$600 $800 $1000 & $1500 Build It Yourself PC Parts Lists

[Crazyeyesreaper]

Are you looking to build a new gaming PC? Are you overwhelmed by the selection of parts? Well do not fear here are four PC builds targeting various price points in order to get you back in the game. I have broken the PC's down into four choices, the Entry level budget box that comes in at roughly $600. Then we have the Mainstream build which comes in at $800. Following that is the Gamer sweet spot build at $1000. Finally the next while debatable on the name I myself consider an enthusiast build as most won't go this far with their rigs, those that do however will be rewarded by owning an Enthusiast class rig which we have priced out at $1500. Please note none of these builds include monitors, keyboards or mice. You are expected to have a decent one already or can select your own. This guide is about nothing more than getting a tower that doesn't hold you back like those Dell or HP units do.

LAST UPDATED SEPTEMBER 2, 2012

$600 Entry Level Frag Box:

This PC is to get you in the game its not the fastest but will allow for medium settings in most of today's most demanding titles, In the games of yesterday you can expect high. This rig is perfect for gaming at high at 720p or medium settings at 1080p. Overall it doesn't break the bank and for most budget conscious gamers can get back to playing Diablo III, Skyrim, Battlefield 3 and more guilt free. Those wondering if the i3 2100 will hold them back, it will if using bigger GPUs but while it is a dual core it has hyper threading for 4 threads. This means the OS sees it as a quadcore, and in terms of performance it hangs with the true quadcores most of the time when looking at games. The only real downside to this rig here is the very limited upgrade options, so if you plan is to upgrade this later don't bother your extremely limited in where you can go from here and if you are planning on upgrades hit the next step up the list in terms of performance aka the Mainstream option.


CPU: Intel Core i3-2100 3.1GHz Dual-Core Processor ($119.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock H77M Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: G.Skill 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3-1333 Memory ($22.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($71.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB Video Card ($116.97 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair 500W ATX12V Power Supply ($51.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($21.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $602.86

$800 Mainstream All-Rounder:

Here we see a minor upgrade in terms of motherboard quality and a boost to a Quadcore CPU. The memory also gets a slight boost to 1600 MHz as well as going from 4GB to 8GB. The biggest change is the Powercolor Radeon HD 7850 2GB, it offers roughly double the performance the 7770 does and will let you push most games on high settings at 1080p. The Mainstream All-Rounder is meant for those looking for good performance at an affordable price. And if this rig doesn't do it for you well try the next step up the performance ladder to the Gamer Sweet Spot build.

CPU: Intel Core i5-2310 2.9GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H77M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($94.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 750GB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($71.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: PowerColor Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($196.97 @ Newegg)
Case: BitFenix Merc Alpha ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair 500W ATX12V Power Supply ($51.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($21.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $812.85

$1000 Gamer Sweet Spot:

This is where you want to be for a good gaming build you get a good cpu decent upgrade options in terms of memory, storage and graphics power in the future. On top of this you can play games at high to max settings in the majority of todays games at 1080p. When going with a build of this caliber you wont be disappointed with your choice. PC gaming at this level comes into its own and you will love every minute of it. That said we have upped the GPU to an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 660Ti, with a bit of overclocking it hangs with the 670 and reference 7970. We also upgrade to a 1 Terabyte HDD with a different case and better powersupply. Overall build quality moves up a notch with performance rising with it across the board. We went a bit past are budget but by looking on newegg for Combo deals its possible to bring this rig down to $1000 give or take a $20 spot. I wont be doing combo deals here because they simple don't last long enough to be effective for publication. Regardless if this still doesn't hit the performance your looking for I guess you will just have to go for the Enthusiast build instead.

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus 76.8 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($29.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G41 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($88.98 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Galaxy GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB Video Card ($299.99 @ Newegg)
Case: NZXT Source 210 Elite (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($57.98 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec NEO ECO 620C ATX12V Power Supply ($69.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($21.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1073.87


$1500 Enthusiast Class

This is where we step up and add an SSD for the OS and boot drive. From there we step up to a better motherboard ment for overclocking. The GPU remains the same as the 3770k while faster for gaming isnt really needed we spend the difference on a far better cooler to take the CPU a bit further to squeeze a few extra MHz out of it. The GPU we move up to a GTX 670 4GB, yes a GTX 680 or Radeon HD 7970 GHz edition are faster out of box but the extra vram on the GTX 670 helps in games such as Skyrim when you really want to up the image quality with texture mods and more. For those who want more raw power rather than Extra vram Option GPUs are listed below. Enjoy you Enthusiast class gaming rig where nothing has been skimped on yet price to performance is still amazing. Can you go even farther then this? oh you bet but for the majority reading this article its uneccessary or way out of the price range they want to pay.

