Building a Desktop (Gaming)

[ShowHBK]

So, I have been looking for a long time at PC components and I would like to get the CR opinion on what the best gaming rig would be for close to $1000?

 

I currently have an Alienware M17x R4 and I am looking to sell it for about that price to build the best rig I can. I am an AMD fan, but would love to get a good Intel+Nvidia system if the price is right.

 

So far this is what I could find. Opinions?

 

CPU: AMD FX-9590

MOBO: Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD3

GPU: Radeon R9 280X

RAM: G.SKILL Ripjaws X 8GB RAM

PSU: Rosewill ARC 750W Bronze PSU

CASE: Thermaltake Commander G41

Price = ~$970 (After SSD, HDD, and DVD drive)

[jeffro]

8gb is barely enough anymore. Id up it to 16.

 

Also, youre forgetting windows which is another 100 bucks.

[ShowHBK]

8gb is barely enough anymore. Id up it to 16.

 

Also, youre forgetting windows which is another 100 bucks.

 

I have an OEM disk already for Windows 7 so im covered there. Whats a good RAM deal for 16GB these days?

[airwg2189]

I don't like Radeon cards at all, they seem to be hit or miss with some games. No denying the performance per dollar value they give in general, but I'm not convinced they're worth the random headaches. I also would go with an Intel chip over AMD any day, regardless of budget. You can get a real nice i5 for ~$200. If you can post links to each component, I'm sure some of us could find better deals. Use pcpartpicker!

[ShowHBK]

I don't like Radeon cards at all, they seem to be hit or miss with some games. No denying the performance per dollar value they give in general, but I'm not convinced they're worth the random headaches. I also would go with an Intel chip over AMD any day, regardless of budget. You can get a real nice i5 for ~$200. If you can post links to each component, I'm sure some of us could find better deals. Use pcpartpicker!

 

I will be honest when I say i know next to nothing about Intel chips these days... I would rather have an i7 if the option is out there but is the i5 even good for gaming?

 

I can watch Youtube vids all day long about benchmarks, but I want to know real world performance.

[87GT]

My current gaming rig I built from 2011. Only thing I have replaced was the video card. It wasn't broken I just wanted a newer one.

 

ASUS P8P67 Pro Motherboard

i7-2600 3.4Ghz

8GB Cosair DDR3

GeForce GTX 760 Ti 3GB

850Watt Corsair PSU

120 GB Samsung SSD

2TB, 1TB, 500GB data hard drives.

 

 

All games play fine on medium. Most games work on max settings if I don't have the screen resolution super high. Newest games do not. 8GB of RAM is the lowest I would run for gaming. i7 CPU for sure don't do i5.

[vonrottes]

i5 is perfectly fine for the average person... i7 for hardcore stuff...

 

Personally I would drop down to a fx-8350 plenty of OC headroom

990fxa-UD3 is good but why not go ahead and get a UD5 it is actually better.

 

280X is a good choice but what brand? Ref. card or Supplier modded?

(I personally like the Sapphire Vapor-x)

 

Power supply, I remember hearing Rosewill just rebrands a good brand PSU but I'd go for a Corsair or something.

 

And cooling... The fx9590 is a BEAST at 5ghz it SHOULD/CAN NOT BE COOLED ON AIR... I've got a cheap-o Antec 620 on my 8320 and it can't keep up with 3.8ghz when the ambient is over 70F something like a Corsair H100 would probably do the trick, if you keep your house fairly cool.

 

And Ram, 8gb is still fine unless of course you are running high resolution, multi monitor, hardcore stuff or super high res textures.

Or you plan on using it for photoshop or 3d rendering.

 

 

EDIT:

 

My specs are

GA-970a-UD3

FX-8320

Sapphire HD 6870

8gb 1666 Kingston HyperX

120gb Kingston HyperX 3k SSD

1tb Western digital blue (game drive)

Corsair CX750M

Antec Kuhler 620 with Corsair SP120 fan

Stuffed in a custom HAF912 case

 

I can play pretty much any game on high at 1920x1080 and maintain a playable 30fps+ with the exceptions of games like GTA and Skyrim with mods, high res texture packs and ENB.

