Help Building New Gaming PC

So I never built my own pc before and would like some pointers. I would like to build a pc that can run BF3 on w/e setting i throw at it and still run above 60frames(min) and handle 100+frames average... I will be getting a 1080P 120hz monitor (Maybe 2 or 3 >.> most likely 1. anyways my main problem is whether to go AMD Phenom2 or Intel I7... anyways any pointers on the core components would be great. price isn't too important but would really like to get away with 1500ish.

also the mouse,keyboard,monitor you don't have to worry about. and i think i going with this case

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021

save money go i5 and O.C, get a nice aftermarket cpu cooler if you can.

would help if you threw out a budget or something that your looking for.


for graphics cards depending on how much your willing to spend (300ish will get you a top notch card to last you)



Radeon HD 7950 3,795 339.99*
GeForce GTX 570 3,631 279.99*
Radeon HD 7870 3,430 289.99*
GeForce GTX 560 Ti 2,993 209.99*


all of those cards are positioned in order of benchmark (middle number) and their general price. all of those cards will probably handle anything you throw at it with ease.

edit- i know technically i said "top notch" but these aren't the best. the best you are going to need to spend 400~500. so i didn't list those.

edit2- I'm apparently half asleep and didn't see you listed a budget lol.


if you do pick one of the 7000 series Radeon cards make sure you have a PCI-E 3.0 mobo.

was hoping just for the pc itself being around $1500

k brb building you one for kicks on newegg rq.

(tbh i'm just building what i wish i had picked out, my first build was a 600$ budget build :/ )

Ya lol 1500 was the (I don't want to have to upgrade for a few years but still play games on high settings) price xD

i have a cart at newew=gg around 1500 (not all items in it) but idk if all the parts work well together...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130771
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233246
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813138346
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116492

the CPU i can easily downgrade to the $299ish one but didn't know if i should

CPU is way overkill
could get a I5 and still have no issues on the cpu side.
With the money you save you could get a better mobo in the LGA 1155 platform.

k so just got done building (imo) a pretty decent build. theres a few things we can change if you want to save even more money but this is pretty solid and everything you need. total comes to $1,550.85 w/ free shipping on everything. would also like to add that i did this build in 20mins so i didn't put time in to look for even better deals. free feel to just use this as a base for your own build (you do not have to order the exact same thing) oh it'll prob be a bit less i guess forgot some of the things have promo codes.

heres teh list.

(spoilering for length)

i'm sure you guys noticed i like corsair :< lol.

but i think that case is sex either way :Q. if i had 1500 i would totally build something similar to this lol.

Your 2nd HDD doubled as a power supply? WANT. (jk, just wondering what you really got o_O?)

oh gdi, fixing :( sec

edit- fixed.

edit-2 forgot the thermal paste >.>; adding now. (i had it already in the cart, just forgot to add to the list lol, so it's already included in the 1,550.85 price)

Lol so much stuff. gonna have to look and make a cart tomorrow. so tired now xD TY btw Ghaleon!

yea np, gonna try and sleep now aswell lol.

feel free to send a pm if you have anymore questions tomorrow or whenever you want to order.

kk most likely will.

I'm running a pretty similar machine to what Ghaleon posted. Same processor, motherboard, SSD and RAM(albeit 16gb) and it's running just about perfect. OCs easily to 4.5 but runs too hot with Prime95 and stock cooler. But runs fine under load at 4.2. Only thing that's different is the GPU. But that's the exact one I have bookmarked for when I get the money to upgrade. I'll second what he posted.

The only problem with the Vengeance RAM is that the newer CPU air coolers wont fit over the RAM heatsinks. I ordered Phanteks PH-TC14PE and had to return it. Planning on getting the Corsair h100 and a new case to hold it in. (Running with my 4 year old case still)

good point, might be better to get some low profile ram.

that h100 stuff scares me D: lemme know how it goes lol >.>;

Yeah, I've heard mixed things with it. But running stock when OCing to 4.5+ isn't going to do my product life much good, so I need to do something lol.

LOL before i got my aftermarket heatsink, i had my case sides open with a giant boxfox(thefk?) Boxfan* >.>; on one side blowing maxspeed allday/nite >.>


/cool

i bought this for my budget build : COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO RR-212E-20PK-R2 Continuous Direct Contact 120mm Sleeve CPU Cooler Compatible with latest Intel 2011/1366/1155 and AMD FM1/AM3+ - $34.99

cpu temps dropped from 36ish idle to 26ish idle (C)

ran prime 95 before/after, before = 72C
after = 62ish C for highs.

nice cheap little cooler, not very big compared to other ones.

also very very quiet, my case fans are louder than the cpu fan.

Some changes/critique to that build since Fairy.Ghaleon beat me to it!

Unless you're going to do triple/quad GPU solution sometime down the line, I wouldn't bother with a 1k watt PSU.

Here's a great PSU (also Corsair!) that will definitely allow for a dual GPU solution, especially with the radeon7000 or geforce600 generation cards because they're very very power efficient.
CORSAIR Professional Series Gold AX750

Sandforce-based SSDs are generally not that stable. Look at OCZ Vertex3 and Vertex2, etc.

Anyway if you want to go with a Corsair SSD I would suggest this one:
Corsair Performance Pro 128GB

It uses a marvell controller and is faster as well, IIRC, but at the very least it's equal to or better than the Crucial M4 128GB.

