zy's new build

[zyonuf79]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
looking to build a gaming rig to play mainly Guild Wars 2 and some other games that have caught my eye in the past year or so.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included? Approx. $700 w/o tax or shipping

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

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? See my starter list below

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? WD Hard Drive....1 TB.

6) Will you be overclocking? No

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it? 1920 x 1200....26 inch

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

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? USB 3.0

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? Yes....Win 7....64-bit
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Case: COOLER MASTER HAF 912 RC-912-KKN1 - $59.99

Mobo: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 - $121.99

Graphics: SAPPHIRE 100314-3L Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 - $179.99

Power supply: CORSAIR Professional Series HX650 (CMPSU-650HX) 650W - $129.99 (any suggestions need to be modular)

CPU: Intel Core i5-2300 Sandy Bridge 2.8GHz (3.1GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W - $179.99

RAM: Kingston Value 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 - $24.99

Drive: SAMSUNG Black Blu-ray Combo SATA Model SH-B123L - $64.99

Total: $761.93

I want an SSD but will have to get that later....I have plenty of spare hard drives to use.


Please....comments, questions, suggestions!

 

[Dangman]

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

You're planning the build too early then. Our parts recommendations tends to change monthly and sometimes even weekly. Not to mention that parts can become outdated, out of stock, overpriced, and/or outperformed quickly. Intel has new CPUs due out in late April/early May, AMD's GPU prices might drop further, and Nvidia might actually release their new mid-range GPUs within the two months you've stated. So please come back when you're 2-3 weeks away from a confirmed purchase date. That way you won't be saddled with an out of date build list.

With that said, even if you were buying today, that setup has a few issues:
- Don't go with AsRock mobos due to their short warranty and inconsistent quality
- That RAM is both overpriced and not very pratical considering that it will limit you to 12GB of RAM later on if you don't want to throw out that RAM. A 4GB set of RAM, regardless of whether it's a 2x2GB or a single 4GB set, should not cost more than $20.
- That Corsair PSU is a bit overkill for that setup. If you were buying today, you would be fine with this PSU;
$66 - SeaSonic M12II 520 Bronze 520W Modular PSU

 

[J Macker]

Danny, do you ever feel like a broken record?

You're diligent, curteous and do a great job. I don't think I'd have the patience to paste that over and over.

 

[Dangman]

Danny, do you ever feel like a broken record?

You're diligent, curteous and do a great job. I don't think I'd have the patience to paste that over and over.

Thank you for the kind words.

To answer your question, not really.

 

[zyonuf79]

Exactly the advice I was looking for.....I will open a new thread closer to purchase date and adjust my temp build based on the recommendations.