My First Gaming Computer Build

[Ramzaplays]

Hello I'm new to the community I was talking to a friend and he recommended I come here for advice. I'm building my first gaming computer and need some advice. I am on a 1500$ budget and I've been looking at Intel Core i5-2500K BX80623I52500 Unlocked Processor - Quad Core, 6MB L3 Cache, 1MB L2 Cache, 3.30 GHz (3.70 GHz Max Turbo), Socket H2 (LGA1155), 95W, Fan, Retail,

EVGA GeForce GTX 680 FTW+ 04G-P4-3687-KR Video Card - 4GB, GDDR5, PCI-Express 3.0(x16), 1x Dual-link DVI-I, 1x Dual-link DVI-D, 1x HDMI, 1x Display-Port, DirectX 11, NVIDIA SLI Ready, Overclocked,

ASUS P8Z77-V LX Intel 7 Series Motherboard - ATX, Socket H2 (LGA1155), Intel Z77 Express, 2400MHz DDR3 (O.C.), SATA III (6Gb/s), RAID, 8-CH Audio, Gigabit LAN, CrossFireX Ready (P8Z77-V LX)

and I was looking at running 8gb Kingston hyper X ram but I'm not sure what to get.

I would also like advice on the case, hard drive and the power supply. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks

 

[Culbrelai]

Mostly everything looks good to me, 500-600w PSU, more if you want more GPUs later, SLIing and all of that.

There's a list of recommended PSU brands floating around, but generally the best is Seasonic, many other brands rebrand their own PSUs that OEM from Seasonic.

There's Corsair, XFX, Enermax, Cooler Master, Thermaltake... Many individual models may perform better or worse than the average for the brand. Do research.

Also, the GTX 680 has horrible price/performance. It is only like 5% faster than a GTX 670, which made my choice clear. Again, research differences between GTX 670 and 680, and see if the price matters to you.

RAM brands, almost all of them are good. G.Skill has a lifetime warranty, as do other companies. Corsair is good, Samsung is good, Kingston is good... You almost cannot go wrong.

Oh, and what CPU cooler do you plan on using? Apologies if I missed it but you're getting the "K" version of the processor... so you want to overclock I take it... you'll need either All in one liquid cooling (Corsair H90, H110, H80i, H100i... Thermaltake Water 2.0, etc) or tower heatsinks (I like my Hyper 212 EVOs, but then again I have rather cool running processors)

Oh, and cases are very personal choices. Mid tower seems to be the most common choice, then full tower, and there are some even larger (Some of CaseLabs cases are giant, larger than full tower, as are a few Rosewills, Cooler Masters, MountainMods...)

 

[Caviman2201]

Is there any particular reason you're looking at a Sandy Bridge instead of Ivy Bridge proc like the 3750K?

GPU sounds good if you want the best, but 7970/GTX 670 would be better price/performance ratio - EVGA is a great OEM.

ASUS always makes great boards, but check out this breakdown... the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 costs less and performs better: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/z77-express-ivy-bridge-benchmark,3254-35.html

Go with a simple DDR3-1600 2x4GB kit... the G.Skill Ripjaws series is good.

As for case, go with what you like appearance-wise. FWIW, I really like my Corsair Vengeance C70 if you're in the market for a mid-tower. Lots of room and great cable management.

For HDD, I would suggest an SSD/HDD setup. I have a 120GB Sandisk Ultra and I like it a lot - got it for under $100 and complemented it with a regular 1TB 7200RPM storage drive.

For PSU, you can't go wrong with Seasonic. If you do not intend to go SLI with GTX680s, a ~650W PSU will be plenty. If you plan to SLI, look at something in the 750-800 range. The Seasonic X series is a fantastic modular PSU that goes on sale pretty often on Newegg.

 

[Ramzaplays]

Thanks guys for the reply's with some further advice I came up with the following build. How does it look?


Corsair CMPSU-650TXV2 Enthusiast Series TX650 V2 Power Supply - 650 Watts, ATX, 140mm Fan, 80 Plus Bronze, SLI Ready, Active PFC

Intel Core i5-2500K BX80623I52500 Unlocked Processor - Quad Core, 6MB L3 Cache, 1MB L2 Cache, 3.30 GHz (3.70 GHz Max Turbo), Socket H2 (LGA1155), 95W, Fan, Retail,

EVGA GeForce GTX 670 FTW+ 04G-P4-3687-KR Video Card - 4GB, GDDR5, PCI-Express 3.0(x16), 1x Dual-link DVI-I, 1x Dual-link DVI-D, 1x HDMI, 1x Display-Port, DirectX 11, NVIDIA SLI Ready, Overclocked,

Gigabyte Z77X-UD3H

Kingston HyperX KHX1600C9D3K2/8GX 8GB Desktop Memory Kit - DDR3, (2 x 4GB), PC3-12800, 1600MHz, CL9, Intel XMP Ready

Kingston HyperX 120GB Solid State Drive with a regular 500 gb Baracuda hard drive

Xion AXP970-001BK Predator Gaming Mid-Tower Case - ATX, µATX, 3 x 3.5" Bays, 2 x Hot-Swap 3.5" Bays, 4 x 5.25" Bays, eSATA, 2 x USB 2.0, 120mm Blue LED Fan

Cooler Master RR-212E-20PK-R2 Hyper 212 EVO Universal CPU Cooler - 120mm Fan w/ PWM, LGA 1366, 1156, 1155, 775, FM1, AM3+, AM3, AM2+, AM2

 

[wingman99]

Looks good, I'm just wondering why you picked the i5 2500k over i5 3570k?

