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Happybelly

n00b
Joined
Sep 28, 2008
Messages
32
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc

Gaming mostly

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

about $900 before tax or shipping

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.

Washington state

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, Mobo, video card, ram and SSD drive

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-1000HX 1000W

6) Will you be overclocking?

Very little if at all

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?

1920x1200, 24"

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

Now

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.


SATA 6Gb/s for SSD I guess andCrossfire/SLI support would be nice, nothing else really important.

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

Yes.


I'm upgrading from an E8500, GTX 260 SLI, 8GB ram.

Here's what I'm thinking so far:

Intel Core i7-2600
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7073160

Galaxy 57NKH3HS4GXK
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7170064

MSI P67A-G43 Motherboard
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7331584

OCZ AGT3-25SAT3-120G Agility 3 Series Solid State Drive
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=557372

Corsair CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9B Vengeance Desktop Memory Kit - 8GB
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=40739

A few questions. My plan is to buy these upgrades and upgrade again in a year to year and a half. This should hold me until then easily right?

Is the GTX 570 a major upgrade over the GTX 260 SLI and worth doing?

Are there any places to save some cash without sacrificing much performance?

How are the Motherboard and SSD? I'm pretty undecided on those.

I'm open to any changes suggested.
Thanks for the help

Edit: Sorry, title was supposed to be more descriptive.
 
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It will help to be more specific on where you live, so we can better recommend parts from a retailer best suited to your location.

For example: Newegg charges CA residents tax, but Amazon does not. Also if you live near a Microcenter, their CPU/Motherboard combo deals are unbeatable.

If the only intention of this build is for gaming, then get the 2500k. It preforms better in most games than the 2600k and on par with the other games. Therefore, you'll see no performance increase when using a 2600k over a 2500k for gaming.

Also unless you are just dead set on nvidia, you can save some money by going with a 2GB 6950 video card. It's performance is close enough to the 570, that it's not worth money to get a 570.

Stay away from OCZ SSDs. They are based on the Sandforce controller which has a known BSOD issue within' Windows that as far as I know, has not been resolved yet. Also their support has been a bit shady lately. Go with either an Crucial M4 or Intel 510 series SSD as they perform, in real world conditions, better than the OCZ anyway.

That motherboard seems to be a bit over priced for your needs. Please answer question #9.
 
Skillz said:
It will help to be more specific on where you live, so we can better recommend parts from a retailer best suited to your location.

For example: Newegg charges CA residents tax, but Amazon does not. Also if you live near a Microcenter, their CPU/Motherboard combo deals are unbeatable.

If the only intention of this build is for gaming, then get the 2500k. It preforms better in most games than the 2600k and on par with the other games. Therefore, you'll see no performance increase when using a 2600k over a 2500k for gaming.

Also unless you are just dead set on nvidia, you can save some money by going with a 2GB 6950 video card. It's performance is close enough to the 570, that it's not worth money to get a 570.

Stay away from OCZ SSDs. They are based on the Sandforce controller which has a known BSOD issue within' Windows that as far as I know, has not been resolved yet. Also their support has been a bit shady lately. Go with either an Crucial M4 or Intel 510 series SSD as they perform, in real world conditions, better than the OCZ anyway.

That motherboard seems to be a bit over priced for your needs. Please answer question #9.
Click to expand...

Edited OP with the things you asked for.

I'm hoping to buy at Tiger Direct to take advantage of their no interest financing right now, though.

I was planning to get the 2500k, but they don't have it in stock currently. Would the 2500 be much worse if I don't plan to OC?

Also, the Crucial and Intel SSD's are a good deal more expensive from what I'm seeing. Is the general consensus to stay away from OCZ?
 
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Didn't know you was financing it. If that's the case, nothing really wrong with Tigerdirect, but newegg usually has better deals/shipping than tigerdirect.

If you don't plan to over clock, then the 2500 will be just fine. The only major difference between the two is the K version has an unlocked multiplier, to make overclocking it a lot easier.

Yes the Crucial M4 and Intel 510 are that much better, even if performance wasn't an issue the BSOD problem with Sandforce based SSDs are. Stay away. If you want to save money, which will be slightly slower performance but still good stability then go with Intels 300 series SSDs, I recall they are a bit cheaper than the M4s and still good SSDs.

Just doing a quick search on Tigerdirect (I hate their search/layout. Neweggs is far superior.. ugh) this board will meet your requirements and cost a good bit less.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1165562&CatId=6975

Also on the RAM. It's cheap, so it's not really an issue but you could probably save $10 by going with DDR3 1333 RAM. You wont notice a difference between 1333 and 1600 anyway, so if you wanna save the money go for it. I know Newegg has DDR3 1333 RAM for like $30 most of the time, I'd imagine Tigerdirect has at least $35 DDR3 1333 RAM.
 
