750~ Gaming Build

[Rahkesh]

Hi there, my friend laptop died recently and while he picked up a cheap replacement for school work, we're looking for something for some gaming and other power things. I'm building him a quick example build to see how much it's going to cost him. We're hoping to purchase a replacement soon, but he may need to wait till late November/early December if his parents are difficult.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming(BF3 and Skyrim), Web Browsing

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
We're looking at around $750~ tax and shipping included.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Corvallis, OR

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.
We need a CPU, Mobo, Ram, Video Card, Case, Power Supply, CD/DVD drive, Monitor, Hard Drive. Oh, and a keyboard would be nice too.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
None

6) Will you be overclocking?
No

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
We are hoping for around ~22in, 1680x1050 or 1920x1080

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
See Above(tl;dr Hopefully Soon)

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
Nothing extra.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
64-bit Win 7Pro

=============================
So I've been looking around and put this together fairly quickly.

$262 - I5 2400 and ASUS P8H67-M LX (Just looking for a fairly cheap mobo, we also looked at the GIGABYTE GA-Z68P-DS3 for the Z68 chipset ~18$ more less 10$MIR hopefully. Are we going too cheap here?)
$97 - Corsair CX600 V2 & 8gb G.Skill Ripjaws
$165 - HS Radeon 6870 1GB (15$ Promo Code)
$56 - LIAN LI Lancool PC-K58 Black (Thinking about the window version for pretty interior, but I think it exchanges a 140mm fan for a 120mm, is that a big loss?)(20% off promo code)
$120 - Acer 21.5in 1920x1080 LCD Monitor
$19 - ASUS Sata CD/DVD Burner
$60 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB
(No Keyboard Yet)
$11 Shipping

Total:
$789

And 20$ in potential rebates.
At the very least, we plan on buying the case soon just because it's at such a good price. If we could come fairly close to maxing either of the games, that would be awesome.

 

[Dangman]

I'm building him a quick example build to see how much it's going to cost him. We're hoping to purchase a replacement soon, but he may need to wait till late November/early December if his parents are difficult.

Just a FYI, whatever parts you select or we recommend may not be the same parts we recommend buying next month let alone late November/early December.

$262 - I5 2400 and ASUS P8H67-M LX

That combo will expire at the end of this motherboard.

(Just looking for a fairly cheap mobo, we also looked at the GIGABYTE GA-Z68P-DS3 for the Z68 chipset ~18$ more less 10$MIR hopefully. Are we going too cheap here?)

Not worth it since it doesn't have the onboard video outputs.

$97 - Corsair CX600 V2 & 8gb G.Skill Ripjaws

Not a good choice. I recommend this higher quality PSU:
$50 - Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W PSU
$47 - G.Skill Ripjaws Series F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM

Costs the same but you get a higher quality PSU

$165 - HS Radeon 6870 1GB (15$ Promo Code)

I recommend spending the extra $20 for this GPU from a company with a longer warranty and better customer support:
$185 - XFX HD-687A-ZHFC Radeon HD 6870 1GB PCI-E Video Card

$56 - LIAN LI Lancool PC-K58 Black (Thinking about the window version for pretty interior, but I think it exchanges a 140mm fan for a 120mm, is that a big loss?)(20% off promo code)

Good choice.

$120 - Acer 21.5in 1920x1080 LCD Monitor

Does your friend care about playing at near high settings? I ask because the HD 6870 1GB will struggle a bit at that resolution. If you go with a monitor with a resolution of 1680x1050, he can up the settings without slow performance. I recommend this:
$100 - Acer S201HLbd Black 20" DVI Widescreen LCD Monitor

$60 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB

Spend the extra $5 for this faster hard drive:
$65 - Hitachi Desktar 7K1000.D HDS721010DLE630 1TB SATA 6.0Gb/s Hard Drive

 

[Deleted member 88227]

That combo will expire at the end of this motherboard.

You mean month.

 

[Rahkesh]

You mean month.

I had a little chuckle.

snipped

Thanks a lot for the help sir. My friend decided to go with all your suggested changes, he's going through with the purchase tonight. The total ended up coming out to the same thing because of the monitor drop and a 10$ off code on the Power Supply. I got the case from your recommended cases list so kudos to you there. If it's still the cool thing to do, we'll post pictures in here of the build?

Thanks again Danny!

 

[Dangman]

You mean month.

I had a little chuckle.

LOL!

That was a sure sign I really needed that nap.

Thanks a lot for the help sir. My friend decided to go with all your suggested changes, he's going through with the purchase tonight. The total ended up coming out to the same thing because of the monitor drop and a 10$ off code on the Power Supply. I got the case from your recommended cases list so kudos to you there. If it's still the cool thing to do, we'll post pictures in here of the build?

Thanks again Danny!

Good luck with the build! And yes, it's fine to post pics of the build here in this thread.

 

[Deleted member 88227]

We encourage build pics!