So, you have $4,000 USD to spend on a rig, what do you do?

[Site Lab]

Probably not what you want but you asked what I would do with the $4k

+

Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch) $949.00

TOTAL: $4337 (but I get 2 machines ;))

That is an absolute ripoff. :o

[tsupersonic]

Probably not what you want but you asked what I would do with the $4k

+

Apple Thunderbolt Display (27-inch) $949.00

TOTAL: $4337 (but I get 2 machines ;))

2 absolutely **** machines for gaming, and don't forget to include in the price - 2 copies of Windows. You can buy 1 machine for less than half of the 27" iMac that will run circles around it.

[+Mirumir Subscriber¹]

I'm going to completely upgrade my system too.

Here's what I'll be considering in a couple of months:

Thermaltake Level 10 - $800

or

Thermaltake Level 10 GT Snow Edition - $300

Dell 27" 2560 x 1440 - $1000

or

Dell 30" 2560x1600 - $1400

So, that's already going to set me back for $1300 - 2200.

As for the internal components:

MB: ASUS or Intel if I decide on dual XEON (gonna need a different case for this);

CPU: Intel i7 3930K or one or two XEON E5's (six or eight cores each);

GPU: ASUS Radeon 7970 or 7950 or 7870.

SSD HDD's, a bunch of RAM, a nice PSU, plus all the other accessories including the cooling and $4000 will evaporate pretty quickly :)

[Rudy]

2 absolutely **** machines for gaming, and don't forget to include in the price - 2 copies of Windows. You can buy 1 machine for less than half of the 27" iMac that will run circles around it.

Why waste money on Windows licenses?

Who said I wanted a machine for games? :D I play games on my consoles (actually mostly on my portable consoles)

That is an absolute ripoff. :o

How? 2 computers with SSDs (one portable) plus 2 high quality 27" monitors!

[xendrome]

<<Topic Cleaned>>

[threetonesun]

If you like those Thermaltake cases, just buy an old Mac Pro case and shoe horn your components into it. Same idea, but they don't look like they were designed by 12 years old on a sugar high.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

can we get back on topic? the OP said UP TO $4k - not that he had to spend that much. keep in mind that he also wants a 30" monitor. that, alone, is $1400 on Dell's site. that leaves him w/ UP TO $2600 for the computer. factor in (2) 680s, and you're in another $1000. that leaves $1600 for the rest of the parts.

Case, CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Optical drives, PSU - all this can easily add up to $1600.

[BumbleBritches57]

You may want to consider this display, it's ~$400 cheaper, 27'' 2560x1440 and the quality is top notch.

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC007LL/A

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

Here's a quick shopping cart, omitting the video cards.

$1300 for those parts

$1000 for (2) video cards

$1400 for 30" display

Total - $3700

[BumbleBritches57]

I would also wait a few weeks on the CPU, Ivy Bridge is literally right around the corner.

[spedanden]

As always, there is going to be 20 useless responses and 5 good ones. I am ashamed for all the people who contributed nothing, I hope to never have to deal with you in real life.

You have been waiting a long time to play games and there isn't much you can't buy with your budget. But it's stupid to buy stuff you dont' need. I will cover the major things.

CPU : You don't need the i7s. get yourself a nice i5 2500k, we have been recommending this for the past 10 months. It is great and hasn't been topped as far as bang for the buck goes. If it's important to you to say you have the i7, then just get that. Keep in mind that sandy bridge is towards the end of it's life cycle and the new ivy bridge will replace it shortly, I don't know if the wait is worth it.

Mobo : find an asus that you like.... There is H, Z, P models. Go with Z or P. differences dont' matter much to you. get Z if it's the same price and you are stuck.

Graphics : This is where all your gaming power will come from. look for ati-7950-7970. the nvidia 680 is the alternative but newegg is out of stock on these. Super nice cards if you can find it on tiger direct or amazon. PS: I wouldn't bother with SLI.

RAM : corsair or gskill or OCZ are good. 1600 is the speed you want as far as value goes. Higher is better of course but you don't need it and wont' notice difference. Get at least 8gb.

SSD : I love my agility 3 OCZ drives, vertex 3 are supposed to be faster but not to the everyday user. corsair also has some very nice ones. Get name brand and make sure it's 3rd gen. if you are conservative, a 120gb one will do fine. You can just go for a bigger one since you have the money and may not want to always pay attention to this. I have only filled up 31gb but i am conservative. Games are on a different hard drive for me.

PSU : Don't be cheap here, corsair makes the best as far as i am concerend.you dont' need more than 600watts with 1 GPU. go a little higher if you feel you may add a bunch of hard drives and a GPU later.

Monitor. I LOVE dells... Samsungs are also super nice. Spend good money here and get something you like.

Case : I LOVE the HAF X cases. make sure whatever you get is screwless, screws suck! Also make sure it has 2.5' mounting brackets or but them separately.

PM me if you have questions. I covered the big stuff.

