Help - Gaming budget build $1000

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dunraim

Weaksauce
Joined
Sep 24, 2010
Messages
90
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
About $1000 with out tax and shipping
3) Where do you live?
USA, CT
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.
Motherboard, CPU, Ram, Case, Video card, SSD, PSU, CD/DVD Burner,
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
HDD WD Black 500 gig
6) Will you be overclocking?
No
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
have a 22" and a 19"
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
This month or so
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? etc.
Crossfire or sli
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, have windows 7 key.


Looking to have two graphics cards. leaning more towards amd for processor.
 
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Eh this might not help but i was posting earlier about my purchase and saw yours. I have an alien ware with an icore 650 and an AMD 5770 1g w 4g of1333 ram for sale for just a tad over your budget. Water cooling, unlocked bios and sli compatible (supposedly its new in the box i have not opened it or unpacked it). You can throw your second hard drive in her but hte win xp key might go to waste.

Just a thought...feel free to scold me if i have borken a TOS for this site by bringing that up...not trying to spam or anything, just trying to help.
 
dunraim said:
Thanks for the offer allenfx, I was hoping to build one myself.
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Yeah for a $1000, you should not be getting an i5 650. That's just a major waste of money.

Anyway, please come back next month and ask again for build help. Whatever parts/deals/prices we recommend in November may not be the same parts/deals/prices we recommend in December.
 
Danny Bui said:
Yeah for a $1000, you should not be getting an i5 650. That's just a major waste of money.

Anyway, please come back next month and ask again for build help. Whatever parts/deals/prices we recommend in November may not be the same parts/deals/prices we recommend in December.
Click to expand...

sorry I meant some time with in this next month. so let me correct that.
 
dunraim said:
sorry I meant some time with in this next month. so let me correct that.
Click to expand...

Oh ok. In that case, here's a setup:

$350 - Intel Core i5 750 CPU + Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard Combo
$60 - G.Skill F3-10600CL9D-4GBNT 2 x 2GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$185 - XFX HD-685X-ZNFC Radeon HD 6850 1GB PCI-E Video Card
$135 - OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE60G 2.5" 60GB SSD
$22 - LG GH22NS50 DVD Burner
$90 - Corsair 650TX 650W PSU
----
Total: $842 plus shipping

Choose your own case. I personallly recommend these:
$70 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K56 ATX Case
$70 - Cooler Master RC-590-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$70 - Cooler Master CM690 II Basic ATX Case
$85 - Cooler Master CM690 II Advance ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$105 - Fractal Design Define R3 Black ATX Case (Fill in the ++++ with "N C I X" without the spaces)
$105 - Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium ATX Case (Fill in the ++++ with "N C I X" without the spaces)
$105 - Fractal Design Define R3 Silver ATX Case (Fill in the ++++ with "N C I X" without the spaces)
$100 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$110 - Lian Li PC-7FN ATX Case
$120 - Velocity Micro GX2-W Silver Classic Aluminum Case with Side Window
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT Black Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$160 - Corsair Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case
 
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I recently read an article over on Toms hardware (think it was from April) that basically said clock speed is still king in games.

Even the I3s were about equaling the performance of the I7s in most games as the GPU was the bottle neck (unless you either 1) play at very low resolutions or 2) invest in x-fire or SLI set ups...above the 5770/460 cards and up (and i see you are looking at a SINGLE 6850 now.).

I can post the review if anyone likes (not sure if thats a TOS infringement).

Icore 750 runs at 2.66G while the Icore 650 runs at 3.2 g. I dont know about the overlocking but the clarkdales (of which the 650 is) will hit over 4gh on air cooling all day long....and as high as 4.7ish on water cooling.

Here is an example of an i3 beating an i7 870 in crysis with a Radeon 5850...the conclusion is that the clock rates help....the extra cores do not.

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/core-i3-gaming,2588-7.html

So given that...i agree that the i3s/i5s are a waste of money for over all perrformance, but for gaming..clock speed seems to win in many cases. 3.2 beats 2.66. Its pretty evident as when they simply clock the little I3 higher..it beats the i7 870 and nearly ties it the rest of the time...again..clock speed over cores.. (thats what pulled me into the 650 over the 750..and those 680s are over $300 bucks...the 655s are not that cheap either? Why do you think that is? Clock speed)

Having said that..i opted for icore 7 860 that only runs at around 2.8g myself (but i do more than gaming..lol).

Anyway that offer was hassel free out the door system and the 650 is what it came with...i dont see water cooling in your list so i thought it might be an option (those alien ware cases are awesome...plug in hard drives etc). But i wouldnt push you on it, just saying the statement that the 650 is a waste of money..not entirely true.

Ok back on topic.I might recommend jumping to the $239 Radeon 6870 from newegg rather than the 6850....since most of your game comes from the vid card (and you will have a fine processor in that i5 750 to push it), consider it please!

Edit: Yes i have seen the benchies showing the multi-threaded games running higher so i get that side of the argument.

Allen
 
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AllenFX said:
just saying the statement that the 650 is a waste of money..not entirely true.
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The i5 650 costs $180. The quad-core Core i5 750 costs $185. That's why the i5 650 is a waste of money: It costs almost the same as a Core i5 750 but its 600Mhz clock speed increase does not yield enough of a performance increase to justify purchasing it over a quad-core CPU. The extra cores will come in handy for those who tend to multi-task a lot while gaming and for games that actually scale well with multiple cores.

