[Solved] Gaming Build - $800

Approximate Purchase Date: ASAP

Budget Range: $800 after rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, multitasking, web browsing, movies/music............video editing i guess?

Parts Not Required: keyboard and mouse

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg, and anywhere else thats cheap

Country: USA

Parts Preferences: thinking about OC the i5

Overclocking: Probably

SLI or Crossfirerobably not

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: I will probably overclock and dual screen. I want to be able to run games smoothly and switch in and out of windows fast.

Thanks.

What kind of games are you going to be playing? Are you gaming on dual-monitor or just, having games on one monitor, windows on another, etc?

Depending on games you're playing you may want to invest in a slightly better card, maybe a 6870 (possibly 2gb version if you're going to be doing graphics intensive stuff on both screens, if it's not too expensive I suppose) or even a 6950.

I haven't taken a good look at the 6850 but the 6870 seems like a solid deal, I saw one the other day for about $169.99 , $159.99 after rebate I believe- that deal might be over though. 6870 performs relatively onpar with the 6950 in a lot of games too.

Yeah a 6850 or 6870 would probably be plenty for those games. Check some benchmarks for games you're going to play to make sure.

For optical drive, If you don't need anything special you could check this out:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827106289

It'll be around $24-25ish after shipping

For RAM, I think it's recommended you get something that doesn't have heatsinks, kind of leaves more room when you install a cooler for your i5 I guess, depends on your case and all that I suppose.

If overclocking your i5 you're going to want an aftermarket cooler too, a lot of people go with the http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835103065

But there are a lot of options - I don't really know a whole lot about it so I don't want to recommend anything specific. Someone else could probably give some suggestions.

Oh also, I've read that Intel gets pissy if you use ram that's higher than 1333 and could void your warranty, if you ever need to RMA or anything. I think it's the same case with installing an aftermarket cooler.. don't take my word for it though, I'd double check

bump. i wanna buy the parts really soon.

Starcraft 2, Heroes of Newerth, Guild Wars 2, steam games

As far as a video cards the 6870 should work fine for pretty much any game, as long as you're not expecting to run them at really high settings. The power consumptions shouldnt change much with 2 monitors itll be more of a strain on the GPU.

I was asking what games to provide you with a better answer for the ram. Battelfield 3, a common test game for builds, requires 2gb of ram and recommends for 4 so in that case you should be fine. I still think that if you can put a couple of more bucks into it, go for 8gbs but thats up to you.

oh and starcraft two recommends only 2 gb of ram and a radeon 3870 a 6870 blows it out of the water.

Yeah you'd be fine if you switched to a 6870.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/291?vs=290

Above benchmark compares the 6850 with the 6870 in certain games - In my opinion, if you can comfortably afford the 6870, it seems like a better deal.

I think either card will do fine with the games you mention, I'm just a big fan when it comes to price/performance. For a little extra money it seems like you're getting quite a bit. Depends how tight you are on your budget though of course, if you can't comfortably afford it right now then go with the one you can.

The Sapphire 6850 that was linked above is $150 ($140 after rebate) + $7 shipping

You could easily pickup a Sapphire 6870 for a bit more.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814102948

$170, $160 after rebate, plus free shipping... so it's like $13 more initially.

There are some other brands you can check out as well, but they might be a little bit more pricey. Most of the others seem around the $180-$200 range.