Hey peeps,

 

Been looking at getting a new rig, mine is getting pretty dated (close to 3 years old now) and despite the fact i can still run Arma 2 and things like that decently... well... I want to be able to rock out abit harder when it comes to graphics/performance.

 

Currently looking something like this:

Any case around (mid-tower probs) $100

6GB Kingston DDR3 1333 $67

Antec Trupower 650W PSU $123

GTX 570 GPU $375

core i7 2600 K CPU $312

ASUS P8P67 MOBO (or whatever) $156

 

Total:$1133

 

I _might_ add an SSD, I still have a 10,000 RPM Raptor for my OS which is running, although I dont know for how long. I have 3 TB of storage space for games,movies,etc so that isnt an issue.

 

I'm kinda going abit pricey for the GPU and CPU but figured it would be worth it upon looking at some benchmarking and reviews, should last me a while. One thing im never too sure on is the MOBO as I dont really need alot of the extra features (Have an extreme gamer X-Fi card and such) but I need one with at least PCE 2.0 16x from that I understand for the GTX 570?

 

Thoughts?

Asus or Gigabyte and you generally cant go wrong (prefer Gigabyte myself, more bang for buck imo). Pretty much, look at the features you want in the board and go from there. I know more about the AMD boards than the Intel ones, but from what i recall X58 is the chipset to go for iirc, everything else is pretty much what level of icing on the cake you want. If you want sprinkles n . . . . stuff . . . well then you go the upper end, but if your happy with a bit of icing, then the mid range is where you want to be. Tbh, unless your going stupid with oc'ing or have enough money to drop tri/quad-sli etc you'll never need a high end board.

For basic gaming a 2500k will be plenty. You will not notice the difference between then 2500k and 2600k unless you are doing encoding/photo shop work.

 

570 is a good gpu, what res are you running on your monitor?

 

I would highly suggest a SSD, they made things load so much faster. You will notice the biggest performance increase to pretty much any PC by adding and SSD.

The 2600k does have a 8mb L3 cache compared to the 6mb L3cache on the 2500k, there is a small performance increase on the 2600k, but whether its worth $100 is up to you. You could always stick that money into a aftermarket cooler (tbh i wouldn't leave home without one) and OC the cpu a bit to make up the difference.

 

Also just fyi, the x58 chipset is for a different socket of cpu's. The 25/600k uses the h67 chipset. Always check part compatibility before buying (anywhere, hardware shops will sell you an amd cpu with an intel mobo if they can. Check everything yourself).

 

EDIT

 

Also on OC'ing, theres not point getting a cpu with a 'k' tag on the end if you aren't going to do some serious overclocking, otherwise just get a normal one, save some cash and buy some chocolate or something. In computer hardware you WILL get 5million features on the top range products you'll never use (especially on a gaming focussed rig), make sure you only get what you need. (Like with the mobo, no point getting an SLI capable mobo with only 2 slots, as most gpu's won't fit tandam easily across 2 slots, and if they do something like a 570 will cause a meltdown inside your case. Its recommended for xfire and sli of powerful gpu's to have AT LEAST 1 slot, 2 is better, between them (that pretty much means monster mobo's)).

 

Realistically you'll only need one pcie slot, and just bump up to the next powerful single gpu when you need a boost. It will save alot of hassles (not least the other 570 burning your older card, driver issues, unoptimised games etc). A few other slots for expansions like sound cards are pretty standard, but I wouldn't consider dual gpu's on tandem slots without water cooling.

Edited April 22, 201115 yr by love guru

Yeh I've been looking at the benchmark comparisons for gaming and the difference between the i5 2500 and i7 2600 is usually around 2% in terms of FPS so I'm not tooooo fussed about it, maybe going for the 2500 and getting an SSD instead is the go.

 

However the SSD performance boost only really comes into effect if you install games onto that hardrive (I assume?), but given the low capacity I'd be installing all my games on a regular harddrive. I'm sure the boost in terms of OS speed would be nice but probably not that neccesary.

 

As for OC'ing, I dont usually do any major OC'ing, but i normally do a small amount just to squeeze abit out of it. for the extra 20-30 dollars I feel its worth going for a K so that in the future if I want to really OC it when the CPU is starting to lag behind the tech I still have that option. Aftermarket cooling is a good idea though, I should prob start with that from the get go.

 

EDIT: Resolution I run is 1920x1080

Edited April 22, 201115 yr by Jayden

You're pretty much right in terms of the SSD there Shadow.

 

You don't get an FPS boost out of games with an SSD, only loading times as the game can get the required files easier and quicker. ALTHOUGH this is good for things like Arma2 where it is constantly accessing the HDD and getting files (because it's so big). Another one like it is flight sims, loading all that terrain etc.

 

Having your OS and main programs on an SSD is probably the most noticeable improvement.