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($229.99 @ Newegg)
CPU Cooler: Thermaltake Water 2.0 Performer 81.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($52.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($142.86 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($88.98 @ Newegg)
Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($109.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: PowerColor PCS+ AX7970 ($449.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Corsair 300R ATX Mid Tower Case ($79.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: NZXT 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($125.98 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Samsung SH-222BB/BEBE DVD/CD Writer ($21.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit) ($99.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1447.73

Price To Performance Choice: PowerColor PCS+ AX7970 ($449.99 @ Newegg) I know some will wonder why I didn't stick the biggest baddest GTX 680 into the rig above the reason is pretty simple The PowerColor PCS+ 7970 Vortex II comes with an 1100 MHz core clock, which makes it faster than the Typical GTX 680 but costs around $50-70 less and its $20 less than the 4GB 670, Take this option for pure performance for the cost. It Also allows a bit of money in the budget should the user want to take a step up to a 3770K or a better case, essentially the price savings from this GPU offers a bit of leg room for users to experiment and make their own changes while still coming in under the $1500 mark. The only issue with the PowerColor PCS+ is when trying to multi GPU the heatsink is slightly larger than dual slot which can cause conflicts. I suggest looking for other alternatives for multi GPU setups. At this price range single top performance GPUs are king and in this situation the PowerColor PCS+ 7970 Vortex II is a great value with terrific cooling.

Optional GPU 1: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 4GB Video Card ($469.99 @ Newegg) The GTX 670 Is for those wanting to get the most out of their system using an NVIDIA solution and like to overclock. The overclocked GTX 670 4GB offers more Vram than its bigger brother the GTX 680 which in games like Skyrim makes it's presence felt. With my own personal Skyrim mod install i hit 2.9GB of Vram usage so the GTX 670 4GB gives you that extra bit if pushing into the 2560x1440 or higher resolutions. Granted it is slower than the 7970 i included above which comes pre clocked at 1100 MHz making it faster than even the typical GTX 680 and can go further should a user wish to do so. Regardless the GTX 670 4GB is a no compromise GPU and with fantastic overclocking and a 4GB frame buffer it can handle todays top games and mods for the likes of Skyrim without breaking a sweat.

Optional GPU 2: EVGA Superclocked Signature GTX 680 ($519.99 @ Newegg)
If you want the most performance you can get and you prefer NVIDIA this is the choice for you fantastic warranty exceptional software overclocking and a decent cooler. But it is $40-50 more expensive than the 4GB 670 and $60 more expensive than the 7970 i linked above performance is roughly the same as the above Radeon as well but the option is on the table for those prefering NVIDIA and want 0 compromises.

Now via combo deals on Newegg the prices of all these rigs can be brought down a bit more so keep that in mind this just gives you a starting point to see where you should be and what you should be shooting for in a balanced PC gaming rig. Comments are welcome but lets keep the fanboy BS out of it thanks

[Magicman2051]

I see you finally bit the bullet and went ahead with this?

Good post, very informative. Needs to be stickied!

[Crazyeyesreaper]

nah no point stickying as it will become outdated fairly quickly but its a good starting point for the time being. still easier to deal with each persons issue as it comes up but having this here as a quick reference as to what you can get for parts and performance is good enough.

essentially paring this with Bolks questionaire will result in a much quicker turn around for getting someone a good build list. But posting this here is only a short term solution.

[Magicman2051]

Tag it with a date?

Indicating either the last update or when it was first posted, depending on how you want to continue.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

last update, really visible, maybe ill edit the main post. big bold letters lol

[Shocked]

Nice guide, wish I had this when I was building mine, would've made my job a lot easier haha.

[Magefsx]

With the $1000 build, it may be worth spending another $60 or so for a small SSD to use as a cache drive, using intel RST.
Good article: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...ng,2938-3.html

[Crazyeyesreaper]

true but that puts the Gamer sweet spot from $70 over price point to nearly $140-150 very good point a cache ssd does wonders for responsiveness, but for the cost of an SSD for cache purposes a user can spend just $20 more on a good sale and get a 120GB or better for OS and Apps with the 1TB as storage.

