budget gaming

[dawhitewizard]

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
gaming. mostly fps and mmorpg. bf3, skyrim, wow, starcrft 2, d3...

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
i have a newegg wishlist at 664. i would like to get under that.

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
San Diego, CA

4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. The word "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
CPU, MOBO, GPU, RAM, HDD, Case, PSU, Monitor

5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
usb mouse and keyboard.

6) Will you be overclocking?
not right away

7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
n/a

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
january

9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video? etc.
SATA 6GB/s, Raid 0

10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If so, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
I have Windows 7 64bit



CPU - Intel Core i3-2120 - $119
MOBO - MSI P67A-G43 - $114.99
RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) - $29.99
GPU - EVGA GeForce GTX 560 1GB - $179.99
HDD - Western Digital Caviar Blue 160GB SATA 3.0Gb/s - $89.99
PSU - Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-620 620W - $74.99
Case - Antec Three Hundred - $49.99
Monitor - Acer G235HAbd 23'' - $139.99
$799.92 + shipping/tax

My intent is to upgrade to an i7, gtx 580 level or higher, two caviar black drives in raid 0, potentially a ssd when prices drop. i would really like to cut the cost now without sacrificing too much upgrade room later. right now i am not worried about overclocking but next year i am want to.

i would really like to stick with intel and nvidia chips. what are your thoughts on stability? anywhere i can cut costs?

 

[DatHak512]

This seems pretty well thought out, and leaving yourself two empty RAM slots for future expansion when RAM is cheaper is never a bad thing. The only change I'll offer is regarding storage. You may want to reconsider the WD Blue if you're planning on replacing it with a WD Black in the future. Just go with a WD Black and that way when you want to move to your RAID, just slap in the second WD Black, create the RAID, and rock and roll.

Regarding the RAID, did you mean RAID 1 and not RAID 0? I'd definitely recommend RAID 1 over RAID 0, mainly for data safety/redundancy but also in your application (where read speed is the goal) I believe that RAID 1 will actually give you higher throughput and lower latency than a comparable RAID 0 setup. Also, consider that in a two-disk RAID 0 the MTBF is *four times* shorter than it is with those same two disks in RAID 1. But yes, you do lose the two-fold usable data increase that RAID 0 provides, but I guess you'll have to weigh the pros and cons for your particular situation. Since I don't do a whole lot of gaming, maybe someone else can weigh in on this, but in my systems I don't use RAID 0. A single SSD is expensive, but would likely be faster than a two-disk RAID 0 or 1, but won't have the protection factor of a RAID 1.

Are you planning on using on-board RAID provided by the P67? I don't have any numbers to back this up, but I'd expect that if that filesystem is under high I/O load like in a game, the performance of related tasks on the northbridge (stuff like RAM or GPU data) would take a hit, resulting in a slightly lower FPS. But maybe the read speed benefits of the RAID would outweigh that? I've got no idea. One more thing to think about and tweak, I guess! Again, maybe a gamer can weigh in here.

One last thought: take the $90 you save on the WD Blue and buy yourself a last-year's 3Ware or Adaptec two-port SATA RAID 0/1 card and use that. That way if your motherboard goes belly up, you won't suddenly find yourself with a RAID that's not recognized on your replacement motherboard.

FWIW,
Nick

 

[Dangman]

3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
San Diego, CA

Since you live in CA, try to buy as much of your parts as possible from Amazon.com as they do not charge CA residents tax like Newegg does.

2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
i have a newegg wishlist at 664. i would like to get under that.

Let me rephrase that question: What's your actual budget? What is the most amount of money you're willing to spend on this PC? Are tax and shipping included?

Sorry but your answer and shopping list confused me there.

8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
january

Ok, I highly recommend that you wait until January and ask for advice then as our parts recommendations tend to change monthly. Not to mention that each month there's different sales. So if you want up-to-date advice, bump up this thread in January. Otherwise, you may be stuck with an outdated and overpriced build list. For now, assume that most of our parts recommendations are applicable only for December.

My intent is to upgrade to an i7, gtx 580 level or higher, two caviar black drives in raid 0, potentially a ssd when prices drop.

i would really like to cut the cost now without sacrificing too much upgrade room later. right now i am not worried about overclocking but next year i am want to.

i would really like to stick with intel and nvidia chips. what are your thoughts on stability? anywhere i can cut costs?

The problem is that your goals, planned parts list, and budget don't and probably won't match up. Not to mention that some of those parts would be poor choices for any budget and any time period.

Let's start with your upgrade plans:
1) For a gaming PC, an i7 CPU is not worth getting unless A) You're doing a ton of video/3D editing/rendering, B) you can get it for the same price as an i5 CPU, or C) you want a bigger epeen.
2) Caviar Black drives are not worth buying as there are often faster Samsung or Hitachi drives for lower prices. Only reason to get Caviar Black drives these days is if A) you really really hate Samsung and Hitachi, B) Samsung and Hitachi aren't available in your area, or C) you really like spending more money for lower performance.
3) When exactly are you planning on doing your upgrades?

As for the poor parts choices:
The Antec 300 is relatively cramped and has little to no cable management. The only saving grace about that case is that it comes with two extra fans. However, fans are cheap and easy to add. Cable management and space aren't. So I recommend that you replace that Antec 300 case with this case instead:
$50 - NZXT Source 210 Elite White with Black Front Trim ATX Case

The above case recommendation may change if there's a newer and better case in that price range in January. Still wouldn't recommend the Antec 300 unless it's like $30 or so.

HDD wise, that 160GB drive is very very slow and stupidly overpriced. So slow in fact, you might as well as downgrade the rest of the build to a cheap AMD setup as you won't be getting the full performance out of any Intel setup with that drive. If you were buying this month, I would recommend this drive:
$92 - Western Digital WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

Costs less once you factor in shipping and tax and easily 3 to 4 times faster than that 160GB drive. However note that due to changing hard drive prices, I might not recommend that WD 500GB drive next month.

As for the rest of the parts:
- Drop the CPU down to the Pentium G620 which saves you $50.
- Drop the video card down to the AMD HD 6770 to save another $75. No, there aren't any worthwhile Nvidia cards worth buying for gaming below the $180 price point unless you do a ton of work involving CUDA.
- Drop the monitor down to a 20" monitor to save another $40.
- Drop the motherboard down to this Gigabyte P67 mobo to save another $10.

That knocks the total cost of that build by $175 or so when combined with the earlier HDD and case changes.