Looking to build a $700 Gaming Computer (without video card)

[RutigerPupkin]

This is my first attempt at a custom build. I'm going to use this primarily for gaming, with some light video editing on the side (Adobe Premiere or Corel Video Studio). Mostly I play strategy and some RPG games, with the most demanding games probably being Skyrim and the Total War series (can't wait for Rome II!). I don't want to spend more that $700-800 Canadian, and I'm reusing all the standard stuff from my old computer (monitor, keyboard, mouse etc) and also my 9800GT for a few months at least. I have no plans to overclock.

After doing a bit of research onbuilding a modest gaming rig I've put together a part list at http://pcpartpicker.com/ca/p/bkOx:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i3-2120 3.3GHz Dual-Core Processor ($124.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Motherboard: ASRock P67 Extreme 4 (B3) ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($119.88 @ Canada Computers)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($46.00 @ Newegg Canada)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($79.88 @ Canada Computers)
Hard Drive: OCZ Vertex 4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($119.99 @ NCIX)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($59.98 @ NCIX)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 520W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($61.99 @ Newegg Canada)
Optical Drive: Sony AD-7260S-0B DVD/CD Writer ($19.88 @ Canada Computers)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($105.92 @ TigerDirect Canada)
Total: $738.51
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)

I'm not really attached to any of this specific components, this is just a starting point for me. I'm pretty new to all this so any suggestions would be appreciated!

 

[jasonalwaysready]

it seems fine, though you may want to consider a quad core cpu. on your budget, that would mean going with amd.

im quite sure the newer total war games do take advantage of all 4 cores.

for around the same price, maybe:
Newegg.ca - AMD FX-4100 Zambezi 3.6GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor FD4100WMGUSBX
Newegg.ca - ASUS M5A99X EVO AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

 

[RutigerPupkin]

it seems fine, though you may want to consider a quad core cpu. on your budget, that would mean going with amd.

im quite sure the newer total war games do take advantage of all 4 cores.

It's apparently a bit ambiguous whether or not they do; some folks are saying that they are claiming to support multicore but aren't really (eg Multicore support- will CA make a statement on this).

I'm really thinking of sticking with Intel, but maybe going up to an i5-2500 and a B75 board, which should only bring me up $20 or so.

 

[tj_extreme]

While that 9800 GT will run Skyrim, it'll be stuck at medium unless you play at a really low res. Even a cheap 6670 will offer a performance boost.

 

[RutigerPupkin]

While that 9800 GT will run Skyrim, it'll be stuck at medium unless you play at a really low res. Even a cheap 6670 will offer a performance boost.

Thanks TJ - the 9800 is just a temporary card until I find a good deal on a new GPU. I'm guessing that card will be the bottleneck until I get a new one.

 

[PP Mguire]

For that budget you should easily be able to get a 2500k setup. I would think about getting a bigger PSU too.

 

[jfenwick]

Hello fellow Canuck, just a tip to save you a few more bucks, I do all my shopping at ncix, they are the only ones (haven't double checked this in a while) that do price matching. I use shopbot.ca for each component, find the cheapest supplier and then use the price match feature at ncix at checkout. In 4 years i've only had 1 item rejected because it was too low a cost for them to match. This way you get the lowest cost for each component and only pay S&H once.

 

[RutigerPupkin]

Hello fellow Canuck, just a tip to save you a few more bucks, I do all my shopping at ncix, they are the only ones (haven't double checked this in a while) that do price matching. I use shopbot.ca for each component, find the cheapest supplier and then use the price match feature at ncix at checkout. In 4 years i've only had 1 item rejected because it was too low a cost for them to match. This way you get the lowest cost for each component and only pay S&H once.

Thanks jfenwick, though I think I'm going to go with Canada Computers; they also have price matching and more importantly have a retail outlet in my city (so no s&h and better customer service).

 

[jfenwick]

Thanks jfenwick, though I think I'm going to go with Canada Computers; they also have price matching and more importantly have a retail outlet in my city (so no s&h and better customer service).

Ouch i'm going to have to disagree, I've never had a good customer service experience at CC, infact it's been so bad that I refuse to buy anything from them. But maybe that's just my local store, they also refused to price match a system for me

As long as your local place is good: enjoy the new system!

 

[RutigerPupkin]

Ouch i'm going to have to disagree, I've never had a good customer service experience at CC, infact it's been so bad that I refuse to buy anything from them. But maybe that's just my local store, they also refused to price match a system for me

As long as your local place is good: enjoy the new system!

I have mixed feelings about the local place. They were quite helpful the first time I went in, but after visiting today I didn't get full price matching on all of my parts (they said they couldn't match components they already had on sale), but the price differences only amounted to about about $20 in total so I just considered that my "in person customer service fee" as they did help me make a few build decisions.

Bad news is that my old 9800GT seems to be fried, so I'll have to get a new video card at some point...