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Gaming Rig Build for Approx $1500 USD

dhutchin
By dhutchin
in New Builds and Planning
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So im am looking to build a gaming rig. This will be my first time putting together a build from scratch.

 

My budget is approximately $1500 USD. This is not a hard cap as i can afford to spend more this is just what I have allocated (approximately).

This is also excluding monitors and peripherals.

 

My work means that i currently live in the Caribbean, stuff down here tends to be pricey as such i will be ordering all parts from U.S suppliers and shipping them to ST. Thomas (us virgin islands) as it is a US territory this usually avoids the more hefty international shipping charges or to Atlanta. I travel to both frequently, st Thomas especially (1-2 times a week) so i can pick them up from there.

 

My build:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2Z0ef

 

I would appreciate suggestions/tips to make this go smoother etc and of course if there is any way to shave the cost down a bit without majorly sacrificing i would always love to hear about it.

 

-D

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go with a samsung 840 pro, it is cheaper than that intel. 

CM Storm Switch Tester MOD (In-Progress) - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/409147-cm-storm-switch-tester-macro-mod/


       Ammo Can Speaker 02 (Completed) - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/283826-ammo-can-speakers-02/       A/B Switch V 0.5 (Completed) - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/362417-ab-switch-v0


     Build 01 - The Life of a Prodigy -  http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/13103-build-01-the-life-of-a-prodigy/             Build 02 - Silent Server 3000 - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/116670-build-02-silent-server-3000/

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your just wasting money on a i7 and 16gb ram if its only for gaming use this EDIT i forgot to add the fans you wanted just add them in 
 

 
CPU:  Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler:  Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($97.16 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Microcenter) 
Memory:  Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($82.74 @ Amazon) 
Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($80.98 @ Newegg) 
Video Card:  EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card  ($489.99 @ NCIX US) 
Total: $1451.81
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 17:22 EST-0500)

Specs

CPU: i5 4670k i won the silicon lottery Cooler: Corsair H100i w/ 2x Corsair SP120 quiet editions Mobo: ASUS Z97 SABERTOOTH MARK 1 Ram: Corsair Platnums 16gb (4x4gb) Storage: Samsun 840 evo 256gb and random hard drives GPU: EVGA acx 2.0 gtx 980 PSU: Corsair RM 850w Case: Fractal Arc Midi R2 windowed 

 

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your just wasting money on a i7 and 16gb ram if its only for gaming use this 

 

 
CPU:  Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler:  Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($97.16 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Microcenter) 
Memory:  Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($82.74 @ Amazon) 
Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($80.98 @ Newegg) 
Video Card:  EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card  ($489.99 @ NCIX US) 
Total: $1451.81
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 17:22 EST-0500)

 

you forgot the fans he wanted  :D

CM Storm Switch Tester MOD (In-Progress) - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/409147-cm-storm-switch-tester-macro-mod/


       Ammo Can Speaker 02 (Completed) - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/283826-ammo-can-speakers-02/       A/B Switch V 0.5 (Completed) - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/362417-ab-switch-v0


     Build 01 - The Life of a Prodigy -  http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/13103-build-01-the-life-of-a-prodigy/             Build 02 - Silent Server 3000 - http://linustechtips.com/main/topic/116670-build-02-silent-server-3000/

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you forgot the fans he wanted  :D

oh well he has $50 to add them in :P 

Specs

CPU: i5 4670k i won the silicon lottery Cooler: Corsair H100i w/ 2x Corsair SP120 quiet editions Mobo: ASUS Z97 SABERTOOTH MARK 1 Ram: Corsair Platnums 16gb (4x4gb) Storage: Samsun 840 evo 256gb and random hard drives GPU: EVGA acx 2.0 gtx 980 PSU: Corsair RM 850w Case: Fractal Arc Midi R2 windowed 

 

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your just wasting money on a i7 and 16gb ram if its only for gaming use this 

 

 
CPU:  Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler:  Corsair H100i 77.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($97.16 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD4H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($159.99 @ Microcenter) 
Memory:  Kingston Beast 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($82.74 @ Amazon) 
Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 120GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($80.98 @ Newegg) 
Video Card:  EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB Video Card  ($489.99 @ NCIX US) 
Total: $1451.81
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 17:22 EST-0500)

 

 

Excellent, I agree with everything, except for perhaps the H100i. Maybe a Hyper 212 EVO or NH-D14? Might be able to buy an extra fan or two with the slight amount of money saved.