 

EDIT EDIT

with the SP120 on the radiator, a 200mm Thermaltake fan on the front and a 140mm Cougar fan on the side and custom fan profiles my CPU never touches over 36c at 3.8ghz

and my GPU sits just under 60c most the time at 950mhz

[ShowHBK]

hmm... How does this look?

 

I had never heard of the part picker website...that's a really cool tool. I want to use this system to play GTA V on the PC when it comes out for the most part and I want it to be able to play it on high details as the very least.

 

On average i only play LOL, Minecraft, and WOW but occasionally play CIV or Anno 2070 so my current system is fine with a 7970m but my processor is a massive bottleneck in most cases.

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($159.88 @ OutletPC)

CPU Cooler: Corsair H60 54.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($59.98 @ OutletPC)

Motherboard: Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($108.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: Kingston Fury Red Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($74.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.98 @ OutletPC)

Video Card: XFX Radeon R9 280X 3GB Black Edition Double Dissipation Video Card ($239.99 @ NCIX US)

Case: NZXT Phantom (White) ATX Full Tower Case ($89.99 @ Micro Center)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.98 @ OutletPC)

Optical Drive: LG WH14NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($47.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Total: $891.77

[87GT]

I would up the PSU. If you install any extra hard drives in the future you might need more juice.

[vonrottes]

If you watch Microcenter has some GOOD deals on CPUs, coolers and even RAM sometimes.

 

I got my CPU for $99, RAM for $28 and cooler for $40

(mobo was open box for $70 case was on sale for $49)

and got my GPU second hand for $120 (in 2012)

 

Although I have a Asus board in my intel rig and an Asus Tablet, I don't really care for their products (lots of people have trouble with their RMA)

 

PSU should be fine if you don't overclock much.

Try this to get an idea of what you'll need.

You do NOT want to go overkill on those because then you are just wasting power, those certifications are at peak consumption

PSU efficiency increases as the load is increased usually peaking around 80%

[JaSSon]

The R9 Radeon cards are REALLY nice for the money. And for the money OP listed, he could be in a 4GB R9 290. And by 4GB, i mean 4GB. Not 3.5GB+ 512MB. At 1080p the 290 and the GTX970 trade blows. At 1440p and higher the R9 290 begins to leave the 970 in its dust.

 

My specs: i5 2500k, 8GB DDR3-1600, PCS+ R9 290, 120GB Corsair Force 3 SSD, 750W Thermaltake Toughpower Gold rated power supply, Corsair 350D case. I'm in the process of putting together a custom liquid cooler loop so I can OC that 2500k. My system runs Elite: Dangerous at Ultimate settings at 1440P at an average of over 100fps. At ultra settings at 1080p I frequently see over 200fps.

 

OP, buy your CPU and MoBo at Microcenter. They have really good bundle prices. Also keep an eye on http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales and http://www.reddit.com/r/hardwareswap Those are great resources.

 

Edit: Here's an AMD FX build..

Here's a Devil's Canyon K-series i5 based build. Keep an eye on those reddit links and pick the CPU/mobo up at microcenter for combo savings. Both the "8 core" AMD FX and the Intel i5 are great CPUs, but the i5 is the superior chip, and at a small price difference. Also 8GB of RAM is plenty, but if you need to you can easily add more later as your budget allows. The Powercolor PCS+ R9 290 I put in these builds is the same GPU I have. It's cool, it's quiet, and it's powerful. The EVGA 750B2 power supply in this build is top-of-the-line. It's made by SuperFlower for EVGA. Really excellent power supply at a great price.

 

And here is a LEGIT windows 8.1 for $20.

 

Edit: Regarding the i5 vs i7 debate... Hogwash. You're better off putting the price difference towards a more powerful GPU or larger SSD. The i5's are SOLID CPUs.

