[Build Complete] My ~$1400 Gaming Build
And skip to the final picture if you want
My old system was a budget $600 build that I made with little experience (I can post pics of that too if you guys want, the cable management is horrifying). I scraped together enough for a Q8200/GTS 250 combo and over the years I upgraded it. I got myself a GTX 560 Ti and 2 WD Caviar Black HDDs for RAID 0.
So my goal with this build was to spend about $1000 on new parts and recycle my old 560 Ti and the new HDDs and the result was this bad boy:
PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant / Benchmarks
| Type | Item | Price |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor | $189.99 @ Microcenter |
| CPU Cooler | Noctua NH-C14 CPU Cooler | $84.99 @ NCIX US |
| Motherboard | ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard | $129.37 @ Newegg |
| Memory | Crucial Ballistix sport 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory | $46.99 @ Newegg |
| Video Card | Zotac GeForce GTX 560 Ti 1GB Video Card | $187.55 @ Newegg |
| Case | Cooler Master Storm Scout ATX Mid Tower Case | $68.99 @ SuperBiiz |
| Power Supply | Corsair 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply | $99.99 @ Newegg |
| Optical Drive | Sony AD-7280S-0B DVD/CD Writer | $17.99 @ Amazon |
| Operating System | Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) | $98.99 @ B&H |
| Other | Rosewill RCR-IC002 74-in-1 USB 2.0 3.5" Internal Card Reader | - |
| Other | Western Digital Caviar Black 7200RPM | - |
| Other | Western Digital Caviar Black 7200RPM | - |
| Other | EVGA GeForce GTX 560 Ti DS | - |
| Total | ||
| Prices include shipping and discounts when available. | $924.85 |
I ordered everything from Newegg except the CPU and Noctua Cooler. This turned out to be a bad idea as Amazon didn't actually have the cooler in stock. However, I canceled it and got everything from Newegg (and everything came in a day or two!!!). Moral of the story is that Newegg is amazing! So you'll see that I install the cooler and cpu last (I definitely would not have done that in hindsight, that thing is fucking massive).
I also highly recommend the Storm Scout. It's big, but not a huge Full-Tower case. The cable management is pretty great, and it's a solid, sturdy design with awesome handles on the top. It's also sexy (Red LEDs <3) and extremely quiet, coming from my old computer I can't believe this thing is turned on sometimes.
Anyway, thanks to Vinthian for the suggestion to go for Ivy Bridge and the ASRock mobo; madmax21st for suggesting the cooler and RAM; and Voytrekk for the PSU suggestion. r/BuildaPC is seriously awesome and I intend to remain active here!
Thanks, hope you guys enjoy the album!
Posted Jun 24, 2012, 1:07 AM UTC · edited