This build is was really really basic i can go much more in depth but that requires way to much of my already depleted time

[snuggans]

good thread. did you check to see which manufacturer makes the power supplies you listed? i think it's important, especially if the person does some heavy overclocking on both the CPU and GPU.

as a general rule of thumb, avoid CWT, buy Seasonic & Delta manufactured PSUs.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

all PSUs in the list are fine

The Corsair and Antec units are Seasonic
while the NZXT has a 5 year warranty and is also Seasonic built and in fact the only thing keeping it from being Silver or Gold rated is the a slightly better mosfet design with lower drain source resistance,

simply put im not an idiot i know what im recommending parts lol

just like when i recommended a Rosewill unit to someone else they got pissy, what they didnt realize is inside the unit it was a Sparkle 80 Plus GOLD unit just rebadged and $30-50 cheaper lulz.

that said the first to rigs will not overclock on the CPU worth bothering about and both GPUs are power efficient enough that any overclocking wont cause any issues

Corsair 500cx = Seasonic entry lvl unit nothing special but reliable
Corsair 500cx same as above
Antec Neo Eco 620C 620w = Seasonic M12 II offers 576w on the 12v rails more than enough for its purpose
NZXT Hale 82 750W = Seasonic M12 II 80 Plus Bronze 5 year warranty rock stable fully overclocked Ivy Bridge system with 2x 7950s also overclocked pulls 770w for a single GPU system the 750w is more than enough to push clock speeds without issue.

the i5 3570 when full clocked pulls around 120w 660 Ti fully clocked 200w so 320w on the 12v rail add in misc components still under 500w.

Everything was thought out its why a few builds are under price and one is over as i had to squeeze in the best quality part at that price range i could. I would prefer to bump the gamer sweet spot to a 650-750w and the Enthusiast rig to an 850 but pricing options just don't allow that in an easy list,

Combo deals etc its no problem at all, but combo deals just dont last very long as such we have the above to work from. and in which case almost every build can be dropped in price or recieve a bump in quality while maintaining said price but thats up to the end user. I can't do all the work lol not enough time in the day

[Steapa Snotor]

This thread has been saved to my favourites, for when the time comes to upgrade. Nice work thanks.

[Hrothgar Óhreinsaður]

I'm curious:

Why didn't you mention any AMD CPUs or ASUS motherboards? Wouldn't a budget gaming PC be less expensive with an AMD CPU but still have enough power to keep up with Intel?

Why do you recommend Power Color GPUs? I've never used their products.

Finally, you lean toward AMD GPUs: why? I've used nVidia cards in the past and am now using an AMD, and I'm finding it's great, in most situations... ...situations in which nVidia cards have no problems.

On a side note: if my motherboard maxes out at 1333MHz RAM, and my motherboard underclocks RAM when necessary, and a higher frequency model (i.e. 1600MHz) is in the QVL, why choose the higher frequency model?

[Crazyeyesreaper]

and Intel i3 beats the FX 8150 in gaming why would i recommend AMD when its clearly inferior and has had multiple issues with multiple games included Deus Ex Human Revolution and Shogun 2 which required specific bios fixes on many boards
Overclocking does have an impact but in this forum aka all about Total War AMDs fastest CPUs are slower than just about every Intel chip available in Games like Guild Wars 2 AMD offers half the performance, so no AMD is not good enough in many of todays titles they bottleneck mid range GPUs,

ASUS mobos are overpriced and are not as good as they used to be if you remember EVGA used to make good motherboards a particular overclocker joined them started directing their bios the consumer boards suffered, said clocker leaves EVGA and their quality improves again joins ASUS their quality drops also most people wont tell you as its kept rather quiet but ASUS boards are having issues with USB, to the point multiple people i know in various industries have sold off their asus gear completely as the issue resulted in freezing or peripherals not working including razer keyboards and wacom tablets. the latest ASUS board has had 6 bios updates alone focused on fixing USB compatibility issues.

show my an NVIDIA gpu for the lower end builds thats available right now at the same price point and isnt from an older generation if NVIDIA's GTX 650 and GTX 660 had released a month ago they might be in this parts list however they have not been released.
use XMP on Intel or learn to set your timings manually,

that said your AMD Phenom II doesnt really benefit from faster memory because of the memory controller on the CPU

on Intel it does effect performance

1066/ 1333 on Intel cpu right now = AMD at 1866
at 1600 Intel cpus now have around 21 GB/s bandwidth at 1866 they hit 24 GB/s at 2133 26-27GB/s on top of that latency continues to drop

