My first gaming rig

GT5fan123

New Member
Hi fella's!

I was thinking about building my first gaming rig next year so I need a little help to get that rig functional when it's built up :D

The budget is around 800€ so not wanna spend too much, cause I've got a car that needs to be refueled and some other thing that need to buy. If it goes few €'s over it's not bad but the absolute max would be 850€.

I've been thinking of this set up (I don not list the OS 'cause it's clear, Win 7 Ultimate 64-bit):

MoBo: AsRock FM2A85X EXTREME6 (85,90€)
HDD: WD AV-GB 2TB (116,90€)
Sound card: Asus XONAR D1 7.1 channel audio card (64,90€)
GPU: ASUS GT630-2GD3 2048MB DDR3 PCI-E 128bit DVI-I HDMI (69,90€)
CPU: AMD A6-6400K Black Edition 2C 65W FM2 1MB 3.9GHz (73,90€)
RAM: Kingston HyperX blu Black Series, 2x4GB =8GB (80,90€)
PSU: CM B Series 700W PSU Active PFC 230V
Case: CM ELITE 430 MID TOWER BLACK

Is this good set up or need something to be changed for better performance (like overclocking the CPU) :D

The screen might not be a big problem 'cause I've been thinking that I will buy a 32" HD-Ready or Full HD TV. I've got a quite old Benq FP93G screen eqiupped on my laptop, not using both screen cause it'll makes my lappy to lag a lot and it gives better performance to use additonal screen instead of lappy's own (seen that difference on playing ETS2)
 

Heku

Member
well, that mobo already has 7.1 audio system... so where do you need that sound card?
"- 7.1 CH HD Audio with Content Protection (Realtek ALC898 Audio Codec), Supports THX TruStudio(TM)" (said in the description of that mobo)
 

GT5fan123

New Member
Well, the 2 TB HDD was exaggerated so it's going to change to WD 500GB (71,90€) and taking the SSD mainly for OS and other OS files, this might be good (KINGSTON 120GB SSD, 97,90€)?

PSU: CM B Series 600W PSU Active PFC 230V (61,90€), that good?
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
The biggest problem with your system is the graphics card is extremely weak. For 800 Euros, you should be able to do much better.

Firstly, I'd get an AM3+ board, 970 chipset at least, or perhaps 990 if you can afford it. Gigabyte make some good ones so check those out.

Then, I'd get an AMD FX-4300 or an FX-6300 processor, preferably the FX-6300.

I would not bother with the sound card and put the money towards the graphics card instead because that will make more difference in gaming. The GT 630 is a properly weak card and not ideal for gaming at all. You want something far more powerful.

The Radeon HD 7850 would be an ideal card, so I'd get that. Put the money you saved from the sound card towards it. If you can't afford it, look at the R7 260X and/or the 7770 and 7790. All far better than the GT 630. The GTX 650 Ti is OK but in that price range, I think the Radeons are better.

Power supply, you could probably get away with the Corsair CX 500M. It's a very nice power supply and is modular. Look at the 600M if you can afford the extra and want a bit of headroom.

I'd change the case too, I'm not a fan of Cooler Master's cases and especially not that one. If you want some good budget case recommendations, look at the Zalman Z9 and Z11 cases and the Corsair 200R and 300R cases. Great value for money.

Make those changes and you'll be much better off and I reckon it should still be about 800 Euros or possibly less. If you find it's less, consider getting an FX-8320 CPU or maybe getting a slightly more powerful video card (look at the 7870, R9 270X and the GTX 760 perhaps). Ultimately, the more powerful video card would probably be the better investment.
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
^ That's an ideal setup and is far, far better than what you originally came up with. And it's only 13 Euros overbudget.
 

GT5fan123

New Member
I have checked on Jimm's (user Jiinix) and that company had quite expensive price tags for all the components, but I believe that they're good stuff but a company called Multitronic is much closer from my place than Jimm's. But that what I've planned was only "the first design" so it changes a lot before I'm even gonna to buy those parts.

That Gigabyte GPU is far too expensive, but it costs a lot when it comes to quality. So, i'll list components again when I've checked them again.
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
If you can get the parts for cheaper, then by all means do, but Jiniix's build is great and I think frankly it's difficult to do better on that budget. If you can get everything in budget, then surely it doesn't how matter how much each component costs, so long as you can buy it all?
 

GT5fan123

New Member
i check on those specific parts that Jiniix listed. The rig i'm going to build must run games and youtube videos smoothly. Also might need a wlan card cause don't have router or lan to get access to thr Net, only modem? Can you peeps recommend combination of BluRay+DVD drives?

60GB SSD good for OS only (since it takes 10-20 GB of memory)?

