$650.00 Gaming Rig

[dagger576]

I had planned on holding off a while on coming up with the specs for this system, but wound up sitting at home all day today with nothing else to do, so... here goes.

CPU/MoBo/Ram: (combo deal) $338.98

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W Quad-Core Processor Model HDZ955FBGIBOX

ASUS M4A79XTD EVO AM3 AMD 790X ATX AMD Motherboard

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

PSU: $79.99
CORSAIR CMPSU-550VX 550W ATX12V V2.2 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Compatible with Core i7 Power Supply

GPU: $144.99
HIS H575FN1GD Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card


Odds and Ends:
Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound $8.99
Rosewill RTK-002 Anti-Static Wrist Strap 3.49

I plan on using the computer for video editing and gaming. The missing pieces (monitor, hdd, optical drives) will be coming from my current setup. I'd like to eventually overclock the processor, but my funds are a bit limited at the moment so I don't know that I could afford a fancy CPU fan just yet... As such, I figure I'll probably keep it at factory settings until I can get a little more air going through the system. Anybody have any thoughts or opinions?

 

[aliasaid]

That video card is a bit overpriced. The 4870 is priced quite close, but is much more powerful. Other than that, it all looks good.

 

[dagger576]

I did a little more digging and found MSI N250GTS TwinFrozr 1G OC GeForce GTS 250 1GB 256-bit GDDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card - Retail for 139.99. I'm pretty sure the monitor I've got maxes out its resolution at 1280x1024, so do you think a card like that could play Fallout 3, GTA4, the latest Unreal Tournament etc. at decent settings with a good frame rate?

 

[Trotter]

250 = 9800. Nvidia just renamed it, basically.

5750 >= 4870, plus it is DirectX 11.
Newegg.com - XFX HD-575X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
$140. You won't beat that price for that power. And, yes, it would stomp a mudhole in a GTS 250 and then walk it dry.

 

[aliasaid]

5750 >= 4870, plus it is DirectX 11.

Trotter, i think maybe you're confusing the 5750 with the 5770?

The 5750 is still more powerful than the GTS250, so if you want DX11 you could go that route, but for sheer power, the 4870 in that price range is still best.

 

[veg1992]

250 = 9800. Nvidia just renamed it, basically.

5750 >= 4870, plus it is DirectX 11.
Newegg.com - XFX HD-575X-ZNFC Radeon HD 5750 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards
$140. You won't beat that price for that power. And, yes, it would stomp a mudhole in a GTS 250 and then walk it dry.

Yep, Aliasaid's right.

The HD 5750 is on par with the HD 4850 and the HD 5770 is with the HD 4870 (just keep the Pro and XT's and it's the same one)

 

[Fat.Clown]

I'd suggest against the Arctic silver 5

it requires curing time and it seems like it loses it's effectiveness after like 6 months

it's conductive - don't use on video card if you are clumsy

I'd suggest the Tuniq TX-2 Cooling Thermal Compound

and is cheaper

the new TX-3 is even better but costs more

 

[dagger576]

Thank for the clarification on the video card. After doing some more digging I think I may go with VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Retail .

 

[aliasaid]

I made the recommendation for the 4870 because it was in the $150 range (1gb version). I don't recommend you get that visiontek since its only the 512mb version and its $180. So, since you're willing to go to $180, here's one for $185 w/ free shipping, and much more powerful. Good Luck.

Newegg.com - SAPPHIRE 100269HDMI Radeon HD 4890 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card - Desktop Graphics / Video Cards

 

[Trotter]

XFX Radeon HD 4870 Video Card - 512MB GDDR5, PCI Express 2.0 x16, CrossFireX Ready, (Dual Link) Dual DVI at TigerDirect.com
$140