$3000 to spent need help building gaming PC

K

kortik

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 27, 2008
Messages
148
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Gaming mostly, movie watching secondary

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$3000 before taxes and shipping

3) Where do you live?
Seattle WA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.

I already have 30" monitor keyboard and mouse. my previous case is too hot to use for gaming so I will need everything else

Case decided to go with coolermaster HAF 932
CPU w/aftermarket cpu fan to at lease overclock mildly and stable.
mobo
psu
memory
video card
hdd
blue ray drive
dvd drive



5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
One (1)2TB WD HDD

6) Will you be overclocking?

mildly

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
30" XHD3000 Gateway

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP

9) What features do you need in a motherboard?

I would like to have x58 motherboard and i7 processor w/2 GPU in SLI x16 each
that's my main thing

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, XP full and win 7 Ultimate


below is what I am currently running it a 5+ years old computer

AMD FX60 Toledo /w ZALMAN CNPS 9500 CPU Fan
Asus A8N32 SLI
1Gbx2 CORSAIR Twinx2048-3200c2 (2-3-3-6 1T)
2xXFX 7800GTX 512MB in SLI
WD4000KD 400GB HD
Plextor PX-716A/SW IDE
PC Power & Cooling 510w SLI
Case: Lian Li V SILENT PC-V1100B Plus
 
Intel Core i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz LGA 1366 130W Quad-Core Processor Model BX80601920 - Retail and GIGABYTE GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail Combo $489

2x Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV425-S2/64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Retail $147

CORSAIR CMPSU-850HX 850W ATX12V 2.3 / EPS12V 2.91 80 PLUS SILVER Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply - Retail $180

2x XFX HD-587A-ZNF9 Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card ... - Retail $400

LG Black 8X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 40X CD-ROM SATA Internal Combo LG Blu-ray Reader & 16X LightScribe DVD±R DVD Burner - Retail $100

CORSAIR Cooling Hydro Series CWCH50-1 120mm High Performance CPU Cooler - Retail $78

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMX6GX3M3C1600C7 - Retail $170

Right now Nvidia has nothing worth buying and doesn't look have any else in stores for long time to come.
 
I'd get a 1-2TB storage drive also. Extra $100 or so. Probably worth it in a $3000 budget.

I'd get a different motherboard. Maybe the EVGA or Asus, but that's just my personal preference. Never been a big Gigabyte fan (although I've never had problems either with them).
 
kirbyrj said:
I'd get a 1-2TB storage drive also. Extra $100 or so. Probably worth it in a $3000 budget.
Click to expand...

Reread the first post; the OP said that he had a 2TB HDD that he was going to reuse.

That said, lt_shiro's build is as good as they come.
 
cool thank you
why i920 is it easy to overclock compared to 980 or 950 say?
 
kortik said:
cool thank you
why i920 is it easy to overclock compared to 980 or 950 say?
Click to expand...

The i7 920 is just as easy to OC as those two CPUs.

The i7 920 is simply the best bang for the buck Core i7 LGA 1366 CPU out there.
 
Danny Bui said:
The i7 920 is just as easy to OC as those two CPUs.

The i7 920 is simply the best bang for the buck Core i7 LGA 1366 CPU out there.
Click to expand...

I agree, but if you're only OCing mildly. You can get a chip with a higher starting speed. I wouldn't, but it depends on what you're comfortable with. Obviously, your budget has enough room for it.
 
lt_shiro said:
2x Kingston SSDNow V Series SNV425-S2/64GB 2.5" 64GB SATA II Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - Retail $147
Click to expand...

These are J-Micron drives (The latest JMicron JMF618 controller, but it still sucks). If you want to waste your money on J-Micron, be my guest.

The SSDNow V Series turned in mediocre scores for the OS tests, again suggesting below average IOPS performance. Hopefully these can be ironed out with future firmware updates. File writes were equally poor, barely beating the older 40GB unit. The virus scan test is heavy on sequential reads, which enabled a bit of redemption for the new drive.
Click to expand...

I would just buy one of these instead (same price for one). The capacity is not as much, but the performance is impressive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...167026&cm_re=intel_80g-_-20-167-026-_-Product

In fact, you have the leftover budget to afford two of these :D
 
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Basically, you want an SSD with an Intel or Indilinx-based controller. The X25-M series SSDs are the best for single SSD operation. Those SSDs with Indilinx controllers aren't as good as the X25-M is on their own, but two of them in RAID 0 would offer amazing performance.
 
defaultluser said:
These are J-Micron drives (The latest JMicron JMF618 controller, but it still sucks). If you want to waste your money on J-Micron, be my guest.



