Personal computing discussed

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BiWinning
Gerbil In Training
Topic Author
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:29 am

< $1500 system

Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:10 am

Hi everyone,

This is my first time building a system and I'm trying to keep my budget under $1500. I mostly want to gear it towards gaming and music. Here's my parts list so far, let me know what you guys think!

Case: Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811139005
$170

Power supply:Antec NEO ECO 620C 620W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817371031
$60

CPU: AMD FX-6100 Zambezi 3.3GHz Socket AM3+ 95W Six-Core Desktop Processor FD6100WMGUSBX
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103962
$150

CPU cooler:COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 1366/1155 and AMD FM1/AM3+
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835103099
$40

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990XA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990X SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813128510
$140

GPU:EVGA 01G-P3-1556-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) FPB 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814130625
$135

Hard drive: Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKX 500GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6822136769
$90

Memory: CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M2A1600C9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820233144
$50

Monitor:HANNspree By Hanns-G HF225DPB Black 21.5" 5ms Full HD WideScreen LCD Monitor w/Speakers 250 cd/m2 X-Contrast 30,000:1 (1000:1)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6824262011
$120

Disk drive:SAMSUNG Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Combo Model SH-B123L LightScribe Support - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6827151222
$58

Media drive:Rosewill RCR-IC001 40-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader w/ USB Port / Extra Silver Face Plate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6820223103
$15

Sound card: ASUS Xonar Essence STX Virtual 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Express x1 Interface 124 dB SNR / Headphone AMP Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132010
$180

Mouse/keyboard: Logitech MK120 Black USB Wired Slim Desktop
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6823126097
$21

OS:Microsoft Windows 7 Professional SP1 64-bit - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6832116992
$140

Total with shipping and tax: ~$1520

I'd maybe like to shave off $100-$200 if possible to give myself a little more room for getting some nice headphones to go along with the sound card. It seems like the easiest place to do that would be the chassis, but it's such a good looking case :)

If anyone has any suggestions or recommendations, I'd really appreciate it! Thanks!
 
Skullzer
Gerbil First Class
Posts: 125
Joined: Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:45 pm

Re: < $1500 system

Sun Jan 22, 2012 2:37 am

Hi there and welcome!

Looks like a pretty decent build. When you say you want it for gaming and music, do you mean music production or music consumption? Also, are you planning on OC'ing your CPU? You could probably shave some money off by getting a cheaper case, however the case you have chosen is very nice. I have the Cooler Master Hyper 212+, it's very quiet and the if you're not going to OC you could save $10-$20 right there. Another thing to mention that really helped me with my build was to make sure to look for combo deals on newegg, that's another easy way to save money too. Sorry I don't have any examples but I'm sure there are deals with your CPU/MOBO, or CPU/Ram, etc. In fact there was a combo deal linked to the CPU you picked out with similar components. http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDeal ... mbo.791301. The deal ends tomorrow but it may be worth a look. If you are planning on doing music production then I would choose a sound card that is meant for that.
Office PC:
AMD Phenom II x4 955 | ASUS M4A87TD Evo | 8GB ddr3 | EVGA GTX 970 4GB | Antec BP 550 | Antec 300 | Win 7 64
HTPC:
Intel i5-4570 | ASRock H87M | 8GB ddr3 | EVGA GTX 960 2GB | Corsair CX430M | Fractal Design Node 605 | Win 7 64
 
Arclight
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 768
Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:50 am

Re: < $1500 system

Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:50 am

No for the case (you don't NEED it since you are not water cooling and that case is average at best with air cooling)
No for the PSU (buy Corsair, Seasonic, XFX, Pwer&Cooling, BeQuiet instead of Antec....)
No for the CPU (consequently motherboard)
No for the video card ($1500 budget for a gaming build and that's the video card you pick?GTX 550 ti?)
No to the monitor (5ms GTG isn't exactly gaming monitor)
No to the sound card, i get it you will listen music but there are far less expensive ones that would be more than adequate. But if you are an audiophile more than a gamer i'd get buying such an expensive sound card.

Here are my suggestions if you really want to make a gaming rig:

1. Case
For air cooling
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811112319
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811112247
For water cooling:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119233
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6811119216

2.PSU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817151096

3.CPU
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819115074

4.CPU cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6835103065

5.Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813131773

6. Video card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814150549

7. RAM QVL
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... X%28XMP%29

Sound card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132006
Last edited by Arclight on Sun Jan 22, 2012 5:50 am, edited 3 times in total.
nVidia video drivers FAIL, click for more info
Disclaimer: All answers and suggestions are provided by an enthusiastic amateur and are therefore without warranty either explicit or implicit. Basically you use my suggestions at your own risk.
 
yogibbear
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 920
Joined: Fri Feb 08, 2008 11:30 am

Re: < $1500 system

Sun Jan 22, 2012 4:57 am

Get this case, if you want a white one:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... r3%20white

Saves you $70.

