"Budget"-ish i7 Build

[xnorthx]

hello everyone,

I'm currently on the verge of upgrading from an Asus P5N-SLI mobo, Intel E6400 running stock, evga 8800gt and 2GB ddr2667 ram to a relatively inexpensive i7 build.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
- Gaming definitely (Stalker Clear Sky, Fallout 3, Left4Dead, Crysis, etc. Mainly FPS. AND GTA IV) - Also, lots of DVD to mp4 encoding, light photoshop work and everyday tasks.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
- shooting for under 800, tax and shipping included

3) Where do you live?
- Texas

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. Please be very specific.
- CPU, MOBO, RAM, and A couple of new Hard Drives.

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing?
- CoolerMaster Real Power Pro 750, EVGA 8800GT, Razer Barracuda audiocard, SATA optical drive and a couple of stat hard drives.

6) Will you be overclocking?
- maybe light processor overclock on stock cooling

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
- Dell 2407WFP @ 1920x1200, probably down/upgrading to 32 or 42inch LCD @ 1920x1080 or 1366x768.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
- Friday (March 6, Today)

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support?
- no raid, no firewire, no crossfire or sli necessary. The more usb ports the better.

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license?
- Windows Vista 32 Bit Ultimate and Windows 7 Beta 64bit. Looking to buy Vista Business 64-Bit, but not at the moment.

What I have at the moment is:

GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD3R

i7 920

OCZ 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666)

Western Digital Caviar Green WD6400AACS 640GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache

Western Digital Caviar RE2 WD1601ABYS 160GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache

I'm keeping the 8800GT for now and waiting to see if the 1GB 4870's are going to drop any more in price. I'm buying the 160GB WD drive to replace a 40gig IDE drive that I'm using as a boot drive, and the 640GB drive to replace a "grinding" sounding 400gb HD i have now for storage.

What do you guys think?

 

[brons2]

I think you should upgrade your CPU on your existing board (e8500 perhaps...) and get something like a GTX285. That will bring you in around half of your budget and probably give you better gaming performance than a core i7 with an 8800GT. You'll be GPU limited with that setup. $0.02.

 

[Dangman]

What do you guys think?

Make sure that you buy the Core i7 and mobo together from this combo link to save $15:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.156589

Ditch that OCZ RAM and go with this faster G.SKill RAM for the $6 less:
G.Skill F3-12800CL9T-6GBNQ 3 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM - $110

Ditch the 160GB and 640GB drives and just go with two of the faster 640GB drives:
Western Digital WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - $70

The WD 6400AAKS outperforms the Green 640Gb as well as that 160GB drive by quite a large margin.

 

[JacobC1983]

I would ditch the idea of going i7 and pick up an e8500/e8600 and go with a faster video card.. gtx 285/295

save yourself some money and increase gaming by a long shot.. price vs performance is not quite there with i7 on a budget yet

 

[xnorthx]

Thanks for the replies, you guys.

I'm really wanting to go i7 since GTA IV is one of the main reasons I'm upgrading from my current C2D setup.

Danny Bui, thanks for the HD and RAM suggestions, will probably make those changes in my cart tonight.

Plus, if anyone is interested, I think newegg is having some sort of "early adopter" sale offering like 10-15 dollars off certain i7 build related parts. I'm probably going to order tonight around 7 or 8 pm CST, so more replies are appreciated!

 

[IceWeasel]

a word of advice on your monitors, going from a 24" 1920x1200 to a 42" 1366x768 will be awful! trust me, i've done it!

 

[xnorthx]

I actually like the bigger dot pitch! My vision isn't the greatest, so with glasses, straining to see at 1920x1200 isn't as bad as losing some desktop real estate and going 1366x768. That's why 1080 resolution seems like a good compromise.