Gaming PC build - Opinions please...

J

Justinator

New Member
Hello,

I'm new completly to building or for that matter choosing my own components for a PC.

This time I want a gaming PC to play Battlefield 3 and hopefully have it maxed out on high settings.

I have a budget and this list is maxing it out so please try not suggest increasing my budget.

Budget $1,300.00 tax & shipping included.

I am recycling a DVD/CD RRW from my old PC and thats why it's not on the list.


How about this:

MoBo:
GIGABYTE GA-Z68P-DS3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s ATX Intel Motherboard

Ram:
G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333 (PC3 10600) Desktop Memory Model F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT

Video Card:
SAPPHIRE 100312-3SR Radeon HD 6950 Dirt3 Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video ...

Case:
COOLER MASTER Storm Enforcer SGC-1000-KWN1 Black SECC / ABS Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case ATX PS2 / EPS 12V (optional) power supply


PSU:
XFX Core Edition PRO550W (P1-550S-XXB9) 550W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC power supply


SSD
Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW080G310 2.5" 80GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM

HDD
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

CPU:
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500K

O/S:
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM Item #: N82E16832116986
 
Last edited:
You might not get the Dirt 3 license for a little bit, because of the leaked CD keys fiasco.. ;)

That looks like a pretty solid build. However I, personally, would wait on the SSD until the prices are more mainstream per volume. Unless, you are buying the SSD for the SSD caching technique with the z68 chipset.. That's just me though.

As for the PSU, is that a CoolerMaster?

Edit: I wouldn't recommend that PSU. I would go with a Quality 500w Antec, Seasonic, Enermax, Corsair.
 
Last edited:
BassAddict said:
You might not get the Dirt 3 license for a little bit, because of the leaked CD keys fiasco.. ;)

That looks like a pretty solid build. However I, personally, would wait on the SSD until the prices are more mainstream per volume. Unless, you are buying the SSD for the SSD caching technique with the z68 chipset.. That's just me though.

As for the PSU, is that a CoolerMaster?
Click to expand...

what is this SSD chaching thing? and i would also say get 1600 instead of 1333 ram, and what about a heatsink/fan for the cpu?
 
That looks like a good build to me :good:

E: If you think you'll add a second video card or overclock anything in the future, I would bump up the Watts/Amps on the PSU. otherwise, if you don't plan on doing any of that, the XFX PSU will work great for you.
 
Last edited:
xxmorpheus said:
Add 2 more 6950
Click to expand...

no, you don't even need those you darn enthusiast, one is powerful enough to max every game out now and for a good while, and bf3 is supposedly only going to recomend a gtx460 or mayber 560, then the 560ti is a good bit better than that, and the 6950 is about the same as the 560ti or a little better, and can overclock and occasionally unlock to even better.
 
I'm aware that I can take advantage of an ability my MoBo has with my SSD but I don't understand the whole thing and I'm also wondering if I have to do something to make them do this "Special" thing or once it's all hooked up will this feature take place on it's own?

My main purpose of purchasing the SSD is to put BF3 on it and that alone so it will load faster and free up my HDD but knowing the SSD and MoBo have something more to offer make me curious...

Any help or info that I might understand would be appreciated.
 
i looked the ssd caching up, that's the z68 feature, and it sounds like you basically make a small partition in your ssd, basically dividing your ssd into 2 areas, the one for caching will take everything being written to the hdd onto it so it finishes almost instantly, then it will slowly pass the information on to the hdd, and also it will take everything loaded off the hdd and hold it for a while similar to ram, that way it will load it instantly.
 
Well that helped me some. I guess it lets you gather info from and transfer info to the HDD through the SSD with the speed perk of the SSD but you loose a good chunk of space from your SSD.
Once the SSD loads up your requested command it then passes it along to the HDD in the background while you keep going about your business. Also working in reverse to use the speed of the SSD by having it hold your more used items (being called the catche) and bringing them out faster than the HDD could.

Is this worth it? Should I make use of this feature or choose not to use this feature and just use the SSD for holding games?

I still don't know if I have to enable this feature somehow or if it does it all on it's own once I build and load up the PC.
 
i believe you can enable it in the bios but i'm not too sure, it may be on the driver disk or something from the motherboard, but since you posted a 80gb ssd, i think sparing like 2-4gb's can't hurt, maybe 10, i'd say to try it without it for a while, and after like a week put it on and see if there's a difference other than the lost memory, then you can decide what to do.
 
True. Trial and error is often the best approach. I am only concerned that perhaps it's one of those things that you have to do right away or once you do it you can't go back???

Doesn't seem like too many people here actually have used this feature. I suppose it's still fairly new technology?
 
it's not so much new as the fact that you need a ssd to do it and it's best with a large one, most here only have an hdd or a small ssd around 32-64gb's max, nobody really has any more than that and idk why nobody seems to have used it.
 
Its basically no more then using a SSD as cache for your mechanical harddrive. Think the limit is 64GB. Ever heard of the Seagate Momentus XT harddrive, Intels is the same concept but it can read and write. But the Momentus XT has 4GB. of SLC NAND flash built into the drive itself.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top