"M. Aronnax." replied the Canadian, "your arguments are rotten at the foundation. You speak in the future, 'We shall be there! we shall be here!' I speak in the present, 'We are here, and we must profit by it.'"

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Excellent, I agree with everything, except for perhaps the H100i. Maybe a Hyper 212 EVO or NH-D14? Might be able to buy an extra fan or two with the slight amount of money saved.

i went with the h100i because it was on his list so he likely wants it :P 

Specs

CPU: i5 4670k i won the silicon lottery Cooler: Corsair H100i w/ 2x Corsair SP120 quiet editions Mobo: ASUS Z97 SABERTOOTH MARK 1 Ram: Corsair Platnums 16gb (4x4gb) Storage: Samsun 840 evo 256gb and random hard drives GPU: EVGA acx 2.0 gtx 980 PSU: Corsair RM 850w Case: Fractal Arc Midi R2 windowed 

 

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Why the 4670K instead of the 4770K. I plan to overclock....is the difference really not that much when over clocked?

16gb of ram...why not?

 

I could see cutting down the wattage on the power supply for sure though, i just really took a wild guess on that one.

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This is WAAAAAY underbudget, but will perform just as well as the rest of the builds and look better (subjectively) than the others. 

 

Why the 4670K instead of the 4770K. I plan to overclock....is the difference really not that much when over clocked?

16gb of ram...why not?

 

I could see cutting down the wattage on the power supply for sure though, i just really took a wild guess on that one.

You don't need 16gb of ram for gaming or anything else other than intensive video and photo editing.

 

The OCd wattage is not that much more. Haswell is very efficient.  

 
 
CPU:  Intel Core i5-4670K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor  ($209.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler:  Phanteks PH-TC14PE_BK 78.1 CFM CPU Cooler  ($79.99 @ Newegg) 
Motherboard:  Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard  ($144.00 @ Amazon) 
Storage:  Samsung 840 EVO 250GB 2.5" Solid State Disk  ($155.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage:  Seagate Barracuda 3TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($101.99 @ NCIX US) 
Video Card:  Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 2GB Video Card  ($329.99 @ NCIX US) 
Case:  NZXT Phantom 530 (White) ATX Full Tower Case  ($99.99 @ Newegg) 
Operating System:  Microsoft Windows 8.1 (OEM) (64-bit)  ($89.99 @ NCIX US) 
Total: $1372.91
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-02-25 17:56 EST-0500)

Aesthetics of rigs matter

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Why the 4670K instead of the 4770K. I plan to overclock....is the difference really not that much when over clocked?

16gb of ram...why not?

 

I could see cutting down the wattage on the power supply for sure though, i just really took a wild guess on that one.

You won't see any noticeable differences in gaming performance between the 4770K and the 4670K. Unless you are going to be rendering video it's not necessary to spend $100 more on the 4770K. Also nothing nowadays uses 16gb of RAM so you could save another $70 and put the extra $170 that you save towards a nice GTX 780 which will give you ultra settings on about every game you play.  :)

AMD FX-8350   -   Gigabyte GA-990FX-UD3   -   ADATA XPG 8GB   -   Asus GTX 780   -   Fractal Design Define R4   -   Corsair CS650M


Kingston 120GB SSD and Seagate Barracuda 1TB   -   CM Storm QuickFire Rapid   -   Razer DeathAdder 2013

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You won't see any noticeable differences in gaming performance between the 4770K and the 4670K. Unless you are going to be rendering video it's not necessary to spend $100 more on the 4770K. Also nothing nowadays uses 16gb of RAM so you could save another $70 and put the extra $170 that you save towards a nice GTX 780 which will give you ultra settings on about every game you play.  :)

One of the games i play most is EQ2. I raid and what not in my spare time. Sadly, at the time EQ2 was made the trend was more Ghz and dual cores. They have since upgraded the the engine and while some stuff is off loaded to the GPU, EQ2 is by far one of the most CPU intensive games out there even today. I picked the 4770k because it has hyper threading. The eq2 engine has been upgraded to support hyper threading and as it is heavily CPU based this will net the most performance increase. Windows 8 will allow 2-3 cores to run the game, 1-2 cores to run everything else. The game despite being 10 years old RAPES my CPU running at like 80% capacity or more in raids. Makes loading/zone times wicked bad.

