Gaming Rig for under $2000 USD

[alexrajohnson]

Hello! It's been a while since I've had a desktop, with my job requiring me to move around a lot. I've finally settled for the time being in Mumbai, India and want to build my own gaming rig. I'm very new to the scene and would appreciate any advice or assistance!

• Budget: 1500-2000 USD
  
• Resolution: 1920x1080 (But curious about the possibility of using something with a higher resolution, 2560X1600 maybe?)
  
• Games / Settings Desired: With Rome 2 coming out I want to be able to play it on max settings, and bask in all of it's glory.
  
• Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc): I do a lot of video editing with my GoPro Hero 3, and kinetic typography movies for companies while also a lot of design work (Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects).
  
• Country: India (where I currently live, hoping to find some excellent price matching to US standards)
  
• Parts that can be reused: I have none currently
  
• Do you need an OS?: No
  
• Do you need peripherals (e.g. monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers, etc)?: No

I've done some basic price checking through an online retailer here in India (TheITDepot.com) but I have also heard that I can find better deals on parts from some of the IT markets in the downtown area. I was planning to get part suggestions and meet with a retailer and attempt to haggle my way to a steal of a deal.

Again, any help is greatly appreciated!

- - - Updated - - -

I have tried to put together something, would love to hear feedback:

• Asus 24x Sata Internal DVD Writer (DRW-24D3ST)

• Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA Internal Desktop Hard Drive (ST1000DM003)Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM SATA Internal Desktop Hard Drive (ST1000DM003)

• Asus M5A97LE-R2.0 32GB DDR3 AMD MotherboardAsus M5A97LE-R2.0 32GB DDR3 AMD Motherboard

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• G.skill Ripjaws X 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3 1866MHz Desktop RAM (F3-14900CL10S-8GBXL)G.skill Ripjaws X 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3 1866MHz Desktop RAM (F3-14900CL10S-8GBXL)

• Seasonic G Series 650W 80 Plus Gold Certified Power Supply (SSR-650RM)Seasonic G Series 650W 80 Plus Gold Certified Power Supply (SSR-650RM)

• Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (MZ-7PD128BW)Samsung 840 Pro Series 128GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (MZ-7PD128BW)

• Corsair Vengeance C70 Mid-Tower Gaming Case - Gunmetal BlackCorsair Vengeance C70 Mid-Tower Gaming Case - Gunmetal Black

• AMD FX-Series FX 8350 8-Core 4.0 - 4.2 Ghz ProcessorAMD FX-Series FX 8350 8-Core 4.0 - 4.2 Ghz Processor

• Sapphire Radeon HD7950 3GB DDR5 With Boost Edition ATI PCI E Graphic CardSapphire Radeon HD7950 3GB DDR5 With Boost Edition ATI PCI E Graphic Card

[alexrajohnson]

Thanks for the reply! And big thanks for taking the time to actually look through the website I'm using to get some of these purchases.

I would also like to hear people's opinions on whether or not I should get the 16GB RAM immediately or if the 8 will do for now. I won't argue that cutting down on my render times would be fantastic, I'm just curious to know how much of a difference that'll make. As for the processor, would you think the i7 is better for gaming or just for the video and graphics work? How do the two CPUs compare in terms of benchmarks?

[Fluorescent0]

i am here to learn, the i7, 840 Pro and 16 GB of ram are justified by all of the editing work, yes/no?

The pro SSD only makes a difference if you're actually saving your work on that. On a 128GB drive, I can see that space being completely filled by normal applications and OS, therefore it won't actually provide any benefit.
In your build you also missed a CPU cooler, necessary for overclocking, especially Haswell.

Thanks for the reply! And big thanks for taking the time to actually look through the website I'm using to get some of these purchases.

I would also like to hear people's opinions on whether or not I should get the 16GB RAM immediately or if the 8 will do for now. I won't argue that cutting down on my render times would be fantastic, I'm just curious to know how much of a difference that'll make. As for the processor, would you think the i7 is better for gaming or just for the video and graphics work? How do the two CPUs compare in terms of benchmarks?

The i7 only gives a performance increase for your video and graphics work. You can be fine with 8 GB RAM, but if the work you do is pretty intense 16 GB will definitely help.

i5-4670k if you don't feel the extra cost is worth the increased performance (~20%) on your editing work. ₹16222 (-₹7030)

Non-pro 840, explained above. ₹6696 (-₹2344)

Corsair H100i as a CPU cooler, to allow you to overclock your CPU and get more performance out of it. ₹8103 (+₹8103)

G. Skill Sniper RAM 8GB if you decide to go for 16GB later. ₹5505 (-₹4031)

Asus Z87-A really has all the features you need from a motherboard and is far cheaper. ₹13750 (-₹4790)

[Deleted]

As mentioned if the 15-20% extra performance is something you prefer go for the i7. For gaming the i5 is just as god as the i7.

Seriously look for a ~250GB SSD, you will thank me later, it's much less micromanaging of files, 840 pro comes with 5 year warranty and much better writes, if you can take advantage of that go for it otherwise the non-pro is perfectly fine.

Stick with the original (650W) PSU only if you think you'll add a second GPU (SLI) later on.

I agree with the other changes to motherboard (Z87-A), RAM (Sniper), heatsink (H100i) and GPU (770). Hell even a GTX 760 would be fine if you needed to save some money and if you stick with 1080p, still an option to add a second card then if you went with higher resolution.

Higher resolution is nice but expensive. 1440p is around $550+ in the US and 1600p is $950+ unless you buy some Korean model off of Ebay.