Need advice PC Gaming rig $1,500

G

Gussboy

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 19, 2006
Messages
93
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
Gaming, General use
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$1,500 US flexible
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
Houston, TX
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.
New parts I am planning are listed below.
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-620HX ??powerful enough for this build??
Lian Li case
6) Will you be overclocking?
CPU nad possibly GPU
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
Have a Dell Ultrasharp 27" 1920x1200
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
ASAP, spent about a week so far researching new parts
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.
Want to take advantage of SATA 6Gb/SSD. Not interested in dual GPUs would prefer a single card. The GTX 580 looks to me like a good high-end part that still has alot of life left in it for all the upcoming 2011+ gaming titles.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Win7 x64

Existing rig (for reference)

Intel Core i7-920
ASRock X58 Extreme
CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-620HX
G.SKILL 8GB DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600
XFX Radeon HD 5850

Planned new parts list:

MB: ???
CPU: i5-2500K (possible i7-2600 for hyperthreading in non-gaming apps)
GPU: MSI Lightning Radeon HD 6970 2GB
RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 1600
HDD: WD Caviar Black 2TB
SSD: Crucial M4 128 GB
DVD: ASUS 24X DVD Burner
COOLER: COOLER MASTER Hyper 212+

Conclusion: Its been a little over 2yrs since I last upgraded and just looking for get up to date with some more recent parts while keeping the budget fairly reasonable. The biggest thing I am considering splurging on is the GPU (GTX 580). Mostly looking forward to playing all the upcoming PC titles (BF3, MW3, GW2, Rage, Skyrim, etc) at full details 1920x1200 silky smooth.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions on my build :)
 
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That looks like a pretty nice build, but are you hurting with the 920, or just have an itch to upgrade? That's not a bad system you have now (especially if you overclock it). Maybe just put some money into a SSD and new video card for the existing rig, and wait to see what SB-E and IB bring? The biggest improvement in gaming performance for you would be the video card, the CPU will have pretty minimal impact, considering what you are coming from.
 
Forceman said:
That looks like a pretty nice build, but are you hurting with the 920, or just have an itch to upgrade? That's not a bad system you have now (especially if you overclock it). Maybe just put some money into a SSD and new video card for the existing rig, and wait to see what SB-E and IB bring? The biggest improvement in gaming performance for you would be the video card, the CPU will have pretty minimal impact, considering what you are coming from.
Click to expand...

^ this
 
While the 2500K would indeed be faster than the Core i7 920 in many games, it's not fast enough to justify spending $475 for just the CPU + mobo + RAM upgrade. As Forceman pointed out, you'll be fine with your current build after a GPU and SSD upgrade.

Though if you're itching for an upgrade or planning on passing down that PC to another person, here's a short list of critiques:
- Don't bother with that AsRock mobo as it only has a one year warranty. That's crap considering that many $120 mobos and up have three year warranties. In addition, PCI-E 3.0 won't provide an immediate advantage over current PCI-E 2.0 for a long long time. PCI-E 2.0 came out 4 years ago and current video cards are just barely saturating PCI-E 2.0 at x4 speeds/bandwidth. That's just barely PCI-E 1.0 x8 speeds which came out in 2003. So considering that we're barely using up half the bandwidth of a interface introduced 8 years ago and a fourth of the bandwidth of an interface introduced 4 years ago, it's fair to say that it's gonna be a long long time before PCI-E 3.0 is remotely needed with a single GPU config. By then, PCI-E 4.0 or even 5.0 could be out. Or an entirely different interface altogether.

- The GTX 580 is not a good buy if you're talking about price to performance ratio. The HD 6970 2GB is probably one of the highest end best bang for buck video card. However, if you don't care at all about best bang for the buck value with a video card and don't spend overspending by a quite a large margin, then go for the GTX 580. Otherwise, if you care about getting the most bang out of your buck value, then go for the HD 6970 2GB.
 
Thanks for the feedback so far and I was a little surprised to see the recommendations to just hold tight with my current rig... don't get me wrong this is great news for my pocketbook :)

I neglected to mention that I have an OCZ Vertex 1st gen 64GB SSD already in my current machine.

If I turn this into a video card only upgrade whats my best bet considering that I don't mind spending $500 on a GPU but don't really want to get much higher than that by having the absolute latest.

My initial research brought me to the GTX 580 but I am open to anything either AMD or Nvidia. What would give me the best FPS boost at 1920x1200 considering my existing hardware listed about in the thread?

Obviously I want to exclude the ultra expensive cards (GTX 590, HD6990) and I am not much of a dual GPU guy.
 
As Danny Bui pointed out, the 6970 is probably the best high-end bang for the buck card, or the GTX 570 if you are partial to Nvidia. Lots more options lower down the scale, but high-end those two kind of stand out.
 
After reading reviews and lots of forum comments I am not sure that this proposed GPU only upgrade from Radeon HD 5850 >>> HD 6970 is going to give me much FPS increase really.

