$1500 Budget, Air-cooled 1080p Gaming

[Drathozark]

For a motherboard, I'm seeing quite a few people using the Asus Z87-Pro as I scroll through and lurk about. Is that a board that would pair well with a relatively tame 24/7 OC? I see it also has the on-board Wi-Fi and support for up to quad-SLI, although it'd only ever need dual-SLI.

 

[Knufire]

Here you go. Comes out to $1275, way under budget.

 

[Drathozark]

This is what I came up with for a final, but no price shopping done. Just the single window.



A few bits are more aesthetically pleasing than cutting costs, but that PSU/HDD combo saves a nice chunk. NH-D14 instead because it fits and gives me more headroom for noise vs. heat.

Thanks to everyone who added input!

 

[Conumdrum]

Nice setup. Not a fan of the case but solid parts everywhere else.

It's a solid rig, put a few/better fans in the case when you can and game on dude!

 

[Drathozark]

Nice setup. Not a fan of the case but solid parts everywhere else.

It's a solid rig, put a few/better fans in the case when you can and game on dude!

He loves the look of it and I couldn't resist because of the price and how its my case's little brother.

I'll be changing out the 200mm fans in a few weeks but this will keep him set for quite some time. .

 

[Jscot123]

As for AIO watercoolers. I have a H60 on an AMD 6300. At stock it keeps the chip at low 20's c at idle and low 40's c under load. Overclocked from 3.5 to 4.6 it is around 25c idle and Ive seen it hit 53c after hours of battlefield 3. Thats better than my hyper 212 evo was hitting with 2 fans on it around 65-70c. And its much quieter too.

 

[Hippogriff]

Here you go. Comes out to $1275, way under budget.

The 4670k/Extreme 4 bundle is $305. For 5$+tax....

This is what I came up with for a final, but no price shopping done. Just the single window.

If you're going to buy mobo and GPU on Newegg, you can get a 770 Gaming and a G45 Gaming for $536 (compared to $568 of your setup).

 

[Drathozark]

Price shopping and adding last minute bits brought me to $1444.84 as the grand total after shipping (~$5). I added in three fans and the OEM Windows 7 copy then swapped the Extreme3 for the Extreme4 because there was a $27 price difference and I couldn't see why not. Overall, I'm very happy with the quality of it and am looking forward to helping assemble it.

Picking parts up in Boston tonight while I'm there and thanking god for Amazon Prime leaves me with the tiniest shipping bill ever.

 

[Hippogriff]

swapped the Extreme3 for the Extreme4 because there was a $27 price difference and I couldn't see why not.

Buy the Microcenter bundle for $304.98

 

[Drathozark]

Buy the Microcenter bundle for $304.98

Where is this mythical bundle? I didn't see it when I did the in store reservation.

 

[Hippogriff]

Where is this mythical bundle? I didn't see it when I did the in store reservation.

http://www.microcenter.com/site/brands/intel-processor-bundles.aspx

EDIT: the reservation is the same. They probably apply the bundle discount in the store...

 

[Knufire]

Those last minute bits just cost you almost $200 more for no performance benefit. Oh well, tried anyway. It's not even your money that you're wasting...

Don't understand why some people are so vain about computers...it's not a toy.

If it doesn't show up in the online shopping cart, you won't get it in the store.

 

[Drathozark]

Those last minute bits just cost you almost $200 more for no performance benefit. Oh well, tried anyway. It's not even your money that you're wasting...

Don't understand why some people are so vain about computers...it's not a toy.

If it doesn't show up in the online shopping cart, you won't get it in the store.

The last minute bits were the OEM copy of Windows and new fans to improve the ventilation at a lower sound level... the Extreme4 was picked instead because it was only $109 instead of the $137 Extreme3. (Checking on the cheaper Extreme3 bundle at the store tonight.)

The vain portion is done because my friend wanted it done. I suggested cheaper but equal performing parts but he wanted it to match. What other parts are vain? I thought I had narrowed those down.

 

[Knufire]

Video card I posted was $20 cheaper, coolers should perform about the same.

I don't see how more fans are going to help reduce noise level when you have no controller to slow the fans down. Regardless, case airflow is often extremely exaggerated and you only need a single intake and one or two exhaust fans for adequate airflow.

The Hyper212+ is more than adequate for a 4GHz OC. I almost did that on a hotter 4770K on the stock cooler. No reason to spend on a NH-D14 if you're not going to take advantage of it. You can also get the Phanteks dual tower cooler for a buck more that performs better or a H80i for $10 more than performs better and had a few other added benefits with RAM compatibility and such. The NH-D14 is an older model at this point, the price of of a new one is not really worth it (judging by the difference between retail and street prices).

Extreme3 is $10 cheaper. That's $10 in his pocket for something he will never be able to tell the difference.

Way cheaper RAM can be found with the same specs and the same combo. If he complains about looks, than switch the vase to a Corsair 200R (that has no window). Then you save money on the case and the RAM. Since those two things don't affect performance at all and rarely go bad, they're good places to save money on.

Also, the vanilla Samsung 840 (not the Pro) has absolutely terrible write speeds in the 120GB size. It's better in the 240GB range size but not the best. Corsair Neutron can't be beat when you look at both performance and $/GB.