My first build. Experts need your help

[Deleted]

Hey,

Long time reader and first time poster. I love these forums so Ive finally decided to join the community and revive my WoW account but my PC can't really handle games that well so I need your help with building a new one.

I've read plenty of guides but need your final advice:

Case: Asus TA-8G1 Midi Tower Case with No PSU - Black/Silver
CPU: Intel i3-2100 Sandybridge Quad-Core Processor 3.10GHz, 3MB Cache
Motherboard: Asus P8H67-M PRO New B3 Rev Motherboard
Graphics: XFX Radeon HD 5870 - PCI Express 2.1 x16 - 1 GB GDDR5
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAII 16MB Cache
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-430CX 430W Power Supply
Drive: LG 22x SATA DVDRW

Monitor: Asus 24-inch VH242H Wide Gaming LCD TFT Monitor at 1920*1080

Games I'm interested in playing: Black ops, Bad Company 2, Crysis 2, RIFT, Guild Wars, Starcraft, Diablo and Cataclysm obviously.

Please help me out! Budget is around £600 = $950

[Fuzzykins]

Sorry your post got ignored!
I'd use this to get you started.
http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...pot-quot-Build

[Chickensoup23]

...Budget is around £600 = $950

Your build looks very good, it's a budget build that will run everything on max without a problem! The only thing I have to say is that you should get a newer graphics card, as the 5870 is last generation and new cards came out with better price/performance ratio.

For your budget, I'd recommend the XFX HD 6870. It's the new generation, it's slightly less powerful than the one you asked, but it's newer, more future proof, consumes much less power, and is much, much cheaper. Physically, it looks almost the same as the 5870. XFX is a very good brand for AMD cards.

The only last thing I would do is bump the power supply to the same thing, but the 500 watts version. I'd say that while you'd be OK, 430 watts is playing with fire. On these forums, people tend to forget the few extras one might need with his computer (such as keyboard, spare pieces, monitors, etc), so play it safe and don't go on the very edge of your budget. With the parts, I listed (and that others might even second, if forums are kind tonight!), you should have that kind of room while having a setup that will last you a good 2-3 years to run pretty much every mainstream game on max.

It's a very nice setup, best of lucks! If anything, feel free to message me or anything

Chicken

[Biernot]

Hey,

Long time reader and first time poster. I love these forums so Ive finally decided to join the community and revive my WoW account but my PC can't really handle games that well so I need your help with building a new one.

I've read plenty of guides but need your final advice:

Case: Asus TA-8G1 Midi Tower Case with No PSU - Black/Silver
CPU: Intel i3-2100 Sandybridge Quad-Core Processor 3.10GHz, 3MB Cache
Motherboard: Asus P8H67-M PRO New B3 Rev Motherboard
Graphics: XFX Radeon HD 5870 - PCI Express 2.1 x16 - 1 GB GDDR5
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB SATAII 16MB Cache
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-430CX 430W Power Supply
Drive: LG 22x SATA DVDRW

Monitor: Asus 24-inch VH242H Wide Gaming LCD TFT Monitor at 1920*1080

Games I'm interested in playing: Black ops, Bad Company 2, Crysis 2, RIFT, Guild Wars, Starcraft, Diablo and Cataclysm obviously.

Please help me out! Budget is around £600 = $950

With this video card i would STRONGLY suggest a psu of 500W or more.
Other than that, the parts look pretty good. The 5870 is still a very good card and slightly faster than a 6950. Check the prices which one is cheaper.

[Chickensoup23]

With this video card i would STRONGLY suggest a psu of 500W or more.
Other than that, the parts look pretty good. The 5870 is still a very good card and slightly faster than a 6950. Check the prices which one is cheaper.

He's correct. The 6870 I suggested will definitely work with a 500W, as it consumes much less power than his big brother! Also, the Corsair PSU given is 80+ and will easily give 500 full watts, as reviews and benchmarks proven. It's an amazing PSU that shouldn't be underestimated.

It will power his setup withtout a problem!

[Deleted]

Can I just say how much I love you guys! So warm and welcoming!

Ok than I'll bump the PSU, change the GFX card and start installing!

Do you think I'll encounter any problems running future releases this year such as MW3 and Skyrim? I dont expect miracles just smooth 30fps at med-high

Edit: Oh yeah!! could I turn this PC into a Hackintosh? The iMacs are overpriced and underpowered... And would there be room for a Wi-Fi card on that motherboard?

