Want to Build Gaming Rig, 2k Budget

vanitar

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This is going to be my first "ground-up" pc. I've bought stock PCs before and upgraded them piecemeal, so I have an idea of how stuff works, but I'm looking to get something that's going to be top-of-the-line-ish.


Approximate Purchase Date:this week (the closer the better)

Budget Range: 2k total, taxes shipping, what-not

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, surfing the net, movies

Are you buying a monitor:No


Parts to Upgrade: Keeping no parts from previous pc

Do you need to buy OS: Yes

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Your Preference is fine.

Location: Grand Junction, Co, USA

Parts Preferences: Just looking for the best

Overclocking: Never Tried it before, open to it!

SLI or Crossfire: Never Tried it before, open to it!

Your Monitor Resolution: 2x 1920x1080

Additional Comments: A coolish looking case would be awesome, but not necessary, the quieter the better, but performance is more important.

Games: League of Legends, any new games that come out (CoD/BF, Skyrim anything awesome), hoping to use this PC for 3+ years

And Most Importantly, Why Are You Upgrading: PC is 3 years old, upgraded everything piecemeal except for the motherboard (maxed it out) and want to get a new rig, hand this one down to my wife.

No parts selected already, that's why I'm here! :)

I believe that I got everything from the guide, Sorry if I missed anything! And Thanks for the help!
 

burritobob

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Nov 14, 2012
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CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K 3.5GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14 65.0 CFM CPU Cooler ($79.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LE ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($148.98 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($93.50 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($162.99 @ NCIX US)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($67.97 @ Outlet PC)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($389.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($389.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Corsair 650D ATX Mid Tower Case ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair Enthusiast 850W 80 PLUS Bronze Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($99.00 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (OEM) (64-bit) ($95.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $1956.34
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
 

vanitar

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Thanks for the quick reply!

I've got a few questions:

I've read on a few threads that have been posted recently that there is no point in upgrading to an i7 processor, that the i5 (3660k?) will do more than is needed for gaming, is that true/what is the reasoning behind an i7?

Will a SSD do anything noticeable for gaming, and in your opinion is it worth the price? (I would assume so, since you've got it listed, haha)

As far as Crossfiring the two AMD cards goes, what is involved in crossfiring two cards, is that something that will come pretty simply (maybe watch a youtube video, or read something on here) for getting set up, and do I need to monitor temperatures and such to make sure I don't burn out any components?
 

resin34

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I would get a SSD if you have the buget. You can store your OS and a few games on it. The SSD will have very fast louad times.
If you want your PC only for gaming get an i5 , but again if you have the money get i7. Unless you plan to video edit or render videos, ect. do not get 16 gigs of ram, 8 is normaly more than enough for gaming. Instead get faster ram.
 

giltyler

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SSD will make system boot faster for sure and games load much faster.
Unless you edit video or crazy number crunching a I5 3570K or the new replacement is fine.
If it was my build with 2 7970s I would get a a bigger full modular power supply.
 

vanitar

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What's the difference between this PSU and a full modular one? what should I be looking for?
 

vanitar

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Ah okay, so the biggest difference is modular is for someone who can read what plug goes where? haha. and easier to initially install? sounds like a plan for me.

What about Crossfire, is that something that I set up and go, or need to keep tweaking and making sure I don't overheat or anything like that? Most importantly, is it necessary? I read through the best cards for the money article for April, and saw that there are some equivalent single card builds, is there any practical reason I would want to go to a single card?

 

giltyler

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In a dual card set up the cards will run hotter due to being stacked but should not be a problem.
A single 7990 would leave room for upgrade down the road but unless you are using multiple monitors would be overkill.
GTX Titan for another top of line option but performance is not in line with price.
You should also look at a few PSU calculator sites to get a PS that can handle the system without running near max output all the time.
 

flong777

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First let me say that I really like most of the components on the build that Vanitar gave you - props vanitar

Here a couple of additional ideas to consider:

1. Definitely get an SSD. The Samsung 840 PRO is the fastest right now. Vanitar recommended the 250 GB 840 (not the PRO version) and that is a very good SSD.

2. From what I have read, if you crossfire two AMD 7950 video cards you can play any game on the planet at the highest settings - correct me if I don't have that right. That would save you approximately $200 per video card, or $400. The 7970 is a very good card but it is expensive. Since you are crossfiring, the 7950 should work and be enough. Video cards get replaced about once a year and so I think the 7950 is the best choice because in 6 months an updated video card will come out that makes the old video cards obsolete.

3. I like vanitar's recommendation of the Corsair 850, but I would move up to either the Corsair HX 850 or the Corsair AX 860i. If you look for a sale you can get the HX 850 for $140 - $160. The HX 850 and the AX 860i come with 7 year warranties and are two of the highest rated PSUs on the market. Both of the them will put out 1000W and stay stable.

BTW I own the Corsair HX 850 and it is an amazing PSU, it is quiet and it runs cools. Most of the time it is over 90% efficient - it is gold rated. The AX and HX are both modular and easier to build with. Trust me, the HX is worth the extra $60. The AX 860i is kind of expensive though and it is not much better than the HX 850.