Edited February 6, 2015 by JaSSon

[Bigbird]

The R9 Radeon cards are REALLY nice for the money. And for the money OP listed, he could be in a 4GB R9 290. And by 4GB, i mean 4GB. Not 3.5GB+ 512MB. At 1080p the 290 and the GTX970 trade blows. At 1440p and higher the R9 290 begins to leave the 970 in its dust.

 

My specs: i5 2500k, 8GB DDR3-1600, PCS+ R9 290, 120GB Corsair Force 3 SSD, 750W Thermaltake Toughpower Gold rated power supply, Corsair 350D case. I'm in the process of putting together a custom liquid cooler loop so I can OC that 2500k. My system runs Elite: Dangerous at Ultimate settings at 1440P at an average of over 100fps. At ultra settings at 1080p I frequently see over 200fps.

 

OP, buy your CPU and MoBo at Microcenter. They have really good bundle prices. Also keep an eye on http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapcsales and http://www.reddit.com/r/hardwareswap Those are great resources.

 

Edit: Here's an AMD FX build..

Here's a Devil's Canyon K-series i5 based build. Keep an eye on those reddit links and pick the CPU/mobo up at microcenter for combo savings. Both the "8 core" AMD FX and the Intel i5 are great CPUs, but the i5 is the superior chip, and at a small price difference. Also 8GB of RAM is plenty, but if you need to you can easily add more later as your budget allows. The Powercolor PCS+ R9 290 I put in these builds is the same GPU I have. It's cool, it's quiet, and it's powerful. The EVGA 750B2 power supply in this build is top-of-the-line. It's made by SuperFlower for EVGA. Really excellent power supply at a great price.

 

And here is a LEGIT windows 8.1 for $20.

 

Edit: Regarding the i5 vs i7 debate... Hogwash. You're better off putting the price difference towards a more powerful GPU or larger SSD. The i5's are SOLID CPUs.

 

Troof!

[Tractor]

I just built a system. I tried rosewill for the case and power supply due to the price, but I'm surprised that its pretty good quality. The case is so heavily painted that even the edges are painted and rounded instead of sharp. Thats something I immediately noticed, having built or been inside 10,000+ PC's over the years.

 

I'm also very impressed with having 6 fans and the system is nearly quiet.

 

I wanted to go with micro center, but not living near one they don't allow you to ship they're CPU deals.

 

 

I tossed around i5 or i7 and went with i5 due to getting to upgrade the video card which is where gaming processing happens anyway.

[Geeesammy]

My setup for under $600 excluding mouse, monitors, etc.

 

Thermaltake cheapo $20 case

Mobo- Gigabyte GA78LMT-USB3

CPU- AMD FX6300 Black edition $89.99 (mobo came free)

PSU-EVGA 600w $65

GPU- Gigabyte Radeon R9 270x 2GB $100 (bought from a CR member)

RAM- Crucial Ballistix 8gb $75

SSD- Crucial 256GB $110

 

These are prices before rebates. Also bought a cooler master evo heatsink and fan, OC'd my CPU from 3.5 to 4.1 with no issue, plan on going higher soon. GPU is maxed out as well as far as OC. It has run every game I have thrown at is with 50+ FPS. Worst game on it so far has been DayZ and I get 40-45 during the heaviest times (running in a city with other people and zombies around).

 

I'd get a 12 core CPU with 16gb ram if I were to do it again. Maybe a bigger SSD but I play few games and only use this for gaming. nothing else.

[morabu]

First off, anyone that says an i5 is no good for gaming has lost it.

An i7 is overkill for gaming. Photo/Video editing is a different story

Same for ram. 8GB is PLENTY for gaming. Again, editing is a different story.

 

With these 2 things in mind, here is my recommended build.

 

Intel Core i5-4690k $199

ASRock Z97 Extreme 4 Mobo $79 (when bundled with CPU)

Asus R9 290 4GB GPU $240

8GB Crucial DDR3 1600 Ram $70

Corsair CX750M PS $75

Thermaltake Commander $30

 

All for only....

$695 Before Taxes & After rebates

$755 without rebates applied

a little over$800 OTDafter tax, before rebates applied

 

this leaves you $200 to get your SSD, HDD and enough left over to upgrade either your CPU or ram a little more.

