Looking to buy a New Rig

[OCELOT.]

Hi, I am completely inept at gaming pcs. I am looking to buy one.  Looking to spend about $1100. Anyone willing to point me in the right direction would be greatly appreciated. I would like to play games such as Arma to give you an idea. 

[Jopa]

For me is best to go an authorized shop and tell what and for what purpose you need and how much money intend spend.

[Nancy]

Ocelot, I can recommend you only CPU and GPU for your new PC:

 

expensive:                          

Intel Core i7-3820 3.6 GHz

GeForce GTX 780

 

regular:

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4 GHz

GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost

[Chameleon]

For me is best to go an authorized shop and tell what and for what purpose you need and how much money intend spend.

Yup I do this

[Vanaraud]

Intel Core i7-3770K, Quad Core, 3.50GHz, 8MB, LGA1155, 22nm, 77W, VGA, BOX     303.58€

ASRock Z77 EXTREME6, Z77, DDR3-1600, 4xSATA3, RAID, HDMI, GBLAN, ATX      139€

KINGSTON MEMORY DIMM 8GB PC12800 DDR3/HYPERX KIT2 KINGSTON            63.52€

Corsair Carbide Series® 300R Windowed Compact PC Gaming Case                           76.5€

OCZ Technology OCZ Power supply ModXStream Pro 700W                                         71.6€

ADATA SSD Adata Premier Pro SP900 64GB SATA3                                                      60.88€

WD HDD SATA 3TB 6GB/S 64MB/WD30EZRX WDC                                                      113€

Cooler Master Europe B.V. CPU cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo                            31.81€

Some cheap CD drive                                                                                                        15€

MSI Radeon HD 7870, 2GB DDR5 (256 Bit)                                                                      200€

All together 1074.89€

 

Theres also option to take z77 chipset MSI, Asus mobos. MSI should be more power efficient and boots up quickly, Asrock is better for OC. Also some mobo´s come with built in Thunderbolt, WIFI, Firewire. So theres something to choose by. Also PCI bus for extra sound\tv card? At least mobo should have plenty of USB 3.0\ PCI-E 3.0 and SATA 3 at least 2 of them.

If you are going to get SLI\Crossfire then better PSU is a must.

Thats a rough example for starters.

[putts]

Ocelot, I can recommend you only CPU and GPU for your new PC:

 

expensive:                          

Intel Core i7-3820 3.6 GHz

GeForce GTX 780M

 

regular:

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4 GHz

GeForce GTX 650 Ti Boost

No offense, but why would you recommend a mobile GPU? Mobile = Laptop

[FinZeroX]

Intel Core i7-3770K, Quad Core, 3.50GHz, 8MB, LGA1155, 22nm, 77W, VGA, BOX     303.58€

ASRock Z77 EXTREME6, Z77, DDR3-1600, 4xSATA3, RAID, HDMI, GBLAN, ATX      139€

KINGSTON MEMORY DIMM 8GB PC12800 DDR3/HYPERX KIT2 KINGSTON            63.52€

Corsair Carbide Series® 300R Windowed Compact PC Gaming Case                           76.5€

OCZ Technology OCZ Power supply ModXStream Pro 700W                                         71.6€

ADATA SSD Adata Premier Pro SP900 64GB SATA3                                                      60.88€

WD HDD SATA 3TB 6GB/S 64MB/WD30EZRX WDC                                                      113€

Cooler Master Europe B.V. CPU cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo                            31.81€

Some cheap CD drive                                                                                                        15€

MSI Radeon HD 7870, 2GB DDR5 (256 Bit)                                                                      200€

All together 1074.89€

 

Theres also option to take z77 chipset MSI, Asus mobos. MSI should be more power efficient and boots up quickly, Asrock is better for OC. Also some mobo´s come with built in Thunderbolt, WIFI, Firewire. So theres something to choose by. Also PCI bus for extra sound\tv card? At least mobo should have plenty of USB 3.0\ PCI-E 3.0 and SATA 3 at least 2 of them.

If you are going to get SLI\Crossfire then better PSU is a must.

Thats a rough example for starters.

1. AsRock is not for overclocking. MSI has the best voltage regs etc. so you might reach higher clocks with it. On the other side Asus has more features and better quality. It'll provide good OC as well. AsRock is for budget, but will do just fine.

2. Change SSD to 128GB, i.e. Kingston v300 is a great option. 64Gb is not enough. That's for sure. Save on the HDD if necessary, 1TB might be enough.

