Building a new PC: you guys know what you're talking about, right?

[FieryTrainwreck]

I'm building a budget-conscious "secondary" gaming rig later this month, but I haven't put one of these things together in years. Figured it might be wise to run the parts by some knowledgeable folks. Not a lot of tech stuff on this board, I know, but meh.

Trying to keep this thing under $700. I want it to run the majority of the big games at medium settings or better, though. So here are the parts with my reasoning or questions for each. I very sincerely appreciate any help/feedback/questions.

MB: ASUS 785G - $100, so many nearly identical models at this range, I've got no clue
CPU: AMD Phenom II X2 3.2GHz - $100, low-end Phenom II over Athlon II?
RAM: Corsair XMS3 2x2GB Dual Channel DDR3 - $85, solid brand, anything missing?
GPU: XFX ATI Radeon 5670 1GB - $105, cheapest 1GB card with DX11 support
HDD: Western Digital Black Caviar (lol?) 7200 RPM 750GB - $70, solid brand, meh
PSU: Corsair 550W - $70, solid brand again, should be plenty strong
Case: Antec Three Hundred - $60, well reviewed, basic case, cheap
CD/DVD: no idea here, suggestions? LG or Lite-on? $30 or so should suffice

And that's it. Plan on using the onboard sound and an HDTV, as it's going to be my "living room" game machine.

So... am I doing it wrong? Comments/concerns? Help me and I'll be friend?

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Hmmm... First thing I'd do is bump the GPU up to a 5770 at the least OR swap out for a 4870 X2. You lose DX11 with the 4870 X2 but process wise it stacks up well against everything except for the lastest and greatest high end GPUs (specifically it'll eat just about everything shy of the newest twin processor GPUs).

 

[SomeLameStuff]

I'd probably go with the Radeon 4870 X2 instead, unless you really want that DX11 support.

I'm not really the best person to be asking when you're trying to keep it under $700. Heck I built my desktop for over $3000.

 

[bloodshed113094]

just get a new gaming PC, maybe get another hard drive for games with a splitter, and use the rest for games

 

[migo]

Phenom II X3 720 is what I'd go for, it's a good price and has great overclocking potential, as well as occasionally getting the 4th core unlocked so you're effectively using a Phenom II X4 that way.

 

[Plinglebob]

The RAM cost seems surprisingly high. I've been using fairly cheap RAM in my rig for over 3 years with 0 problems. Also, what OS will you be using? If you have a 64bit OS (not sure about Windows 7) I'd recommend going with a slightly cheaper RAM and going up to 6GB.

EDIT:

1) Are you absolutely sure the PSU has enough power for your rig?

This. There used to be a webiste you could select the components you wanted and it would calculate the power requirements.

 

[dohteM]

Word of warning: I would NOT buy an AMD CPU.

AMD have the nasty habbit of releasing a new type of mainbaord with almost every new CPU. I remember I once had a 3800+ (one of the very first dual core cpus) and I payed 400 dollors for it. A year later the mainboard went out of commission and honest to god i wasn't able to find a replacement.

Go with Intel, they might be a bit more expensive but it's worth it.

Again, I'm sort of a nVidia fanboy so I would recommend that over an ATI simply because nVidia's driver are released more frequently and work better with most games.

Everything else look's good, but you should be cautious about power supply. If in near future you're gonna add another VGA or H.D.D you're better off with a more powerfull one, I'd recommend a OCZ brand PSU, preferebly something with more than 750W.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Thanks for all the feedback so far.

Sounds like the GPU and PSU might need a bump.

I understand Intel/nVidia > AMD/ATI, but it's very important that I keep this thing under budget. You can always add 5-10% here or there for another $15-30, and suddenly you're $200 over budget. I'm mainly looking for areas where I might be completely wasting my money on something that's not remotely up to par.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Word of warning: I would NOT buy an AMD CPU.

AMD have the nasty habbit of releasing a new type of mainbaord with almost every new CPU. I remember I once had a 3800+ (one of the very first dual core cpus) and I payed 400 dollors for it. A year later the mainboard went out of commission and honest to god i wasn't able to find a replacement.

Go with Intel, they might be a bit more expensive but it's worth it.

Again, I'm sort of a nVidia fanboy so I would recommend that over an ATI simply because nVidia's driver are released more frequently and work better with most games.

Everything else look's good, but you should be cautious about power supply. If in near future you're gonna add another VGA or H.D.D you're better off with a more powerfull one, I'd recommend a OCZ brand PSU, preferebly something with more than 750W.

750 sounds kind of excessive; aren't the most common high-end PSUs like 800?

If I were to switch it up with intel/nvidia, what would be the equivalent components? Stuff that's latest gen, or close to it, but low-end enough to shave the price?

