New gaming system build

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Hello everyone,

I recently made a thread about whether or not I could upgrade my older system but I came to a conclusion and thought it would be best to build a new system from scratch. After hours of searching this is what I came up with and I would like to get some feedback. The purpose of this system is to last me at least 4 years and to be able to play high-end games such as Battlefield 3, Diablo 3, and Guild Wars 2.

Here are the specifications for the system that I'm planning to build,

Motherboard :

GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Graphics Card :

EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

HDD :

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Power Supply :

CORSAIR Professional Series HX650 (CMPSU-650HX) 650W ATX12V v2.2 / EPS12V 2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Memory :

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBXL

Processor :

AMD Phenom II X4 970 Black Edition Deneb 3.5GHz 4 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Desktop Processor HDZ970FBGMBOX

Case :

NZXT GAMMA Classic Series GAMA-001BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Total price for everything will be at around $800, including fans and sink. I was also contemplating on switching the AMD to a Intel Sandy Bridge i5 2500k but that would bring it near $1000, unless someone is able to switch something around for me. If you do switch something, please try not to change the Nvidia Geforce GTX 560 ti because I'm a huge Nvidia fan .

I'm hoping to at least run at a high setting while playing Battlefield 3 with these components. Please tell me what you think and try not to go over the $800 mark by too much.

Thanks for your help.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

A GTX 480 would be stronger than the 560 video card if thats the range you are looking at, and it would keep you on nvidia.

If you buy your CPU and motherboard separate, the parts you have selected for those will run you $260. If you browse the combos here, there are a lot of options around the $200 mark:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...bCategory=343&SortField=0&PageSize=100&Page=1

The only catch is the combos only have 880 chipset boards. They will suit your purposes fine and there are some good boards there. I think this is the better choice for a gaming system, you can save money now and get the same performance.

Also with the parts you have listed, between the CPU, Motherboard, RAM, and HDD, you are spending $370 on that. If you get this combo instead, you will get all those components and only spend $280. The combo gets you 500GB more disk space, but only includes 4GB of RAM, but if thats a problem the second link below is another 4GB you can add on for just $315 total:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.722553
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231427

If you go the combo route, that could be $55-90 saved you can put towards a better video card.

 

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Hey again IMOG,

Did you mean to say GTX 580 or two GTX 480's because I don't think a single GTX 480 can perform better than a GTX 560 ti.

As for the combo deals, I saw it earlier but I decided not to go for them because none of the motherboards were AM3+, and that is important if you want to switch to a AMD Bulldozer (a new processor that is being released) in the near future.

I'm still undecided as to whether or not I should go with the AMD CPU-Motherboard route or switch to Intel CPU-Motherboard... hmm decisions decisions.

 

[snowbrd]

A gtx 480 would outperform the gtx 560. You have to remember that the gtx 500 series is improved in things like efficiency, and power.

 

[Subspace]

A gtx 480 would outperform the gtx 560. You have to remember that the gtx 500 series is improved in things like efficiency, and power.

You are right but Newegg only has 1 gtx 480 and it is $50 more expensive than a 560 ti, and people are saying that it is really loud haha. For the purpose of gaming, do you think that the 560 ti will be sufficient over the long run?

 

[snowbrd]

Yeah it'll work really well. Worse come in a few years you add another 560.

 

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Thanks for your help, I've changed a few things around such as the power supply and the processor. I decided to go for the AMD phenom II x4 970 instead of the x4 955, $20 increase but better performance. I really do hope that this setup will last me for 3-4 years.

 

[snowbrd]

Well, I managed to do this. I know its $50 more but the 2500k supposedly comes with a optical, not too sure as it didn't show up in the cart but if you look at the site thats what it says. Also theres a bunch of rebates. Uh the motherboard can't sli BUT I figure in like 3 years you can just buy a new gpu and keep it goin strong. The psu also shows up at 89 in the listed price but the cart says otherwise... So yeah. Managed to get you a 2500k Oi if its too hard for you to read. Right click and open link in new tab/page.