Building A Gaming Computer, How Does This Look?

I'm growing quite tired of console gaming and am starting a new quest to build my own gaming computer, opening opportunities to more varied and better gaming. I have been doing some research on what to build, what to use, etc. And I seem to be sticking with this build, as it seems to be laid out the easiest and has a good guide to follow. Is this a smart build for gaming? Or would you guys recommend something else?

Build a $1,500 Gaming PC | PCMag.com


If you don't want to read the link... here is the build...

Components
Case: NZXT H2 ($99.99)
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 TRX-650M ($59.99 after rebate)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 ($104.99 after rebate)
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K ($219.99)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB ($94.99)
Video Card: EVGA DS Superclocked 015-P3-1587-AR ($479.99 after rebate)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 (120GB) ($149.99)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX ($189.99)
Optical Drive: Asus Black BW-12B1LT ($69.79 after rebate)
Total: $1,469.71


I would not be using the blu ray disk drive they selected though, as I have no use for one. Strictly gaming.

Edited by RasPlasch, 25 June 2012 - 12:05 AM.

You don't need to spend $500 on a video card, that's like 2 oz and a half.

Do a little research and lean about the specs and I'm sure you can find a better build for that price. Newegg.com is the best online spot for pc parts

Keep your mind open for a few more days before you order it. There are lot people on here that will budget your PC and perhaps even help you save money. If you want to spend the full 1500 you will get setup with an uber computer. no doubt. Don't purchase it yet

Are you going to overclock? If not, save $10 on the processor and get the i5-2500 instead of the i5-2500k. There is absolutely no point to getting the "unlocked" K series if you aren't overclocking. Other than the overclocking, they are exactly the same CPU.

You should be able to get 8 GB of DDR3 memory for half that price.

That hard drive is a fucking rip-off, I just paid $99 for my 2 TB internal drive. So you could do some price shopping, but honestly you should look at smaller drives. Most people will never come anywhere near filling a 2 TB drive, especially if you are using this as a gaming PC.

Also like Gryphonics said you could definitely cut back the graphics card a bit to save some money, but it's up to you.

Where are these prices? I just bought 16GB of 2133Mhz ram from G Skills, and it was only 110$

I just ordered all my parts for my first personal build but it has the i7, and a way cheaper GPU. (EVGA GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 2GB and i got it for like 130$ with the rebate.)

And a NZXT case aswell, but i went with the Tempest 410 elite...

Case: NZXT Crafted Series Tempest 410 Elite Black Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower
Mobo: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68
CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155
Graphics: EVGAGeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 2GB
Memory: G.SKILL Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 2133Mhz
Power: OCZ Fatal1ty 750W Modular Gaming 80Plus Bronze

Was about 1100 with all the rest of the Bullshit.

Looks like a good build Op . Also what CPU cooler you gonna go with?
Check around for prices before you buy shit, i made the mistake of going to fast and ended up canceling some orders, for cheaper prices on other sites lol

Are you going to overclock? If not, save $10 on the processor and get the i5-2500 instead of the i5-2500k. There is absolutely no point to getting the "unlocked" K series if you aren't overclocking. Other than the overclocking, they are exactly the same CPU.

You should be able to get 8 GB of DDR3 memory for half that price.

That hard drive is a fucking rip-off, I just paid $99 for my 2 TB internal drive. So you could do some price shopping, but honestly you should look at smaller drives. Most people will never come anywhere near filling a 2 TB drive, especially if you are using this as a gaming PC.

Also like Gryphonics said you could definitely cut back the graphics card a bit to save some money, but it's up to you.

I would definitely like to overclock... if its worth it? I'm so new to this computer thing don't really know if I should.

What hard drive do you recommend?

For the graphics card, I want one that can handle graphic heavy games at full settings. Will I be okay lowering the graphics card to something cheaper?


Oh and I've only bought the H2 case so far..

Edited by RasPlasch, 25 June 2012 - 06:20 PM.

I would definitely like to overclock... if its worth it? I'm so new to this computer thing don't really know if I should.

Well then spring for the $10 so you have the option later, but know that overclocking is something you should research and understand what you're actually adjusting before you just start changing settings to try to make it "uber-fast".

What hard drive do you recommend?

This is one where there are more opinions than answers, but based on what you said I would go with something like this one:
Reliable - 500GB SATA 6 Gbps 64MB buffer HDD with 3-year warranty Newegg.com - Seagate Constellation ES ST500NM0011 500GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Enterprise Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

For the graphics card, I want one that can handle graphic heavy games at full settings. Will I be okay lowering the graphics card to something cheaper?

I'm not a heavy PC gamer so I can't give you specifics, but if you research (Google) you can read various reviews and gaming forums to find out what cards work well with the specific games you're playing.

The card you picked is near top-of-the-line and is "overkill" for most games on most settings, but every game is different so make sure to check for your games specifically.

Edited by Fëanor, 27 June 2012 - 02:05 AM.

I would go with an i7 if you have the money for it. Also I would get 2 decent graphics cards and use SLI since the mobo supports that. I would also upgrade to 16GB of ram and instead of getting 2 HDD's I would just get one big SSD (whatever you can afford).

You can definitely get all this for $1500 you just have to look around a bit.

My suggestion:
-i7
-16GB RAM
-SLI graphics cards
-1 decent sized SSD

I would go with an i7 if you have the money for it. Also I would get 2 decent graphics cards and use SLI since the mobo supports that. I would also upgrade to 16GB of ram and instead of getting 2 HDD's I would just get one big SSD (whatever you can afford).

You can definitely get all this for $1500 you just have to look around a bit.