[hmmlol]

Why not swap the i3 for an i5 2400 it's around the same price
Also change the motherboard for the p8p67 LE

[Asmekiel]

Why not swap the i3 for an i5 2400 it's around the same price
Also change the motherboard for the p8p67 LE

No, it's not. i3 2100 = €94, i5 2400 = €149
I don't see how a €55 difference is "around the same price"

[Drunkenvalley]

No, it's not. i3 2100 = €94, i5 2400 = €149
I don't see how a €55 difference is "around the same price"

More importantly how can "around the same price" be said when one product costs over 50% more?

[kailtas]

You seem to have chosen a Micro-ATX mobo for an ATX case. Im sure the ATX case will fit a Micro-ATX Mobo. But a standard ATX Mobo got more PCI-E slots and Sata2/3 slots.

You should bump your HDD up. From your caviar blue 16MB chace to a Caviar Black 750GB 64MB chace. The caviar black is noticably faster.

[Skelly]

You should bump your HDD up. From your caviar blue 16MB chace to a Caviar Black 750GB 64MB chace. The caviar black is noticably faster.

The black is almost always the better choice. Black is WD's speedy drive, the Green slower and is for storage, the blue is in the middle and I really don't understand why it needs to exist

[Drunkenvalley]

The black is almost always the better choice. Black is WD's speedy drive, the Green slower and is for storage, the blue is in the middle and I really don't understand why it needs to exist

5400 RPM is 'storage', 7200 is 'frequently used applications' and 10,000 RPM is sort of Superman. He just kinda does everything better.

So for budget people, average Joe aka Caviar Blue should be perfect. Theoretically.

[Deleted]

5400 RPM is 'storage', 7200 is 'frequently used applications' and 10,000 RPM is sort of Superman. He just kinda does everything better.

So for budget people, average Joe aka Caviar Blue should be perfect. Theoretically.

Blues are fine if you're not incredibly impatient, that said I'll be cloning my Os drive to an SSD later this year.....

[Jahlove]

Some people have already mentioned it but I'd really go with a better PSU. It leaves you room to upgrade in the future if you upgrade parts to something that's more demanding. I recently built a new rig and this is what I'm running with:

Case: Cooler Master Storm Scout
CPU: Intel i5-2500k Sandybridge Quad-Core Processor 3.30GHz, 6MB Cache
Motherboard: Asus Sabretooth p67
GPU: Nvidia Geforce GTX 550ti 1024mb gddr5 pci-e
HDD: 2 old HDD's both WD Caviar blue's about 300 gigs each
PSU: Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750-watt TX series 80 plus certified
Cooling: Antec Kuhler H20 620 CPU Cooler
Ram: 4x2gb corsair dual channel DDR3 memory for Intel Core i5

The nice thing about that case was that I was able to mount some extra fans on the side for negative airflow. I was able to OC the processor to 4.8 with a 100 multi and it runs very stable. After stress testing for 10 hours my CPU cores never went above 50C and GPU never above 60c. In WoW I get around 100+ fps idle and always above 60 in raiding.

I spent around 950$ US in this build.

[Deleted]

Seems you have gotten all the help you need! Just wanted to say good luck and congrats on your new computer :-)

For reference, I settled with WD Caviar Blues myself and I'm happy. Sure, they aren't lightning fast, but they still do the job well. For a budget-PC, they are great.

[DarkBlade6]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Something ive build recently for a friend, may give you a fairly good idea of a low budget gamer rig, minus the monitor.
And you could remove the Heatsink , but in my opinion, I really hate it when i see high temps on my CPU, especially during summer!

[Drunkenvalley]

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Something ive build recently for a friend, may give you a fairly good idea of a low budget gamer rig, minus the monitor.
And you could remove the Heatsink , but in my opinion, I really hate it when i see high temps on my CPU, especially during summer!

I would have...
a. Gotten Samsung Spinpoint F3 instead unless it was more expensive.
b. Picked up Corsair TX 650w if it's not a major price jump. :P

But really, that's more a "durr, i has opinions" statement tho.

[BicycleMafioso]

I would have...
a. Gotten Samsung Spinpoint F3 instead unless it was more expensive.
b. Picked up Corsair TX 650w if it's not a major price jump. :P

But really, that's more a "durr, i has opinions" statement tho.

Well. 500w should be overkill enough already.

[DarkBlade6]

meh the Spinpoint is like 50$ but has 32mb cache I prefer to pay 13$ for an extra 32mb!
Oh yea and the 650TXV2 cost 35$ more dollar than the CX500 ... and its also totally overkill for a single 6870 +65W TDP CPU.

[Drunkenvalley]

meh the Spinpoint is like 50$ but has 32mb cache I prefer to pay 13$ for an extra 32mb!
Oh yea and the 650TXV2 cost 35$ more dollar than the CX500 ... and its also totally overkill for a single 6870 +65W TDP CPU.

True. /10char