Cost effective Gaming Build

[Docroctopus]

Hi,

I'm a relative noob but have built one rig in the past (5 years ago). Have done my research and came up with the following as the best gaming rig for my budget (~ $700 after rebates). I've looked through tomshardware forums for a lot of my current understanding of PC builds. Was wondering if anyone can comment on major problems or oversight in my planned build. Will probably purchase most components over the next few weeks.

My priorities other than cost are ability to run games at max settings on single monitor 1900 X 1200 and relatively low noise. Don't need much HDD storage, and have an OS. Also, I'm planning on adding a second GPU in SLI at some point in the near future (< 3 months), so my MB requires SLI/Crossfire support. Prices are per newegg.com.

Antec Three Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Item #: N82E16811129042
Return Policy: Limited Replacement Only Return Policy
$59.95

MSI NF750-G55 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 750a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard
Item #: N82E16813130235
$79.99 after rebate

AMD Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition Deneb 3.4GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor HDZ965FBGMBOX
Item #: N82E16819103727
$159.99

CORSAIR XMS3 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 Desktop Memory Model CMX8GX3M2A1333C9
Item #: N82E16820145315
$69.99 after rebate

MSI N460GTX -M2D1GD5/OC GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
Item #: N82E16814127551
$159.99 after rebate

Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #: N82E16822136073
$39.99

LITE-ON CD/DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model iHAS124-04 - OEM
Item #: N82E16827106289
$15.99

XFX P1-650X-CAG9 650W ATX12V 2.2 / ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power ...
Item #: N82E16817207002
$64.99 after rebate

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel ...
Item #: N82E16835103065
$29.99
===========
Total $680.87

 

[iceclock]

seems like a solid build, to me, but id get the caviar black edition western digital instead with more cache, the performance are quite nice, but everything looks solid

 

[Docroctopus]

thanks! what's the benefit of the caviar black over blue regarding performance?

 

[iceclock]

well is has more onboard cache, thats all really but if personally seen the difference, since the two and since a small but good difference it isnt a huge difference like going from a sata to a ssd drive, but its worth a few xtra dollars id say

 

[flashfir]

If you're willing to hunt and get parts when they're on deals you can get a slightly better build than mine. Slickdeals.net owns.
My computer cuts anything I throw at it like butter.

Downside to hunting for individual parts at their lowest is that, you run the risk of losing convenience factor of RMA w/manufacturer rather than return to NewEgg.

If you end up like me buying my parts over a 30+ day time period, you probably will be past the return period for the retailer and you'll have to RMA with manufacturer instead. (My psu, ram, case all sat on a shelf for more than a month then I bought the rest of my parts later)

In my mind, it was worth the extra stuff I squeezed out cause everything right now is working plug and play. And I got more value for my money!


I have

cooler master elite 430 $30ar
ocz stealthxtream ii 600w $30ar
amd 955 $little under 150
gskill 4gb $50
ocz vertex 30gb ssd $40AR
samsung hd322gj 320gb 7200rpm $50
his radeon 5850 $little under 180
hyper 212+ $9AR

And that's for a little bit over $650. Rebates are still incoming... 😉

 

[iceclock]

good deal indeed 😀