand that the cpu is only part of the solution. You will need to get 16gb of ram in order to handle what you're talking about. However, I do agree that you should wait (unless this is like an immediately project that you're needing to get done asap) so that you can find the best deals.

Newegg is always having deals on various items like cpu's, memory, hard drive, psu, etc. If you get their newsletter, they send out at least 2 of em every week with some good deals. I have noticed that Newegg has really been trying to push the 16gb models as of lately, so maybe you can get a good deal on those sometime. They recently got an amazing deal on the Corsair 2x4gb ddr3 1600 sticks for $47-48. Now mind you that ive gotten G.Skill memory in the past, but all the stats were the same, but it was the price that got my attention.

I disagree with the statement of "You will need 16gigs of ram." Thats overkill unless he plans on running it almost 24/7. Streaming relies highly on your internet speeds more then anything. Rendering puts more pressure on your CPU to take hold of all its cores so in turn an AMD 8 core CPU would be the best choice for you. As for waiting - Thats your best bet.

Buy your parts when you can find the cheapest prices instead of in one big bulk from a retailer. I found the best deals on the internet and took them into my local frys electronics and they matched all the prices. I didnt waste money on shipping.
 
I disagree with the statement of "You will need 16gigs of ram." Thats overkill unless he plans on running it almost 24/7. Streaming relies highly on your internet speeds more then anything. Rendering puts more pressure on your CPU to take hold of all its cores so in turn an AMD 8 core CPU would be the best choice for you. As for waiting - Thats your best bet.

Buy your parts when you can find the cheapest prices instead of in one big bulk from a retailer. I found the best deals on the internet and took them into my local frys electronics and they matched all the prices. I didnt waste money on shipping.

you have great points, and its more than likely overnight renders and such and the occasional stream, i havent seen 1 Fry's Electronics in Tucson. Only one I've seen was in Vegas. There is a computer hardware store here tho, but what they have is really limited, i'd have to bounce all over the place to get everything, and waitin is always good. I throw a basic list together on Newegg, I'll check TigerDirect and other places for cheaper prices as well.
 

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