Some graphs and pretty pictures for reference

As you can see a cheap Intel Pentium Dual Core (Sandy Bridge Based) beats on the FX 8000 series thats a $63 cpu vs $189




As you can see here AMD also once again when the CPU is the limiting factor aka large battles in Shogun 2 with a good gpu it holds back performance by a massive amount and this title Phenom II line is faster than FX line


as you can see in the review here with high end GPU AMDs best is still slower by about 20% across the board.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/A...0_CPU_Scaling/




Again yes AMD is comparable in some tests but in the tests its not its usually pretty far behind far behind.

Now add in the fact some of the words most played games, World of Warcraft, Skyrim, etc all run better on Intel why would i recommend a similar priced AMD system when in most situations its slower If AMD puts out an amazing cpu that does well ill gladly recommend a build in fact i used AMD up until 2010 running a 4ghz Phenom II but having seen my frame rate at the time DOUBLE in Bad Company 2 just by switching to Intel 2500k at the time kinda proved the point that while AMD is adequate your not getting that a great a bang for buck deal on the CPU side.

As for GPU,

well 660Ti is the best bang for buck period right now, but at the high end the Power color is cheaper than a GTX 680 but offers the same performance for people going multi monitor or just love modding skyrim the GTX 670 4GB makes sense, for those prefering Nvidia the GTX 680 is a fantastic option it really is.

as for the powercolor does it matter? they are just brands im not loyal to a brand i buy the best performing part for the price, show me any other 7970 clocked at 1100 MHz + out of box for that price with equal cooling and acoustic profiles you realize many of these brands are all interlocked right?

PNY handled BFG rmas etc when they went under,
Palit and Gainward are the sister companies
Sapphire and Zotac are sister companies
XFX dropped their awesome warranty
MSI has NO written warranty they say 2-3 year etc but you will notice they have no written warranty you can read its all per card basis so its rather suspect
ASUS has terrible customer service actually and turn around time is bad
Gigabyte doesnt really excel at anything,

in the end they are just BRANDs if looking at reference GPUs they are made by AMD or NVIDIA to their specs so they are all the same and thus doesnt matter.

everything is not always so cut and dry, the above are just my recommendations people don't need to follow them

as for your motherboard your not limited to 1333 you just havent manually set your ram timings. JEDEC specs and the specs the ram are capable of running are two different things.

example my Mushkins are 1866 MHz but they are detected as 1333, turn on XMP they are properly recognized, this is done so that the system will actually boot


All hardware is just hardware to me should AMD offer a great deal on their CPUs id gladly recommend a rig but only if the CPU can keep up, and when that cpu is an FX 8120 or FX 8150 clocked at 4.7-4.8 GHz and using 250-300w of power in order to rival a stock Intel chip i really just can't recommend them.

NVIDIA's gpus have been the better cards this generation but the inability to roll them out on time and in proper quantities has been a pain. and again this is just a reference for people to go off of, in another 3-4 days once the GTX 650 and GTX 660 launch this build list wont even be valid anymore. Tech advances constantly.

right now 7970 GHz edition is cheaper and faster than the stock 680s, both overclocked models trade blows
670 far better option than the stock 7970s
660 Ti better option than the 7950
GTX 660 unknown havent read reviews to know for sure where it stands
GTX 650 if its anything like the 640 it will be worthless and lose at its target price point

[Hrothgar Óhreinsaður]

I see what you mean about BIOS fixes for CPU compatibility; a BIOS flash is a suspenseful act. How do AMD CPUs bottleneck mid-range cards?

6 BIOS updates for a USB?! I'll take a look at the other ones. Also, who do you think makes the best chipsets? I know nVidia makes solid ones, and I don't like installing Intel's - maybe I haven't found the all-in-one .exe file - but I have an AMD chipset on my current system.

I see what you mean about the GPUs. The one problem I've had with AMD cards is DOOM3 mods: the bloom inverts the screen at best, and I have to turn off Catalyst A.I. to play Perfected DOOM3. Otherwise, my XFX Radeon HD 6770 has eaten everything I've thrown at it for breakfast.

The Bulldozers don't seem to be anything great. How was the Phenom II when it was new? Was it also inferior to contemporary Intel CPUs?