 

The reason i went with the 16 in 2x8gb sticks is for future consideration. If i need to upgrade there will always be an empty slot.

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One of the games i play most is EQ2. I raid and what not in my spare time. Sadly, at the time EQ2 was made the trend was more Ghz and dual cores. They have since upgraded the the engine and while some stuff is off loaded to the GPU, EQ2 is by far one of the most CPU intensive games out there even today. I picked the 4770k because it has hyper threading. The eq2 engine has been upgraded to support hyper threading and as it is heavily CPU based this will net the most performance increase. Windows 8 will allow 2-3 cores to run the game, 1-2 cores to run everything else. The game despite being 10 years old RAPES my CPU running at like 80% capacity or more in raids. Makes loading/zone times wicked bad.

 

The reason i went with the 16 in 2x8gb sticks is for future consideration. If i need to upgrade there will always be an empty slot.

I see. Makes a little more sense now.

AMD FX-8350   -   Gigabyte GA-990FX-UD3   -   ADATA XPG 8GB   -   Asus GTX 780   -   Fractal Design Define R4   -   Corsair CS650M


Kingston 120GB SSD and Seagate Barracuda 1TB   -   CM Storm QuickFire Rapid   -   Razer DeathAdder 2013

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i went with the h100i because it was on his list so he likely wants it :P

 

Ah, I see. Yeah, pretty small nit that I chose to pick.

"M. Aronnax." replied the Canadian, "your arguments are rotten at the foundation. You speak in the future, 'We shall be there! we shall be here!' I speak in the present, 'We are here, and we must profit by it.'"

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You won't see any noticeable differences in gaming performance between the 4770K and the 4670K. Unless you are going to be rendering video it's not necessary to spend $100 more on the 4770K. Also nothing nowadays uses 16gb of RAM so you could save another $70 and put the extra $170 that you save towards a nice GTX 780 which will give you ultra settings on about every game you play.  :)

 

Your post is slightly interesting - you're right in that the 4770K over the 4670K is only a good idea if doing video editing, but one would absolutely want 16 or even 32 gigs of RAM for the same reason. But yes, back on OP's specific case, there isn't much point at all to get more than 8 gigs.

"M. Aronnax." replied the Canadian, "your arguments are rotten at the foundation. You speak in the future, 'We shall be there! we shall be here!' I speak in the present, 'We are here, and we must profit by it.'"

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I went the the 4770k on my setup... As a game value it is only like a 10 percent increase or something like that.  As an anything else value it has the dual hyperthread.  If it is every used in future games I would like to have it instead of having to do the buying thing again.  Not saying that it will be but who knows.  16gigs I can also agree with.  Few years ago I recall everyone saying you would never use 8 gigs and here we are....

 Always nice to buy 2 matching 8gig sticks in a bundle that are meant to work together.  Looks like a good original build to me.  Pretty close to what I am running actually haha.  I didnt need  it but I may need it and I didnt want to need it and not have it.For the price of 170 why not.

 Also why would you get the 780 if you dont know what is around the corner just yet.  I think the 770 is a good value and well worth the price of waiting a little bit.  I personally got the 4 gig card cuz higher end monitors and multiple monitors use more vram...  Yes I know it isn't fast enough to use all the vram faster doesnt mean it is useless...   I dont know if I will keep it and go sli or upgrade but I know I got the choice and didnt have to spend 800 dollars (canadian)

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I plan to build this rig over the course of 3 months as its not time critical. In addition to my salary i get paid a monthly food/overnight incidental allowance of about 800 - 900 USD a month cash and untaxed. Thanks to an awesome union and a really great contract the company then turns around and pays directly for all our food and expenses in the hotel. Translation, incidental  allowance = my "just for me because why not spoil my self" budget.

 

So i am gonna take 500ish/per month out of that for the rig. The prices seem to go up and down on some of the components (the cpu was on special for $290 when i first priced the build for example) and some of the suppliers run combo deals too on some of the items. I plan to order the parts when the prices are favorable what ever is left over ill spend on beer...because....BEER!.

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Yeah, my stuff was all in canadian funds... So 1500 didnt go to far.  349 for the processor and 249 for my board.  Still not done but I spent what I saved and now I am going to start adding components.  It is fun to have a decent rig.

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