Once again considering new Gaming build

I

ITOAO

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2005
Messages
176
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?
1000.00 US, including tax and shipping.
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

U.S. Miami, FL
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.
CPU, RAMM, HDD, SSD, PSU, MOBO, VIDEO CARD
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Monitor, Mouse and KB
6) Will you be overclocking?
I do not think so, No
7) 7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
19x10 27"
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
within a month.
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)? etc.
SLI support would be nice as an option but not necessary.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes Win 7 b4bit


I really don't have many ideas at this point. I am thinking I will probably want to go with Intel as I am reading all that's new from AMD is not giving you great bang for the buck as far as CPU. I am partial to nVidia video cards only because I have never really had an AMD. I am not against using one though.
Thanks in advance for any recommendations.

Edited because I will get my tax refund soon and would like to use a bit of it to build a nice new gaming machine.
Will be playing swtor and probably some shooters. (BF3, etc) I really want to be able to play whatever I like without much trouble.
 
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I recommend waiting another 2-3 weeks and ask for advice then as you're fairly close to the release of AMD's new GPUs.
 
That stinks. Will probably get my tax refund next week sometime. Is the expected performance that good, and/ or do you think it will drive the prices of other cards down enough to wait?
 
ITOAO said:
That stinks. Will probably get my tax refund next week sometime. Is the expected performance that good, and/ or do you think it will drive the prices of other cards down enough to wait?
Click to expand...

Expected performance is always that good, but no one knows until we get them. Price is some what unknown as well. Just speculations.

Prices generally do NOT go down on dated hardware when new hardware comes out.
 
Ok, So I saw the 7950 review. Seems really good. Any way I would be able to fit that in my budget or should I still be waiting?
 
No they seemed to be priced around the $460+ mark, which makes out of reach on your budget.
 
Mobo - 117 - MSI Z68MA-G45 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130612
Ram/Cpu - 215.98 - i5 2400 and 8gb Corsair ram - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.806127
PSU - 59.99 - corsair 500watt builder series - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139027

7950 - 449 - SAPPHIRE 11196-00-40G Radeon HD 7950 3GB - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102962

$843

So basically you would have to pick either a SSD or a Hard drive
If you don't care about ssd caching or SLI/Crossfire, you can drop down to a $49 motherboard and fit in a small HDD and small SSD
 
Did you need a case as well as part of that $1000 budget?
 
ITOAO said:
Ok, So I saw the 7950 review. Seems really good. Any way I would be able to fit that in my budget or should I still be waiting?
Click to expand...

Considering that the 7950 is 50% more expensive than the 6970 (which can be found for $300 after rebate), but only about 20% faster, I'd skip the 7950 and just get a 6970. It'll have plenty of performance for 1920x1200.
 
Yeah that case will be fine.

All right, here's a prelim build:
$190 - Intel Core i5-2400 CPU
$133 - Asus P8Z68-V LE Intel Z68 ATX Motherboard
$48 - G.Skill Sniper F3-12800CL9D-8GBSR 2 x 4GB DDR3 1600 RAM
$330 - XFX HD-697A-CNFC Radeon HD 6970 2GB PCI-E Video Card
$105 - Crucial M4 CT064M4SSD2 2.5" 64GB SSD
$91 - Hitachi HDS721050CLA362 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive
$70 - Seasonic S121II 620 620W PSU
----
Total: $967 shipped.
 
Looks real nice. Would it be worth it to spend more money on the cpu then try and get a better graphics card later? With this I should be good to upgrade either the card or the cpu though right? Seems easier to pop in a card over a cpu though.
 
ITOAO said:
Looks real nice. Would it be worth it to spend more money on the cpu then try and get a better graphics card later? With this I should be good to upgrade either the card or the cpu though right? Seems easier to pop in a card over a cpu though.
Click to expand...

Here's the deal:

A lesser GPU may not be able to handle some of the games that you're planning to play at even modest quality settings at the resolution that your monitor uses. In the worst cases, you will have to lower the resolution to significantly lower than your monitor's native resolution (say, all the way down to 1280x720) and turn off all graphic detail completely in order to attain a playable frame rate (and such reductions will strip most, if not all, of the fun out of gaming).
 
ITOAO said:
Looks real nice. Would it be worth it to spend more money on the cpu then try and get a better graphics card later? With this I should be good to upgrade either the card or the cpu though right? Seems easier to pop in a card over a cpu though.
Click to expand...
Considering that you're not planning on overclocking and are only gaming, there are no worthwhile CPUs for you to upgrade to.
 
