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$1500 MATX Gaming Build

D

deekayex

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 7, 2006
Messages
298
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming & General Purpose
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1500 (flexible)
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Cook County, IL
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU - Leaning towards the i7 4770k that is currently on sale at Microcenter.
Motherboard - Probably the Gigabyte G1 Sniper M5.
RAM - Not sure how much or what brand.
Case - I want the Silverstone TJ08-E.
Power Supply - I want something fully modular.
Graphics Card - I am thinking GTX 780. What brand, though?
Secondary HDD
Wifi card - Was thinking about the GCWB300D from Gigabyte.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Dell U2311H 23" monitor
Audioengine 2 speakers
Samsung 840 Pro SSD 128 GB
Coolermaster Hyper 212+ (will this provide enough cooling?)
Liteon Bluray drive
6) Will you be overclocking?
Yes, I hope to get up to 4.4 ghz.
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
23" 1080p now. Possibly 27" 1440p in the future. Or I may move it into living room and use it as a Steambox for my 55" plasma.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This month.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
MATX form factor. I don't think I will ever use SLI or Crossfire.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, Windows 7 64 bit.
 
Somehow I missed this thread. Sorry about that.

Somehow I missed this thread.

CPU: You don't need the 4770K since you're not doing anything that would require it. Stick with the 4670K instead.

Motherboard: N/A

RAM: I recommend this RAM:
$47 - Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB DDR3 1600 RAM

Case: Excellent choice for a case.

PSU: I recommend this PSU:
$128 - Seasonic X650 Gold 650W Modular PSU

Video card: eVGA, MSI, Asus, or Gigabyte would be my top recommendations.

Secondary HDD: This should do the trick:
$96 - Seagate Barracuda ST2000DM001 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Finally the wifi card: Can't vouch for that card. Our general wifi card recommendation is this:
$27 - Asus PCE-N15 Wireless Adapter
 
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Thanks for your input. I ordered a stock EVGA GTX 780 and figure I can overclock it if necessary. I am going to try out the Gigabyte wifi / bluetooth combination card because I am interested in the Dolphin emulator and some Nexus 4 apps. I picked up the 4770k on Wednesday at Microcenter. Still looking around for the other components.
 
Ok, everything is assembled and running smoothly. Here are the parts I settled upon and my impressions:

Silverstone TJ08-E: A fantastic case. I mounted my SSD drive (Samsung 840 Pro 128 GB) in the bottom of case and then converted one of the 5.25" drive bays into a 3.5" mount for my rotation HDD (Western Digital Caviar Blue 1 TB). I then removed the HDD rack so as to maximize air flow from the large fan at the front of the case. Cord management and air flow are significantly better than the Lian Li case I was using previously. Looks minimalistic, has no wasted space, and is pretty quiet.

SeaSonic SSR-550RM Power Supply: Modular but the cables seem to be of pretty low quality. Have had no problems running all of my components.

Asus Gryphon / i7 4770k / Corsair Vengeance 16GB DDR3 1600 / Noctua NH-U12S: Very easy to overclock. I am using the adaptive voltage setting to get my i7 4770k to 4.4 ghz at 1.2V during load. CPU remains < 70 C during stress testing. Heat sink installation is a 2-person job.

Gigabyte Windforce GTX 780: Have yet to overclock. No need so far.

Gigabyte GCWB300D: Has better reception than my old wifi card.
 
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