Brand means nothing, product means everything. I just noticed Power Color suggested more than any other GPU vendor and wondered why: the 1100+MHz clock sounds like a good reason.

I don't have a brand preference: I still have a PNY GeForce 6600 and 7600GS, and my trusty Gigabyte GeForce FX 5200; but my first new (at the time) AGP card was an MSI that crapped out on me in under a year. What happens if I bought the XFX card when the warranty was awesome? Is it downgraded?

The manual says it supports DDR3 1600(O.C.) RAM timing, but I'm not sure how to overclock RAM, and I wonder if it's even worth it to increase the timing one level.

Interesting. So the memory controller is maxed at 1333MHz on a Phenom II?

[Crazyeyesreaper]

pretty much on Phenom II you have to raise the CPU-NB speeds to get more memory bandwidth and if you push the chips hard enough they WILL scale the problem is this is beyond most users abilities,

AMD Phenom II memory bandwidth 1333MHz 13GB/s
AMD Bulldozer FX 1866Mhz 17-18 GB/s
Intel Sandybridge/ Ivy Bridge 1333 MHz 18GB/s 1600 MHz 21GB/s 1866MHz 24GB/s 2133MHz 26-27GB/s

and in AMDs lower IPC instructions per clock means that they just fall behind in balanced work loads that make use of multiple cores AMD does okay but this is not the case most of the time.

okay heres an example of mid range

AMD Phenom II 965BE 4GHz 1600 MHz DDR3 HD 6950 2gb both single card and Crossfire *2 GPU*
Bad Company 2 60fps single card
Bad Company 2 90fps dual card

Sandybridge Stock 3.4GHz 1866 MHz DDR3 6950 2gb single and crossfire
single card 90fps
dual card 140+ fps

CPU alone allowed 1 GPU on the intel system to put out the same frame rates as the dual gpu system on AMD, that means in that particular titles, i spent $600 on GPUs on an AMD system where $300 single gpu did the same on Intel this is not always the case, but adding more GPUs also tends to show more favor for Intel as well,

with something like a 6770 cpu doesnt bottleneck much, but a 6770 is ENTRY lvl,

GTX 660, GTX 660Ti, GTX 570, GTX 580 are considered mid range now
HD 6950 HD 6970 HD 7850 HD 7870 HD 7950 are mid range for AMD

7970 7970GHz Edition, 7990 are high end
GTX 670 GTX 680 GTX 690 are high end for NVIDIA

the more you go up the list the more a CPU bottleneck can be seen in some titles, Granted CPU load doesnt change depending on resolution much at all as the res goes up GPU becomes more of a bottleneck but as you can see from what i posted many AMD cpus are still a limiting factor in todays games at 1080p

as for recommending powercolor they are the cheapest of the bunch, but usually its only $5-10 to switch to a different brand so remember this isnt a you must buy THESE parts only, think of it a guide line of what you SHOULD be looking at CPU, Motherboard GPU and PSU wise to support that level of specs. Its a simple list that ppl know these parts will work so

okay I5 3570k and it needs to be with a Z77 board well that can be seen by looking at the parts list, supported memory, a decent GPU, and a PSU that can power it. all listed out in a way that someone can improve upon if they wish, Some of the combo deals on newegg have different brands GPUs being cheaper, but again combo deals do not last, as such i didnt bother to do them.

[paradamed]

Crazyeyes, I read you recommended the gtx 670 4gb version. Do you think it is a good option for a future proof buy? I read some reviews in which there wasnt a good scale when compared the 4gb and the 2 gb versions using a 1920x1080 resolution. I remember when having 512gb would be high end and people wouldnt imagine games demanding like 2gb. So whats your opinion on 4gb vs 2gb gtx considering today and a near future in terms of performance at 1920x1080 resolutions? By the way you mentioned skyrim using over 2gb of vram in your version using a high resolution pack of textures. In which resolution are you running skyrim?

[Phier]

This needs a sticky.

[Crazyeyesreaper]

4gb card isnt future proof its for those particular games that EAT vram so Skyrim, Shogun 2 with high AA levels, etc, otherwise the 2gb version is fine

for 99% of games now and in the near future 2gb of VRAM will be perfectly fine, its only the odd title or two that stands out.

[paradamed]

Thanks for the feedback, man!

[Musthavename]

Just browsing through this, but the Samsung Spinpoint F3 is only a Sata II drive. I'm not knocking it as a drive, I own one and it's served me well; but surely some of those higher end motherboards support Sata III?