First Time Builder - General/Gaming PC

[PurpleCliff]

- It's my first time getting in depth with computer parts, let alone putting one together
- I live in Australia, so expect the stores I list to have higher prices than you'd think
- I want to build a relatively decent gaming PC, which could also do some lightweight video editing, as cheap as possible ($1200 absolute max)

This is what I'm looking at so far:

Case - Cooler Master Centurion 5 II Cooler Master RC-502-SKN1 - $74.80 - Centre Com
Mother Board - Asus P8P67-LE v3 Intel Mainboard (B3 Stepping) Asus P8P67-LEV3 - $131.00 - Centre Com
CPU - Intel CPU Core i5 2500K Intel BX80623I52500K - $213.00 - Centre Com
GPU - EVGA nVidia GTX570 eVGA 012-P3-1571-KR - $377.30 - Centre Com
RAM - Corsair 8GB (2x 4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL 9 DDR3 XMS3 Corsair CMX8GX3M2A1600C9 - $77.00 - Centre Com
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA3/2 Western Digital WD1002FAEX - $87.00 - Centre Com
Optical Drive - LG DVD Burner (GH22NS70) LG GH22NS70 - $49.00 - Centre Com
PSU - Thermaltake Litepower 700W Thermaltake W0356R - $82.00 - Centre Com
Cooling - 120mm Case Fan Centre Com - Cheap Notebooks & Computers

Monitor - Undecided.

Sitting at $1,102.00 without a monitor, I guess I need to cut back a little

Any tips or advice greatly appreciated!

[teddy3254]

Hey mate, here's some recommendation buy parts from msy they're 10% cheaper in price. And I am thinking your living in Victoria? Also you should chose a Corsair Vengeance series ram since is for gaming and I wouldn't recommend a thermaltake psu you should get a cosair tx series or antec high current. If this fits your budget should change to a z68 chipset and get a ssd for optimal performance.

Cheers

[PurpleCliff]

Originally Posted by teddy3254 Hey mate, here's some recommendation buy parts from msy they're 10% cheaper in price. And I am thinking your living in Victoria? Also you should chose a Corsair Vengeance series ram since is for gaming and I wouldn't recommend a thermaltake psu you should get a cosair tx series or antec high current. If this fits your budget should change to a z68 chipset and get a ssd for optimal performance. Cheers

Cool cool, I'll look into those changes.
Unfortunately I'm in the Northern Territory, so I don't believe I can use msy. Currently putting up with some annoying postage costs though

[teddy3254]

I c, you could try using pccasegear they ship Australia wide so that way you should be fine.

[jdeb]

I would get this memory, 1.5V, only qualified XMP RAM
Corsair 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz CL9 Low Profile Vengeance (CML8GX3M2A1600C9)
Corsair CML8GX3M2A1600C9 - $84.70 - Centre Com

Go with a Z68 board, more advanced, supports ssd caching
Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3
Gigabyte GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 - $145.00 - Centre Com

Cut back on your CPU to an i3, games are more dependent on GPU than CPU
Intel CPU Core i3-2100
Intel BX80623I32100 - $116.00 - Centre Com

[PurpleCliff]

As I'm trying to cut this down a bit (the cheaper it is the sooner I can build it), is the GTX550 a relatively decent graphics card? If so, should I go for the 'Ti' version, such as

ASUS GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB DirectCU [ENGTX550-TI-DC-1GD5] - $159.00 : PC Case Gear
or
EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti 1GB FPB Edition [01G-P3-1556-KR] - $159.00 : PC Case Gear

I should probably keep in mind that my current system only has a GT130, so all of these are probably incredible in comparison.

So it's the i3-2100 I should go for? Not the 2120 or 2100T or anything?

[teddy3254]

Go with the i3-2100 since the performance for price isn't that phenomenon.