System Guide - Mainstream Gamer/Content Creation

JawZ · Post by **JawZ** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 3:52 pm

I've been contemplating for awhile now on my next system build and have finally settled on a parts list. As a result, I thought I'd share my parts list and post it here as a system guide for others to follow. As time allows, I will also spec out a budget box and and killer gaming/content creation machine as well as spec out AMD based rigs.

This rig is going to be used to play DX11 and DX10 games as well as a few older DX9 titles on a HP w2338h monitor @ 1920 x 1080 resolution with most graphical settings maxed or slightly lowered to get the best framerate without compromising too much visual fidelity. I would consider this rig to be a high quality build that will be more than capable of handling future upgrades. Now I do realize that the i5-750 doesn't do hyper threading but with 4 cores, it will serve it's intended purpose quite well as the CPU does benchmark very high. You could easily tweak this and move up to an i7-860 but I wanted to keep costs down. For me, with taxes and shipping...the system will be just under $1,500.00.

Here is where the i5-750 and i7-860 benchmark...
http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/sh ... &p=16&cp=2

As you can see, the i5-750 can in certain cases outperform and i7-920.

From www.newegg.com

COOLER MASTER Storm Sniper SGC-6000-KXN1-GP Black Computer Case
Item #:N82E16811119194
$129.991

MSI P55-GD65 ATX Intel Motherboard
Item #:N82E16813130239
$159.99

XFX Radeon HD 5850 (Cypress Pro) HD-585A-ZNDC XXX Edition Video Card
Item #:N82E16814150455
$329.99

CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply
Item #:N82E16817139005
$99.99

Intel Core i5-750 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
Item #:N82E16819115215
$199.99

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory
Item #:N82E16820231303
$229.98 **********Price is for 2 kits****************

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
Item #:N82E16822136284
$99.99

LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer Black SATA Model iHAS-324-98
Item #:N82E16827106334
$29.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders
Item #:N82E16832116754
$104.99

Grand Total:$1,384.90 *********Does not include taxes or shipping***********

If anyone would like to add on or tweak the rig I will incorporate it into my post.

Enjoy!

+++++++++++++ALTERNATES PROVIDED BY SG COMMUNITY++++++++++++++++++++++++++

YARDofSTUF tweak
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119216
COOLER MASTER CM690 II Advanced Black Steel body / Plastic + Mesh bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $99.99

loop2kil tweak
LIAN LI PC-7FN Black Aluminum ATX Mid Tower Computer Case - $119.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811112249

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:37 pm

Maybe a bit cheaper case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119216

For a gaming system I'd like to say add in a raptor drive, but even the 150 gig ups the price a good chunk.

Other than my personal dislike for MSI, it looks like a very nice system.

TNATireFryer · Post by **TNATireFryer** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:08 pm

nice setup -
gonna sell your old machine to me?
im-trying to game on the older pci card - mainly nascar 2003 seasons by papyrus- and with all the tweeks from speedguide and /blackviper's settings - i still have to turn off all the eye-candy

JawZ · Post by **JawZ** » Wed Mar 17, 2010 6:31 pm

YARDofSTUF wrote:Maybe a bit cheaper case:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119216

For a gaming system I'd like to say add in a raptor drive, but even the 150 gig ups the price a good chunk.

Other than my personal dislike for MSI, it looks like a very nice system.

Good find on the case. As for the Raptor drive...it's part of the Killer-Gaming machine parts list as an alternate to an SSD. The WD Caviar Black I have in this at least has a 32MB cache. But if I had the money, the Raptor would most definitely go in. Depending on mobo choice and ram...one could shave off a few bucks to make room for the Raptor.

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 12:44 am

Very nice looking setup...I would however try to squeeze in an SSD for meh OS and games though.

Sava700 · Post by **Sava700** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 4:37 pm

Win7 64bit Pro ftw! its only 20$ more and even cheaper if you find a student to buy it for you for the student price.

YARDofSTUF · Post by **YARDofSTUF** » Thu Mar 18, 2010 4:43 pm

Sava700 wrote:Win7 64bit Pro ftw! its only 20$ more and even cheaper if you find a student to buy it for you for the student price.

But its not needed. So thats another 20 spent that didn't need to be.

Windows 7 Home Premium seems much more complete than Vista Home Premium.

loop2kil · Post by **loop2kil** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 10:55 am

I might consider this Lian Li case over the Cooler master in that price range:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 12249-LP2B

JawZ · Post by **JawZ** » Fri Mar 19, 2010 7:51 pm

loop2kil wrote:I might consider this Lian Li case over the Cooler master in that price range:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 12249-LP2B

agreed and added to the list!

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 6:52 am

Probably your best "bang for the buck" video card
Sapphire 5770
$175 bucks
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Asus P7P55 motherboard would be my choice. Several sub models.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 55&x=0&y=0

For the budget category, a great case that I've used several times....
RaidMAX Smilodon
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... on&x=0&y=0
Some of the models come with power supplies included, for under 100 bucks..and it's actually a pretty good power supply..good amps at the rail.
The case is built very well, solid, heavy.

Mark · Post by **Mark** » Sat Mar 20, 2010 8:10 am

you may want to wait a few weeks for the AMD fermi cards to come out and see what that does to the prices of all video cards.

and for content creation AMD has 6 core CPUs coming soon i think, but am not sure on the time line for that.

JawZ · Post by **JawZ** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 9:40 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:Probably your best "bang for the buck" video card
Sapphire 5770
$175 bucks
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Asus P7P55 motherboard would be my choice. Several sub models.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... 55&x=0&y=0

For the budget category, a great case that I've used several times....
RaidMAX Smilodon
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... on&x=0&y=0
Some of the models come with power supplies included, for under 100 bucks..and it's actually a pretty good power supply..good amps at the rail.
The case is built very well, solid, heavy.

The 5770 is a good card but for the money, wouldn't it make sense to get 2 and use them in Crossfire since they are so cheap? The 5770 is my budget pick because it still has DX11 support. But if you are suggesting it for this build, then I suggest two in Crossfire.

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:11 am

That's up to your budget, although I'd probably go for a higher end single card over a pair of lessors.

l think it makes for a good mid to upper mid range gaming rig card. For 170 bucks (the egg often has it for 165) it's great performance. A few years ago a decent mid-range card would cost you 250-325 bucks.

Jake (MetalHead) has a single one, it drives his Asus gaming 24" LCD monitor pretty danged well. He plays all the latest FPS games, which push it hard.

The mobo I got him can do crossfire if he wishes to upgrade down the road.

Hence my suggestion for best "bang for the buck"...to accommodate those medium budget builds. (what I consider under 1K)

It's awesome how much performance you get for your money these days.

JawZ · Post by **JawZ** » Sun Mar 21, 2010 10:17 am

YeOldeStonecat wrote:That's up to your budget, although I'd probably go for a higher end single card over a pair of lessors.

l think it makes for a good mid to upper mid range gaming rig card. For 170 bucks (the egg often has it for 165) it's great performance. A few years ago a decent mid-range card would cost you 250-325 bucks.

Jake (MetalHead) has a single one, it drives his Asus gaming 24" LCD monitor pretty danged well. He plays all the latest FPS games, which push it hard.

The mobo I got him can do crossfire if he wishes to upgrade down the road.

Hence my suggestion for best "bang for the buck"...to accommodate those medium budget builds. (what I consider under 1K)

It's awesome how much performance you get for your money these days.

Yep, and imo, I think it's more practical to drive multiple displays than to have multiple GPU's unless you are playing Crysis maxed out on a 30" display lol.