Gaming Build - $2000 budget with LCD

[asoto88]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing?

Mainly i'll be playing COD blackops, COD MW2, Far cry 2, SC 2, Left for dead 2 and a few other fps games. I photoshop here and there and just want something that will last since I usually keep my computers for a while. Something powerful enough to play most games at 1080p with no sweat.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?

$2000 with tax and shipping.

3) Where do you live?

Southern California

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.

CPU
Ram
PSU
Video Card
HDD
Mobo
Tower


5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.

LG DVD/CD-RW Combo drive. And 640gb 7200rpm WD for storage

6) Will you be overclocking?

Yes in the future

7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?

22"-24" 1080p 120hz LCD

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

ASAP

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support?

SLI, USB 3.0, Sata 6gb/s , Friendly overclocking

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

Need to buy WIndows 7 Home Premium 64bit

Already kind of built something. I'm pretty sure about everything except the SSD, MOBO, RAM, and LCD. Im sure their are better parts for the money out there or some that just get better reviews. Need a tower with a see through window and something that is quiet.

EVGA GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) SuperClocked $329.99
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-1000HX $229.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit $99.99
Intel Core i7-950 3.06GHz $294.99
MSI Big Bang-XPower ATX Intel $299.99
OCZ Vertex 2 SSD $144.99
CORSAIR DOMINATOR 6GB DDR $159.99
CORSAIR CWCH50 $79.99
Acer GD235HZbid 1080p 120hz $349.99

It came out to about 2200 with tax and shipping. 2000 is my budget so any help would be appreciated, I need a tower as well. I also plan on putting another SSD down the line, another GTX470 and maybe a Blue ray drive.

Any suggestions are welcome

 

[Dangman]

That setup is just a poor buy:
The 2.8Ghz Core i7 930 only provides about a 2 to 5FPS difference over the Core i5 750 as shown in this review:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gaming_the_core_debate,1.html

Additional proof: The $1040 3.3Ghz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPU is only 15% to 30% faster than the Core i5 750 with only a specific set of games and video cards:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpus-and-games-2010.html

So considering the the i7 975 is faster than the i7 930 and i7 950 and yet only provides 15% to 30% under the most ideal conditions, the Core i7 930/950 is definitely not gonna be that much faster than the i5 750 or i5 760. At least fast enough to justify the higher costs anyway. In addition, there's very little real world difference between triple channel and dual channel RAM in real world apps and games.

So platform wise, you can save around $150 to $200 if you switch to the Core i7 760 route and still get very similar performance in games. Dunno about you but $150 to $200 is too high for minimal gains in gaming. It'll only extend the life of your PC by 2 months at most.

In your particular case, you can easily shave off $335 and get fairly similar performance:
$195 - Intel Core i5 750 CPU
$180 - Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard
$140 - 2 x G.Skill Ripjaw Series F3-10666CL9S-4GBRL 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
---
Total: $515 plus tax and shpping.

And no, Dominator RAM is not worth it. 8GB of RAM is fairly overkill for a gaming only PC but still illustrates that Dominator RAM are not good buys.

You may have noticied that I used Amazon.com links for the CPU and motherboard: Amazon.com doesn't charge tax to CA residents and usually has free shipping on most good computer hardware. So yeah, try to get as much parts as possible from Amazon.com

GPU wise, hold off a week or two to see if the new AMD cards will influence the prices of Nvidia GPUs. With that said, don't bother with that GTX 470 since it's does not provide $25 worth of extra performance over this eVGA GTX 470:
$305 - eVGA GeForce GTX 470 1280Mb PCI-E Video Card


So come back and tell us your new total after all the changes and store switches.
If you do downgrade to the Core i5 750 setup, you can now fit two of either of those GTX 470 cards in the budget.

 

[asoto88]

Wow thats exactly the kind of info I was looking for, any suggestions for an lcd and psu if I stick with one gtx470 ? Thanks for your help

 

[Dangman]

Wow thats exactly the kind of info I was looking for, any suggestions for an lcd and psu if I stick with one gtx470 ? Thanks for your help

You can drop down to this PSU:
$130 - Corsair 850TX 850W PSU

LCD, dunno

 

[asoto88]

i'll look everything up and price it out and let you know, thanks again for the info

 

[asoto88]

Including the monitor and the tower im looking at around 1800 with everything. Thats about 400 less than i was thinking. WIth all the parts you included I think it will be more than enough. Thanks for the help, and ya i think i might wait a week or 2 and see about the price drops. Thanks

 

[Dangman]

Including the monitor and the tower im looking at around 1800 with everything. Thats about 400 less than i was thinking. WIth all the parts you included I think it will be more than enough. Thanks for the help, and ya i think i might wait a week or 2 and see about the price drops. Thanks

No prob man. Post a final build list just to make sure everything is still a good buy