Otherwise, it's down to one of these two:
Crucial M4 128GB
OCZ Vertex4 128GB

Note that the Vertex4 has a 5 year warranty which is reaaaaaaaaaaaaaally good for an SSD warranty (as good as Intel's SSD warranty, and Intel SSDs are the staple for reliability)

I don't see why anyone would use anything other than the de-facto standard of air cooling:
Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO

While there's nothing inherently wrong with the Noctua NH-D14, it works really well as a cooler. The problem is that, with stock fans, it's not much better, if at all, than the hyper212. The Noctua NH-D14 is also over $50 more expensive. All you'd get is really nice aesthetics because, well, the Noctua NH-D14 looks really *** badass.

I love the case. I'm sure I've talked about it before in another thread. The only gripe I have is the USB3 is just a damned passthrough and Corsair hasn't updated it yet. The next best Corsair cases I'd get with proper front-panel USB3 would be:
Corsair Carbide 300R
Corsair Obsidian 550D

Or try some Antec cases:
Antec P280
Antec Three Hundred two

With the cost of mechanical hdd going down now, I'd pick up a 3TB drive for storage, doesn't cost too much more:
Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB

I like that model line of the Seagates because they use 1TB platters. So this 3TB drive only has 3 platters as opposed to 4+ from other manufacturers. Less platters = less vibration/heat/power.

I always liked the look of the Asus boards with the "tuf armor" cover all over the pcb. Whether or not it serves a practical purpose, it looks bad ***.

As for video cards I'm partial to AMD/ATI but it's really hard for me to recommend anything from the red team this generation :(

Right now I think the nVidia GeForce GTX 670 is quite possibly the best card right now that's within a reasonable price ($400ish) so yeah...

Like the 7870 is a great card but it's not a $300 card. It's like a small step better than a GeForce 560 Ti which can be had for $200 or less depending on sales. The 7870 should be priced around $250 and the 7850 should be around the $200 mark. Tired of calling it AMD/ATI so just going to call it ATI now.

But of course there are reasons to get either models. Multi-monitor gaming with ATI vs single monitor 3d gaming with nVidia for one reason, etc.

Also ATI cards still work flawlessly with FFXI, assuming you even want to play FFXI with that computer!

Otherwise it's a pretty solid build. Could save money changing to Sandybridge i5 2500k instead of Ivybridge because it's really nothing new in Ivybridge aside from a die shrink and better Quicksync due to better Intel Graphics on the chip itself but I'd be nitpicking at that point.

Edit:
Arctic Cooling MX-4 is better and a LOT easier to work with than Arctic Silver 5. Actually almost any current high performance thermal interface material is better than AS5 at this point. That's not to say AS5 won't work though. I'm sure it will work just fine after a couple of weeks of heat cycling. Meanwhile, the other stuff works at 100% instantly and transfers heat better.

Edited*
ok so going by what people are saying (or maybe not I'm not the best listener) >.> here is what I've come down to. there are some choices i would like feedback on and idk if I'm missing anything... but anyways here the list

Also why have a SSD if i have a HDD?

in very basic and general terms...

ssd = fast but expensive
hdd = slow but cheap

so you buy the ssd for the drive that has windows and other programs that you use often and you buy the hdd for storing downloads and programs that you don't use often, etc.

also, most ssd have a shorter lifetime than traditional magnetic hdd.

Ty^^.

Ok so i put my computer together a few days ago and everything seems to be working great. the only thing im stuck on now is the drivers... i installed the crap needed for my cd/dvd burner and thats done. than did motherboard stuff and thats done (startup disk) and than i did the evga graphics card one and installed w/e i could on that thing..

So questions are. how do i download the updated drivers? went to the asus site for the motherboard and its confusing... Also idk if my graphics card is up to date because google chrome wont open the website (something about too many redirects) so i tried in explorer but that too was confusing..

So is there a updater for dummies? >.> lol Also what security do you guys run on your computers.. i was thinking of avast

For drivers on the MOBO, go to the manufacturer's site (think you got an ASUS?), go to the bottom and click motherboards, click the 1155 socket, click the northbridge type (believe you had a Z77 shown), click on your mobo, then click on the download tab.

http://usa.asus.com/Motherboards/Intel_Socket_1155/SABERTOOTH_Z77/#download

That should be the link, click the download tab, click which OS you're using. The big 3 you want to download are 1) Chipset 2) LAN 3) Audio.

For the GPU go to either the nVidia or AMD page. Dunno which you picked. But on both of them right up on the top pages should have a "Drivers" tab. Click it and follow the instructions.

Ty now question on the Mobo. that is the one that is mine and i went there but i didnt know if i had to download everything that was in chipset. because there are 2 updates there. 1 older and the newest one.

do i have to download both or just the newest? also do i pick global or global (DLM).

@Phenomena Ideally, you should use the disc which came with the motherboard to install its drivers, or failing that, their official webpage...

Though, if you're stuck, try googling for a cracked version of 'DriverTuner'. It's pretty boss for getting drivers for every single piece of hardware on your system.

Ok ill look into that. I did install the drivers that were on the disks. but many people say that they are almost always out of date.

and ty btw

osnap~ which parts did you end up getting? :O

why the giant *** for new drivers for hardware that has working drivers?

is there a problem you're running into that you hope newer drivers will fix?

i'm not against updating drivers. in fact, i'm totally for it but when someone who isn't so tech-savvy you gotta take a different approach.

either way
http://www.nvidia.com for your video card drivers
and the link that weakness gave you will suffice for everything else

this, i'm guessing he hasn't heard any horror stories from updating drivers yet xD

I told you guys i dont know nothing about anything! i figured updating is good D: unless its beta drivers... you didnt tell me nothing! and hold on ill let you know waht i got... gotta find it