I would just buy one of these instead (same price for one). The capacity is not as much, but the performance is impressive:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...167026&cm_re=intel_80g-_-20-167-026-_-Product

In fact, you have the leftover budget to afford two of these :D
Click to expand...

Main reasons I pick these for how aggressively the Trim is on these are and low cost of about $2 per GB. The drives you speak of are like $2.80 ish per GB.

In Raid 0 it will max out the Reads and come with in *I need to check this out again* to max out the writes.
 
lt_shiro said:
Main reasons I pick these for how aggressively the Trim is on these are and low cost of about $2 per GB. The drives you speak of are like $2.80 ish per GB.

In Raid 0 it will max out the Reads and come with in *I need to check this out again* to max out the writes.
Click to expand...

Sorry folks, this is the drive I meant to link (was in a hurry, and didn't check my link. my apologies). This drive destroys the ones you wanted the OP to buy:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...167023&cm_re=intel_ssd-_-20-167-023-_-Product

These new drives you want him to buy - the real-world performance SUCKS. Sure, you double the performance if you stripe them, but twice crap is still crap.

Did you not read the link I posted? The X25-M G2 offers TRIPLE the performance in every category: XP load time, app load time, and general use (and yes, this holds-true for the 80GB drives, which also use all 10 channels of the Intel controller). This means even if you buy TWO of the Kingston drives, you still won't be in the same league as the Intel drive.

http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=872&type=expert&pid=6

Why would you cheap-out for a $3000 gaming system, especially when very few people will feel constrained by an 80GB drive for OS + apps/games? Buy one of these plus a hard drive to store data (i.e. the drive the OP is going to reuse anyway): 2TB WD HDD
 
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i agree with default user, if he has $3k to spend I would not get anything less than the X25 g2
 
ok I went ahead and ordered the parts already so wish me luck hopefully it will be a good build
I went w/$400 Intel SSD 160gb drive
 
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well I already purchased Corsair H50 kit for the same price
whats the advantages on that sidewinder site compared to corsair kit?
 
kortik said:
well I already purchased Corsair H50 kit for the same price
whats the advantages on that sidewinder site compared to corsair kit?
Click to expand...
the Noctua probably has a bit better cooling performance depending on your case airflow, but it's not going to make much of a difference unless you're trying to squeeze every last MHz out of your CPU
 
I bougth Haf 932 case w/plenty of 230mm fans etc..
I think I'll be alright

but Thank you for suggestions. I was thinking to use HAF 932 140mm rear fan to push fresh air into the radiator and 120mm included corsair fan to pull
I just have to figure out how to mount that 120mm rad. to 140mm fan
 
I'd change the motherboard and the hard drive. I second the X25-M recommendation and I'd go with an ASUS or EVGA X58 board. Nothing wrong with the Gigabyte boards, but I prefer ASUS or EVGA at present.
 
Dan_D said:
I'd change the motherboard and the hard drive. I second the X25-M recommendation and I'd go with an ASUS or EVGA X58 board. Nothing wrong with the Gigabyte boards, but I prefer ASUS or EVGA at present.
Click to expand...
I agree on the motherboard recommendation, the Gigabyte boards seem more prone to whining
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1497183

not sure what you mean about the hard drive though, I believe the OP already has a 2TB Western Digital drive and those are great drives
 
ok putting my rig together
how do I install the Intel SSD into HAF 932?
does it fit?
 
Yeah, I have the same one. Works perfectly. I think I got it for $8 shipped from Newegg a while back.
 
here is some pics of what I bought and put together.



 
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sorry, for some reason i thought you had the p55a-ud3r, lol.

The HAF922 doesn't come with an SSD adapter?!? :eek: my Scout came with one! I can't remember, but I thought the HAF came with one as well. Oh wellz.
 
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They mobo I have is x58a-udr3
it supports two 16x pci slots
and I am running 2 xfx 5870 xxx edition cards in CrossFire
when I said SLI you knew what I meant, this is my first ATI cards so pardon my nvidiannes.

currently I am running at 4Ghz on this mobo and 7-7-8-20 timing on my corsair memory cannot complain
 
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