Maximum PC

Hi everyone,

I've been reading MaxPC and the forums for a while, and I'm finally getting to build my first gaming rig. My budget is right around $1200 US, so I wanted to toss my ideas for parts up here and get some suggestions. Some components I'm pretty sure of, while others I just have a general idea or price of what I would like to spend.

As far as the games I'll be playing, definitely Diablo III, Borderlands 2 and Left 4 Dead 2, and probably titles like Arkham City, DCU online and Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3. I would like to get as much eye candy out of these games as possible, but I am much more interested in having them run smoothly.

I already have a full copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, an Antec 902 case with USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, a Dell ST2210 22" monitor, Creative Fatal1ty sound card, Saitek Cyborg gaming keyboard and a Logitech trackball. So here is what I have in mind. I looked all these parts up on Best Buy's website, since I figured they would have the highest prices (and I can use my rewards card). I'm sure I'll actually wind up making purchases from various sites when the time comes.

The List:

GPU: PNY - GeForce GTX 560Ti 1GB GDDR5 PCI Express Overclocked Graphics Card
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/PNY+-+GeFor ... &cp=1&lp=1

Is PNY any good for GPUs?

Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K Quad-Core 3.3GHz Processor
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Intel%26%23 ... &cp=1&lp=3

Is it worth going up to the i7-2700K?

Motherboard: Here is where I need the most help. What socket and chipset should I be looking for? What else should I make sure I have on the mobo? I don't think I'll ever do dual GPUs. And is a cap of $225 reasonable?

PSU: I'm thinking either Corsair, PCP&C or Thermaltake, and at least 800W. Suggestions on wattage and price; maybe around $125?

Memory: 8 GB DDR3 Corsair or Patriot, but not sure of what models is good for gaming.

HDD: Western Digital - 320GB Caviar Blue SATA 7200 RPM
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Western+Dig ... Id=7821985

Am I better off with higher RPM or SATA II or III? I'd like to keep the price around $100.

SSD: I was think of a solid state drive to run my games off of. Are there any benefits to this? I know I can get about 60 GB for @ $125 at bestbuy.com. I was thinking Corsair or OCZ, but I'm not really sure.

Optical Drive: I'd like to get at least a Blu-Ray player/DVD/CD burner. If it could burn all three for less than $100, that would be great. Was thinking Lite-On or Samsung. I'm also thinking a straight up DVD/CD drive for about $20 will work fine.

CPU cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212

So, there is what I'm thinking about. Is there anything I'm missing, even minute details? I know there are a lot of questions here, but I also want to make sure parts are compatible and don't want to have to upgrade every other year.

Thanks in advance for your advice and patience.

Kevin

I'm kind of surprised that after 22 views of this post that no one has been able to offer me any feedback. Other than possibly the links, did I do something wrong? I am really hoping to do this build within the next couple of weeks. Thanks

If your not insisting on buying everything on bestbuy here are some of my suggestions:

GPU: I don't have any personal experience with PNY but may I suggest this GTX-560 Ti by Gigabyte?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814125363
It's OC to 900Mhz. I have one and it runs BF3 at high settings at about 40-60 fps. And this one is a lot cheaper than the PNY. $234.99 + $7.56sh

CPU: I'd stick with the i5 because hyperthreading doesn't make a big difference in gaming.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115072
$219.99

Mobo: I'd take this Asrock Extreme3 Gen3 mobo. It has a nice Z68 Chipset and will be compatible with Ivy bridge once it's out.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157271
$121.99 + $7.87sh

PSU: For a system like this you'll only need about a 650W PSU if you want to upgrade to a SLI setup later you'd have to buy a 750W-800W PSU. So here's a 650W:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817341048
$89.99 (If you want it modular it'll cost $10 more)

Memory: I'd take these 8GB 1600Mhz Patriot Sector 5 sticks.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820220484
$41.99

HDD: Here's a 750GB drive for ~$15 more You could get a 1TB drive for about $20 more on newegg if you want.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822145532
$99.99 + $6.29sh

Optical:Here's a blu-ray, DVD and CD burner.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827136239
$79.99 + $4.99sh

CPU cooler: Good choice! Take the Evo it's the newer version of the Plus.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835103099
$44.99

OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6832116986
$99.99

That would be $1060.62 (You'll get this stuff for less if you mail all the rebates)

Now you only have to pick a case!
If you still want an SSD (You can search on the Internet for performance increase on games to get more info) you'll have to increase your budget or cut down on something (cheaper cooler, smaller HDD etc.)

Because you are a new member with less than 10 posts, your thread didn't get approved or show to public till today. Trust me, I keep an eye on the build thread daily and I would have said something if it was public.

I pretty much agree with chipmunk's post for the parts. The only thing I'd change is the PSU and cpu cooler. Newegg has the Corsair 600w for $43AR, AC right now. More than powerful enough for a single gpu system and should still be good for SLI if you don't OC. The other thing is to go with the cheaper Cooler Master 212+; the original for $10-15 cheaper. $45 is hard to take in since it was originally be around $35, not 45. You can get the 212+ at amazon for $26.

As far as SSD's, you could get a cheap 64gb and use it as your SRT cache drive; that way your most used files and apps are preloaded on the ssd. A nice feature from the z68 chipset.

I can agree for the most part with what 360Chipmunk has said but I would tweak it a bit.
The would try a EVGA SC GTX560Ti @$249.99 even though it is a little more for 2 reasons. 1) EVGA has great CS and is well know in the business of GPUs. 2)This model has a lifetime warranty! for $15 more over the Gigabyte card I would take it.

