First timer: Building a computer.

[Choll777]

First off, is it possible to build a high performance gaming computer for under $1,500? If so what would be the best processor for gaming that I could get to fit in with my budget? Thank you.

 

[Flightsimluke]

In terms of building a sub $1500 PC, my personal choice would be an i5 3470K system with about 8GB of RAM and something like an Nvidia GTX670 or ATi HD6950. My friend gets at least 50fps on BF3 and AvP with that system. Good Luck!

 

[hbeduryan818]

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/qEjF under 1100 very good gaming system for $100 more you can upgrade to a nwer gpu but this one is still very good

 

[Rammy]

Build above is absolutely fine, and more or less what everyone is going to suggest, with a few changes here and there.
Main thing will be - what does your $1500 have to include? If it's just the case and components, you have a massive budget to play with. If it's got to cover monitor, OS and perhaps peripherals, then you still have a healthy budget but you might need to cut back a few things.

Regardless of these things, i5 3570K will be what everyone suggests. If you really don't fancy overclocking then save yourself a few $ and get any Ivy Bridge i5 (3xxx), their performance is pretty damn similar for games if you aren't overclocking.
With that amount of money to spend it's likely you'll have at least $300 to spend on graphics so the GTX670 and HD7970 are likely to be in your price range. If you are only intending to play at 1080P you can drop that budget a bit and not really loose much.

 

[Choll777]

Build above is absolutely fine, and more or less what everyone is going to suggest, with a few changes here and there.
Main thing will be - what does your $1500 have to include? If it's just the case and components, you have a massive budget to play with. If it's got to cover monitor, OS and perhaps peripherals, then you still have a healthy budget but you might need to cut back a few things.

Regardless of these things, i5 3570K will be what everyone suggests. If you really don't fancy overclocking then save yourself a few $ and get any Ivy Bridge i5 (3xxx), their performance is pretty damn similar for games if you aren't overclocking.
With that amount of money to spend it's likely you'll have at least $300 to spend on graphics so the GTX670 and HD7970 are likely to be in your price range. If you are only intending to play at 1080P you can drop that budget a bit and not really loose much.

I've never overclocked in my life and have no idea how to. Would it be worth it to get the Msi Radeon and risk hurting it by overclocking it to get the power of a GTX 580?

 

[Rammy]

It's a pretty straightforward process these days, if you are going the intel route then it's really just buying a nice CPU cooler, a k-series processor and then playing with bios settings until you get a good result. It is a bit of a hassle though, and if you aren't confident then it's not that big a deal. As I said above your budget is really healthy so you could always get a 3570K and not overclock it, so you have that option in the future. It's not great economy, but if you are comfortable with "wasting" some money to give you that option, then it's certainly viable.

As for graphics, I don't know which MSI card you are talking about. If it's the HD7850 the guy above linked, it's a nice card but for a $1500 build you'll probably want to be spending more. A lot of how much you "need" to spend is tied into your monitor.
If you want something current generation that's more close in performance to a GTX580, then something like a HD7870 or GTX660 are pretty good starting point.

Your best bet when it comes to graphics cards overclocking is just to buy a good quality card with a smallish factory overclock. These usually have good coolers (like the MSI Twin Frozer) which mean you can push them further, but you are unlikely to see vast leaps in performance. Also, MSI make Twin Frozer versions of basically every graphics card from AMD and Nvidia, so if you are hunting for graphics cards they are a good place to start, but you might find better dealers from other manufacturers. EVGA are pretty popular for good prices and great warranties.

 

[06yfz450ridr]

games are not all about cpus anymore they mainly rely in the graphics card. not saying a dual core etc wont be a bottle neck. you need a some what good cpu esp to play bf3. my build was less about 800 for everything from the ground up and i only have a 550ti fpb overclocked a bit more. i get 50 fps on high and ultra no problem on my big screen on bf3. i can play all ultra on most of the maps on my normal screen. i would look at the gtx660 or 660ti or a radeon equivalent. most of the time the radeons you can find are quicker and cheaper than the nvidias. it all depends if you want to go intel or amd.

 

[Uberperson]

Just a heads up, invest in a good modular PSU. 700w + atleast. If you plan on going for aesthetics later it will save you a lot of grief. Also a nice large case if you need to add other cooling options.

i5-3570k(with aftermarket cooler if you want to overclock some) and 7950 or better gfx card and you will be good to go. It is hard to go wrong when selecting RAM, and find a decent sized solid state drive.

 

[Mousemonkey]

This topic has been moved from the section CPU & Components to section Systems by Mousemonkey