It blows my mind that people say that spending $4000 on a machine isn't worth it, and that they should buy something thats cheaper (AKA what they own, or whats in THEIR budget). First off, how is it your place to say hes "stupid" to buy what he doesnt "need"? The i5-2500k is great for the money but NOWHERE near the fastest CPU available. As for the statement about "if its important to you to say you have the i7, then get it" is something someone who doesnt have the money for a really fast processor would say. The 2500k get pooped on by the 3930k. Yeah its 3 times the cost, but it's double the processing power.... hardly a "if you must have it" situation especially with a 4k budget. Also with the RAM, youre talking value, hes talking a $4000 budget where faster IS better. And with the hard drive, you recommend a clearly faster version of what you have, but discredit it's "value for the everyday user." Hes NOT an everyday user with a 4k budget for a gaming rig.

Look at charts OP. Especially the ones at http://www.cpubenchmark.net/ and use the price guide to the right of the benchmarks to get an idea of what you want to spend you money on. Faster now, faster later.

[imachip]

I would also wait a few weeks on the CPU, Ivy Bridge is literally right around the corner.

Yup agreed, wait a few weeks and see if it's worth it. 20% performance gains will be nice for small increment in price. It's a shame to build a computer now and then the CPU comes immediately 'not current'.

I would advise against SLI. Heat, noise and difficulties playing some games will cause you quite a lot of frustration. The MSI GTX 680 Twin Frozr has a great non-reference design cooler which will mean it's quieter and cooler.

For me, having a quiet but effective CPU cooler, either the Coolermaster H100/H70 or the NH-D14. Couple them 2x Scythe Typhoons and a speed controller for a very quiet push pull setup. I do not recommend the NH-D14 if you are considering to overclock.

As for case, I have a full tower FT02 which is an excellent spacious case. The Fractal Design ones you mention are very nice as well. Go for the biggest you can fit to increase the amount of airflow.

Invest in a mechanical keyboard, there are many reviews around and if you're okay with the noise (see Youtube videos if it's a problem), these are a very nice buy for a gamer and casual typist.

Invest the biggest SSD you can afford, minimum size 240GB. This should be your 'boot drive' and where you load your applications and games from. I recommend Intel's 830 series as they have the best track record for reliability of any SSD manufacturer. Perhaps a 2nd SSD if you think you need more space for things that you normally use (e.g. if you have an DSLR camera and lots of pics, movies, etc).

I'm not in the US, so it's difficult for me to put together a system without knowing how far above/below I'm over/under your budget.

[Order_66]

People like to tell you to wait for whatever MB or cpu that is going to be released "soon" or whatever, don't wait for anything unless it's literally days/hours away from being released.

When I went to buy a gtx 580 a while back so many people said "wait and get the 680 it's right around the corner" then when the 680 was released they told me to wait until the next nvidia card comes out whatever it's called, glad I just got the 580 in the first place lol

[threetonesun]

Yeah its 3 times the cost, but it's double the processing power....

Which will make a 0% difference in it's ability to run Diablo III.

I've no problem with someone else spending their money, but if they come in saying "I have $400,000 to spend on a car, I need it to commute to work and it should be good at merging with freeway traffic," it's worth letting them know that there are sub $400,000 options.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

I would advise against SLI. Heat, noise and difficulties playing some games will cause you quite a lot of frustration. The MSI GTX 680 Twin Frozr has a great non-reference design cooler which will mean it's quieter and cooler.

i disagree. Do you have an SLI setup?

i moved from (2) 5770s to (2) 680s. the 680s are cooler and quieter than the 5770s. the 5770s fans would rev up and sound like a hair dryer. i realize this is only one example though. also, what frustration? SLI works great w/ every game i have...

[BumbleBritches57]

People like to tell you to wait for whatever MB or cpu that is going to be released "soon" or whatever, don't wait for anything unless it's literally days/hours away from being released.

When I went to buy a gtx 580 a while back so many people said "wait and get the 680 it's right around the corner" then when the 680 was released they told me to wait until the next nvidia card comes out whatever it's called, glad I just got the 580 in the first place lol

that's one of the problems with the world today, he'll have to wait atleast a week for the parts to arrive regardless.

[Nihilus]

So knowing all this, what would you guys suggest?

I'd suggest saving your money and spending it on something useful, like cocaine and hookers, instead.

[migo]

I'd say Core i5-2500K, but really the Ivy Bridge sequel is coming in a couple weeks. Monday is really the worst time to be buying a system.

[psionicinversion]

Id personally say an i5 or i7 sandy bridge or wait for ivy bridge. A motherboard with uefi bios (can use 3TB HD with those cus you never know whenya might need one). 240 GB 3rd gen SSD. At least 8GB 1600 MHz ram. Higher ram is mainly for over locking I think. 2 or 3TB HD for storage. If you need reinstall the boot drive and everything gets wiped won't lose any important stuff that's on that drive. As for the video cards is personal preference I prefer ATi others will prefer NVIDIA. Sli isn't really needed well unless you plan on running your games at 2560. But bare in mind alot of pc games are ports from console version, tis the reason when skyrims fps tanks on 1920 and above resolutions. I've heard really good things about the 6950 cards. If you want the best card outthere and don't care about spending ?500 on the latest go for it. Get a 1000watt psu if you think you'll be doing sli/crossfire now or in the future. Good spacious case that lets you manage all your wires properly, I.e. there run through the back of the case and comes out in slots next to the stuff you need stick em into. Less wires less airflow problems. Maybe get a CPU cooler to but measure up cus some can be massive. Oh if you want a sound card instead of using the onboard then the Asus xonars are quite good.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

IvyBridge is just around the corner.

