Hardcore PC gamers, need your help

[Brexin]

Here is my system. Haven't found a game yet i can't operate at max settings while still editing large videos (multi task ftw )

Motherboard - Asus P8Z68-V Pro/Gen3
CPU - Intel Core i7 2700K 3.5GHz Quad Core 8MB 95W
RAM - 2 x Patriot Viper Xtreme DDR3-1600 4GB
Graphics - EVGA GeForce GTX 580 1536MB
Sound - Onboard Sound
Hard Drive 1 - Intel 510 250GB SATA 6Gb/s 2.5inch SSD
Hard Drive 2 - Western Digital Caviar Black 2TB SATA 6Gb/s
Card Reader - Atech PRO-35U USB 2.0 Internal/External Card Reader
Case - Antec P183 V3 (Gunmetal Finish) w/ Pass-through USB 3.0
Power Supply- Antec HCP-1200 1200W
Cooling - Puget Hydro CL3 Liquid Cooling System
Custom 120mm Side Panel Fan
Operating Sys -Windows 7 Professional 64-bit OEM SP1

 

[oSniper]

mines around $1k and it works good
3570k with hyper 212 evo for OC
z77 motherboard
gtx 570, slight OC
8gb ram
128gb ssd

probably even cheaper now

 

[CodexVelerian]

OP If you have a microcenter by your house they sell Intel i7-3770K cpus for $230..and the i5-3570k fo like $160 something. for $1000 you should beable to put togeather a killer gameing pc but very subtle. Mid tower, Asus Z77 board, Ivy bridge CPU and 8GB RAM. As for gpu thats where it gets tricky...a GTX 660TI would be good enough for most things but the 670/680 will obviously out class it by a large margin higher up the scale.

I just put togeather my brothers pc for just about 1100 and he can play any game on max settings no problem ( single monitor)

Also unless your over clocking ( dont see why you would need to just to play game and do light work ...) the stock air cooler is just fine...

 

[Telryon]

I built this a few months back for about $1000. Most of the parts I got from Microcenter, which often runs motherboard/CPU bundle deals. I second the SSD recommendation - absolute must for speed. Get a 256GB SSD for your OS and applications and then get a regular HD for all your data. Boot & load times will be lightening fast. Use Tom's Hardware for recommended SSDs - don't skimp here; pay for a nice one to get the speed improvements.

On the Nvidia side, I personally think the GTX480 is still the best bang for the buck. You can go all out for the 680 if you have the $$. But the 580 isn't significantly better/faster for the increased cost. With the 480, I'm able to play most modern games maxed out on 1920x1200 which is my screen's max resolution. I don't know much about ATI hardware, so I can't speak to them.

As for i5 vs. i7: the only real difference is the cache memory and the hyperthreading. If you can afford it, the i7 is nice, but for day-to-day computing and gaming it's not really needed. If you're doing lots of CAD, or graphic/video design, or scientific computing, the i7 would help.

Intel Core i5-3570K
16.0 GB RAM
EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX480
Mushkin Chronos 240GB SSD
Seagate Barracude 3.0TB 7200RPM HD
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Motherboard
OCZ ZX Series 850W PSU
ASUS DRW-24B3ST DVD drive
Antec Three Hundred case
+keyboard/mouse/speakers

 

[CodexVelerian]

Also i dont know anything about the ATI gpus.... so cant comment there. AMD sucks though

 

[CodexVelerian]

I built this a few months back for about $1000. Most of the parts I got from Microcenter, which often runs motherboard/CPU bundle deals. I second the SSD recommendation - absolute must for speed. Get a 256GB SSD for your OS and applications and then get a regular HD for all your data. Boot & load times will be lightening fast. Use Tom's Hardware for recommended SSDs - don't skimp here; pay for a nice one to get the speed improvements.

On the Nvidia side, I personally think the GTX480 is still the best bang for the buck. You can go all out for the 680 if you have the $$. But the 580 isn't significantly better/faster for the increased cost. With the 480, I'm able to play most modern games maxed out on 1920x1200 which is my screen's max resolution. I don't know much about ATI hardware, so I can't speak to them.

As for i5 vs. i7: the only real difference is the cache memory and the hyperthreading. If you can afford it, the i7 is nice, but for day-to-day computing and gaming it's not really needed. If you're doing lots of CAD, or graphic/video design, or scientific computing, the i7 would help.

