$1400 or less budget rig?

[Daleon]

Gskill or Corsair won't make any real difference. The lower cas is nice but you pay for it and unless your a bencher or do some memory intensive work it won't make much difference.

The 7950 is definitely a fairly high end gamer card and a good chunk of change. There are a ton of choices that will be a big improvement over your current setup without costing that much. In the $200 range this will do nicely MSI Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti .

The asrock board is good and a popular choice for price but if you want to pay just a little more for a nice Gigabyte board here ya go: GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3.

I highly prefer modular psu's if you got the few extra bucks they make life much nicer. This is a great psu at a great price right now. HAF 912 will give you nice room and air flow. If you want something a little nicer I really like the look of my Corsair Carbide 500R but cases are a personal choice.

 

[super2007]

Thanks!

so the current cards for nvidia are 560S' 570'S and 580s?

I just wanted to know which cards are people going with or which one would you guys go with if you had the budget i have! i don't 'mine spending $400 for that ATI 7950 but just wanted to know what else is out there you know

 

[realmadrid12]

You always get charged tax. Everywhere.

Not true, Newegg doesnt have tax, this is an order I just placed tuesday.

 

[super2007]

Looks like Cool masters 212 + and evo are very good and famous? and cheap too!

what is the difference between the two? Also what 2nd fan would you guys recommend?

 

[Whitefang]

The EVO is a bit better than the +, because it costs a bit more. The 212+ will generally be enough (your chip may need better cooling, if it needs more volts) to get the 2500k to something like 4-4.2GHz (if not 4.5), if it'll go there. I've heard Gentle Typhoons and Yate Loons are good, but I don't know too much about fans .

Also, I'd personally jump for a 7950 (7970 if I could fit it in), just because I could use it for longer. But something lower would probably work too, depending on what you do.

 

[Knufire]

Between G.SKILL and Corsair, they go on sale at different times, whatever is cheaper at the time is what most people buy.

7-7-7-21 is ever so slightly faster, but most people just go with 9-9-9-24 because it's cheaper and the difference is unnoticeable.

I'd mainly buy from Gigabyte, ASUS, or ASRock. ASRock seems to be the best bang/buck.

GPU, what games do you play and at what resolution?

 

[Daleon]

COUGAR Vortex are very good. Extremely quiet and good air flow but little pricey.

 

[super2007]

thanks guys!

1920x1080 resolution on a 23' monitor? any recommendation for that as well?

All new games. Skryum, Battlefield 3 etc

 

[bmwbaxter]

thanks guys!

1920x1080 resolution on a 23' monitor? any recommendation for that as well?

All new games. Skryum, Battlefield 3 etc

I don't have any suggestions for monitors, but is that supposed to fall in the budget? or is that an extra?

 

[Daleon]

A 7950 fits into your budget then no reason not to go that way if your gonna be playing new games and if you want high quality visuals and smooth frame rates.