<$900 Gaming Rig, First build!

[navi247]

Just looking for advice on what I've got so far/improvements! I have the Antec 300 Illusion for my case, though I may just do the Antec One and save $20. Beyond that, I'm pretty happy so far with this, but if there are any glaring problems, I'd love to know. Any advice helps, as it's my first build too!

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kKi8

Approximate Purchase Date: Mid-November-ish

Budget Range: <$850 ($900 max if the components are truly worth it)

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, general home/school use

Are you buying a monitor: No

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg, though I'm down the street from a BestBuy, and near to a Fry's - pretty much willing to try whatever is suggested

Location: Seattle, WA

Parts Preferences: by brand or type: sticking to the nVidia for GPU - i know of the

Overclocking: No

SLI or Crossfire: No

 

[TheBigTroll]

price match the CPU at us.ncix so you can save on shipping. ncix has free shipping for orders over 50 bucks

better ram out there. dont run 1066mhz. its pretty slow

now it performs way better and its cheaper at the same time
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kKrO

 

[TheBigTroll]

heres the link to ncix
http://us.ncix.com/products/?sku=70543

 

[computernoob29]

here you go, this gives you a better graphics card,motherboard,and ram, and the power supply will be really good to , but if your willing to spend an extra 50 bucks then the corsair tx 650 will be a better choice. http://pcpartpicker.com/p/kKt5

 

[navi247]

Thank you to you both! Both builds seem solid. I've had bad experiences with ATI (AMD now? whatever) in the past, though. I'm not looking to get 120+ fps on games, just a solid, playable game on med-high settings. What's the most respected site in terms of stock benchmarks for GPUs for comparing? Also, I've heard negative things about the Rosewill PSUs. I'm leaning towards the Corsair TX (maybe at a lower wattage. 550 should be more than enough, yes?) Maybe just find the middle point between these builds. Just trying to find the best bang for the buck! +Respect for you guys who do this regularly...

 

[TheBigTroll]

well if you can get better for the money, why not? the 7870 is waaay better than the 650ti or any nvidia offerings at the price range

yes a lot of them are low to crap in quality but the hive, capstone, lightning, and fortress units are very good

corsair doesnt make a tx550w v2. the older one isnt that good compared to the rosewell in terms of value

 

[navi247]

Hmmm....very true. And this stuff I've seen about some games or programs "preferring" one chipset to another...any truth behind that?

Sounds good. Last question, I promise: there's absolutely no reason to amp the ram up to 16gb, is there? I feel like most anything I could ever run on a desktop doesn't even tap out 8 gigs (granted, I'm running on 2 right now, so I'm looking at a massive upgrade no matter what).

 

[TheBigTroll]

16gb is useful if you are doing video editing and rendering. otherwise its useless