3. Have a DVD drive

4. Better psu. OCZ is not the choise for PSUs at least for what I've heard. XFX has good PSUs, as well as some Corsair/Seasonic. Read some reviews, and dont be cheap on the PSU (or itll fry your PC)

5. Intel i5 3570K is enough. Gamers have no use for hyper-threading. Save your money, i5 is just as good.

6. If you have spare money after those changes, go for a better GPU. 7970 or 7950 for AMD, 680 from the sales for nVidia.

Edited September 10, 2013 by FinZeroX

[FinZeroX]

Voila!

From Newegg, if you want to cut on the costs get a cheaper case.

[Nancy]

No offense, but why would you recommend a mobile GPU? Mobile = Laptop

No offense, but why would you recommend a mobile GPU? Mobile = Laptop

Sorry my bad.I typed m by mistake. No "m". Just 770

[Nancy]

Intel Core i7-3770K, Quad Core, 3.50GHz, 8MB, LGA1155, 22nm, 77W, VGA, BOX 303.58€

ASRock Z77 EXTREME6, Z77, DDR3-1600, 4xSATA3, RAID, HDMI, GBLAN, ATX 139€

KINGSTON MEMORY DIMM 8GB PC12800 DDR3/HYPERX KIT2 KINGSTON 63.52€

Corsair Carbide Series® 300R Windowed Compact PC Gaming Case 76.5€

OCZ Technology OCZ Power supply ModXStream Pro 700W 71.6€

ADATA SSD Adata Premier Pro SP900 64GB SATA3 60.88€

WD HDD SATA 3TB 6GB/S 64MB/WD30EZRX WDC 113€

Cooler Master Europe B.V. CPU cooler Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo 31.81€

Some cheap CD drive 15€

MSI Radeon HD 7870, 2GB DDR5 (256 Bit) 200€

All together 1074.89€

Excuse me Master, but Intel Core i7-3770K comes with Intel HD Graphics 4000 processes manufactured on the same die! It will be practically useless, my homie deserves only the best!

Intel Core i7-3820 3.6 GHz comes without any internal unnecessaries and have more L3 cache that 3770K and 0.2 GHz faster.

HDD with 5400RPM? I doubt it.

And who needs a CD/DVD drive? It's so retro

sorry for criticism:  your choose of power supply, mem, case, fan is superb.

 

P.S. I cannot understand why you added a 64GB flash drive to that list? to storage games? 

Edited September 11, 2013 by Patrick

[Vanaraud]

i7 3820 TDP 130W? then it would be better to go with Haswell or i5 3570 or 3770 then. And you can push K-s? integrated graphics just is there for todays CPU-s. There are some "technologies" to put them working together with discrete graphics but I doubt in that.

PSU: Coolermaster had some good results in tomshardware reviews also.

SSD for OS and gaming. All other junk to HDD. Makes loading times for OS and games real short. And doubling the amount of SSD expands the budget quite quickly.

Mobo: tried overclocking with MSI, really tricky and read from reviews same thing. I guess Asrock\Asus have better BIOS for OC, haven´t tried myself though.

But I agree at first to invest in good case and PSU and pull back from CPU\graphics.

[FinZeroX]

• Get K-model processor. No doubt. You really cannot OC non-K's well. Budget-wise, go with i5 3570K. The i7 only gives you hyper-threading which is good only if you run i.e. modelling etc.
• As said, don't go rushing with the PSU. It's not worth it.
• Invest less on CPU and more on GPU. ET is CPU-intensive, but modern CPUs are anyway so powerful that it doesn't matter. Modern games use GPU, so take i5 and invest on GPU. Integrated graphics are useless if you have GPU card, so don't mind integrated. Vanaraud was referring MultiLogix Virtu but I tried it, it's bullshit. Just don't use integrated, go only with GPU card.
• When it comes to case, I disagree a bit with Vanaraud. Case DOES matter, but only on both ends. Going with a low-price entry level case can give you same cooling performance as an expensive case, just plan the cooling configuration well. Carbide series is good, but you can go with a cheaper if necessary.
• Most important parts of your computer are power supply and motherboard. Those are pretty much what decide the faith and balance of your computer; everything is built on them.
• About the SSD, Vanaraud has the point. For OS, games and apps. Everything will run faster and more efficient. HDD, preferably external, is for files. OS takes up to 40Gb, apps take about 10-20Gb and games go way beyond that depending on your game library. 128Gb is good to have, I have 240GB+60Gb myself and it's starting to deplete. As I said, Kingston v300 is fast and reliable, and goes with a decently cheap price.
• On MoBos, what I meant was that MSI has the best power feed when comparing equal mobos. Therefore it might provide best possibility to overclock. Whether its easy or not, that's a different issue. Asus is the best choise, but costs more. I have AsRock, it's good for your budget and gives somewhat good performance. Some say it's less reliable.