 

these are all prices that you can go pick up at MicroCenter tomorrow if you wanted to.

[Orion]

The R9 Radeon cards are REALLY nice for the money. And for the money OP listed, he could be in a 4GB R9 290. And by 4GB, i mean 4GB. Not 3.5GB+ 512MB. At 1080p the 290 and the GTX970 trade blows. At 1440p and higher the R9 290 begins to leave the 970 in its dust.

 

Dose driver issues, doe....

 

Honestly, I'll never own another Radeon card...at least until something happens with their drivers. Nothing but nightmares with them. Much happier with my 2x780Ti setup than I was with my 2x290x setup.

[JaSSon]

Dose driver issues, doe....

 

Honestly, I'll never own another Radeon card...at least until something happens with their drivers. Nothing but nightmares with them. Much happier with my 2x780Ti setup than I was with my 2x290x setup.

 

Their drivers have been pretty good for awhile. Meanwhile, I've have nothing BUT driver crashes out of my nvidia powered notebook.

[unfunnyryan]

Overbudget, don't care, this build is titties.

 

All from microcenter...

 

Case: Corsair Carbide Series 300R $69.99 (59.99 after rebate)

Mobo: ASUS Z97-AR $109.99

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K $279.99

RAM: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB $69.99

GPU: XFX Radeon R9 280X $269.99 ($244.99 after rebate)

SSD: Crucial MX100 256gb $99.99

PSU: Corsair CX Series CX600M 600 Watt $74.99 ($64.99 after rebate)

CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO $36.99 ($29.99 after rebate)

 

Subtotal $1,011.92

Tax $75.89

Grand Total $1,087.81

 

You could possibly pricematch or change out case to get it closer to $1000. Setup is very similar to mine (same cpu/mobo and comparable video card) runs everything maxed flawlessly. I'm on water overclocked to 4.6 on all cores but that fan should take you to 4.4 on all 4 smoothly

 

edit: You may want to wait for AMD 3xx series GPUs. Just google "nvidia 970 4gb problems" and maybe avoid current gen nvidia ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ShowHBK]

Interesting suggestions all. I am interested to know if it is worth spending the extra money to go all Intel and Nvidia. My only reason for going all AMD was the price and most of the time I see regular performance of an AMD chip/GPU just slightly behind an Intel one and I am not trying to max out frames or anything (~60 fps is fine with me) but i have a tiny little desktop that I made for under $300 that I use for a Minecraft Server with an FX-4300 that came out of the box 3.7 GHz but I overclocked it to 4.4 GHz on the stock cooler and the thing has never failed or freaked out once. I was very impressed at how AMD chips can be overclocked, how well do Intel chips these days handle overclocking? OC on liquid cooled systems? I'm just curious.

[airwg2189]

Some damn good builds in this thread.

[87GT]

Interesting suggestions all. I am interested to know if it is worth spending the extra money to go all Intel and Nvidia. My only reason for going all AMD was the price and most of the time I see regular performance of an AMD chip/GPU just slightly behind an Intel one and I am not trying to max out frames or anything (~60 fps is fine with me) but i have a tiny little desktop that I made for under $300 that I use for a Minecraft Server with an FX-4300 that came out of the box 3.7 GHz but I overclocked it to 4.4 GHz on the stock cooler and the thing has never failed or freaked out once. I was very impressed at how AMD chips can be overclocked, how well do Intel chips these days handle overclocking? OC on liquid cooled systems? I'm just curious.

 

Intel is just as fine as AMD. I would guess they both perform just about the same. Intel might be a little bit faster but not by much. Some Intel chips are locked at their default clock speeds so check that if you want to overclock. AMD will always be cheaper so that is great for your budget.

 

I haven't had a reason to overclock my i7. I do a lot of video conversion and transcoding. It runs perfectly fine. I can even play a game while Plex is transcoding a movie in the background.

