A better case or a better graphics card for my build?

[Deleted]

After putting my build together for a few weeks I have my last decision to make, a better G-card or a better case for my build.

Basically I am making a budget build for playing WoW, CSS, SC2 and league of legends, the Xigmatek Asgard has the features I want but the CM 690 II advanced just looks...gorgeous, mainly the difference here is I can either afford the nice Case *OR* a better graphics card, like a Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC 1024MB:

http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=42170

How would my system (with the 768 mb and 1024 mb g-cards respectively) stand up to top and upcoming titles like Black Ops, crysis 2 etc, ie is it worth putting a 1 gb g-card in an OCed i3 machine as is my CPU going to bottleneck the card?

The reason why I am asking these questions mainly is because I have an xbox 360 so if the performance of these top titles was not going to be very good I would just get those games for my 360 and get the cheaper g-card.

So what do you guys think and most importantly why?

Here is my build at the moment:

Gladiator Core i3 540 Pre-Built Overclocked Bundle
• Intel® Core™ i3-540 Overclocked @ 4.20GHz - Dual Core CPU
• 4GB Mushkin Silverline 1333MHz 9-9-9-24
• MSI H55M-ED55 Micro-ATX Motherboard
• Coolermaster Hyper TX3 CPU Cooler
• Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
• Pre-Assembled & Tested
• 1 Years Warranty

Xigmatek Asgard Black Edition+1 extra rear fan

Corsair TX Series 650W ATX2.2 SLI/Crossfire Compliant Power Supply

1TB Samsung HD103SJ SpinPoint F3 SATA-II 3.5" Hard Drive

Gigabyte GeForce GTX 460 OC 768MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card

Operating system:Windows 7 ultimate 64 bit OEM

Thanks

Einholt

[Deleted]

Spend the extra on the i5 2500k :-P

Not helpful i know, but I'm falling asleep.

Oh and you probably only need Win7 Home Premium 64bit.

[Deleted]

I have £40 left over on my build, that will not get me an i5 2500, and I am happy with the other components I have found and its just a toss up over the case or a g-card.

[TanAxys]

Well if that's the only case in the universe you like, the obviously it's what you have to get... cards are a dime a dozen so to speak, the 460 will suck next year anyway.

Personally I'd split the difference, ASUS makes a pretty hot 450 for $150ish http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121394 . My case of choice is the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811208037 for $50.

[Deleted]

Well if that's the only case in the universe you like, the obviously it's what you have to get... cards are a dime a dozen so to speak, the 460 will suck next year anyway.

Personally I'd split the difference, ASUS makes a pretty hot 450 for $150ish http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121394 . My case of choice is the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811208037 for $50.

Good advice actually

With a little browsing I came up with NZXT Lexa-S and with that I should be able to stretch to the 1024 mb card, not to mention that case is actually a hell of a lot more stylised than the Cm 690 II advanced.

Thanks

Einholt

[Deleted]

I have £40 left over on my build, that will not get me an i5 2500, and I am happy with the other components I have found and its just a toss up over the case or a g-card.

But you really probably don't need Win7 Ultimate. So you would have more money to spend on both GPU and Case.

[Deleted]

But you really probably don't need Win7 Ultimate. So you would have more money to spend on both GPU and Case.

The version of W7 I am getting is an £80 OEM version so no, I cannot save anything there.

[Fargom]

What resolution is the monitor you plan on gaming with? This is really the core question, as it will tell us how much of a difference you will see between the two versions of the 460 Nvidia card.

[Deleted]

What resolution is the monitor you plan on gaming with? This is really the core question, as it will tell us how much of a difference you will see between the two versions of the 460 Nvidia card.

No idea what resolution I will gaming with to be honest, my monitors native resolution at the moment is 1024x768, I am looking at 24" monitors but will not be getting it for a good while yet but when I do it will be an Acer V243HAObd 24" Widescreen, its native resolution is 1920 x 1080.

[Fargom]

If you have plans on using this machine with a 1920 x 1080 monitor at any point, then the 1g video card will be a HUGE improvement over the lower ram model. If it were at a smaller resolution it wouldn't make as large of a difference, but I couldn't really feel good about advising you to spend money on a better case instead of a better gfx card in this case.

[Moobious]

Well if that's the only case in the universe you like, the obviously it's what you have to get... cards are a dime a dozen so to speak, the 460 will suck next year anyway.

Personally I'd split the difference, ASUS makes a pretty hot 450 for $150ish http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121394 . My case of choice is the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16811208037 for $50.

I don't care how overclocked it is there is no gts 450 that is worth $150.
For $150 you can get a gtx460 and have an undeniably better card.

As far as cases go you get what you pay for. I'm personally a huge fan on the antec 300 but that has a lot to do with the case being over clocker friendly and having a fully functional dust filter that actually keeps dust out of the case.

[Deleted]

The version of W7 I am getting is an £80 OEM version so no, I cannot save anything there.

Which isn't Ultimate then. If it is tell me where I can get it for £80 so I can buy it :P