Advice on New Build

[Markman385]

It's been about 7 years since my last build. I'm trying to build a gaming system for around $1,600-$1,700 including monitor. The link is for my wishlist with what i've been able to come up with over the last couple of days. Any advice on where I can save a little without loosing performance or add a little performance for not much money would be greatly appreciated.


http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/Pu...umber=18032227

Thanks.

[David M]

Forget the LGA 1366 socket/X58 chip set. It is not stable or reliable enough.

Does doing some relatively easy overclocking sound fun? If so go with the build in my signature, except...

Buy a single 5870 Radeon. Buy 4 Gigs of 1600 RAM unless you play Microsoft Flight Simulator, then buy 8 Gigs. Buy whichever case you prefer. Buy a WD Black hard drive of whichever size you prefer, the 1Tb drives are at a sweet spot.

I would bump the monitor up to a 24 inch 1920 x 1200 Samsung. Screen real estate is really important for drawing you into the game. The 5870 will be able to power it easily.

You do not need a 1000 watt PSU unless you plan on getting two graphics cards. 750 watts is a little more than just sufficient for a single 5870.

That will get you a pretty darn fast and reliable gaming computer at a sweet spot.

[orbrit]

If it's purely for gaming I'd recommend the Core i5-750, HD 5870, Corsair 650TX, 2 x 2Gb 1600 Mhz RAM and a 23 or 24" monitor. Asus makes good ones at a decent price.

It will perform about as good as any PC can in FPS type games that are very GPU intensive.

[Doom]

Some Thoughts:

- I've built w/ Corsair for my PSU and RAM and highly recommend those products. Check out the Corsair modular PSU units so you only have as many cables as you need.
- I've got that video card and am generally happy with it. I run Crysis in all high (not very high, though I can with decent results). The only problem i've had is that the card seems to lock up sometime when loading the new COD MW2 multiplayer levels.
- Case looks good, but if you want to drop nearly $80 in the price to put into other components (perhaps move up to the GTX480), I've built w/ both the Antec 900 and the Cooler Master 690. They are both very user friendly, good looking, well ventilated and roomy enough for your video cards.

[Doom]

Oh yeah...I've done SLI and single card. Unless you're getting a 26' or larger monitor, I recommend putting your money into a single kick-butt card vice two in SLI. For me, SLI was nice but not really enough of a boost for the money. Also, I had to download "nHancer" to manage SLI settings on some games. With a single card your power requirements are easier to meet and you don't have to worry about detailed settings in case anything isn't copacetic w/ it (The Witcher in my case).

Cheers