[JaSSon]

Interesting suggestions all. I am interested to know if it is worth spending the extra money to go all Intel and Nvidia. My only reason for going all AMD was the price and most of the time I see regular performance of an AMD chip/GPU just slightly behind an Intel one and I am not trying to max out frames or anything (~60 fps is fine with me) but i have a tiny little desktop that I made for under $300 that I use for a Minecraft Server with an FX-4300 that came out of the box 3.7 GHz but I overclocked it to 4.4 GHz on the stock cooler and the thing has never failed or freaked out once. I was very impressed at how AMD chips can be overclocked, how well do Intel chips these days handle overclocking? OC on liquid cooled systems? I'm just curious.

The most important item in a gaming rig is the GPU. So go big there. Don't spend an extra hundred on an i7 at the expense of the GPU. As far as Intel vs AMD, see my builds above. It's literally a few dollars difference between the 8000 series FX and the unlocked i5. The 4690k is the superior CPU of the two. It's faster and uses less power, and being a K-series cpu it has an unlocked multiplier. That means easy overclocking. AMD vs nVidia is a bit different. nVidia's high end GPU crushes AMD's 290x, but it costs $200+ more. The current sweet spot on price/performance is the R9 290. It's as fast as nVidia's ~$350 GTX 970 for $100 less.

 

Edit: don't cheap out on a case either. It's what you'll be building in and looking at. The 550D is a solid choice. Excellent cable management built in and plenty of fan slots. I've got its small brother 350D, and it's the nicest case I've ever owned.

[ShowHBK]

This system is based off @unfunnyryan's build

 

I went with AMD on this build and swapped out a few bits here and there. I already have a 256GB SSD which I am going to take out of my laptop when I sell it. I wonder if Microcenter will price match this?

 

 

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($159.88 @ OutletPC)

CPU Cooler: Corsair H55 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($44.99 @ Amazon)

Motherboard: Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($108.99 @ SuperBiiz)

Memory: Crucial Ballistix Sport 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($69.99 @ Amazon)

Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($39.99 @ Best Buy)

Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon R9 290X 4GB WINDFORCE Video Card ($279.99 @ Newegg)

Case: Corsair Carbide Series 300R Windowed ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Amazon)

Power Supply: Corsair CX 600W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.98 @ OutletPC)

Optical Drive: LG WH16NS40 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($54.89 @ OutletPC)

Keyboard: Razer DeathStalker Wired Gaming Keyboard ($59.99 @ Amazon)

Total: $958.68 (after rebate)

 

Microcenter Online Price:

 

CPU: $149.99 -

Cooler: $59.99 +

MoBo: 139.99 + ($124.99 rebate)

Memory: $69.99 =

HDD: $56.99 +

GPU: 349.99 +

Case: $69.99 -

PSU: $74.99 +

BR-DD: $44.99 -

Keyboard: $59.99 =

 

Total: $1076.90 (online price, no open boxes or used equipment)

 

Just noticed that Microcenter has a deal going on where if you buy a processor you get a Mobo bundle for $40 off the price. VERY tempting to go with the i5 unlocked now... choices... choices... choices

Edited February 6, 2015 by ShowHBK

[ShowHBK]

Dose driver issues, doe....

 

Honestly, I'll never own another Radeon card...at least until something happens with their drivers. Nothing but nightmares with them. Much happier with my 2x780Ti setup than I was with my 2x290x setup.

 

thats weird... I have never had any driver problems with my 7970m on the latest AMD drivers. I even used the BETA ones for a while and had no real issues other then MASSIVE amounts of heat.

[JaSSon]

thats weird... I have never had any driver problems with my 7970m on the latest AMD drivers. I even used the BETA ones for a while and had no real issues other then MASSIVE amounts of heat.

 

Hence all the suggestions to buy that part at MC. I like AMD, but for the same or similar money go Intel. Your build is fine. You'd enjoy it. But I'll offer 2 suggestions. Buy the EVGA B2 series PSU. Really nice piece. I'd also check out the Cooler Master Quickfire keyboard. Cherry MX mechanical switches at a good price. I'm not a Razer fan.