I'm not crazy about ASRock but they are a spin off of Asus so I can't say too much is bad with them. I still would grab a Asus P8Z68-V Pro since there is one more year of warranty, more fan headers, and more I/O ports plus BT. This to me is also a good mix of budget but with more options on I/O ports that allows more longevity for the over all build.
Here is a comparison between a ASRock and Asus board that are very close in price range and options.
http://bit.ly/zYrDpo

Thanks for all the replies!! Since I know I'll be saving money going with Newegg and Amazon over Best Buy, would it be worth it to upgrade the GPU to a 570 or 580? Or is the performance vs price just not worth going above the 560Ti OC?

Alternately, would it be worth going with 2 560Ti's in SLI? Even though I've been reading the articles for months now about dual and triple video cards, I'm not sure if the performance boost justifies the cost.

Thanks again!

A 560 ti SLI system is roughly 30% faster than a single 580 gtx for the same price. A few issues:
1) you loose one expansion slot (two since its dual slot)
2) lower system video ram
3) lower memory bandwidth

If you want a little more bang for the buck, then look at the limited edition 560 ti 448's; Its about $280 for one card and its more like a 570 lite. Uses the same g110 chip as the 570's and 580's but with a few less steam processors and steam multiplier. The biggest down side is that its a limited edition card that was only made for this holiday season so don't expect to pick a 2nd one later this year for SLI if you were planning this route.

It's still a powerful single gpu solution over spending another $50+ for a regular 570.

Thanks, JBaz. I'll have to look into it. Still not sure if I want to do SLI or not. My preference would be one powerful card. Actually, my preference would be to use Watson. But for now, a nice video card will do.

As much as I agree with getting the 448's considering they will probably be a limited run I personally would not grab one. If I wanted to grab a 2nd one later or if one went dead and I wanted to replace it I could be SOL. Why go down that road? I would stick with mainstream and either go to a 570 or 560Ti but I would rather play certain things safe.

^ warranty sir... evga... if they don't have one in stock they'll send you a similar type of board...

Plus, the probability of someone SLI'in their system after a year goes down significantly due to how fast the product life cycles for video cards are; more likely then not it'll be better to spend money on a replacement for the same price than getting a used/new 2nd card.

Other reasons would be laziness, upset stomach and blindness...

What would be similar to a 560Ti-448 anyway a 570-448 or a 560Ti SSC?
I have a EVGA myself and got it because of the warranty so I do understand the concept I just hate extra BS or steps, though lifetime warranties rock!


I do see your point and it is a good argument but, there are people on this planet that might want to SLI a GTX260 even though they are roughly 4yrs old. I'm not saying that its always the best way to go but some people would rather extend the life of what they have that still works instead of getting new.



I'll take D) all the above! lol

You have a 22'' monitor that has a max resolution of 1920x1080. I doubt there would be much point in getting a superpowerful GPU or an SLI setup even for next years games. If there comes a time in the future where your GPU can't run the game at max settings 1920x1080 then you can upgrade it or go SLI for much cheaper than it would cost you now. If I were you I'd just stick with the single GTX 560 Ti...its plenty powerful for your needs.

^ Its called Pre and Post AA. FSAA eats up lots of resources. Can anyone say picture perfect 96x CSAA SLI rendering with 16x AA for transparency? That's what the triple sli ticket nets you...


its a 570 lite, so probably a vanilla 570 if they still have them in stock; most places have phased them out in favor for OC or SSC versions. But even then, it depends on when you make the RMA. A friend RMA'ed an 8800 gts and got it replaced with a 260 gtx a few years later and was basically told "you card was found to be defective and replaced with what was currently avaliable that was similar"

Hi, As to your question on PNY, I prefer EVGA, but have run a PNY 7600 GS in the past and it was as good as any I have run, although probably should have gotten the GT at the time.

Again thanks for all the responses. Thought I would have this built by now, but at this point I'm wondering if I should hold out for an Ivy Bridge processor. Any thoughts?

Yes. The new nVidia cards are slowly being released now too so that might lower some of the prices on other cards.

Good point. Thanks.

So I finally have the money to build my system and this is what I came up with:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/99Si

Again, I'll be wanting to play Diablo III, Borderlands 2 and Left 4 Dead 2, and probably titles like Arkham City, DCU online and Battlefield 3 or Modern Warfare 3. I would like to get as much eye candy out of these games as possible, but I am much more interested in having them run smoothly. I am also going to be getting back into some audio editing (I think), which is why I went with 16 GB of memory.

I already have a full copy of Windows 7 Ultimate, an Antec 902 case with USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports, a Dell ST2210 22" monitor, Creative Fatal1ty sound card, Saitek Cyborg gaming keyboard and a Logitech trackball.

I do plan on overclocking, but not sure if I should get a liquid cooler, since my PC will be located in my desk. It will have plenty of space above the case and about 1 inch on each side for airflow, as well as the back of the desk being open and the door to that section of the desk open when in use.

The one thing I'm still not sure of is the video card. Am I better off with a 580, 680, SLI or something else. I know with my current monitor, this is overkill. However, my wife said that she would add to the system for me for my birthday/father's day and was thinking of getting a bigger (better?) monitor. Look forward to hearing your responses.

Thanks!!

If you are going for a GPU shoot for the GTX680 it is $40-$50 than the 580 you selected and will give you better performance.
I have a feeling that a 64 GB will be fine for now but a 120GB would be better and depending on the file size that you will be working with for a final product a larger storage drive might come in handy maybe a 1TB. If it is a job on the side maybe even a separate drive so that any file corruption will be mitigated.

So I switched out the 580 for a 680, which saves me about $50. I'm going to look into a bigger SSD or a second HHD.