4. Stick with vanitar's recommendation of the I-7 3770, it is a rocketship CPU. It beats the $1000 I-7 3960X in some tests. The I-5 3570K also is good but you have to overclock it to compete with the I-7 3770.

5. I own the Noctua NH-D14 and I love it. It is a monster cooler. I also own the Corsair 650D case and it is an amazing case, I have been thrilled with it. The 650D case has plenty of room for the NH-D14. For cooling, the only other alternative I would look at is the Corsair H100i.

6. The Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD that vanitar is an excellent drive, I won it. You might want to look at the Seagate Barracuda 3TB drive, it is just $134.00 on Newegg and it is a VERY fast HDD.

7. if you can pick up 2133 RAM for a few bucks more, it will give you about a 2%-3% speed improvement.

Good luck with your build.
 

vanitar

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In order to give credit where credit is due, I am Vanitar, and I asked the initial question, burritobob created the above build. :D

That's a really good point about the video cards, and maybe saving some cash, haha. Does anyone else feel the same way? I'm unfamiliar with crossfiring, all I really know how to do is benchmark the cards individually and tell which is better that way ^.^
 

masterman467

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Ah, where do begin?


Lurk more, kid. The i7 is never needed unless you are rendering videos all day every day. Also, lrn2 single merchant: Newegg. Never give microcenter prices, as not everyone can go to a microcenter.


>Not a hyper 212 evo
lel, this won't even clear your horrable choice in ram's heatsink. Please lurk more.


>16 gigs of ram
>Needed ever

Top LEL.
At least they are G.Skill...


>Seagate
>Not Western Digital Caviar Blue

Come on man, troll/10. Everyone knows that WD makes much more reliable drives, and will be replaced if they do fail for twice as long..
 

vanitar

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I saw this build on another thread (the one for the 5k rig) and I see a few differences between this build and the one by bob, namely the i5 rather than i7 (reviewed in that thread and here) and the single video card vs 2 video cards, anyone have thoughts about the difference in these builds? I don't want to spend extra for negligible difference in usability.


 

burritobob

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Ah where to begin, Oh yes maybe you should next time learn to become a constructive poster and not waste your time with your failed attempts at an Ad Hominem by calling me a "kid" you should sit down and take some notes as to why I chose what I chose...

When you have $2k for a budget you have some room for comforts and can increase longevity.

To respond to your first comment: The i7 is used in many games and many future games today such as BF3/Crysis 3 congrats on not knowing which games use what. Plus it will get you past 3+ years as the OP requested... lurk more.

Next the D-14 only the best cooler out there being the quietest and most efficient. Also not to mention the fact that the G.Skill RAM is the largest RAM to fit under the beast of a cooler. Do some more research, it fits a quick google search could tell you that.

Again a necessity 16GB of RAM is more of a personal thing, some games coming up may or may not use more. Your mindset should really reach out of the status qou and look into the "3+ years of use" mindset...

I'm sorry you had a bad time with Seagate but that does not mean the millions of others who've used them before will. Sure go ahead add a whole $5 to the build and get the WD Blue, I'm just trying to maximize performance/dollar.

Now really you should come back later with something that will add to that thread instead of your bad attitude I'm a do all know all, it really will not get you anywhere here or any other place in life.
 

masterman467

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HT gets 3 more FPS then an i5 in the games listed. Not worth the 100 bucks by a long shot. The budget does not matter, When there is somthing that will do the same job for less and allow more money to be allocated to something else...
2 year long warranty for 5 bucks? Hell yeah im taking that. This is like picking a corsair or seasonic PSU. Corsair is not bad, but seasonic is better. Seagate is not bad, but WD is better.
It's amazing that your a Home Brew Veteran++ but know nothing of how PC Part Picker works, please defend that, i am honestly interested in your answer...
Please stop being so wrong. It hurts my soul.
 

giltyler

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Seasonic builds the many of Corsair's units so lets be clear on that fact.
If someone can afford the 3770K they will be able to be slightly faster today and possibly much faster as games change.
Quite a few of us will direct to Microcenter if it is near the buyer since they have the lowest price on CPU/MOBO
 

masterman467

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First off,
The xenon is NOT a gaming CPU. It is a server CPU and is by no means good for gaming. I say again, NOT FOR GAMING it is for crunching numbers and hosting small websites. It is not overclockable, has a lower clock speed, and that motherboard will not recognize it, you need an xenon mobo, and they cost upwards of 250 bucks. Please do research before recommending something to people.

Regarding HT,
First you should look at how threads work. A 4 core CPU (Note, cores, not threads. HT is off) vs a single core in rendering a picture is a great example. Here is this cat picture that you open up, it is 10k pixels long and 10k pixels tall. The single core just starts at the top left and does each row of pixels, then goes down to the next row. Now the 4 core, each core operates one thread, and each thread pics 2500 pixels on the lenth and starts loading everything under it (Like the single core, but 1/4th the info). Each thread is rendering 1/4th of the picture.
Now HT is on. 8 threads, the picture is cut in 8 rectangles and renderd out. The HT gets done first because the load is spread evenly. This is all fine and dandy for numbers, but gaming has few number calculations run on the CPU. Cutting them all up does help, but it does not increse the processing power, because it is still the same hardware, and each core is roughly half the power of a single core. It may have 8 cores, but its still 4 cores. Basically useless in gaming. (Oh and the FPS gain from HT is nominal on the new I3's, the core clock was bumped and it has a better architecture then the old sandys. Thats what gave the FPS boost.)