Sorry if this Post contains missing letters, wrong letters etc... I did wrote this with my phone and its autocorrecting system sucks a lot :D
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
60GB should be fine for the OS and a couple of programs, I tend to stick to 120GB and bigger though.

The rig Jiniix posted will be far better for games than what you originally had in mind. The R9 270X will run rings around the GT 630 for breakfast when it comes to gaming.

Optical drive wise, Samsung, Asus, Pionner and LG are all good brands. I've used Samsung and LG drives the most, they've all been good. The DVD-RW drives are cheap, the Blu-Ray ROM drives are getting quite cheap, and the Blu-Ray Rewriter drives are still a bit pricey. I've got an LG Blu-Ray Rewriter in my main PC at the moment and it cost around £70 which is a lot for an optical drive, but I needed to be able to burn Blu-Ray discs so it was a worthwhile investment.

If you only want to watch Blu-Ray movies and you're not interested in burning Blu-Ray discs, then just stick with the Blu-Ray ROM drives (which will also read and write CDs and DVDs too).
 

Jiniix

Well-Known Member
I found a thread on Toms Hardware that listed various online retailers in many, many countries and the Jimms one was the only that had proper PC hardware on their site - so I went with that :) You might have a better idea of which retailer to use obviously.
Any bluray drive will play DVDs and CDs as far as I know. They're backwards compatible, so if you get a bluray reader you'll be able to read blurays and write (and read) DVDs and CDs.
Windows 7 uses 17GB by default.
I didn't clarify this, but the problem with your build is it's very poorly optimized. You are buying a very high end motherboard, with a low-performing CPU+GPU combo (APU) and then adding another low power GPU, but they can't work together. Your power supply is of poor quality and way too high wattage (you could've picked worse though) and your case lacks any kind of cable management.
I'm not bashing by any means, it's almost a full time job to keep up with the new tech and knowing how to tell if a component is good quality, but the parts you've chosen are such bad fit together that I would almost call them incompatible :)
 

GT5fan123

New Member
well the normal dvd-rw might be good since i need it mostly for burnihg cd's, stickin' with LG?

What about the wlan card?? Any suggestions?

And if the budget ain't going over tooo much, i'm sticking in the 120gb sdd.

Also need a cpu cooler 'cause i'm gonna OC the processor, any good suggestions?

The Kingston HyperX blu blk series 2x4gb RAM was good, am i right?

Btw, recommend some good cases, mostly like the windowed omes
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
WLAN card, almost anything will do so long as it's relatively quick.

LG make good drives, yes.

The Hyper 212+ is a decent budget cooler.

So long as the RAM is at least 1600MHz, you should be good to go.

The Corsair 300R with the window is a good case. The Phantom 410 kind of has a window too I think.
 

GT5fan123

New Member
i think if i put all together with the parts you've suggested/recommended, i should have a good gaming rig.

I'll list the parts here tomorrow morning and also compare the prices if i can save some money
 

spirit

Moderator
Staff member
i think if i put all together with the parts you've suggested/recommended, i should have a good gaming rig.

I'll list the parts here tomorrow morning and also compare the prices if i can save some money

Excellent, sounds like you are going to get a good machine. :)

And yeah, the 212+ is actually very good value for money. I should have spent a little more and got one over my Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 which is good for £20 but not as good as the 212+ which is only £10 more haha! ;)
 

GT5fan123

New Member
I read your comments and checked Jimms for those specific parts and counted the prices and I was a bit confused 'cause total cost will be 601,60€ (budget 850€, without OS and the cables), so I've saved some €'s, didn't compare the prices.

So I've came with this kind of set up:
MoBo: AsRock 970 Extreme4, AM3+, AMD 970, DDR3, SATA III, ATX (101,-€)
CPU: AMD FX-6300, AM3+, 3,5GHz, 6-core (112,80€)
CPU cooler: CM Hyper 212 EVO (34,90€)
GPU: Gigabyte AMD Radeon HD 7750, 2GB DDR3, VGA/DVI/HDMI, PCI-E 3.0 (108,-€)
RAM: Kingston 8GB (2 x 4GB) HyperX Beast, DDR3 1600MHz, CL9, 1.65V, XMP (98,-€)
SSD: Kingston 120GB SSDNow V300, 2.5", SATA III - Stand Alone (84,-€)
HDD: Western Digital 1TB Caviar Blue SATA III, 64MB (65,-€)
PSU: Corsair 600W GS Series GS600 - 2013 Edition, 80 PLUS Bronze (89,-€)
Case: Corsair Carbide Series 300R Gaming Midtower (99,90€)
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24F1ST DVD+RW (23,-€)

It's overbudget, but better quality costs more than regular quality :)
 

Heku

Member
well, for couple euros more you could get 990-series mobo
Gigabyte GA-990XA-UD3, AMD AM3+, 990X/SB950, DDR3, ATX (109€) on Jimm's
 
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