 

[TheComedown]

Word of warning: I would NOT buy an AMD CPU.

AMD have the nasty habbit of releasing a new type of mainbaord with almost every new CPU. I remember I once had a 3800+ (one of the very first dual core cpus) and I payed 400 dollors for it. A year later the mainboard went out of commission and honest to god i wasn't able to find a replacement.

Go with Intel, they might be a bit more expensive but it's worth it.

Again, I'm sort of a nVidia fanboy so I would recommend that over an ATI simply because nVidia's driver are released more frequently and work better with most games.

Everything else look's good, but you should be cautious about power supply. If in near future you're gonna add another VGA or H.D.D you're better off with a more powerfull one, I'd recommend a OCZ brand PSU, preferebly something with more than 750W.

750 sounds kind of excessive; aren't the most common high-end PSUs like 800?

If I were to switch it up with intel/nvidia, what would be the equivalent components? Stuff that's latest gen, or close to it, but low-end enough to shave the price?

For your price range and what you want to do the 550w you recommended should do fine unless you plan on upgrading to crossfire. Stick with the amd gear here, you'll keep the price down and you'll find that almost all of the ati cards have a much better power consumption then the nVidia equivalents with little to no performance loss.

As for the rig you specified it looks good. My only recommendation would be to get a better graphics card, RhombusHatesYou suggested the 5770 and for what you wish to do its probably the best option to keep down costs but still have the power. I have the HD5770 OC edition and it runs most modern games maxed out at 1680*1050

 

[BennoTheDutch]

Will you be upgrading certain parts over time or will you just get a completely new rig?

 

[TOGSolid]

Word of warning: I would NOT buy an AMD CPU.

AMD have the nasty habbit of releasing a new type of mainbaord with almost every new CPU. I remember I once had a 3800+ (one of the very first dual core cpus) and I payed 400 dollors for it. A year later the mainboard went out of commission and honest to god i wasn't able to find a replacement.

Go with Intel, they might be a bit more expensive but it's worth it.

Again, I'm sort of a nVidia fanboy so I would recommend that over an ATI simply because nVidia's driver are released more frequently and work better with most games.

Everything else look's good, but you should be cautious about power supply. If in near future you're gonna add another VGA or H.D.D you're better off with a more powerfull one, I'd recommend a OCZ brand PSU, preferebly something with more than 750W.

Wait, what!?

AMD is famous for their CPUs very rarely never needing new mainboards. They're still rocking AM3 on all of their new processors even though their CPUs are going into a new series. Intel on the other hand is going absolutely apeshit with the need for new mobos. They're already about to dump the current mainboard specs for something totally new with their next chipset. They do this on a regular basis. The Socket 775 series was a complete anomaly with how long lived it was and definitely the exception to the rule. Intel has gone right back to their usual horseshit of requiring a new mobo with every CPU generation.

You are absolutely dead wrong. AMDs are the superior choice for budget rigs.

As far as the vid card, don't even worry about DX11. The games that actually make heavy use of it run like total pigs on anything other than higher end cards, so no reason to worry about it. Besides, most of the time it's not even that noticeable. I would beef that card up though. I'd look up the wattage of your components (specifically the CPU and GPU), add them up, and go with a PSU that has at least a 100W overhead.

 

[dohteM]

Word of warning: I would NOT buy an AMD CPU.

AMD have the nasty habbit of releasing a new type of mainbaord with almost every new CPU. I remember I once had a 3800+ (one of the very first dual core cpus) and I payed 400 dollors for it. A year later the mainboard went out of commission and honest to god i wasn't able to find a replacement.

Go with Intel, they might be a bit more expensive but it's worth it.

Again, I'm sort of a nVidia fanboy so I would recommend that over an ATI simply because nVidia's driver are released more frequently and work better with most games.

Everything else look's good, but you should be cautious about power supply. If in near future you're gonna add another VGA or H.D.D you're better off with a more powerfull one, I'd recommend a OCZ brand PSU, preferebly something with more than 750W.

750 sounds kind of excessive; aren't the most common high-end PSUs like 800?

If I were to switch it up with intel/nvidia, what would be the equivalent components? Stuff that's latest gen, or close to it, but low-end enough to shave the price?

Not necessarily. I used to have a 1200 on my old rig. Right now I have a 1000w PSU. It's mainly due to my setup. I've got 2 nVidia GTX260s + 6 harddrives, so I do need the extra oomph. As for the rest of your components, you will need to change your mainboard, but that's about it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

My only recommendation would be to get a better graphics card, RhombusHatesYou suggested the 5770 and for what you wish to do its probably the best option to keep down costs but still have the power.

On Price Vs Performance the 5770 is probably the best card of this generation of GPUs.

 

[dohteM]

Word of warning: I would NOT buy an AMD CPU.

