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Mid Range Gaming Build Advice

K

kdubz

n00b
Joined
May 11, 2012
Messages
6
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing?
For the most part gaming (Battlefield 3, Diablo 3, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 when it comes out). Also watching a bunch of anime and movies in 1080p.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
Around 1400 give or take, before tax. I'd like to keep it around 1300 though.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Toronto, Ontario. Probably will be picking my parts from my local NCIX, Canada Computers and/or Tiger Direct.

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, GPU, RAM, PSU, 2 storage drives (1 SSD for OS and some games, 1 HDD for general storage), optical drive, case.

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

6) Will you be overclocking?
Not at the moment, but probably in the future.

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
1920x1080 24 inch. Asus VS247H

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
As soon as possible!

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.
USB 3.0, SATA 6Gb/s, possibly RAID, and probably an onboard wireless adapter. If not, it'd be great if you guys could recommend a wireless card for me as Ethernet ports are rather scarce in the house I'm in D:

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

Personally, I would like to use the 680GTX for my GPU, hopefully I can get my hands on one in the coming week. For cases, I'm a big fan of the simplistic Fractal cases. I have my eyes on the Arc Midi over the R3 just due to the fact that it has a front USB 3.0 panel...Which I don't think the R3 has, not sure.

Anyways, off the top of my head here's my rough idea of the build:

Case: Fractal Design Arc Midi Tower
MoBo: Not sure here. I'm assuming it'll be some sort of Z77 board.
CPU: Intel i5 2500K (or the IB equivalent)
GPU: 680GTX, not sure which manufacturer I want to go with though.
RAM: G. Skill Ripjaw X series 8Gb (2x4) @ 1333 or 1600.
PSU: Corsair TX650M, not too clear about power supplies.
Drives: Crucial M4 64GB SSD, and I'm open to HDD suggestions (1TB space is enough).

Thanks in advance for your advice guys. I've been a lurker for a while, finally decided to actually post something for once!
 
Case wise, I would recommend the Corsair 400R instead over the Arc Midi as the Arc Midi's stock fans aren't that great and it is a tad cramped.

Mobo wise, I'd recommend this:
$130 - Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Intel Z77 ATX Motherboard

As for the wireless adapter, this adapter might work:
$35 - Asus PCE-N15 Wireless Adapter

PSU wise, I'd avoid the TX650M as it is of lesser quality and performance than the TX650 V2. Its few modular cables don't make up for those deficiencies IMO. So go for the TX650 V2.

SSD wise, I'd go with 128GB model of SSD if you can afford it. HDD wise, if you can buy outside of the three stores you talked about, I recommend this drive:
$120 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

GPU wise, considering the shortages of the GTX 680, go for any manufacturer that has it. With that said, you should be fine the GTX 670. Unlike the 680, it's actually available.
 
I would consider those choices "High End" :p

GTX 680, i would go with EVGA.

And might i reccomend a 128gb m4 SSD. You can fit a few more of the bigger games such as Skyrim and Diablo 3. Having played both on my mechanical drive vs my SSD, the SSD's lower level load times are great to have.

Your 1TB: i would get a Western Digital Caviar Black (Danny, didn't Seagate buy out Samsung's mechanical harddrive division? )

everything else looks fine to me


Guild Wars 2 makes me want to upgrade...
 
Thanks Danny, I'll look into those. I heard good things about the 670 but they seem to be on back order with the 680 as well (at the moment at least). In terms of everything else I posted earlier, are those decent choices? It'd be great if you could post your take on it.
 
Thanks Suprfire, and the only reason I labelled it as a mid range is cause of the processor, I didn't feel I had the right to call it a legit high end build without an i7 or something of the sort haha. Although I suppose the build could qualify as one :)
 
kdubz said:
In terms of everything else I posted earlier, are those decent choices? It'd be great if you could post your take on it.
Click to expand...

The RAM and CPU are fine. I think I commented on the rest of the parts already.
 
Suprfire said:
Your 1TB: i would get a Western Digital Caviar Black (Danny, didn't Seagate buy out Samsung's mechanical harddrive division? )
Click to expand...

The WDCB isn't a good buy, considering it's usually the same price or more than drives that perform faster than it; Such as the drive Danny suggested and the Hitachi drive.

Stick with the Samsung F3.
 
Suprfire said:
Your 1TB: i would get a Western Digital Caviar Black (Danny, didn't Seagate buy out Samsung's mechanical harddrive division? )
Click to expand...

Here is the problem with your recommendation there:

The current Western Digital Black hard drives all use platter layouts that are now two-and-a-half years old: The design has not changed at all (despite the replacement of the SATA 3.0 Gbps interface with the SATA 6.0 Gbps interface) since this layout was introduced in the Caviar Black line late in 2009. In fact, the 1TB drive has an extremely low sequential-performance-to-price ratio compared to all of the other 1TB 7200 RPM hard drives: It is one of the slower, if not the slowest, of the two-platter 1TB hard drives (sequential performance barely exceeds 130 MB/s on the outer tracks while some newer-design single-platter 1TB hard drives can almost reach 190 MB/s), while the Black costs 30 to 50 percent more money than other 1TB 7200 RPM hard drives. That's a poor bang for the buck, IMHO (although I have two of those exact same 1TB WD1002FAEX Blacks, they were priced at only $75 each when I purchased them last year).

And yes, Seagate did buy out Samsung's hard drive division. However, many of the Samsung hard drives are still in production, now being branded as "Samsung by Seagate SpinPoint" and given new Seagate model numbers.
 
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Oh, i didn't know that. Thanks :)

I do have a SpinPoint F3 in my system, it's definatley fast for a mechanical hard drive.

It's just that the whole branding/naming/manufacturing fiasco of the drive made me leery.

I just though the WDCB would be a safer bet... but i do see all those "Samsung by Seagate" drives on newegg, and the F3 1TB is not one of them (yet?) , so they must have the original Samsung Drives still.
 
I like the Fractal Midi. However, I have a mATX board and space isn't an issue with a small motherboard. I'm getting a Midi as soon as I can unload my TJ09. As an aside, this is my first mATX board and I can't believe I didn't make the switch earlier.
 
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