Looking for a 1000-1200$ gaming pc build.

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Durfurbrains247

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Jul 2, 2014
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Hello, I am currently in the process of building a computer for a buddy, his budget is 1000-1200 dollars. We want to go with an i7 on the 1150 socket. He would like to be able to max out games and high-ultra settings. My biggest question with the build is the graphics card. I have never been able to build a computer on this high of a budget so I don't know what a good card is for the money in that price range. My initial thought was the 770 but i have heard mixed reviews. Any recommendations would be nice.

Edit: And for the graphics card brand, i would like to go nvidia for physx and the upcoming v-sync, but if there is a amd card with a better bang for the buck(which I'm sure there is) then please let me know.
 
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Exactly, that budget is actually low for ultra gaming (however this depends on what resolution), so your going to have to get an i5 if you want to max out games.

Ill get a build up in a min.
 
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PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 3.2GHz Quad-Core Processor ($184.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97-D3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($79.98 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($80.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 780 3GB DirectCU II Video Card ($479.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: XFX XTR 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply ($109.99 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($89.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1256.86
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
 
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Here's something to consider:

Like everyone above me says, the i5 vs the i7 doesn't have much of a performance difference in gaming. The i7 provides a better multi-thread application usage, not many games would use more than a few cores/threads, and the i5 still has plenty of power in the cores it has.

The r9 290 is a good card for the budget. It's a bit of a warmer card, but the windforce cooler should be able to cool it down well. The r9 290 is on the same tier as the gtx 780. As for the vSync thing, radeon pro has a nice vsync option that doesn't really increase the input delay noticeably which I found quite helpful with the games I play.

You have the option to overclock the CPU and gpu if you ever feel like you need more juice out of your system in the future. The motherboard will support a decent overclock. If you don't plan on overclocking immediately, you could ignore the cpu cooler for now, and pick it up whenever you decide to overclock.

As for the case, if there's another case you have in mind, there's a bit of room in the budget for you to change it to something else.

If you don't need windows, then you could take it out and just put it else where. I'd suggest maybe adding on more ram for future proofing, or you could throw the money into case that you like.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4690K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($234.99 @ NCIX US)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 EXTREME4 ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($130.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Kingston Blu Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($71.88 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Sandisk Solid State Drive 128GB 2.5" Solid State Drive ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 290 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($359.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: XFX 650W 80+ Bronze Certified ATX Power Supply ($79.74 @ Amazon)
Optical Drive: LG GH24NSB0 DVD/CD Writer ($15.98 @ OutletPC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 - 64-bit (OEM) (64-bit) ($95.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $1169.51
 
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I could be very wrong but I thought i read some where that next gen games are gonna start benefiting more and more from hyper-threading becasue the new consoles are 8 cores clocked at like 1.4 ghz or something
 
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Those are consoles though, not PC games.

It's going to take a long time before i7 will REALLY make a difference in gaming compared to the i5. Sure some games like the latest battlefield does support 8 threads, but it's GPU dependent so i5 vs. i7 won't make much of a difference in that game.
 
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GTX 780 is far overkill for 1080P, gtx 770 is perfect for ultra 1080P.

However, I completely forgot that the r9 290 is actually near gtx 780 performance at gtx 770 prices, so I'd get that instead.
 
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Maybe and maybe not. It's not really simple to code multi-tasking. That's why even today we still don't have many muti-tasked games and applications while multi-core computers have been around 10+ years. For single-task applications, the faster cores in the i5 are beneficial, while the i7 is not really that much faster or the most likely bottleneck.

For multi-tasking, the 4-core vs 4x2 hyper-threading cores will yield very limited benefits.

 
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You only need an i7 if you are going to have a multi-GPU setup. I7 scales better than an i5 in crossfire or SLI.

Most of us will recommend a single high end GPU, so an i5 4690k on a Z97 board will be your best intel based option. This is posted in some of the builds above.
 
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