AMD have the nasty habbit of releasing a new type of mainbaord with almost every new CPU. I remember I once had a 3800+ (one of the very first dual core cpus) and I payed 400 dollors for it. A year later the mainboard went out of commission and honest to god i wasn't able to find a replacement.

Go with Intel, they might be a bit more expensive but it's worth it.

Again, I'm sort of a nVidia fanboy so I would recommend that over an ATI simply because nVidia's driver are released more frequently and work better with most games.

Everything else look's good, but you should be cautious about power supply. If in near future you're gonna add another VGA or H.D.D you're better off with a more powerfull one, I'd recommend a OCZ brand PSU, preferebly something with more than 750W.

Wait, what!?

AMD is famous for their CPUs very rarely never needing new mainboards. They're still rocking AM3 on all of their new processors even though their CPUs are going into a new series. Intel on the other hand is going absolutely apeshit with the need for new mobos. They're already about to dump the current mainboard specs for something totally new with their next chipset. They do this on a regular basis. The Socket 775 series was a complete anomaly with how long lived it was and definitely the exception to the rule. Intel has gone right back to their usual horseshit of requiring a new mobo with every CPU generation.

You are absolutely dead wrong. AMDs are the superior choice for budget rigs.

As far as the vid card, don't even worry about DX11. The games that actually make heavy use of it run like total pigs on anything other than higher end cards, so no reason to worry about it. Besides, most of the time it's not even that noticeable. I would beef that card up though. I'd look up the wattage of your components (specifically the CPU and GPU), add them up, and go with a PSU that has at least a 100W overhead.

Remind me,

Intel Pentium 4 (2.60 - 3.80 GHz)
Intel Celeron D (2.53 - 3.60 GHz )
Intel Pentium 4 Extreme Edition
(3.20 - 3.73 GHz)
Intel Pentium D (2.66 - 3.60 GHz)

Pentium Dual-Core (1.40 - 2.80 GHz)
Intel Core 2 Duo (1.60 - 3.33 GHz)
Intel Core 2 Extreme (2.66 - 3.20 GHz)
Intel Core 2 Quad (2.33 - 3.00 GHz)
Intel Xeon (1.86-3.40 GHz)
Intel Celeron (1.60 - 2.40 GHz)

That was the Intel's line up for 6 or so years before they introduced i7. All of them are compatible with socket 775 a.k.a socket T:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGA_775

Please don't just post things you've read in a magazine or something.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

For your price range and what you want to do the 550w you recommended should do fine unless you plan on upgrading to crossfire. Stick with the amd gear here, you'll keep the price down and you'll find that almost all of the ati cards have a much better power consumption then the nVidia equivalents with little to no performance loss.

As for the rig you specified it looks good. My only recommendation would be to get a better graphics card, RhombusHatesYou suggested the 5770 and for what you wish to do its probably the best option to keep down costs but still have the power. I have the HD5770 OC edition and it runs most modern games maxed out at 1680*1050

Do you have a specific mobo recommendation? That's the most confusing bit; seems like they've got about 20 boards with a handful of minute differences for roughly the same price.

 

[TheComedown]

My only recommendation would be to get a better graphics card, RhombusHatesYou suggested the 5770 and for what you wish to do its probably the best option to keep down costs but still have the power.

On Price Vs Performance the 5770 is probably the best card of this generation of GPUs.

Agreed, I picked up the OC edition for $200(Australian), its a good deal for a DDR5 dx11 card.

 

[Abedeus]

Don't buy 5670 if you just want it for DX 11. In Poland 5770 costs about $200, and I still think it's better to buy it than "save cash". If you want to save cash, buy 4870. Will be more powerful, and either way you wouldn't be able to make the best from the DX 11.

Intel on the other hand is going absolutely apeshit with the need for new mobos. They're already about to dump the current mainboard specs for something totally new with their next chipset. They do this on a regular basis. The Socket 775 series was a complete anomaly with how long lived it was and definitely the exception to the rule.

Whatever you are taking, give me some. Since I bought a motherboard for my Pentium 4, six or seven years ago, and just the previous summer I bought an E6300 2.8 @ 3.4 GHz. Before that I had E2140. So my mobo survived few years AND 3 CPUs.

My only recommendation would be to get a better graphics card, RhombusHatesYou suggested the 5770 and for what you wish to do its probably the best option to keep down costs but still have the power.

On Price Vs Performance the 5770 is probably the best card of this generation of GPUs.

Agreed, I picked up the OC edition for $200(Australian), its a good deal for a DDR5 dx11 card.

Hey awesome, good to see that Australians are getting overpriced things too. I would buy something like a G285 or 460, but Nvidia wants double what AMD wants.

Hell, I can still sell my 9800 for $100.