As such, the i5 650 is a waste of money when a quad-core CPU isn't the much more in price.
 
Danny Bui said:
The i5 650 costs $180. The quad-core Core i5 750 costs $185. That's why the i5 650 is a waste of money: It costs almost the same as a Core i5 750 but its 600Mhz clock speed increase does not yield enough of a performance increase to justify purchasing it over a quad-core CPU. The extra cores will come in handy for those who tend to multi-task a lot while gaming and for games that actually scale well with multiple cores.

As such, the i5 650 is a waste of money when a quad-core CPU isn't the much more in price.
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I think thats fair..unless you are over clocking (which the op is not).

However, what is your opinion of the OC situation on those two. Wouldnt the clarkdale .32 chip end up being the faster platform over the quad core lynnfield design?
 
AllenFX said:
However, what is your opinion of the OC situation on those two. Wouldnt the clarkdale .32 chip end up being the faster platform over the quad core lynnfield design?
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Even with overclocking involved, the higher OC attained by the i5 650 (roughly 4.5Ghz to 4.6Ghz IIRC) would not yield a huge performance increase over the i5 750 (4.2GHz to 4.5Ghz IIRC). So even with overclocking factored in, the i5 750 is still a better choice since you have four cores at 4.2Ghz verus two cores at 4.6Ghz. That extra 400Mhz of clock speed isn't gonna make that much of a difference compare to having two extra cores.
 
Thanks! Good to know.

And what do i know...i opted for the i860 which pretty much TIES that i750 in games .and it doesnt OC as well as the good ol Bloomfields... Why? yea you guessed it...price. LOL ( should say price versus the x58/1366 options, not price against the icore750).

So i see we are sticking with the i750 as the cheapest quad avail advice. However i would still maintain that the little 650 is not a TERRIBLE processer, just not enough bang buck wise.... Hey if you burn out your discreet graphic card over clocking it..youd still have video for a couple weeks till you bought a replacement at least (courtesy of the on boad built in dx11 graphics)....there i said it....thats part of why the prices are so close...the on board vid that would only even be used if you burned up your vid card..lol
 
no one said the 650 was a terrible chip. all he said was "Its not a logical buy when you can get 4 cores for 5 bucks more" 4 cores are being used more andm ore these days in games. So buying a dual core CPU wouldnt be a smart thing to do.
 
AllenFX said:
So i see we are sticking with the i750 as the cheapest quad avail advice. However i would still maintain that the little 650 is not a TERRIBLE processer, just not enough bang buck wise.... Hey if you burn out your discreet graphic card over clocking it..youd still have video for a couple weeks till you bought a replacement at least (courtesy of the on boad built in dx11 graphics)....there i said it....thats part of why the prices are so close...the on board vid that would only even be used if you burned up your vid card..lol
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As 4LC4PON3 said, no one sid th i5 650 is a terrible CPU. It's just a shitty buy.
 
IMHO Neither are good buys when your talking about value..

Here is a 2nd build all togeather using an PII x6 1055t & a 6870

268 ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X + AMD Phenom II X6 1055T
240 GIGABYTE GV-R687D5-1GD-B Radeon HD 6870 1GB
120 ushkin Enhanced Callisto Deluxe MKNSSDCL60GB-DX 2.5" 60GB
65 Mushkin Enhanced Silverline 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
100 SeaSonic M12II 620
19 ASUS Black 24X DVD+R

Shipped cost of 837 & has another 35 in MIR..

Compared to Danny's build performance of the CPU is pretty similar. But I used the savings on the CPU/Motherboard to upg the Video Video card where more of a performance increase will be gained from the extra 50 bucks spent. SSD was changed simply because OCZ Cust Service blows & the drivers are basically the same (and the mushkin is a bit cheaper). PSU is also modular.
 
Pretty good build there.

With that said, I'd have to disagree with your assessment that the Intel Core i5 750 CPU + Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard Combo is not a good value. Yes it is $82 more than the Phenom II 1055T setup but for that $82 you get:
- Faster CPU for gaming
- SLI capability
- SATA 6Gb/s
- USB 3.0
- Better overclocking performance

IMO, those features are well worth the extra $82 if you can afford it. without sacrificing in other ares. If not, then the setup you listed is a very very good choice for the money. Also, goddamn, I did not know the 1055T dropped $20 in price.
 
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Danny Bui said:
- Faster CPU for gaming
- SLI capability
- SATA 6Gb/s
- USB 3.0
- Better overclocking performance
Click to expand...

In other circumstances the i5 build could be worth the extra 82 bucks, but other then the sata III & usb 3.0 I dont see the rest of being advantages unless you knew you were going to be running SLI.. & Thats also assuming you didnt want to run the hack to run SLI on the AMD board.


- Marginally Faster at best, but for the most part there pretty equal.
- We both recommended AMD Cards so thats kinda null
- Someday this might be needed
- Same with this
- the 1055t is an EXCELLENT Overclocker & most will hit 4 Ghz on air.. Aside form that the OP said No overclocking.
 
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