Is still a damn awesome case.

Get a sandy bridge CPU (i5 2500 or i7 2600) and then a 6870 or a 560 GPU. 550 ti = will have to upgrade to play any game that comes out in 2012.

No waaaaay your build is that bad for $1500...

Asus Xonar DX is the TR highlight. (I haven't tried one myself).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductLi ... dx&x=0&y=0

Saves you another $100.

This PSU: Corsair 650W Modular

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139012
Core i7 4770K | eVGA GTX1080 FTW ACX 3.0 | 16GB DDR3 2133mhz | Asus Z87-PLUS | Corsair HX650 | Fractal Define R4 | Samsung 840 Pro 256GB | Windows 10 x64
 
Jason181
Gerbil First Class
Posts: 186
Joined: Thu May 19, 2005 7:23 pm
Location: Oregon

Re: < $1500 system

Sun Jan 22, 2012 6:09 am

Hey, nice looking build. I hope you enjoy it immensely. Here's a few areas where you might save a buck/rebalance your system for gaming (and not at the expense of music consumption).

You might consider this sound card, which is about $100 less ($118 less after rebate if you have faith in such things):
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829132006
If you're only going to hook headphones up to it, I don't think you'll miss much. It does have a little lower SNR though, so if you're a hardcore audiophile that is something to consider.

The cpu you have listed isn't necessarily the best choice for gaming because of its lower clockspeed. Most games use at most four cores, so six is kind of overkill. Here is a combo deal that together costs $10 less than the components you have listed (at the expense of your very nice case choice, unfortunately) that would suit your needs significantly better and if you have any inclination to overclock, would provide quite a hefty boost in pretty much all applications:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBund ... mbo.770956

If you want to stick with AMD, I'd recommend a Phenom II X4 black edition (if you plan on overclocking), and if you're buying a separate cooler anyway, you may as well go OEM on the processor to save a few bucks. This one looks pretty good:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6819103924

If you can shave some costs elsewhere, I'd highly recommend you invest in a little more gpu power, though others can probably give you a more informed opinion on which one.

Even sticking with the build you listed, you'll probably be happy. Exploring other options might give you more bang for your buck (especially on the gaming front).

Good luck sir!
 
BiWinning
Gerbil In Training
Topic Author
Posts: 2
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:29 am

Re: < $1500 system

Sun Jan 22, 2012 5:24 pm

Thanks for all of the suggestions so far!

I would like to occasionally use this for music recording. Since ASUS Xonar DX 7.1 doesn't have a microphone input, I might want to go for something else.
I'm an engineer and occasionally do some computationally intensive programming. I'm a little partial to Nvidia for CUDA C in case I want to do any GPU computing.
@ Arclight: Would this 2GB GTX 560 be comparable to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814127608
And what would you recommend for the monitor?

Thanks for suggesting the combos, skullzer! I liked the one you posted, I found another one that interested me as well that seems pretty similar but is Intel/Nvidia for the cpu and gpu.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBund ... mbo.791301
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBund ... mbo.770956
What do you guys think about getting one of these combos along with the extras from my original list? I think I'm leaning more towards the 2nd one with the intel/nvidia setup.

Thanks again everyone!
 
Arclight
Gerbil Elite
Posts: 768
Joined: Tue Feb 01, 2011 3:50 am

Re: < $1500 system

Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:35 am

BiWinning wrote:
Thanks for all of the suggestions so far!

I would like to occasionally use this for music recording. Since ASUS Xonar DX 7.1 doesn't have a microphone input, I might want to go for something else.
I'm an engineer and occasionally do some computationally intensive programming. I'm a little partial to Nvidia for CUDA C in case I want to do any GPU computing.
@ Arclight: Would this 2GB GTX 560 be comparable to the Radeon HD 6950 2GB?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6814127608
And what would you recommend for the monitor?

[...]


The GTX 560 Ti is considered a match for the 6950 1 Gb, but the 2 Gb version is considered a bit better for gaming since it can be unlocked into a 6970.

If you need CUDA, then yes buy the the GTX 560 Ti 2 Gb. I only want to warn you that i heard horror stories regarding the Twin Forzr cooler. I heard that it doesn't cover the VRMs and there have been some cases of cards being damaged because of this. If i'm wrong, someone please correct me.
nVidia video drivers FAIL, click for more info
Disclaimer: All answers and suggestions are provided by an enthusiastic amateur and are therefore without warranty either explicit or implicit. Basically you use my suggestions at your own risk.

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