Well, WATMM...it's time to build a new PC

I'm tired of looking at my aging 2008 era crappy Dell desktop with its underpowered everything.

Most modern games won't run worth shit, so it's time to dive in. More or less starting from scratch here, although my Dell does have an upgraded 700W power supply I smashed into it shortly after receiving it from my previous employer.

Still, I may ditch the PSU as well and start completely from scratch.

Looking at NewEgg combo deals, I've started with this:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1080490

That would give me a nice case, CPU, PSU, RAM, and HD. From there, I'd only need a motherboard/CPU and vid card and I'd be off to the races.

Thoughts very much welcome and appreciated.

Hmm, maybe my PSU is still worth keeping after all.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341002

Choose a nice Intel CPU, an Asus board, and if you can afford it, a 670 GTX or better.
I don't think it's worth buying the most expensive of card or CPU though, your better value is found with mid-upper end components, like a 3770 w/ 670 GTX. A 690 GTX is a lot of power but very expensive. Same for the Intel 3970. Dual SLI or Crossifre is cool but be aware i've read it's not perfect quite yet.

A mid-upper range computer will run any game on the market well and give you the most for your money imo..

Yes, that's exactly what I'm trying to do. I want to spend, ultimately, around $750 at the very most.

Based on your suggestion of Intel, what CPU/Motherboard combo would you recommend from here:

http://www.newegg.com/Store/ComboDeals.aspx?ComboStoreID=1&name=CPUs-Motherboards

By the way, I am indeed looking at the GTX 670. I may even go cheap and get the 650.

Do you mean $750 for the motherboard/cpu combo?

I think the 3770k Ivy Bridge is a solid chip. Very reliable and wicked fast. It's also a good overclockable chip.

Just pair it with any Asus board that has the socket you need and at a price you feel good about it. I think you'll be happy witth that.

It's worth spending on a good video card if intended for gaming. Probably even more so than CPU, as the GPU for modern games tends to be the bottleneck. It's where most of your horsepower should come from.

I should add my prefernce for Asus and Nvidia is just from experience.. Maybe i'm lucky but Asus has always impressed me for years. ATI i've had poor experiences with in general, and getting away from them was a long time coming. Nothing changed since AMD bought them either... My current machine is Nvidia and i'm more than happy with it.

God no...my total budget for this endeavor is topping out at $750, so I won't be buying the latest and greatest CPU, that's for sure.

Oh right on, well hm.

IMO you should get some pro-mode advice from http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc
Scan some of the threads there for people wanting to build a rig for your price range.
There's some seriously good value builds people post there\

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/10tz0j/build_complete_750_gaming_build/

Yeah, wow, that looks amazing for $750!

Who's a thunk it? Reddit actually pretty useful here.

Thanks, dude.

Yeah man! Reddit comes through sometimes :)

Gotta admit, my beef with AMD cards aside, that is some serious horsepower for 750...

This PC Part Picker site is fucking cool. Gonna create an account/profile and bookmark it.

So, Fiz, do you think I should just keep my 700 watt power supply? It seems to still have value, assuming it's compatible with the more popular cases these days.

Yeah that's plenty sufficient anyways, no sense replacing it yet. It's inevitably going to fail someday so just wait til it does and buy more headroom in a 1000/1200 watt PSU

  On 12/9/2012 at 6:08 PM, The Overlook said:

So, Fiz, do you think I should just keep my 700 watt power supply? It seems to still have value, assuming it's compatible with the more popular cases these days.

definitely keep it, the standards haven't changed for years and 700 watt (unless it's some utter shit of a psu) is enough to power up mid-high range dual gpu setups

also, looking at your first link, it has some weird choice for an hdd, 5400 rpm ? plus everyone needs a SSD as a system drive.

gtx 650 might be a bit on the weak side, im personally very happy with my radeon hd7850, it's super quiet, very low power requirement and it ran the new far cry on max settings (without aa) on 1680*1050 (i have an old 22" monitor) easily.

  On 12/9/2012 at 5:53 PM, fiznuthian said:

Oh right on, well hm.

 

IMO you should get some pro-mode advice from http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc

Scan some of the threads there for people wanting to build a rig for your price range.

There's some seriously good value builds people post there\

 

 

 

http://www.reddit.com/r/buildapc/comments/10tz0j/build_complete_750_gaming_build/

@the overlook

i would take some more time reading reviews about the case and motherboard, the other parts look good. what kind of monitor do you have btw ? a 7850 might not pull full hd on newer/future pc oriented games (though there's always a crossfire/sli option).

I have a 26" Samsung, so 1900x1200 gaming, which is perfectly adequate for me.

Good call on the hard drive. I do realize I need a solid state drive, so I've more or less shitcanned that combo link from my first post.

Starting from scratch with just my PSU, which is a nice one. OCZ makes good stuff.

  On 12/9/2012 at 6:18 PM, eugene said:

also, looking at your first link, it has some weird choice for an hdd, 5400 rpm ? plus everyone needs a SSD as a system drive.

 

gtx 650 might be a bit on the weak side, im personally very happy with my radeon hd7850, it's super quiet, very low power requirement and it ran the new far cry on max settings (without aa) on 1680*1050 (i have an old 22" monitor) easily.

yeah the reddit build I posted uses a 7850 and an SSD too.. sounds pretty solid.

I need to just start with the fundamental: The Case.

Do you guys have a suggestion of one you like or should I just follow reviews / best price on NewEgg?

  On 12/9/2012 at 6:30 PM, The Overlook said:

I have a 26" Samsung, so 1900x1200 gaming, which is perfectly adequate for me.

 

in that case you need a beefy GPU, something like the gtx670 indeed, you can go lower on the cpu though, the 3570k or the older 2500k even

  On 12/9/2012 at 6:34 PM, The Overlook said:

I need to just start with the fundamental: The Case.

 

Do you guys have a suggestion of one you like or should I just follow reviews / best price on NewEgg?

Follow the reviews. I believe Corsair makes a decent case. I had a Lian Li years back; they have a good aesthetic, attention to detail and the aluminium is a nice touch. I would avoid Cooler Master although the reviews say differently. I was just working on mine and broke a bunch of small plastic pieces with my gentle hands. Plus the way they designed some of the grills makes it impossible to remove dust.

Yeah, currently debating mid-tower or full-tower. I tend to like the room to do shit that's entailed with the full-tower option.

Saw this deal on slickdeals today, might be worth checking out: http://slickdeals.net/f/5665614-Dell-XPS-8500-Core-i7-1TB-8GB-AMD-7570-for-649-97-Tax-Free-Shipping

Use the extra cash on an SSD for the OS/games

I'm not allowing another Dell into this home.

In that case, if you are after a mid tower, I can recommend the Antec P280. What I used for my last build. It's super quiet and made for an easy build. Would also recommend investing in an SSD over CPU/GPU as hard drives have been the bottlenecks in performance until SSD arrived and are now affordable.

That PSU will last you a while, unless you plan on going SLI/Crossfire with 2 beefy cards, which your budget suggests otherwise.

CPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504 (no need for i7)

Mobo - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131837

Heatsink - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835233081

Case - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129179

RAM - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231585

GPU - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125451 (I'm an ATI fanboi)

SSD - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820211602 (Really big fan of adata, what I use at home and at work, never had an RMA or anything)

Could shop around and probably find better prices but this came out to just over $750 after rebates and such