A good long lasting gaming and multipurpose rig?

[dbzlotrfan]

This seem like a decent rig to play most current and forthcoming PC games? I have gotten plenty of suggestions for parts in previous threads (

) . . . .

• Purpose of System: Gaming, browsing internet, watching videos. But mostly for gaming. I also do want to use Folding@home as well.
• Budget: Within about 1500 American dollars
• Country: USA
• Parts Needed:

1. Case
2. Power Supply
3. Case Fans
4. MotherBoard
5. CPU
6. Memory
7. HDD
8. Optical Drive
9. GPU
10. Sound Card
11. Wirelss (as good as possible)
12. SATA controller (although one IDE could be useful)
13. Memory card Reader (would be useful)
14. Fan Controller

• Reuseable parts: Can't, see below (current specs) as to why
• Overclocking: Doubtful. Though if I can get enough airflow I may try
• Monitor: Currently 1680 x 1050 (22 Inches) - I eventually want HD (Between 23 - 27 inches)
• Building: By start of Fall
• Features of Motherboard: Firewire, USB 3.0, SATA 6 Gb/s, eSATA, UEFI
• OS: Windows 7 64 bit (I have the discs for 32 & 64 bit)

Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($22.99 @ NCIX US)
Motherboard: ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($129.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: Patriot G2 Series Division 4 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Hard Drive: Mushkin Chronos 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($109.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Video Card ($507.55 @ Newegg)
Case: Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced ATX Full Tower Case ($129.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($145.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: LG GH22NS90B DVD/CD Writer ($15.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1562.32
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-04-17 22:06 EDT-0400)

Current specs:

• Case: No idea (although it is a HP slimline, gray) - that should give some idea of the sort of case.
• Motherboard: Asus A8N-BR (Pyrite) (1 PCI, 2 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN, IEEE-1394)
• Motherboard Chipset - nVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE, AMD Hammer
• Power Supply: No idea (but it's less than 100 watts, I think)
• Processor: DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2000 MHz (10 x 200) 3800+
• CPU Cooler: A fan
• Memory:
• - DIMM1: Kingston 1 GB DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM (5-4-4-12 (at) 266 MHz) (4-4-4-12 (at) 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 (at) 200 MHz)
• - DIMM2: Kingston 2G-UDIMM 2 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 (at) 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 (at) 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 (at) 200 MHz)
• Hard Drive: 250 GB ATA drive
• Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRRW GSA-H20L ATA Device (DVD+R9:8x, DVD-R9:4x, DVD+RW:16x/8x, DVD-RW:16x/6x, DVD-RAM:5x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:48x/32x/48x DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM)
• OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit

And what I wanted in a new system:

Hardware

• USB 2.0 speeds that are minimum of 30 MB a second
• USB 3.0 speeds that are at lest 300+ MB/s [I will get / use an SSD]
• Firewire (and or eSata port) --- because I have a external hardrive that has both along with USB
• At lest a solid terabyte (1.5 TB)
• Has either a VGA or DVI port (current monitor I have has both)
• Also has support for HDMI (for the future monitor)
• Multi card reader (although I mainly need SD and Memory Pro Stick Duo)
• Able to use a PS3 controller AND A XBOX 360 controller (yes I know 360 is native support . . .)
• I would like a quad core.
• Multiple internal DVD drives - Also to make installations faster
• Plenty of 3.5/5.25 drive bays . . .

Software

• Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) (Main OS) -- Mostly for languages
• Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit (if needed)
• May first run Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit - as I have both 32/64 bit discs now)
• Windows XP (if 64 bit won't run some of the games I have) (if needed)
• Folding@home - (although I use my PS3 for that when I'm not using it

Gaming Software:

- Will use steam:

• Elder Scrolls (Morrowind -> Skyrim)
• Portal 1 & 2
• Batman Arkham (Asylum/City)
• Sonic Generations
• Quake (all)
• Doom (all)
• Wolfenstein (3D) & 2009 - and the others
• Commander keen (all)
• Bioshock (1/2) (perhaps infinite)
• L.A. Noire
• Bejeweled 2/3
• Peggle
• Various COD's
• anything else that interests me

• - Will use CD/DVD's of the games I have:
• Warcraft 2 - Tides of Darkness & Beyond the Dark Portal
• Warcraft 3 - Reign of Chaos & Frozen Throne
• Diablo 1 - 3 (when it comes out)
• The Sims 1 - And all expansions
• The Sims 2 (probably)
• Simcity 4000 & Rushhour
• May use emulation (to run up to the PS2/Wii)

Other Thoughts

• Eventually a dual monitor setup (and one be HD resolution)
• I will wait for some parts (hard drives, GPU, etc) to drop in price.
• Will wait for IvyBridge. . . .
• I WANT UEFI, NOT regular old BIOS (that this slimline has
• May eventually like a dual GPU (crossfire?)

Monitor Thoughts:

• First and foremost: Full HD
• Widescreen
• Supports: HDMI, DVI, Displayport (if the motherboard of the computer does)
• Within 1 - 2 MS response time (current monitor is 5 MS response time)
• Screen size - 25 to about 27 inches
• I do really want monitor suggestions. Should also support HDCP, if needed.

 

[Tmagic650]

I find these "build" posts amusing... For half that $ amount I could build a sweet system. It is almost like you are saying "my blank is bigger and better than your blank!" It's not how much you spend, it is more like getting the best deal for as little money as possible

 

[dbzlotrfan]

If I could spend far less on this first build I'd like that if I can still play 99% of recent games from the past 10+ years. If I could get far better transfer speeds than my pitiful 15-20 MB/s (USB 2), how ever fast something goes over Firewire.

 

[Tmagic650]

What you posted is a nice build. I really don't care for ASROCK, but others here do. Have you ever worked with a SSD before? I will try my hand next month with a 60GB SSD for booting the OS only, and I'll go with the Intel i5 2600k CPU and a Gigabyte 1155 motherboard... And you do mean less than 1000 watts for your power supply right?

 

[dbzlotrfan]

If Intel's Smart Response tech takes 40 GB, the OS install (and updates) takes about 20 GB, that right there is about 60. 90 - 120 GB seems like it'd fit the OS and intel smart response. I've posted this on I think about 3 dozen forums now, I can't remember exactly all of them. I forgot I posted on here, since the first post I've changed some:


Part list permalink / Part price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($279.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: NZXT HAVIK-140 90.3 CFM CPU Cooler ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($144.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Patriot G2 Series Division 4 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($99.99 @ Amazon)
Hard Drive: Corsair Force Series 3 90GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($92.98 @ NCIX US)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($114.99 @ NCIX US)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 680 2GB Video Card ($507.55 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 500R White ATX Mid Tower Case ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: XFX 850W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
Optical Drive: LG GH22NS90B DVD/CD Writer ($20.98 @ Newegg)
Total: $1561.44
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-04-20 12:24 EDT-0400)


I think the CPU cooler is a bit much.

 

[LNCPapa]

If Intel's Smart Response tech takes 40 GB, the OS install (and updates) takes about 20 GB, that right there is about 60. 90 - 120 GB seems like it'd fit the OS and intel smart response.

I think the CPU cooler is a bit much.

There's nothing wrong with that HSF if it will fit in your case (make sure)... and that's not how SRT works. I'm not sure if the size limitation of the SRT SSD has been raised from 64GB for Z77, but you may want to make sure of that also. Other than that it looks like a good system.