building a budget gaming desktop

[Viscerus]

Hi all,

I'm looking to build a new gaming desktop, mainly for Guild Wars 2, which i'd love to play on max settings. This will be my first build, so some recommendations would be fantastic. I read over the guide for builds so here's everything I can tell yall.

1. Other components: this is from scratch so none

2. Budget = $800 USD

3. Use: gaming essentially, light office work, main entertainment hub

4. Still looking for a cheapish monitor 23 or 24inch (open for recommendations/ add that to the $800)

5. I'd like to have this built before GW2 comes out (August 25th)

6. I'm not planning on overclocking

7. Probably Newegg, Microcenter, Amazon, anywhere I can find the best deal

8. Specific features: I've been checking builds on other sites and I'm curious about having both a HDD and SSD. I want a pretty large hard drive (at least 1TB). Also, I'll need a wireless adapter and a bunch of USB ports.

That's all I can think of at the moment. Thanks in advance for any help/recommendations.

Viscerus

[BigDavy]

The following components come to around $766, and should be good enough to assemble a decent gaming PC:

Intel Core i3 2120 ($124.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115077

MSI Z68A-G43 Motherboard ($89.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813130614

4Gb Corsair XMS DDR3 Memory ($24.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820145299

Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 ($169.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102948

128Gb Samsung 830 SSD ($143.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147163

1Tb Toshiba HDD ($79.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822149382

Samsung 22x DVD Burner ($16.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827151244

Antec Gaming One Case ($49.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811129181

OCZ ZS Series 550w PSU ($64.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817341047

As far as monitors go, now's a good time to get one with an IPS panel - they are way better than the cheaper TN screens. ASUS have a very affordable unit for $163.99 - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16824236205

You'll just need to factor in the cost of a decent keyboard, mouse (I recommend Logitech models), USB wi-fi dongle and of course a Windows 7 licence.

[Viscerus]

Thanks for the recommendations! Nice pic btw.

[BigDavy]

Thanks for the recommendations! Nice pic btw.

As you can see, I'm a bit of a Mass Effect fan...

[threetonesun]

BigDavy's recommendations are good. If you have a Microcenter around you, check their deals, because you can often get a i5 + motherboard combo for less (or about the same cost) than an i3 + mobo there. You might also be able to find some GTX 460s hanging around for a better deal than 6870s.

Also, if you're looking to shift the components around some, ditch the SSD for a better GPU. If gaming is a primary concern, I think it's always best to get the best GPU you can afford, and upgrade from there.

[BigDavy]

Also, if you're looking to shift the components around some, ditch the SSD for a better GPU. If gaming is a primary concern, I think it's always best to get the best GPU you can afford, and upgrade from there.

Until recently, I would have considered the SSD as a luxury, but since installing a Samsung SSD in my AMD laptop, I can't believe how much it has transformed the experience! I use the laptop for some light gaming (Mass Effect 1-3), and the loading times between levels have been greatly reduced. Even simple things such as web browsing appears to be much smoother.

If affordability is the primary concern, then opting for a 60-64Gb model won't break the bank - that should be enough for Windows 7 and maybe one or two games, but personally a 120-128Gb model provides plenty of capacity (I just checked Newegg, and the 128Gb Samsung SSD has suddenly dropped to $99.99!)

[threetonesun]

Until recently, I would have considered the SSD as a luxury, but since installing a Samsung SSD in my AMD laptop, I can't believe how much it has transformed the experience! I use the laptop for some light gaming (Mass Effect 1-3), and the loading times between levels have been greatly reduced. Even simple things such as web browsing appears to be much smoother.

Did you go from a 5400 RPM hard drive to the SSD, or did you already have a 7200 in there? Don't get me wrong, I have an SSD in my laptop (128 gb) and I think it's great, but that's the entirety of my storage on that computer. For a desktop, a good 7200 drive that holds everything can be nice.