You should be able to get 20% performance increase, on average, in comparison to the SandyBridge.

[Kelxin]

Yea.... He can wait for an Ivy Bridge 1155 cpu which should be in a month or so, or he could just buy a 2011 socket board + cpu and get better performance NOW with quad channel memory and larger memory support. Ivy Bridge 1155 motherboards still won't support 128GB + quad channel memory and won't have 6 or 8 core CPU's.

Get a decent MSI or Gigabyte 2011 socket motherboard for around $250 - 300 bucks, some decent nvidia video cards, a decent sized SSD or setup two in a raid for almost double the performance (I'd recommend the intel's new 520 series considering they're 550 mbs read / 500 mbs write with FIVE year warranties, unlike the competition) and throw in a 1 - 2 TB drive for larger long term storage such as movies or mp3's, 12 GB of DDR3 between 1600 - 2400 mhz in quad channel and you'd be looking at around $1800 for your computer. The 6 core 2011 socket intel CPU gives you over 22ghz of raw unoverclocked power at a reasonable price for a true performance gamer.

[Muhammad Farrukh]

Going with 2011 can also be a good decision, considering we don't have a limited budget. As it seems

[psionicinversion]

why do ya need a 6 or 8 core cpu when games dont even fully take advantage of quad core systems? you only need 6-8 core systems for video editing, 3d rendering, encoding and all that stuff. Its just extra money for absolutely 0 performance gain in games and dont say its future proofing ya system cus its not cus all the work is being pushed onto the gfx card cus the gfx cards perform the tasks for rendering gfx and stuff like 10x better than a cpu could do. A cpu is designed todo all types of stuff, a gfx card is designed to do specific things very well.

Will you ever have a computer that needs 128GB ram for gaming?? sorry kelxin but your just talking complete crap and i doubt a quad channel system would perform all that better over a dual channel system cus once the games loaded its loaded and its swap out will be minimal at best

[Phemo]

I am also building a PC and the parts are already ordered. Here's my PC

CPU

Intel Core i7-980 Gulftown 3.33GHz LGA 1366 130W Six-Core

Motherboard

P6T Deluxe

Case

COOLER MASTER HAF X RC-942-KKN1

PSU

Rosewill RBR1000-M 1000W

SSD

Crucial M4 CT128M4SSD2BAA 2.5" 128GB

HDD (Storage)

Western Digital Caviar Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s

2x GPUs (SLI)

ZOTAC ZT-40508-10L GeForce GTS 450 (Fermi) 1GB 128-bit DDR3

8GB RAM

All total to about 1,500 USD... The most expensive item here is the CPU... Almost 600$ :)

This wasn't a good choice especially since you still spent a crazy amount on the CPU. You should have gone for an i7 2700K or a 3930K and Socket 2011 setup instead and it wouldn't have cost all that much more.

However the most important thing is that you say you have 8GB of RAM which suggests to me you've bought either 4x2GB sticks or 2x4GB sticks. While this will work, the LGA1366 platform you've bought into requires 3 DIMMs for optimal performance so you should have bought a triple channel 6GB, 12GB or 24GB kit.

As I say it'll still work, but although the platform you've bought into is dead, it still performs best with 3 or 6 sticks.

[Dismayed]

I'd suggest saving your money and spending it on something useful, like cocaine and hookers, instead.

As much as I love cocaine and hookers, it would seem a real waste to actually pay for them... considering they get passed around like candy at work. And no, I'm not a drug dealer. Not even close.

I've put a lot of thought into this and held off purchasing for a couple days now, but I think I've made up my mind. Thanks to everyone who gave their input and opinions. Here's what I got:

Essentials ($1,717)

CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K

Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3

RAM: CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB

SSD: Samsung 830 Series (256 GB)

GPU: EVGA GTX 580 (Fermi) Classified ULTRA

PSU: CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX850

Case: Fractal Design Define XL

My main concern is with the motherboard and video card. The P8Z68-V PRO has only one PCI Express 2.0 x16 slot running at x4. Is this going to bottleneck the video card since it's not getting a full x16 lane?

Or will the two "PCI Express 3.0 x16" slots on the board really be 2.0 since I'm using a i5-2500K?... in which case can I put the video card in one of those and get a full x16? Sorry if this is a dumb question.

As for waiting on Ivy Bridge I thought about it but figured there's no point... today's technology will do me just fine. I also considered going the LGA 2011 route, but between the monitor and peripherals I want, eh... I doubt I would be able to stay in budget.

I'd like to order this today before I hit the hay, so if someone could answer my PCI question and give any other final input before I commit that'd be great.