Once again thanks for the suggestions.
Maybe I will try my hand at overclocking on the next system.
 
Danny, would it make any difference going all AMD? I see you have an AMD cpu listed in your sig for your gaming rig?
I will probably check in once more before I order. Should have my refund by Tuesday.
 
ITOAO said:
Danny, would it make any difference going all AMD? I see you have an AMD cpu listed in your sig for your gaming rig?
Click to expand...

No. Unfortunately, AMD for CPUs are no longer that cost-effective considering that Intel CPUs generally outperform AMD CPUs at almost every price point and can do so without having to overclock.

I bought the AMD CPU for two reasons:
1) The seller I bought the CPU from said and showed that it could unlock to a quad-core. Unfortunately, whether due to my mobo, my luck, or the seller's mistake, the CPU did not unlock successfully.

2) Unfortunately, reviews showing that cheaper Intel CPUs outperformed more expensive AMD CPUs weren't out when I was buying new parts. In addition, I was way too fixated on the quad-core aspect.

I'm satisfied with the performance but if I had to do it all over again and had the right info, I would not have gone AMD for the CPU. I would have just spent the extra cash for an Intel.
 
Thanks as usual for the info.
I am planning on buying another monitor also.
Will this setup allow me to use eyefinity if I wanted to say have 3 monitors to game on, or would I need to get beefier components?
 
You'd likely need to add another 6970 for crossfire. Of course, that all depends on the resolution you'd be gaming on and what games and even what FPS you'd considerable to be playable. In general, though, unless you've got a 7970/7950 you'll need to crossfire cards for Eyefinity.
 
Thank you both of you, The monitors would most likely remain 1920x1080 which I guess is not all that high of a resolution.
 
ITOAO said:
Thank you both of you, The monitors would most likely remain 1920x1080 which I guess is not all that high of a resolution.
Click to expand...
Actually, three 1920x1080 monitors would be 5760 x 1080 under Eyefinity. That's a fairly high resolution. If you're looking for high to max settings at that resolution, you're looking at HD 6970 Crossfire at a minimum.
 
It is possibly to run Eyefinity with a single 6970. You'll need a special adapter though which costs ~$30 to connect a third monitor. Most older games will play fine with that card at that resolution, but any newer games you'll have to set the settings down relatively low to get good performance.
 
Hmm, so in that case would it probably be money better spent to get the 7950? I would probably be playing BF3 as far as shooters go.
 
ITOAO said:
Hmm, so in that case would it probably be money better spent to get the 7950? I would probably be playing BF3 as far as shooters go.
Click to expand...

If you're planning on Eyefinity, then yes the HD 7950 might be the better choice from a single GPU standpoint. However the problem is that Eyefinity drivers for the HD 79xx series aren't that great apparently. So you might have to wait awhile for drivers to catch up.
 
IMHO, the 7950 is over priced. So is the 7970, but they are AMDs two top of the line GPUs that go head to head with's Nvidias 580 which is priced similar, however I think a 580 is still over priced for it's performance.

So if it were me, I'd stick with a single 6970 or crossfire 6950 2GB cards for gaming eyefinity.
 
Ah, in that case I may just wait and either get another 6970 or wait for the price to come down on the 7950 which I assume will be a while.
 
Ok, I am about to order. Just wanted to know if I was gonna miss out on any last minute deals.
 
Thanks, parts ordered. Wish me luck. I appreciate you taking the time to answer questions and provide suggestions.
 
Ok, Not sure if this is where I post about this but thought i would start here. Finally got all the parts and I am putting it all together.
Got to the OS install portion and since i didnt order an optical drive I decided to install using USB. I picked up a USB 3.0 drive and used the MS tool to setup a bootable usb drive and it moved my windows .iso.
Thing is when i start up I am getting "A required CD/DVD device driver is missing"
I am pretty sure this is because of the USB 3.0 drivers.
I put the DVD that came with the mobo in my other PC and browsed to the folder with the USB drivers.

Two things. I think I use the ia64 folder? Can I just copy the folder over and select that location when windows setup asks to browse to it.

Feel free to boot me over to the correct forum if this is not it.
Build is going well so far I think, physically anyway.
 
The link doesn't work.

And yes that Crucial M4 will be fine :) And you're welcome!
 
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