~$1000AU Gaming PC

[ravenguard10]

Hey all, trying to get myself a good value high end gaming PC and milk as much value as I can.

The website I'm looking at is here (its hard to get to the store from the homepage so I linked the CPU page). It's close to home and pretty much unbeatable prices.

This is what I'm looking at at the moment:

Optical Drive: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=5540
HDD: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7386
CPU: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7581
RAM: 8x1600 $49 http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7684
8x1866 $69 http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8095
8x2133 $89 http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8096
8x2133 $92 http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7665 <----
GRAPHICS: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7901 Gigabyte
http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8011 Gainward <----
Motherboard: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7859
Case: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7040
Power: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=5106 $77 <----
http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7680 $99

Optical Drive: $19
HDD: $105
CPU: $229
RAM: $92
Graphics $185
MB: $135
Power: $77
Case: $107

Total Cost: $949




What do you guys think?

I'm mostly concerned about the RAM, I've heard that high-speed ram is pretty much useless and i should stick with the 1600 and save myself 50bucks.

Other than that, there's also the power supply im unsure about (its pretty cheap but a good brand) and of course anything else you think is important.

Thanks for your time

-Josh

 

[ravenguard10]

Some things I forgot, I was also wondering what would be the best to upgrade, and whether I should get a cheaper MoBo.

Will be back in 8 hours or so, thanks.

 

[Silvune]

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4503/sandy-bridge-memory-scaling-choosing-the-best-ddr3
http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/memory/2011/01/11/the-best-memory-for-sandy-bridge/1
http://techreport.com/articles.x/20377
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/memory/display/sandy-bridge-ddr3.html
If you don't want to read them all, then basically they all say the same thing, which is that RAM with frequencies above 1333/1600MHz are not usually worth the price premium.

Thermaltake is not a particularly good brand for PSUs (a lot of people would call them a crap brand). They sell a lot of bad units, and the Litepower series consists of bad ones.

I would suggest getting a cheaper motherboard if you don't want, or don't mind giving up, the option to SLI in the future.
Also if you are not going to SLI in the future then you don't need a 650W PSU, altho the Antec EA-650 is fairly competitively priced on MSY.

If you do want the option to SLI then you will need a PSU with four PCIe connectors, which the EA-650 doesn't have.
There are some 650W PSUs with four PCIe connectors (the cheapest one is likely to be the Antec Truepower New TPN-650), but you might be better off with a 750W unit.

 

[ravenguard10]

Ok, so I've edited my original post to show what im thinking of buying now. Thats pretty much what i thought about the ram, so ill stick with the super cheap 1600MHz Kingston.

For the Mobo, I've sized up this by Gigabyte: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7555 and this by AsRock: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8385
As far as i can tell, they both do everything i need, but i've never heard of AsRock so i'm inclined to choose the Gigabyte one.

With the SLI im guessing you mean adding an extra sound or graphics card. In which case i dont think i will be, it seems like alot of money for not much more performance.

Since I dont plan on getting any new cards and if i ever do i'd probably need a newer socket type by then anyway, i'll go with the antec earthwatts. Sounds like thats a pretty popular brand from what i've read.

Either way thanks alot for your input i appreciate it.

 

[ravenguard10]

Ok it says i cant edit either of my original messages. So i'll report the new details here


Optical Drive: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=5540
HDD: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7386
CPU: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7581
RAM: 8x1600 $49 http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7684 <----
GRAPHICS: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8011 Gainward <----
Motherboard: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7555 Gigabyte <----
http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=8385 AsRock
Case: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7040
Power: http://msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7680 $99 <----

Optical Drive: $19
HDD: $105
CPU: $229
RAM: $49
Graphics $185
MB: $109
Power: $99
Case: $107

Total Cost: $902

 

[ravenguard10]

Best answer selected by ravenguard10.

 

[Silvune]

SLI is when you run more than one Nvidia graphics card (Crossfire is more than one AMD graphics card).

Are you aware that the Earthwatts series doesn't come with a power cord?
This means that you will have to reuse a power cord you've already got or buy one.

 

[ravenguard10]

Oh ok thanks, I think ill pass on that though and stick with the single 560. And yeah i was aware, but after calling the store they didnt have that one in stock anyway... Nor the case i wanted, so i've opted for this
Thermaltake PSU 700Watt 80%+ http://www.msy.com.au/product.jsp?productId=7602
which seems reliable.

Will be 12 hours before i find out if they have that one in stock though.
Thanks for the feedback.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been closed by Mousemonkey