My First Build: $800 Gaming Rig and How Good Is It?

[Astralman]

Case: Rosewill Blackhawk Mid Tower
(Two Extra Fans, both 7.99 120mm, 8 fan's total including stock)
Mother Board: ASRock Extreme 4 Z77
CPU: I5-2400
Heatsink and Fan: Rosewill RCX-Z300
(Arctic Silver 5)
Ram: G.Skill Ripjaws 8gb (2x4gb) 1600
Video Card: HIS IceQ X Radeon 7850 2GB
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500gb 7200rpm
DvD Burner: Asus DRW
Power Supply: Rosewill Hive 650W

With all the combo's plus shipping I have I'm paying $797, rounded up of course. I have been very active recently trying to figure out all of which is the best I can get, from personal friends to on hear getting many different opinions as well as my own personal research on the web. I think for just under $800 I can't get a better long term rig than this.

I feel that this case can last me many years as it is a bigger sized mid tower and with all the extra fans if I wish to overclock down the road I can. I could go cheaper but I would be sacrificing convenience and forcing me to probably buy a better case down the road if I did. I feel for $90 that this case is perfect. Bundled with the power supply on Newegg, it really can't get much better.

The hard drive is all I really need for now until an upgrade down the road with SSD's or another Hard drive. The ram is what I think to be good basic ram that will do its job very well. With the board I can just put more in down the road as needed. Speaking of the board I have been hearing a lot of good good things about ASRock motherboards lately so thought I would start out with them. The Z77 has everything on it that I need for a cheaper end motherboard so that is why I got it instead of a cheaper Z68, mainly for the internal usb 3.0 as my case as front plugins for it.

Asus burner because the combo with processor, simple as that. Graphics card mainly because I know it will get the job done, the HIS cards are known for being cool under load and its sitting at $199 right now only to get cheaper. The heatsink is just because I don't trust the stock and mainly of my friends don't either so I got something that was lower price with lots of good reviews.

Last the Power Supply. I know a lot of you are going to say I don't need a 650 watt power supply however the biggest reason I'm getting it is for the combo deal with the case. Its partially modular and I don't think I would want anything else unless its fully modular and this power supply will last me for a long time seeing as I won't be using most of its potential anyway unless I slightly overclock a few items. Speaking of overclocking. I have no big plans on overclocking with this first rig until I have done enough research to do so with future rigs, or second rig.

I think I will leave it at that. Let me know what you guys think as I have told you guy's what I think. I have put a ton of time into this rig trying to figure out what is what. Also if you would give this rig a 1 to 10 rating (1 being best) as far as a $800 dollar rig goes just let me know somewhere in your reply.

Thanks from your friendly neighborhood Astrallounge.

 

[bctande1]

Way better case. You get a 3570k. More HDD space. 7870 Ghz Edition. I'd say go with this.

 

[Guest]

well that one looks like a stock heatsink with a slightly bigger fan; same "push pins and size.

the other difference might be having a copper plate for the heatsink connection to the cpu but i believe the stock intels of the i5 has that also.

 

[Astralman]

Would a 550W power supply be good enough to try and overclock that cpu though? Wouldn't that be pushing it, especially with the 7870 also being a part of this as well?

Edit: Also I do like that case. Though no front usb 2.0 kind of bugs me. Though can anything be plugged into the usb 3.0 or is it only for certain things? Been trying to figure this out for some time.

 

[bctande1]

Would a 550W power supply be good enough to try and overclock that cpu though? Wouldn't that be pushing it, especially with the 7870 also being a part of this as well?

Edit: Also I do like that case. Though no front usb 2.0 kind of bugs me. Though can anything be plugged into the usb 3.0 or is it only for certain things? Been trying to figure this out for some time.

XFX PSUs are made by Seasonic, and this 550W will undoubtedly be able to OC both the GPU and CPU. I'd say your good there. I actually bought the 300R myself and made a low-cost build 5 days ago exactly, and if my personal testimony means anything, I really liked the case. Reviews speak greatly of it, and you can plug and USB peripheral into a front USB 3.0 port. Depending on the peripheral, the USB speeds might be slower, or better, however.

 

[Astralman]

I think I'm going to have to stick with the Rosewill Case with the Hive 650 watt just for the fact that the combo that is with it is just way to tempting and the Rosewill case itself is pretty amazing. I am concerened with the room in the back for the big cable of the power supply but we will see how that turns out. But other than that one thing I love this case.

I'm down to 731 with no shipping and I must say that Z75 case is nice. I got it simple because it was cheaper than the H77 and it had no shipping connected. Though with no real plans of overclocking I'm wasting that feature but with all the features of the board I have plus being cheaper and yatta yatta I will go with it. Thanks for that.

As I have said before, seeing as this is my first build, I don't plan on overclocking so the I5 you got there isn't going to do it for me, especially since the 3450 has a lot of great reviews and benchmarks without overclocking it.

I'm still debating as of right now on the 7870's, but just don't know if the increase in fps on the games I will be playing will be enough? Battlefield 3, Skyrim, WarZ, DayZ (maybe both), Tera, and those type of games. I know I will be upgrading my Graphics Card in probably a year from now, as I have rambled alot about at this point and just unsure of the worth of it. I know 20 to 40 bucks doesn't seem like alot but when you see that number change in the shopping cart it does.