Battlefield 3 build

[phamhlam]

Build Date: Mid September

Build Budget: ~$1200

System Usage: Battlefield 3 + Video encoding

I have a monitor and speakers but I don't care about a mouse or keyboard for now.

I perfer newegg or amazon

Overclocking- yes

SLI- no

Monitor- 1920x1080

These are the parts I was looking at and I wanted to know if they are good enough and price reasonably

(All Newegg and with rebate)

CM HAF X Blue - 180
Corsair 750w PSU - 100
OCZ Vertex MI 120GB- 260
i5-2500k- 220
ASUS P8P67- 125
EVGA 560 Ti- 220
ASUS DVD 20
G. Skill RAM- 33
CM H100 Cooler- 92

Total~ 1250

I had to build early so I can play BF3 but I plan on upgrading my building in 1H 2012 with higher end parts.

So let me know if I should go with a different component or if my build is good.

 

[michxymi]

I would buy a cheapest case along with a 650W PSU from a major brand like Corsair and a Z68 motherboard, which is newer from P67 and it will allow you to buy a cheaper SSD without loosing that much of perfomance thanks to Smart Caching, and with the saved money I would go with 8GB of RAM and a GTX 570 or even a GTX 580!

 

[Why_Me]

Build Date: Mid September

Build Budget: ~$1200

System Usage: Battlefield 3 + Video encoding

I have a monitor and speakers but I don't care about a mouse or keyboard for now.

I perfer newegg or amazon

Overclocking- yes

SLI- no

Monitor- 1920x1080

These are the parts I was looking at and I wanted to know if they are good enough and price reasonably

(All Newegg and with rebate)

CM HAF X Blue - 180
Corsair 750w PSU - 100
OCZ Vertex MI 120GB- 260
i5-2500k- 220
ASUS P8P67- 125
EVGA 560 Ti- 220
ASUS DVD 20
G. Skill RAM- 33
CM H100 Cooler- 92

Total~ 1250

I had to build early so I can play BF3 but I plan on upgrading my building in 1H 2012 with higher end parts.

So let me know if I should go with a different component or if my build is good.

You have a board meant for a single card, yet a psu that would run two of those 560's in SLI. Either find another board that supports dual cards or down size your psu to something like the Antec THG 520w.

Also that case is the size of a small house.

 

[phamhlam]

You have a board meant for a single card, yet a psu that would run two of those 560's in SLI. Either find another board that supports dual cards or down size your psu to something like the Antec THG 520w.

Also that case is the size of a small house.

The reason I am using a 750w PSU is because I plan on getting a GTX 680 when they come out so I need to future proof my gear.

 

[phamhlam]

Crucial M4 128GB @ $220 is what I would go with, they sure can put the marvel controller to good use. They just increased performance by a reported 20% with a firmware update. I have yet to read about one failing as well. Unlike OCZ which I hear fails more than enough.

Two 560's won't be able to max bf3 out imo, maybe if you got the versions that you could super overclock then you might see nice fps with max eye candy at that resolution.

I myself plan on going with two 6950 2GB models and overclocking them some more than they already were factory clocked.

Just oc'd my 6950 at stock voltages, raised it from core 850 / mem 1300 to core 870 / mem 1390

that 110mhz overall increase made a big improvement even though my card was a bad ocer.

I do think you are going to enjoy the build, just don't spend extra money on a SSD that isn't worth the price tag in the first place when you can sacrifice about 20 sequential read which isn't even noticeable between the two ssd, what is noticeable is the quality of the Crucial M4 and the imperfections of the Sandforce controller of the OCZ drives.

I heard the M4 is good but won't the extra 35,000 IOPS make a nice difference especially with start time and random reads?

I am going with a 560 because I plan to upgrade and don't want to drop serious cash early.

 

[phamhlam]

I would buy a cheapest case along with a 650W PSU from a major brand like Corsair and a Z68 motherboard, which is newer from P67 and it will allow you to buy a cheaper SSD without loosing that much of perfomance thanks to Smart Caching, and with the saved money I would go with 8GB of RAM and a GTX 570 or even a GTX 580!

Smart Caching is pointless since I will have a 120GB SSD and SC is only good if you have a <60GB SSD.

I do like the idea of getting a 570 or 580 but I don't have the money and I plan on reusing my case and PSU for my actually full power build in 2012.

 

[phamhlam]

Best answer selected by phamhlam.