BleepingComputer.com: Gaming PC Build

Hi everyone,

I'm a long time reader and new poster here. I've finally decided to build my own computer. I'm looking to use this mainly for gaming and some video editing now and then. After a couple of days of research, here is what I've come up with:

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840 (with additional 120 mm fans)
MOBO: Asus P6T
CPU: Intel i7-930 2.8 GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
PSU: Corsair 850TX 850 Watt
RAM: Corsair XMS3 6 GB (3x2) DDR3 1333 MHz
Video: ATI Radeon HD 5970
Audio: Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium
Drive: Samsung SH-S223 22x DVD-W
HDD #1: WD VelociRaptor 300 GB 10000 RPM
HDD #2: WD Black Caviar 2 TB SATA 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

After reading numerous reviews and comparisons and watching several videos, I think I'm pretty confident in this setup. The main thing I'm not sure about is the motherboard. I'd like to know if that's a good motherboard for my needs and if there are comparably priced motherboards out there that would be better for me. I'll be looking to OC as well, but not right from the start. I'd be thankful for suggestions on the rest of the components as well.

Thanks for your time and help.

Ditch the soundcard and roll the extra into a http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16813131614 .

You might consider a Blu-ray as well as a DVD drive.

Looks like a solid build.

EDIT: Be sure to get 1600 speed RAM as that will get you to 4GHZ without slowing down the RAM unnecessarily via dividers.

This post has been edited by dpunisher: 08 April 2010 - 11:44 PM

Yeah, the P6X58D was one that I saw being talked about a lot, but I didn't know what advantages exactly it would have over the P6T. I'll take that into consideration. Sound isn't really that big of a deal for me anyway.

Will the 850 Watt power be enough when I upgrade things (like doing Crossfire)?

Thanks for your input.

You also don't need a sound card as all motherboards have on-board audio and you need good speakers/headphones to tell the difference. There are other brands of sound cards besides X-Fi that come without the Creative taint attached. That CPU is good, but most games today are more bound to the GPU, so the CPU doesn't have to be screaming fast. Therefore, you could go with one of the AMD Phenom II X4 965's, save money, get an easier-to-overclock CPU, and get near the same performance in many applications as the i7 930. Two 5850's, which is what a 5970 basically is, will probably be more cost-effective. Two dual-GPU cards, which is what the 5970 is, have almost no performance gain as most games are designed to run with Crossfire/SLI using two GPU's. The more GPU's you add, the less performance benefit you receive. You could probably replace the 300GB drive with an SSD for better performance if your budget allows. You could get a Blu-Ray burner in place of the DVD drive, since having a BD-ROM drive along with a standard DVD burner may cost about the same. As for the power supply, if you're going to be running two very high end cards, 850W should be enough. Corsair makes excellent power supplies. Echoing dpunisher, if you're overclocking, get faster RAM.

I didn't even think about that. $300 is quite a lot to save on the 5850. I'll even hold off on the Crossfire until I feel I need to.

As for the hard drives, would there be a noticeable difference in keeping system and game files on the VelociRaptor or would the 7200 RPM be pretty close to it? That would save me a good 200 bucks if it's not sacrificing too much in performance.

This post has been edited by ItsThat: 09 April 2010 - 09:46 PM

5850 is the sweet spot for performance/price right now. Depending on your monitor size, it is enough for everything out there (except Crysis at max settings).

As far as hard drives, the new Velociraptors (450 and 600) are quick, but when you start to figure in the price/noise/heat it starts to make sense going with an SSD main drive and a 7200 RPM drive for storage. That being said, I am not a big fan of SSDs just yet. I am content with my 1TB WD Blacks. Fast enough for me, and comparatively cheap.

That Corsair 850 is more than enough for your needs. I had an older 550VX pushing my i7920/EX58-UD4P with crossfired 4870s for a few months till I got a 750HX and relegated the 550 to HTPC duty. That 550 never skipped a beat.

If I was building a new rig, it would follow your build pretty closely at this point. I need a Microcenter near me so I could pick up a $199 i7930. Those new 930s are just overclocking like mad.

This post has been edited by dpunisher: 10 April 2010 - 04:32 AM

dpunisher, on Apr 9 2010, 12:41 AM, said:

Keep in mind that Blu-Ray players can play standard DVDs just fine. It's the Blu-Ray writers that cost a pretty penny.

This is excellent. Those changes put me almost exactly at my planned budget. Just a few more potentially stupid questions:

1. What is the difference between these two 5850's?
XFX Radeon HD 5850
XFX Radeon HD 5850 (Black Edition)

2. What's a good internal media card reader. I can't seem to find any reviews of internal ones.

3. What is a good wireless card to use?


So here is my updated build. I'll probably start ordering things in the upcoming week.

Case: Cooler Master ATCS 840
MOBO: Asus P6X58D
CPU: Intel i7-930 2.8 GHz
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus
Fans: Scythe 120 mm fan
PSU: Corsair 850TX 850 Watt
RAM: Corsair Dominator 6 GB DDR3 1600 MHz
Video: ATI Radeon HD 5850 Black Edition
Drive: ASUS DVD Burner
HDD #1: WD VelociRaptor 300 GB 10000 RPM
HDD #2: WD Black Caviar 2 TB 7200 RPM
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

Thanks for everyone's help.

This post has been edited by ItsThat: 10 April 2010 - 12:31 PM

Venek, on Apr 10 2010, 08:47 AM, said:

Absolutely.

I believe in redundancy though. I will use that cheap $25 DVD burner to play/record my CD/DVDs and save the $75-90 Blu-ray drive for Blu-ray playback/ripping.

this is the card reader i have in my pc now and works amazingly...reads everything and reads them fast!!!! i highly recommend this one



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx...N82E16820223108

Blu-Ray burners are very useful for burning high-def, preferably 1080p movies, and watching them on a TV. Aside from that, they are excellent at backing up since they hold over 40GB and news reports indicate that 100GB drives are on the horizon. There are Blu-Ray drives that will read BD-ROMs but not write to them while still allowing for other recordable media to be burned. Standard DVD drives are cheap with BD-only drives that can burn DVD's being $100 or so with recordable Blu-Ray's at about $50 or so more. I did notice something about your case, although cases are expensive to ship, yours qualifies for super saver shipping, however, it will take a long time for it to arrive. The AZZA Solano 1000 is less expensive and also has free shipping. Though it is far more expensive, my favorite case is still the COOLER MASTER COSMOS 1000 RC-1000-KSN1-GP. There are some differences between those GPU's, mainly one is in stock and the other isn't. The Black Edition is slightly overclocked. When it comes to wireless networking, I usually stay away from Netgear due to drivers, but I like D-Link and Linksys. You could try these two cards: D-Link DWA-556 or Linksys WMP600N. The D-Link one is PCI-Express X1. Also, if you want to save some money, you could get the ASRock X58 Deluxe3 motherboard. It uses the exact same chipset, X58, as the Asus and both allow for full X16 speeds using two GPU's.