Joining The Masses: Building My First Gaming PC, Part 1

[D-7 BATTLECRUISER]

For just a shade over $1k I went with 32GB RAM, a 1kw power supply, AM3+ MOBO, an FX 8350, and a GTX970, and a Samsung 250GB SSD. If he skimped on the HD, and the silly dual core intel he could have gotten a much better monster system for just over $600. I don't understand gamers who will drop down $600 on a rig but wont hold off until they have another $200 or $400 to get the best bang for the buck.

Your processor is rated at 125W at stock frequencies, and the 970 @ 145W (reference design) and ~2W for the SSD, ~12W for 4 modules of DDR3 RAM. So where is the rest of your power supply's load?

Even wildly overclocking things can't use anywhere near 1000W with a single CPU and single video card in that system.

Who cares it was $10 more than the 700watt version, and had the highest rating on both Amazon and Newegg at the price point of $139. In the past with a mid-range system I've burned through a 650, 750 watt PSU and have an 850watt PSU installed on my Core2Quad Q6600 system.

I built this system with the core components to be future sustainable. Right now I run a very competitive 8 core cpu but everybody knows AMDs cpu cores do not perform dump truck to dump truck with Intel. As soon as Intel makes a competitively priced 8 or 12 core cpu then I will swap out this motherboard and cpu and drop in an Intel product. I could not justify paying another $50 for a 4 core intel processor which gets beat where it counts, price and overall mult-core performance (streaming, video editing, rendering, etc.) The only place i5 does better against FX-8350 is single core apps, well with enough ram and an SSD I wouldn't be able to tell the difference. Now for another $150 I could get an i7 with six cores, and maybe do better with hyper threading but not as much as actual logical cores. All of Intels chips meant for rendering are too pricy so at under $200 for the AMD FX-8350 has exceeded my expectations on many levels. I investigated getting a dual socket mother board but was unable to locate an AM3+ dual socket and that is my only regret. LOL

In the future year or two I anticipate either adding storage, possibly internal as 3TB HDD inventory needs to be cleared or maybe a water cooling solution with some additional fans. She doesn't run too hot but I'm not really pushing the OC just yet. I'm only at 4.5GHz but I think I can work it up to 4.8 or even 5.0-5.2 with water.

 

[Maroke747]

I am still fairly new to the pic rig building group having only one build under my belt but that one build included the spec 01 case. I do not recommend this case, in my opinion the side panels don't offer adequate space for cable management and there is no opening near the top of the motherboard for the 8-pin CPU power connector. Also the openings for cables are not closed with rubber. Just some thoughts, but nice build