First Build...Suggestions greatly appreciated

[_techie]

Hello all,

I am taking advantage of some of the great deals going on right now and building a budget gaming/entertainment system. I'm a first time builder and have done a fair share of research on multiple sites. Right now I was planning on building around an i3-2120 and an ASRock H77 that are currently on sale on newegg. I am planning on sticking with the integrated graphics right now to keep the cost down. Anyway, I will be using this mostly for media and some moderate gaming at some point.

Do you think I am on the right track with the CPU/MOBO combo?

Can anyone help with suggestions on how to proceed from here? I am hoping to keep the total under $600. Thanks a bunch!

 

[Rockdpm]

Yea if your only doing light gaming a H77 and a i3 will be ok until you can get a GTX 650 or 7750... I'd recommend you try and get a 500 or 550 watt. But make sure its a good 500 or 550 watt.

Good mobo brand by the way.

 

[azathoth]

For just $10 more on the processor, you can get the Ivy Bridge version of the i3-2120.

This is the i3-3220, it will be slightly faster, and consume slightly less power. For slightly more. See what I'm getting at here?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/searchtools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3734679&SRCCODE=LINKSHARE&cm_mmc_o=-ddCjC1bELltzywCjC-d2CjCdwwp&AffiliateID=8BacdVP0GFs-e5Vd8JzMhphn1FlKUyutDQ

 

[killerhurtalot]

Yea if your only doing light gaming a H77 and a i3 will be ok until you can get a GTX 650 or 7750... I'd recommend you try and get a 500 or 550 watt. But make sure its a good 500 or 550 watt.

Good mobo brand by the way.

he doesn't need a 500w psu for a computer with gtx 650 or 7750..... 350-400w is more than enough with that combination... (without a gpu)

You don't need 500w until like 7870/GTX 670 area GPUs along with a quad core cpu...

 

[_techie]

Yea if your only doing light gaming a H77 and a i3 will be ok until you can get a GTX 650 or 7750... I'd recommend you try and get a 500 or 550 watt. But make sure its a good 500 or 550 watt.

Good mobo brand by the way.

Thanks for your response. I was thinking about going with this PSU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

According to pcpartpicker my wattage is estimated at only about 139...is 650W overkill? Can getting a PSU like the one above cause energy waste?

 

[Rockdpm]

Thanks for your response. I was thinking about going with this PSU:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-na-_-na-_-na&AID=10446076&PID=3938566&SID=

According to pcpartpicker my wattage is estimated at only about 139...is 650W overkill? Can getting a PSU like the one above cause energy waste?

That would be fine. You can go lower. But please ignore the minor comments that you only need a 350 watt lower because you never want to go with the bare minimum when it comes to a power supply. Always have enough head room. If you could find a nice 550 watt which i just checked and couldn't find any then you'd be find with that. You see the reason you don't want to do the bare minimum is a power supply degrades its self over time. Looses efficiency. SO the better rated the PSU the higher the efficiency. WHich they have all these platinum and fancy voltage control and blah blah. its all a marketing gimmic. for a GTX 650 or 7750 with a Ivy I3 i'd say the power supply you have is a wise purchase

 

[killerhurtalot]

That would be fine. You can go lower. But please ignore the minor comments that you only need a 350 watt lower because you never want to go with the bare minimum when it comes to a power supply. Always have enough head room. If you could find a nice 550 watt which i just checked and couldn't find any then you'd be find with that. You see the reason you don't want to do the bare minimum is a power supply degrades its self over time. Looses efficiency. SO the better rated the PSU the higher the efficiency. WHich they have all these platinum and fancy voltage control and blah blah. its all a marketing gimmic. for a GTX 650 or 7750 with a Ivy I3 i'd say the power supply you have is a wise purchase

lol..... There's no reason to get a 550w psu or the 650w psu when his entire system will barely take 150w...
And please ignore your comments because that only applies to crap off brand psus. If he's going with something like seasonic or pc power and cooling, there's no problems at all.

Why bother with a 550w or 650w psu... my system barely goes over 500w...

Even if he was going to upgrade, his cpu would bottleneck anything more than a 7770 or 7850..... and with those cards, it won't even come close to 400w powerdraw

 

[Rockdpm]

Ok and you find a "QUALITY" PSU.. come on man I know enough to tell you that buying a 200 watt power supply when your System uses 300 watts then I really know that a computer that uses 350 watt and over time a power supply of 400 watts looses efficiency over time... so a 550 watt is plenty enough and has more than enough headroom.

 

[killerhurtalot]

Ok and you find a "QUALITY" PSU.. come on man I know enough to tell you that buying a 200 watt power supply when your System uses 300 watts then I really know that a computer that uses 350 watt and over time a power supply of 400 watts looses efficiency over time... so a 550 watt is plenty enough and has more than enough headroom.

LOL.... you're saying a bare bones system with no graphic cards will use over 150w???

 

[Rockdpm]

LOL.... you're saying a bare bones system with no graphic cards will use over 150w???

Sorry I was under the intention he wanted a graphics card. Must have submitted that in the wrong thread

 

[_techie]

Best answer selected by _techie.