Intel Core i5-3570K
16.0 GB RAM
EVGA Nvidia GeForce GTX480
Mushkin Chronos 240GB SSD
Seagate Barracude 3.0TB 7200RPM HD
Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H Motherboard
OCZ ZX Series 850W PSU
ASUS DRW-24B3ST DVD drive
Antec Three Hundred case
+keyboard/mouse/speakers

This is a nice setup...However i dont much like the Gigabyte boards.. hardcore asus fan myself. the GTX 480 is a good bargin if you dont want to dish out for a 600 series card ( 500 is really not that much better)

 

[Do Work Son]

I had a small company building gaming machines in college and still do the same as a hobby today- I can say for budget you can build under $800 and get a killer machine ready to handle just about anything you throw at it.

You can PM me if you want to take the gritty details but a few things based on all my builds:
Motherboard- don't skip on this, its probably the most important part of your build, I prefer the brand ASUS, but plenty of competitors offer solid boards

And about RAM, personally gaming, watching movies at the same time/streaming 8GB should be sufficient, I see about a 40% load when I do this (battlefield 3, Guild Wars 2 for example). The 2011 socket will support up to 64GB and its really cheap if you hit the ceiling over time.

And Tom's hardware is pretty good, but always remember you reach a point where the cost will not yield a big benefit until years down the road when that piece of hardware is near worthless and something new has come along, so I would try to find the sweet spot with each component. CPU under $300 range USUALLY yields a good chip, and GPU, try to keep around the $200 mark and you should be just fine for the next 6-12 months until something kicks its butt, but again completely depends on how picky you are with the visuals.

Ok that was a pile of info, but again, feel free to shoot me a PM.

This guy knows what he's talking about. I'm rebuilding my computer tonight with an Intel 3570k from Microcenter as mentioned and a GTX 560ti video card. He is also correct about the motherboard - do not buy a cheap one. I've used Gigabytes for many years without a problem, the poster above with problems on a Cyber power PC is most likely dealing with a shitty motherboard which is usually what you get with premade PCs. They advertise what processor and video chip the PC has but rarely mention how they bought a bunch of cut rate motherboards in bulk.

I've been upgrading and building PCs for 13 years now and the process is so easy now to build a really nice gaming machine for cheap.

 

[troyguitar]

I have also always used Asus boards - and high quality (not wattage) power supplies.

FWIW the current AMD (ATI) video cards are actually very good. My GTX 670 is outclassed by the 7950, especially on my 5760x1080 resolution setup, and I regret purchasing it.

 

[Djmikeyd]

So what motherboard would you guys recommend? Whats the difference between all of them?

 

[Do Work Son]

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z77-express-ivy-bridge-benchmark,3254.html

This is a pretty good article if you decide to go the Intel i5 or i7 route. The motherboards vary wildly in terms of what kind and how many slots they have for various things, how many USB ports, and overall quality of the chipsets on them.

Think of a motherboard as a factory. The CPU is the manager, the hard drive is the warehouse, the video card is a factory assembly line, etc. The motherboard houses the whole operation, it needs to have good lighting, clean floors, lots of electrical outlets, logical door placement, etc. A good motherboard is reliable, stays pretty cool, and has enough ports for everything. The really fancy motherboards ($200+) are meant for overclockers as they have good voltage controls.

 

[Brexin]

And, to go with what ^^ said, can affect your upgrade-ability. If you go with a nice board and it's lowest (cheapest) processor you could always upgrade processors later on once you get more cash. same goes with ram, graphics cards and power supplies.

As long as you have a good core (decent sized case, good cooling, nice motherboard and nice main hard drive) everything else can slowly be added/upgraded.

My favorite link for socket/processor comparison is ---- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CPU_socket

 

[Do Work Son]

I've almost finished:

Intel 3570K
Gigabyte Z77-DH3
16gb Crucial RAM
Corsair H50 CPU cooler
GTX560ti
2 Samsung 128gb SSDs
60gb OCZ SSD
Corsair 500R case
Corsair 600w PSU (should be fine, probably should have gone 650 to be safe)

Still have to connect the SATA and power cables, seat the video card, and install Windows 8.

 

[Djmikeyd]

i can imagine overclocking being something that boosts the fps and or performance for a period of time?

 

[Do Work Son]

By increasing voltage to the processor you cause it to work overtime, essentially cranking the boost on a turbocharger. My quad core i5 is rated at 3.4ghz, I intend to overclock it past 4ghz.

The more voltage you feed it, the hotter it runs necessitating a better CPU cooler than what comes with the chip. Overclock.net has tons (and I mean tons) of information about it. This is my first "unlocked" processor so we'll see how this goes!

 

[manny2206]

If you want i can help, I've built several PCs for/with friends and I have my custom pc as well. You might want to go here :cyberpoweredpc.com. Google it. have botten couple PCs from them.