Plus, as long as you partition the HD when installing Windows, it's really easy to drop an SSD in later and boot from that. If your GPU gets outclassed, you have to buy a new one and sell the old one, and hope the rest of your system isn't bottlenecking it, or that you'd need a bigger PSU, etc.

[BigDavy]

Did you go from a 5400 RPM hard drive to the SSD, or did you already have a 7200 in there? Don't get me wrong, I have an SSD in my laptop (128 gb) and I think it's great, but that's the entirety of my storage on that computer. For a desktop, a good 7200 drive that holds everything can be nice.

Plus, as long as you partition the HD when installing Windows, it's really easy to drop an SSD in later and boot from that. If your GPU gets outclassed, you have to buy a new one and sell the old one, and hope the rest of your system isn't bottlenecking it, or that you'd need a bigger PSU, etc.

I went from a 1Tb Samsung 5400rpm HDD to a 128Gb Samsung 830 SSD - I transferred the entire contents of the HDD to the SSD via Acronis (including the Recovery and HP Tools partitions), and relocated the HDD into an external USB3 caddy. I now use the HDD for supplemental storage, mainly high-definition movies and TV series ripped from Blu-ray via AnyDVD HD (http://www.slysoft.c...n/anydvdhd.html) - I find this handy if I want to take a batch of movies on holiday, but don't have the room in the luggage for a wad of discs! I'm now looking at replacing the 1Tb Seagate HDD in my main system with a 256Gb Samsung 830 SSD.

In my case, when my Radeon 5850 started to run out of steam, I simply dropped in another one to run in Crossfire mode (picked up another one cheaply on eBay) - I'm now able to run practically any game at 2560x1440 (Skyrim in particular looks awesome!).

[LSlari69]

I knew I should have gone with an SSD instead. >_< Then I can use my ancient hard drives for simply storage.

[BigDavy]

I knew I should have gone with an SSD instead. >_< Then I can use my ancient hard drives for simply storage.

I chose the Samsung unit because of the claimed reliability - according to the information I've read, if approximately 10Gb of data is written to the drive per day, the estimated life span is over 60 years! That means I'll probably expire before the SSD...!!!

[Everlive89]

Why not skip the SSD and get a new i5-3570 Ivy Bridge?

The following components come to around $766, and should be good enough to assemble a decent gaming PC:

Intel Core i3 2120 ($124.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16819115077

MSI Z68A-G43 Motherboard ($89.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16813130614

4Gb Corsair XMS DDR3 Memory ($24.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820145299

Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 ($169.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16814102948

128Gb Samsung 830 SSD ($143.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16820147163

1Tb Toshiba HDD ($79.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16822149382

Samsung 22x DVD Burner ($16.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16827151244

Antec Gaming One Case ($49.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16811129181

OCZ ZS Series 550w PSU ($64.99) - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16817341047

As far as monitors go, now's a good time to get one with an IPS panel - they are way better than the cheaper TN screens. ASUS have a very affordable unit for $163.99 - http://www.newegg.co...N82E16824236205

You'll just need to factor in the cost of a decent keyboard, mouse (I recommend Logitech models), USB wi-fi dongle and of course a Windows 7 licence.

[BigDavy]

Why not skip the SSD and get a new i5-3570 Ivy Bridge?

I'd normally agree, but Viscerus is going to use the PC primarily for gaming, so anything faster than a Core i3 is a waste. An SSD definitely provides a much smoother experience in general, and game loading times are greatly reduced. Besides, the system can be upgraded to either an i5 or an i7 at a later date.

My Core i7 is used for high-definition video encoding and 3D rendering, so I need the four cores and eight threads the Core i7 provides.

[watchthisspace]

What other games besides Guild Wars 2, do/will you play?

I'd almost suggest putting aside the SSD and put that money towards are more beefy GPU.

And if Guild Wars 2 is 64bit or Large address aware, perhaps getting 8gb of ram wouldn't be a bad idea.