Overall my goal is just to have smooth FPS in the big fall/winter games titles coming out soon. I feel that my FPS are lagging a little behind currently on some newer games @ 1920x1200 4X AA.

Could someone recommend a multiple GPU solution that would work with my current motherboard.
 
If you plan to go CF/SLI then I'd suggest upgrading your PSU even if you do keep your current rig.
 
Gussboy said:
I neglected to mention that I have an OCZ Vertex 1st gen 64GB SSD already in my current machine.
Click to expand...
I would still recommend a new SSD then. The latest SSDs are faster than that old OCZ and more reliable.

Gussboy said:
Could someone recommend a multiple GPU solution that would work with my current motherboard.
Click to expand...

You're gonna need a new PSU then. Something like this:
$135 - Corsair 850TX V2 850W PSU

GPU wise, I recommend HD 6950 2GB Crossfire or GTX 570 SLI.
 
Thanks everyone so far for the input!

Danny Bui said:
I would still recommend a new SSD then. The latest SSDs are faster than that old OCZ and more reliable.
Click to expand...

Would a newer SSD such as the OCZ Vertex 3 or Crucial M4 see a large performance boost over my 1st gen Vertex drive even though my mobo is limited to SATA 3Gb and not 6Gb?
 
I do not recommend OCZ SSDs at all. However you'll see a difference with the Crucial M4 series of SSDs.
 
The SSD isn't going to be that noticeable an increase - it'll be faster in benchmarks, but not noticeably faster in actual usage. The Crucial M4 is probably more reliable though.

Frankly, if you don't think you are going to see an increase from a 5850 to a 6970 than you probably aren't going to see any increase from anything, because that's a pretty big jump in GPU power. Crossfire/SLI is a little bit overkill for a single 1920 monitor, at least on current games.
 
Danny and others:

I have decided to move forward with this build even though as discussed in the thread that my existing PC is still fairly modern. I will be handing down my existing PC to a family member and it will get good use.

My final issue on the build is which motherboard to choose? I know Danny and others had recommended against the ASRock Z68 EXTREME4 GEN3 for price and 1yr warranty concerns.

Given my proposed build in the 1st post of the thread, which motherboard(s) are best suited? I would prefer to have four SATA 6Gb ports btw. Cost is not really my top factor but I don't need tons of bells and whistles that will not get used ever ( ie. Z68..)
 
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I have one of the Asus P8P67 vanilla boards and despite it not working with my sound card for some reason (I've just been using onboard sound which works for me), it's been great. You may want to check out the Asus threads in the Intel Motherboard section, some people have had problems and that is why Danny doesn't recommend the boards. The MSI board he linked would work fine for you, I'm sure.
 
Gussboy said:
For my build, any thoughts on the recommended MSI P67A-GD65 versus one of the below Asus boards? Several reviews I found of the MSI P67A-GD65 seem to recommend these Asus boards instead which are right at thhe same $$.

ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.1)

ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.1)

There seems to be alot of direct comparisons being made between these MSI and Asus P67 boards.
Click to expand...

I think it is a wash - people are fans of both of them because they are both good boards. I have the P8P67 PRO and really like it, but plenty of people feel the same about the MSI. I'd say get whichever is cheaper unless one has something specific you like (like the Intel ethernet on the P8P67 PRO - not sure what the MSI is using).
 
Gussboy said:
For my build, any thoughts on the recommended MSI P67A-GD65 versus one of the below Asus boards? Several reviews I found of the MSI P67A-GD65 seem to recommend these Asus boards instead which are right at thhe same $$.

ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.1)

ASUS P8P67 PRO (REV 3.1)

There seems to be alot of direct comparisons being made between these MSI and Asus P67 boards.
Click to expand...
At least in the case of the above Pro mobo, as Fix Me noted, there are a ton of threads over in the Motherboard subforum about people having issues with the Rev 3.0 version of the Pro mobo. The Rev 3.1 recently came out so it hasn't been out long enough to determine whether or not it's any more reliable than the 3.0 version.

Hence why I don't recommend the P8P67 PRO: The older revision had a ton of issues and the newer revision hasn't been out long enough.
 
Many thanks to all who have assisted me in this thread!

Another question came to mind: Do people still use add-on sound cards these days? In my current rig I have an 2yr old SoundBlaster XiFi Gamer PCI sound card. This outputs to a pretty nice Logitech 5.1 speaker setup.

Should I carry over this older soundcard to the new build? Just use on-board audio on the new motherboard or what?
 
Gussboy said:
Many thanks to all who have assisted me in this thread!

Another question came to mind: Do people still use add-on sound cards these days? In my current rig I have an 2yr old SoundBlaster XiFi Gamer PCI sound card. This outputs to a pretty nice Logitech 5.1 speaker setup.

Should I carry over this older soundcard to the new build? Just use on-board audio on the new motherboard or what?
Click to expand...

Yeah carry it over. In fact, use the onboard audio first and then plug in the old sound card. See which one is better.
 
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