My suggestion:
-i7
-16GB RAM
-SLI graphics cards
-1 decent sized SSD

I will consider the i7, any recommendations on what i7 CPU to get?
Why 2 graphics cards? Isn't that overkill?
How do I know if parts are compatible with each other?

Thanks for the other recommendations.

Will this power supply work in my system?
Read a lot of bad reviews about the ThermalCare power supply.

Newegg.com - CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 650W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply

I'm growing quite tired of console gaming and am starting a new quest to build my own gaming computer, opening opportunities to more varied and better gaming. I have been doing some research on what to build, what to use, etc. And I seem to be sticking with this build, as it seems to be laid out the easiest and has a good guide to follow. Is this a smart build for gaming? Or would you guys recommend something else?

Build a $1,500 Gaming PC | PCMag.com


If you don't want to read the link... here is the build...

Components
Case: NZXT H2 ($99.99)
Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 TRX-650M ($59.99 after rebate)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3 ($104.99 after rebate)
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K ($219.99)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB ($94.99)
Video Card: EVGA DS Superclocked 015-P3-1587-AR ($479.99 after rebate)
SSD: OCZ Vertex 3 (120GB) ($149.99)
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EARX ($189.99)
Optical Drive: Asus Black BW-12B1LT ($69.79 after rebate)
Total: $1,469.71


I would not be using the blu ray disk drive they selected though, as I have no use for one. Strictly gaming.

Dude my computer cost $500 just for the parts and is way better than that...

Dude my computer cost $500 just for the parts and is way better than that...

Nice..... have any good information to contribute?

Nice..... have any good information to contribute?

Newegg

i got 8 g ram 5 60 buccks i think
ati radeon 6750 + 1 g ram for 100 bucks i think cant remember integrated motherboard
cant remember what power supply i got cant remember rest just use newegg

Nice..... have any good information to contribute?

AMD > Intel

Runs cooler and doesn't run hot and is like half the price.

I suggest running 16g of DDR3 and get an AMD processor if you're looking to overclock.

Edited by StickyStick, 29 June 2012 - 08:35 AM.

I will consider the i7, any recommendations on what i7 CPU to get?
Why 2 graphics cards? Isn't that overkill?
How do I know if parts are compatible with each other?

Thanks for the other recommendations.

Check out this link. I don't have any experience with the i series, I'm still using a P4

I don't have any experience with SLI but I thought that in general it was better, but after doing some reading I guess it isn't necessarily better. There are a LOT of factors that can determine if SLI is for you, such as your screen resolution. Check this out.

I would go with the i7 for gaming, that's definitely going to help.

You will know if most of the parts work because of the sockets. From what I saw it will work but definitely give us an update with what you changed. I have only taken some basic computer classes and lots of reading online, but I can definitely help and see if they will work together.

AMD is cheaper and performs almost just as well. When they are benchmarked they perform just a little worse but for the price they are a deal.

Edited by Xblunt-manX, 29 June 2012 - 11:31 PM.

AMD > Intel

Runs cooler and doesn't run hot and is like half the price.

Fuck intel, graphics cards that is, ohh yeah i have an intel i5 or 7 proccessor i think too

I disagree with the suggestion to go with an i7, the only difference between the i5 and i7 is that the i7 supports multi threading, which fyi is a type of programming. So in order to benefit from the i7 you must be running something that is written to support multithreading, which is very very nominal amount of things. I personally would highly recommend you research into this further before purchasing an i7.

In my humble opinion 16 GB of ram is to much, if you are looking at an i5 with a decent gpu.

I have 8GB of ram in my current PC, I haven't added any more yet because I have each core over clocked to 4.1mhz and have the case I listed allows the cooling to support this. I have not yet had a core break 60'C with 75% load or RAM usage break 70%, so in my case there really would be no reason for more RAM.

I listed what I used in my build, you really just need to look around, and in depth because you can end up wasting a lot of money on minimal performance return pretty quickly buying upgrades that are of diminishing returns.

For example.. the i5 to i7 upgrade is 100 bucks. You would notice a much better improvement tossing that 100 bucks into a graphics card upgrade.




This is the system I just built in January


System:

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-2500K 3.30 GHz 6M Intel Smart Cache LGA1155

CASE: CoolerMaster HAF 912 Mid-Tower Gaming Case w/ Adjustable HDD Cage
(Don't forget case fans 120MM)

FAN: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo Gaming Cooling Fan

HDD: 2TB (2TBx1) SATA-III 6.0Gb/s 64MB Cache 7200RPM HDD
SSD: Crucial M4 128GB SSD

MOTHERBOARD: [CrossFireX/SLI] GigaByte Z68X-UD3H-B3 Intel Z68 Chipset DDR3 ATX Mainboard w/ Lucid Virtu Intel Smart Response Technology & 7.1 Dolby Home Theater Audio, GbLAN, USB3.0, 4x SATA-III RAID, 2 Gen2 PCIe, 3 PCIe X1 & 2 PCI

MEMORY: 8GB (4GBx2) DDR3/1600MHz Dual Channel Memory (Kingston HyperX)

POWERSUPPLY: * 850 Watts - Corsair CMPSU-850TXV2 80 Plus Power Supply - Quad SLI Ready

VIDEO: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB 16X PCIe Video Card (EVGA Superclocked)

And yeah you could put this graphics card in crossfire/sli with another one, but again even with just 1 and this set up I have not found a game that stresses this system on max settings.

Hope this helps

Edited by Capital, 30 June 2012 - 03:49 PM.

AMD > Intel

Runs cooler and doesn't run hot and is like half the price.

processors?

yeah... uhm... intel > amd

don't get a 500$ video card... totally overkill op