Hi, I am new to the building community and I am planning my first build. I have a strict budget of $1500 USD and the goal is to build a fast PC capable of running current games on medium to high settings. This budget will be paying not only for the PC itself but also the OS, Monitor, Keyboard, Mouse, and a very necessary UPS. I have a good idea of what I will use in the build, but as this is my first time I am not entirely sure with my selection, and thus I come to show what I am looking at so far and am open to suggestions and comments from people who are more knowledgeable and experienced than I. This is what I have so far, all is to be ordered from Newegg atm: -Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale 3.16GHz -Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-EP45T-UD3LR LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX -Video Card: EVGA 9800GTX+ -RAM: G.Skill 4 GB DDR3 1333 -HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s -Case: Antec P183 -PSU: Antec CP-850 -OS: Windows 7 64-bit -Monitor: Acer X223Wbd Black 22" 5ms Widescreen LCD -UPS: CyberPower CP1500AVRLCD 1500VA 900W UPS -2 Additional Case Fans: Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm Case Fan -DVD Drive: SONY Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1681S-0B -CPU Cooling: ZALMAN 9500A 92mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler -Mouse: Microsoft SideWinder X5 Mouse -Keyboard: Saitek PZ30AU Black USB Standard Eclipse Keyboard -Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound All in all with combos and shipping (not including rebates) it comes to $1506.61USD Comments, suggestions?
heres my 2 shillings. 1) drop the CPU and mobo - grab a i5 750 instead and get a Gigabyte P55M-UD2 2) drop the 9800GTX its quite old now - grab somthing like a 1GB 4890 or 260(216) these are much much faster. 3) drop the HDD for a samsung 1TB F3 - its about the same price and got more storage and its faster 4) PSU is overkill for your system as long as your not adding another GPU get a 600-650W one. Corair 650W TX springs to mind. even 650W is more than enough. 5) drop the cooler - try the thermaltake silent as suggested by the buyers guide. 6) since you wont need 900W now you can opt for a lower output UPS with a higher VA or just get a cheaper one.
I second the above: just another suggestion, would be drop the 9800GTX and spend a bit more on something more future proof and beafier, a 260GTX would be way better or if you could stretch the budget some more something like the ATI 5850
Did this. Upgraded to an XFX 260 GTX but its not a 216 Core, the XFX on Newegg (Trying to stick with one retailer, Newegg is excellent for the task) is cheaper than the EVGA 216 cores, and I figure there wont be that much of a difference. 640 GB is perfect for me, and I am doing everything I can to cut price,especially with the new I5 plan so the $10 cheaper WD is good for me. Yeah I know the CP-850 is overkill, I was going to get it because I KNOW its perfectly reliable plus it goes well with the P183, but am changing to the Corsair because its cheaper, still efficient, and is all I really need. Here I went with the ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 because of its high ratings across thousands of reviews, plus Rev.2 is compatible with the 1156 Socket. I also went with the cheaper CyberPower 810w UPS. This build now costs around $1540 USD but I already like it a lot more, I had been looking at the I5 quite a bit but figured a good I5 build was probably way out of budget, but thanks to this advice I think I've got a real good budget build. Thanks a lot. -Processor: Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz -Motherboard: Gigabyte P55M-UD2 -Video Card: XFX GX260XADJC GeForce GTX 260 -RAM: G.Skill 4 GB DDR3 1333 -HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD6400AAKS 640GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s -Case: Antec P183 -PSU: Corsair 650W TX -OS: Windows 7 64-bit -Monitor: Acer H213H bmid Black 21.5" -UPS: CyberPower CP1350AVRLCD 1350 VA 810 Watts -2 Additional Case Fans: Scythe S-FLEX SFF21E 120mm Case Fan -DVD Drive: SONY Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model DDU1681S-0B -CPU Cooling: ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 -Mouse: Microsoft SideWinder X5 Mouse -Keyboard: Saitek PZ30AU Black USB Standard Eclipse Keyboard -Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound So hows it look now? Soon will be able to order the parts and create my first build EDIT: I cant believe I was able to upgrade the processor and the video card so much and only increase the price about $40
personally i wouldnt got the the 260(192core) its a fair bit slower than the newer(216core) and the 1GB4890 is only 179.99 with rebate which is cheaper than the much slower 260(192core) and is even faster than the 260(216core). trust me its only like $10 more expensive without the rebate but it is much much faster. Is the RAM the 8-8-8-21 @1.5V set cause its wierd that its the same price as the 9-9-9-24 @ 1.6V which have higher timings and use more volts !!! also which version of windows 7 have you opted for. id go with the OEM home premium 64-bit one as this is fine for almost everyone unless your planning on connecting to a domain.
The RAM is indeed 8-8-8-21 @ 1.5V. Here is a part of this system I have little knowledge about, I assume lower timings are faster? I havnt considered overclocking yet, but someday I may try it, and I would like to know a bit more about timings and voltages. Thanks for the tip on the GPU, I'm going to look into my choice a bit more now, since the start of the build I have been determined to stick with Intel and nVidia, however since this build is a budget after all I cannot ignore that ATI can make good cards as well that can even be cheaper and sometimes a little faster. I am going for Windows 7 Ultimate, it has features that I really want that Home Premium does not have.
lower timings are better but dont really have an impact on real world performance. the advantage of lower timings and lower voltage is that it MAY have better overclocking headroom than higher timing RAM/volts. im guessing if you want ultimate you need to join a domain ? or you have some obscure piece of software that will only run on XP ? or prehaps a little paranoid so bitlocker is for you lol. if not then ultimate is the biggest waste of cash ever and money could be better spent on a GPU or other components.
Getting ultimate for several XP only programs, and yes, the bitlocker is a big need. Also the language packs.
