Hey gang. For all you tech savvy players out there I have a few questions for you if ya have the time. 1st off I have a budget of about $600. This pc would mainly be used for gaming like MWO, BF3 and hopefully new releases. I will probably hold off on the video card for a bit untill I can throw some more cash at it. I was also thinking of OC it though I have never done so I would not get to extreme with it. I would ideally like this to last for at least 4 years at the minimum and still be able to run new stuff. Like Star Citizen or BF5??? So with that in mind Ill tell you what im thinking so far. I found an i5 3570 http://www.microcenter.com/product/388577/Core_i5_3570K_34GHz_LGA_1155_Processor for $180 which I thought would do the job. For the MB I was thinking maybe a asrock z77 extreme4. I found one for about $130 So my questions to all of you are: What is the best Memory to get for the buck What kind of vid cards should I be looking at Is Win 8 worth it or should I stick with Win 7 What size PSU should I be looking for
Microcenter is awesome. They frequently have bundle deals where if you buy certain intel or amd processors, you get a $40 or $50 discount on the mb. Take a look at this ad (http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/28d45362#/28d45362/33), they have several z77 motherboards for cheap, including the asrock extreme4 for $95 (that's after the processor bundle discount). I would also say that you will probably be better off sticking with Windows 7 over 8, unless you like dumbed down interfaces meant for touchscreens. Memory I'm not as clear on what the differences are, stick to the more reputable manufacturers and it should be fine. Granted I'm kind of a noob in building, I've only done my current rig, but this was the strategy I followed. You mentioned you might hold off on buying the video card until you have more cash, but what are you running now and would that be going into the rig? If you are buying a new one, I found Tom's price/performance recommendations really good. They watch prices to see what is getting cheaper or more expensive on Newegg and explain relative performance at quite a few price points. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html
It was about a year ago I think... but the Radeon HD 6850 is great bang for your buck. It's what I've got and runs MWO on high without a hitch.
I'm not sure the 6850 is readily available anymore. They were being phased out when I built my computer last August. The equivalent right now is probably the $150 650 ti boost 1gb or you could get the 2gb edition of that card for ~$170. The 2gb will be better for games with really high res textures, but if you game at less than 1920x1080 the benchmarks suggest you could get a way with a 1gb card. Keep in mind that the model designations right now can be a little confusing. Nvidia has 3 separate cards with the 650 number designation. The 650, 650 ti, and 650 ti boost are all essentially separate cards. For instance, the boost edition gets you more shaders than the 650, and better clock rates, memory bandwidth, and total memory than the 650ti. The result is that the boost edition gets an average of 36% more performance than the normal 650ti (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/geforce-gtx-650-ti-boost-gk106-benchmark,3463-11.html). For a $170, it's going to be pretty hard to do better. Amd has been doing this weird naming thing with their line up as well. They recently released a 7870xt chipset which is really a 7950 with about 20% of the cores disabled, but it absolutely stomps the normal 7870. I bought one a month ago for $208, which was an absolute steal. Right now it's about $230 on newegg (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814131484). It's loud as fuck, but now I can max out every single game I own, plus it comes with far cry 3, tombraider, and bioshock infinite.
Your PSU will probably depend on the vid card you get, but I'd probably look in the 600-800w range. I haven't messed with Win8 much but I'm extremely happy with Win7 Pro 64. The HD 6870 is a great card as well for a good price. I've had one for about a year and a half, runs everything I throw at it on high or very high.
Well finally got everything put together and I am posting on my new pc. Thanks for all your help and ideas though I did end up changing some stuff around. CPU: AMD FX 6300 GPU: 650 ti Boost 2gb MB: Asrock Extreme 4 PSU: Seagate 650W modular HDD: Samsung 128gb SSD RAM: 8gb Corsair Vengance I dropped to an AMD chip from the i5 due to a 100 price difference which allowed me to get the better gpu and psu. I am also thinking that when this becomes dated in the future it should be cheaper to upgrade than with the intel chip though I am hoping this rig will last me for quite a few years to come. Im downloading MWO as we speak and I cant wait to see what it looks like. I played WT on it today I never even realized how awesome that game looked. Best part was I was not getting any massive fps drops. So crossing fingers that I wont have texture issues in Frozen City
I played MWO on high-settings at 50fps for the first time last night (after 6 months on low @ 30 fps). OMG! I apologise for anything I said before and would ritual suicide my xbox if I didn't need it for netflix on the tv.
I'm sure I didn't get 50fps out of it on max settings :/ they must have really sorted out the code...