 

[Caviman2201]

FYI, Ram, this is a great price on a great PSU that would give you plenty of overhead... Seasonic X-750

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ..._mmc=EMC-GD032713-_-index-_-Item-_-17-151-087

Also, I agree with wingman... why not the 3570K? PS, do you live near a Microcenter? They have a deal I've been eyeballing for a while now... a combo of the i5-3570K and the ASRock Z77 Extreme4 for $284 + tax. That's significantly cheaper than newegg...

 

[EarthDog]

A couple of things I notice...

1. I would suggest 3570K over the older 2500K
2. Wondering why GTX670 4GB. How many monitors are you running that you are getting the 4GB model? Assuming you are on a single monitor 2560x1440 or less, I would get a 7970 3GB instead. Its $100 cheaper than the Nvidia and performs just the same (even better at higher resolutions).

 

[Ramzaplays]

I see the mistake and will be picking up a 3570k version unfortunately I live in Canada and there are no microcentres I'm gonna see the delivery fees if anything and possibly ship it up if I can. Also I've had a lot of people tell me their bad experiences with Radeon products so I'm sskeptical and I'm gonna be running off of 2 monitors.

 

[briansun1]

I know some of this is already anwserd but it will help you plan out your build

Hey, welcome to OCF!

When trying to recommend a build to you, there's some information that's extremely helpful for us to know. If you could answer these few short questions, we'd be happy to help!

• What are you planning to do with this compuer? Please be as specfic as possible.

• What is your budget?
  1. Does this include a copy of Windows?
  2. Does this include peripheals (a keyboard, monitor, mouse, speakers, etc.)?
• Are you from the United States or a different country? Are you ordering from your own country or from across borders?
  1. Wherever you may be from, does the store that you are planning to order from have a website? It's okay if it isn't in English, we can manage.
  2. If you are from the United States, do you live nearby a Microcenter?

• Do you have any specific requests with the build?
  1. Do you plan on overclocking? If yes, do you have a specific goal in mind?
  2. Would you prefer the build to be particularly small?
  3. Would you prefer the build to be particularly quiet?
  4. In general, do you prefer this to be a computer that you can spend money on now and let it rest, or a box built for continuous upgrading?
  5. Do you ever plan on utilizing NVIDIA's SLI or AMD's CrossfireX technologies? These features, with a compatible motherboard, allow a user to link multiple identical graphic cards together for added performance. In real world terms, this lets you buy a second identical graphics card down the line as a relatively cheap and easy way to gain a fairly large boost in performance. However, this requires buying a SLI/CFX compatible motherboard and PSU now, which may result in slightly higher initial cost.

(OPTIONAL) Have you already looked at or considered any parts (it's okay if you haven't)? If so, please list your top 1-2 choices for each category. If you've only picked out a few of the below, just list those.

• CPU
• Motherboard
• RAM
• Graphics Card
• Power Supply
• Case
• Hard Drive
• Solid State Drive (optional)
• Mouse (if necessary)
• Keyboard (if necessary)
• Monitor (if necessary)
• Speakers/Headset (if necessary)

Once again, thank you in advannce for taking the time to answer these, and I hope you enjoy your stay at OCF! what is it for?

 

[Johan45]

Hey Ramzaplays do you know if there are any CanadaComputers stores near by. They usually have really good prices and if it's local no shipping. Theres also Tiger Direct but I find them overpriced.

 

[Ramzaplays]

Yeah I've been to both but it seemed I knew more then the person selling me parts so I decided to hold off.
Alrighty from the start my budget is about 1500$. I am from canada Toronto ill be buying from canadacomputers or tigerdirect ill take other stores into consideration. I have a copy of windows 7 so that I don't have to worry about the 1500$ is just for the tower. Size of the build dosen't matter. I prefer a quieter build but I can deal with noise.I prefer something I can upgrade at future times. Ummm I might sli in the future but take this as my first time looking into computers so im a complete noob at this so its learning as I go. With parts im not picky but for the video card I would like to lean towards a nvedia card just because of my friends experiences but all in all I wouldn't mind a Radeon . I will also be duel screening my computer. Its only purpose is gaming and YouTube.

 

[EarthDog]

I see the mistake and will be picking up a 3570k version unfortunately I live in Canada and there are no microcentres I'm gonna see the delivery fees if anything and possibly ship it up if I can. Also I've had a lot of people tell me their bad experiences with Radeon products so I'm sskeptical and I'm gonna be running off of 2 monitors.

There are no more problems with AMD cards than Nvidia IMO.

I assume you are not playing First Person Shooters as 2 monitors are terrible for such things...

 

[Ramzaplays]

I plan to play fps games as well if its a bad idea ill use the one monitor.

 

[EarthDog]

Well think about it, the bezel for the monitor will be right in the middle of everything on a FPS...

That said, gaming on only one, but spanned across two, I would say 7950 for 1080p resolution (gaming).

 

[Ramzaplays]

Alrighty then ill just stick to my one monitor

 

[Ramzaplays]

I plan to play fps games as well if its a bad idea ill use the one monitor.

 

[EarthDog]

Right.. that is what I said. You can use two monitors, but game on just one. With that assuming 1080p, I would get a AMD 7950.