So, I finally got all my money together and the parts I think are decent for the computer i'm looking toward. I really want to play BF3 on medium settings or high if possible and medium or high on Guild Wars 2. The rig i'mma show you will cost 825$, do you guys think I should buy it?
PSU: Corsair Builder Series CX600 V2
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z68XP-UD3H
CPU: 3.1GHz Intel Core i5-2400
RAM: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 1600MHz 1.5V
HD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 500GB
Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 6850
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium

I don't know much about computers at all D: but I think this looks okay :)

I'm not sure about anything else in the list, but given a choice, I'd go with an Intel i5-2500. If you were thinking about overclocking, go with an Intel i5-2500k. It does look like it's more expensive, but I think the i5-2500 is the goto option for a gaming machine for a reason.

** edit **
You might be able to get a Western Digital 'Black' drive with a larger cache for the same price as that Samsung HDD.

Originally posted by lizardbones

I'm not sure about anything else in the list, but given a choice, I'd go with an Intel i5-2500. If you were thinking about overclocking, go with an Intel i5-2500k. It does look like it's more expensive, but I think the i5-2500 is the goto option for a gaming machine for a reason.

** edit **
You might be able to get a Western Digital 'Black' drive with a larger cache for the same price as that Samsung HDD.

Everything looks decent

I agree with going with the i5-2500 for overclocking purposes...

I guess I could spend a bit more :D Thanks guys... with the i5 2500k do you think I can play BF3 and GW2?

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Originally posted by Cowboy700
I guess I could spend a bit more :D Thanks guys... with the i5 2500k do you think I can play BF3 and GW2?

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http://pcpartpicker.com/p/cCyv

Intel Core i5-3450 3.1GHz Quad-Core Processor
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard
G.Skill Sniper 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1333 Memory
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB Video Card
Rosewill CHALLENGER ATX Mid Tower Case
Rosewill 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (64-bit)

$819.58

If you're going to overclock you can go with the 3570k...Also you can still get the samsung you listed above if you don't need 1TB hd and it will save you some more dough.

I built 3 of these for my brother, his wife, and one of his kids recently, except better video cards, and they're nice solid systems. You won't have any troubles playing GW2 on high settings with this rig.

You're completely missing a case and an optical drive.

May I suggest a markedly better power supply that happens to also be cheaper:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151093

That's too much to pay for memory when you can get the same specs for much cheaper:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820144486

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148544

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231544

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226219

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233202

I could understand wanting to avoid some off brands, but even Corsair itself offers memory much cheaper than what you picked, and with exactly the same specs.

For a video card, you could also consider a Radeon HD 7770, which will give essentially the same performance for the same price tag, but with much less power consumption, a newer architecture with newer features, and considering that it's GCN (new) versus VLIW5 (old), driver updates on the 6850 are likely to be discontinued multiple years before the 7770.

For a processor, I really can't recommend a Core i5-2400.  Getting a proper Core i5-3570K only costs $25 more, but it will easily be 15% faster at stock speeds, plus it has an unlocked multiplier in case you want to overclock it later.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

If that's out of your budget, then you might as well save ~$100 to give up 20-30% of the performance of the Core i5-2400 by going with AMD instead.

Or you could even go with the faster processor, and save back much of that price difference by going with a cheaper, more modern motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128543

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130646

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131837

Or better yet, grab one of those motherboards in a combo deal with the OS:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1003329

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1003363

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1004191

Originally posted by Quizzical

You're completely missing a case and an optical drive.

May I suggest a markedly better power supply that happens to also be cheaper:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151093

That's too much to pay for memory when you can get the same specs for much cheaper:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820144486

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148544

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231544

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226219

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231428

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233202

I could understand wanting to avoid some off brands, but even Corsair itself offers memory much cheaper than what you picked, and with exactly the same specs.

For a video card, you could also consider a Radeon HD 7770, which will give essentially the same performance for the same price tag, but with much less power consumption, a newer architecture with newer features, and considering that it's GCN (new) versus VLIW5 (old), driver updates on the 6850 are likely to be discontinued multiple years before the 7770.

For a processor, I really can't recommend a Core i5-2400.  Getting a proper Core i5-3570K only costs $25 more, but it will easily be 15% faster at stock speeds, plus it has an unlocked multiplier in case you want to overclock it later.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

If that's out of your budget, then you might as well save ~$100 to give up 20-30% of the performance of the Core i5-2400 by going with AMD instead.

Or you could even go with the faster processor, and save back much of that price difference by going with a cheaper, more modern motherboard:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128543

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813130646

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131837

Or better yet, grab one of those motherboards in a combo deal with the OS:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1003329

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1003363

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.1004191

I assume he is using those stuff from his old computer but otherwise I agree with you (besides that I would have gone for a OCZ PSU instead of Seasonic).

It would be nice to have the I5-2500k for overclocking but if you are going to spend more money I would get a better video card. That is where you are going to see the most increase performance wise by spending extra $$. 

You should look into AMD for a budget build like you are doing. 

Originally posted by Loke666

I assume he is using those stuff from his old computer but otherwise I agree with you (besides that I would have gone for a OCZ PSU instead of Seasonic).

Do you have some particular link in mind?  Because $51 with no rebate and free shipping for a fairly good quality power supply that is also modular is a better deal than I can find most days.

Originally posted by Andurin

It would be nice to have the I5-2500k for overclocking but if you are going to spend more money I would get a better video card. That is where you are going to see the most increase performance wise by spending extra $$. 

 

You should look into AMD for a budget build like you are doing. 

The argument for spending more on the processor now rather than the video card is straightforward:  it's a lot easier to upgrade a video card than a processor.  Try to upgrade to a new processor that launches in a few years and you'll have to replace the memory (DDR4 is coming), motherboard (DDR4 will require a new socket) and OS license (new motherboard means different computer as far as Windows licenses are concerned).  Try to upgrade to a new video card and all you have to replace is the video card.

Additionally, future advances in video cards are likely to come much more rapidly than in processors.  With reports that Haswell is aggressively targeting low power consumption and a suspicion that 14 nm is going to be tougher than Intel is letting on, I wouldn't be surprised if a Core i5-3570K is still the standard processor on a big budget gaming system two years from today.  (I'm not predicting that that will happen, but only saying that I wouldn't be surprised.)  Meanwhile, both AMD and Nvidia are nearly certain to have something better out than today's high end video cards inside of a year.  Or in the case of AMD, inside of a month.  There are still obvious ways to get huge performance gains out of GPU die shrinks, but not so with processors in desktops where they aren't really limited by power consumption.

The argument for spending more on the video card now is also pretty simple:  you get better gaming performance in real games today.