 

Please concider the package I provided you with. It's all gold, and well thought.

[Vanaraud]

Made some mistakes copying from local dealer to here: HDD should be Blue\Black series with more RPM indeed. Somehow got mixed up with Green series. Also personally I have had some Seagates and never failed me.

 

Totally agree with CPU\GPU balance. Checked CPU and GPU load in Dead Space 3 with max settings and CPU peaked at 25% and GPU on full load all the time and you can push I5 3570K to 4.2\4.3Ghz easily to play ET without problems in full server. Though I7 is still better even in gaming by comparision charts.

 

Didn´t notice Kingston makes so cheap 128GB SSD-s, well could get it as well.

 

About PSU? I see in FinzeroX PC list 450W PSU and HD7950+cpu+ mobo= 200W+100W+100W and PSU is running at its limits and no room for upgrades?

 

Also I´ve come to understanding that building PC with good PSU+case one can switch several mobo\CPU combinations out before case gets wearing out. Switching case afterwards is much more messy;) And I don´t see any difference in cooling with cheap Coolermaster and now 500r. Its important the case should be mid-tower size range to accomodate long graphics and high CPU cooler and have USB 3.0 in front panel.

 

About mobo: If you are not OC and don´t need 10 USB ports etc, is it really necessary to go with z77 or half the price z75 would suffice? Not pointed to your list Finzerox, just a general saving method question.

[FinZeroX]

Made some mistakes copying from local dealer to here: HDD should be Blue\Black series with more RPM indeed. Somehow got mixed up with Green series. Also personally I have had some Seagates and never failed me.

 

Totally agree with CPU\GPU balance. Checked CPU and GPU load in Dead Space 3 with max settings and CPU peaked at 25% and GPU on full load all the time and you can push I5 3570K to 4.2\4.3Ghz easily to play ET without problems in full server. Though I7 is still better even in gaming by comparision charts.

 

Didn´t notice Kingston makes so cheap 128GB SSD-s, well could get it as well.

 

About PSU? I see in FinzeroX PC list 450W PSU and HD7950+cpu+ mobo= 200W+100W+100W and PSU is running at its limits and no room for upgrades?

 

Also I´ve come to understanding that building PC with good PSU+case one can switch several mobo\CPU combinations out before case gets wearing out. Switching case afterwards is much more messy;) And I don´t see any difference in cooling with cheap Coolermaster and now 500r. Its important the case should be mid-tower size range to accomodate long graphics and high CPU cooler and have USB 3.0 in front panel.

 

About mobo: If you are not OC and don´t need 10 USB ports etc, is it really necessary to go with z77 or half the price z75 would suffice? Not pointed to your list Finzerox, just a general saving method question.

Good ideas, good ideas!

 

About the PSU, 450W is enough if you don't plan on running dual-GPU or so. A good 450W PSU can easily carry i7+7970 and so on, the problem is that 1) Full load power draw charts are oversized so people would buy more expensive PSUs and 2) People buy crappy PSUs which deliver like 60% from the planned wattage.

A set of overclocked i7 and 7970 draw up to 400W on full load. GPU takes ~150W, CPU ~100W and so on. So there's really nothing to worry about. My Super Flower Golden Green 450W has ran i5 3570K, 7970 and a custom water cooling with ease. It's down to the quality of the PSU.

 

You're absolutely right that i7 gives a marginal advantage over i5 on games. But it's really just marginal. A couple of FPS on some games for +100$ is not worth it in my opinion.

 

For HDD the blue is enough, concidering you have a budget, but black is always better. The differences vary.

 

Case should be mid-tower, as Vanaraud said, if you want ATX size. Then there are m-ATX and ITX and e-ATX. I have ITX gaming PC, it's an option as well. Propably you're aiming for ATX. Get a good quality PC case with metal and suitable interior, remember to plan ahead. If you think you'll make changes to the setup later on, take them into concideration. If the case is metal, it should be durable enough. Propably you'd want to switch the case out by looks before it wears out. In cooling, fan configuration etc is a lot more important.

[OCELOT.]

Thanks guys I am going to a computer shop this weekend, I'll print out some of your recommendations and I will get a printout of what they think and we can discuss it! Thanks guys *hugs*.....and *squeezes* really hard.