Happybelly said:
A few questions. My plan is to buy these upgrades and upgrade again in a year to year and a half. This should hold me until then easily right?
Click to expand...
It should.
Happybelly said:
Is the GTX 570 a major upgrade over the GTX 260 SLI and worth doing?
Click to expand...
Major? Hmm, depends on what your definition of "major" is. From the limited info I've been able to dig up on the net, the GTX 570 is, at worst, as fast as GTX 260 SLI. Not sure of how much of a performance increase you'll see with the GTX 570 over your current cards.

Though even if you wanted to get the GTX 570 for the significantly lower power usage and lower heat generation, the GTX 570 still wouldn't be that good of a buy considering that the new GTX 560 TI 448 Core just came out. That particular card provides 97% of the performance of the GTX 570 for 83% of the price:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1613279&CatId=3669


Happybelly said:
I was planning to get the 2500k, but they don't have it in stock currently. Would the 2500 be much worse if I don't plan to OC?
Click to expand...
The regular 2500 would be a poor choice for the money. Go for the Core i5 2400.
Happybelly said:
Also, the Crucial and Intel SSD's are a good deal more expensive from what I'm seeing. Is the general consensus to stay away from OCZ?
Click to expand...
Yes. Do not go with OCZ. However don't go with the Intel 320 series as it's an older SSD series. Specifically go for the Crucial M4 series or Intel 510 series SSDs.

Motherboard wise, that MSI mobo is a good motherboard but Tigerdirect is overcharging for it. Same exact motherboard on Newegg costs ~$30 less with free shipping:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=7331584

However if you want to stay with Tigerdirect, go with this motherboard instead:
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=93425&CatId=6978
 
Thanks for the replies so far. I guess my biggest question left is if it's even worth upgrading the video cards at this point. I've tried to do some looking on my own and can't find a clear cut answer if a GTX 570 is a significant upgrade or not. I'm wondering if I should just buy the other components and hold off til the next wave of cards come out.
 
I'd recommend hitting up the Video Card subforum and see if anyone there knows more about GTX 260 SLI VS GTX 570. If you still don't get enough info, just stick with your current SLI seutp.
 
Danny Bui said:
I'd recommend hitting up the Video Card subforum and see if anyone there knows more about GTX 260 SLI VS GTX 570. If you still don't get enough info, just stick with your current SLI seutp.
Click to expand...

From everything I've seen and the responses I've received, it doesn't look like it's worth it with the new cards around the corner.

The CPU, DDR3 ram and SSD should give me a pretty nice performance jump even keeping the same video cards shouldn't it?
 
I wouldn't discount the Intel 320. It is an older controller (and SATA 2), but in real world usage the difference is very small and probably unnoticeable. Their huge rebate is over, but the pricing is still very good, and you can't beat Intel's reliability. It is definitely a better value than the Intel 510, which is very overpriced.

I'd still go for the Crucial M4 however.
 
Forceman said:
I wouldn't discount the Intel 320. It is an older controller (and SATA 2), but in real world usage the difference is very small and probably unnoticeable. Their huge rebate is over, but the pricing is still very good, and you can't beat Intel's reliability. It is definitely a better value than the Intel 510, which is very overpriced.

I'd still go for the Crucial M4 however.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I plan to go for the Crucial M4 now. Just need to find a good deal on it.

I'd still like opinions on if the CPU, Ram and SSD will give me a solid performance jump. From what I've looked at it seems like the answer is yes, but more feedback is always good.
 
Depends on the game, but you should see pretty solid jumps going from the E8500 to a Sandy Bridge. You get more cores, more clock speed, and better performance per clock. A game like BF3, which is heavily CPU engaged in MP, will show dramatic gains, other games like Skyrim less so, but overall you'll have a much better experience.
 
Forceman said:
Depends on the game, but you should see pretty solid jumps going from the E8500 to a Sandy Bridge. You get more cores, more clock speed, and better performance per clock. A game like BF3, which is heavily CPU engaged in MP, will show dramatic gains, other games like Skyrim less so, but overall you'll have a much better experience.
Click to expand...

BF3 is one of the main games I'll be playing, so that's good to hear.

Thanks for the replies.
 
I think you'll see a good performance increase with a 570 over 260 SLI due to the extra VRAM the 570 has. Which will only be noticeable at higher resolutions such as 1920x1080 and higher.

Just take a look at these links for comparisons.

Member on extremeoverclocking.com did the exact same upgrade and did a comparison.
http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showpost.php?p=3851335&postcount=4

Even if the 260s in SLI scale at 100%, the 570 is still faster in most cases.
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/306?vs=318

IMHO, unless the games you're currently running are running poorly, then upgrade. Otherwise I doubt your gaming experience will be any better.
 
The Intel Core i5 2400 is actually pretty beastly. Set one up for someone a few months back and it ran circles around my i7 860 at the time.
 
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