No, its not. Mostly because none of them will even see the CPU.




Yeah, faster at crunching numbers maybe. It is not even close in gaming.


Just no. There is no reason to run 3 250 dollar cards when they are slower then the 400 dollar card.


2 7870's still lack the pixel pushing power for 3 screens. You would need a Titan, a 690, a 7990, 2 670's, or 2 7970's to run 3 screens with good settings. maybe 3 7870's will do it, but that will suck power like a hummer sucks gas in first gear down the highway.



Overall? kinda horrible. Please lurk more, at least until you learn that you don't put server parts in a gaming rig.

Edit: You picked the correct username.
 

boulbox

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For a pure gaming build that is around 2k i would most likely go with this

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($219.98 @ Outlet PC)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.98 @ Outlet PC)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($163.98 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($93.50 @ Newegg)
Storage: Plextor M5S Series 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($84.99 @ Microcenter)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($66.32 @ Amazon)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($402.38 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 3GB Video Card (2-Way CrossFire) ($402.38 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 500R White ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Kingwin Lazer Platinum 850W 80 PLUS Platinum Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer ($17.98 @ Outlet PC)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8 (OEM) (64-bit) ($93.98 @ Outlet PC)
Total: $1765.45
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-04-25 15:44 EDT-0400)

For cooler, Hyper 212 is pretty much the best price to performance if you want to spend more then i would recommend one of these that have been pretty nice in builds that i have used/built

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/phanteks-cpu-cooler-phtc12dx

http://pcpartpicker.com/part/nzxt-cpu-cooler-havik140

The noctua is good to but with a price that high, i don't really think it is worth it over these other ones.

16GB of ram since your budget is pretty high and can afford it. You are not really going to use like half of the memory available for games but it is great to just re use them in the future if games get to use more memory.

128GB SSD is pretty much all I would need for OS and a few games/apps that can use the fast loading. If you think you need more
http://pcpartpicker.com/part/sandisk-internal-hard-drive-sdssdhp256gg25
this one is pretty nice.(or you can upgrade to Samsung 840 pro but i don't really see a big difference SSD to SSD)

I chose the 7970(especially this one) because it can achieve high OCs and this one can be BIOS unlocked into a GHz version

The Case i chose out is a pretty ncie a decent one. It was fairly cheap for the quality you get. Can be changed to your personal taste.

850W because the 7970(if unlocked and OCed) can take quite a bit of power.
 

Oblivionage

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Let's not let this become a flame war. Just help the man pick a god damn computer. Anyway, his most important use is gaming! so the 3770k is useless unless he plans on streaming games, which, even then he can just OC the 3570k/8350/whatever to stream just as well. About the SSD, if you truly want to save like 5 seconds of your time loading something up then go for it and buy a 100-200 dollar SSD. I've heard that games only launch quicker and don't load maps quicker so there's really no reason to get an SSD for gaming. The video cards are way overkill. A single 7970 would provide enough performance for at least 3 years. If you're not stuck on AMD you can also invest into a 670 4gb for those monitors. If you take my advice on the video cards then just bump your psu down to 600W and you'll be fine.
 

boulbox

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The time to load up fully(including the computer to become responsive like loading apps) takes much more time than 5 seconds. Agreed on most of your points though.

128GB SSD is all you really need, some games can use the SSD to some use(WoW and BF3 are some notable ones, BF3 you do load faster but if the game is not started yet, you will still have to wait for the other players)

the GPUs are not really overkill for a 2x1080p setup, would recommend him to not use 2 monitors unless he wants his X-hair on the blank spaces of the screens.
 

vanitar

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The way I'm currently using my dual monitors is one screen for gaming, the other for a different game/streaming netflix/monitoring my stream.
 

flong777

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While I am not a hardcore gamer - doesn't Tom's Hardware GPU reviews show that two 7950s in crossfire are necessary to play games like Crysis in the highest settings? Also it is my understanding that a single 7970 will not. Since this build has 2K budget, wouldn't two 7950s in crossfire (or two GTX 670s) be the minimum for a high end build like this? The OP lists gaming as the most important use for his build.

Also the OP lists two 1920 x 1080 monitors. Wouldn't two 7950s in crossfire provide better performance for duel screens. I think the 7970 will run up to three screens but I am not sure at what resolution. A couple of posters on this thread seem to be very graphics savvy and so please understand I am just bringing up these issues as questions. Please do chime in to add more first-hand experience.
 

winkay

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Shut up, Meg.
 

boulbox

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Xeon is great for budget workstation builds as it is pretty much an i7 locked because of 4 cores and 8 threads. It can be used for gaming no doubt.

The downfall of the Xeon is when you want to upgrade(seeing as you are most likely going to go with a B75 board).