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I5 first build

Forum Homebuilt Systems : New Build I5 first build

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: (within next month or two)

BUDGET RANGE: (800-950)

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: (Gaming, music, coding)

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: (keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS)

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: (newegg)

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: (usa)

PARTS PREFERENCES: by brand or type (Intel)

OVERCLOCKING: Maybe

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: No

Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819115215

GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3 LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128412

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Dual Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820231193

Antec TruePower New TP-550 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.3 / EPS12V V2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.326223

XFX HD-477A-YDFC Radeon HD 4770 512MB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814150369

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136284

LITE-ON Black 24X DVD+R 24X DVD-R SATA Black 24X DVD Writer
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6827106334

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835186134

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835100007

I'm just not sire about the graphics card or any other little thing I could maybe swap in or out.

Reply to ncatanza05

For your budget, you've done a pretty poor job. The parts themselves aren't bad, just not optimized for your uses.

CPU: X3 425 $72
Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-770TA-UD3 $85 after rebate
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 2x2 GB 1600 mhz CAS Latency 7 $115
HDD: Samsung Spinpoint F3 1 TB $90
Case/PSU: HAF 922 and OCZ ModXStream 600W $125 after rebates
Optical: Cheapest SATA DVD burner $25
Cooler: Coolermaster Hyper 212 and AS 5 $40
GPU: HD 5870 $395

Total: $947.

Message edited by MadAdmiral on 02-10-2010 at 04:02:45 AM

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Reply to MadAdmiral

I don't want amd parts rather have intel

Reply to ncatanza05

Then you'd rather have a crappy gaming PC. A good gaming build using Intel will need either drastic cuts to everything but the GPU or $1,200+.

The one I put together could play Crysis on max details at 1900x. Yours could do that at 1440x. Maybe.

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Reply to MadAdmiral

Does anyone have any advice on how to make a better build using intel parts but manage to stay within the budget. I was just looking up a thread for a sub 1000 i5 build and they used the same mobo I have slected.

Reply to ncatanza05

The best GPU you can squeeze in the HD 5770. If you drop the WD 1 TB to a Samsung Spinpoint F3 500 GB ($55), switch the DVD burner for the cheapest model ($22 shipped), you then have an extra $53. With that, you can get an HD 5770 ($153 after rebate is the cheapest).

That said, that is a much worse gaming build. You'd get good, high detailed 1600x performance, and decent, medium detailed 1900x performance for most games.

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Reply to MadAdmiral

Only way you could stay intel is upgrading your budget. Intel parts are pricey. What you could do is make an i5 build without a gpu, wait a month or so and drop some more money on a 5850/5870.

For gaming rig in your budget you'll get the best gaming performance with AMD, its just a fact of life.

What games are you playing? If you are playing WoW and thats about it then going intel with a weaker card will work fine. If you want to play something like Aion or want to hit up newer generation games then grab at least a 5850.

Here is an AMD build i came up with that is 864.16 after 60 dollars of rebates. This will tear games apart.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811146059

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822152181

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6819103680

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.328805

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.339779

the case might need one or two more fans, but those are cheap. you could drop a bit more money in a nicer case such as the coolermaster rc-690

I'll check out i5 builds and see how low we can go with combos, but for sub 1k builds amd is king as far as performance in gaming

Reply to dimmzeta73

Ok after a quick look on Newegg I came up with this. It uses a weaker card, the 5850, but it's not a bad card at all. You can overclock it to 5870 performance.

Case- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6811146059

Hard Drive- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822152181

Memory- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6820227346 (don't know why it got bad reviews on newegg, its a solid company, maybe just bad users...but if you don't feel comfortable you can find ram that has better reviews within your price range)

motherboard- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131605

i5+5850 combo- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.339416

power supply+ optical drive combo- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Comb [...] mbo.328805

Total is 963.13 with tax/shipping but after $55.00 in rebates come out to 908.13, this gives you some breathing room to check out a different case or different ram if you feeling iffy about the ocz. Should all be in your budget even if you feel like getting a nicer case.

Hope this helped

Reply to dimmzeta73

The OCZ RAM has bad reviews because they have compatibility issues with many, many different boards.

A couple of notes on the build. Besides the OCZ RAM, it's decent. That board doesn't have a lot of expansion period. In addition, without USB 3/SATA III ports, the build loses quite a bit of future proofing.

The LGA1156 socket will not see any CPUs that will be a true upgrade from the i5-750. The AM3 socket is AMD's main socket for the next several years, so it will see affordable 6 core CPUs, and whatever comes after that.

The next thing to point out is that gaming is extremely GPU limited. That means that anytime you decrease the GPU, you are directly lowering gaming performance. The CPU means very little. While the 5850 can be overclocked to reach the 5870 levels, likewise the 5870 can be overclocked well beyond what the 5850 can do.

Regardless of what anyone throws up there using the i5, you are losing a lot of gaming performance by forcing an Intel build, especially since you don't want to Crossfire. Removing the option to Crossfire bring a lesser i5 build near the budget, but with the weaker GPU, you will soon find that the new games are slow. So by the time DirectX 11 is useful, that 5850 will be underpowered, and the only choice for upgrading is buying another massive card. If you had gone with AMD, the 5870 would still be going strong, thus minimizing the effects of not being able to Crossfire.

A final note on not wanting AMD: You do know that ATI (the GPU maker) is AMD right? So if you don't want to use AMD CPUs, why are you so willing to use them for a video card? Yes, their GPUs are vastly superior, but so are their CPUs in your budget range...

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Reply to MadAdmiral

Also, some games don't utilize crossfire very well. My buddy got two 5770's to play a game called Aion. Aion doesn't utilize both cards very well, so....yea. You can crossfire but if the game you WANT to play doesn't utilize it you will be playing with a card that is just sitting in your case looking pretty.

AMD with a 5870 will give you the best performance. If buying the i5 with a slightly weaker graphics card is whats going to make you sleep well at night, then do your thang.

p.s. Admiral makes great points about my build not being future proof...but who needs sata III and better usb ports for gaming? are 6 core processors going to be utilized in games any time soon? i think by NOT future proofing your system you can save extra cash and get the beefier gpu that essentially DOES future proof your system in terms of what fps you see in games.

AMD is a good company, don't write them off just yet, google some benchmarks

Reply to dimmzeta73

USB 3/SATA III only costs $20-30 more, and isn't so much about gaming but overall usability. Do you remember what it was like transferring files via USB 1? It was painful. I think it's well worth the little extra to not have to go through that again.

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Reply to MadAdmiral

No, not really Admiral, I never transfered files on my gaming rig. Just played games of my Hard Drive. I know where you are coming from, but if you are not transfering files from usb's on a daily basis its not that important. It's like saying getting hyperthreading from a i7 920 is going to future proof you. Sure it's only a couple hundred dollars more, but if you don't really need it, then why get it?

Reply to dimmzeta73

...or go i3/p55 way, save a bit with that, and possibly get a 5850 in their if you love intel so much, but for gaming at that price, easily recommend going AMD so you can get much better GPU for much better gaming performance

Reply to p1n3apqlexpr3ss

@dimmzeta: Fair enough, but as it's only slightly more expensive, if it's in budget, you might as well get it. If there was something else that would improve gaming performance for $20, I wouldn't get USB 3/SATA III. However, that's usually not the case. If it cost $100 more, I certainly wouldn't recommend it.

The i3 is not a good gaming CPU. I can't recommend it for anything but an HTPC. Again, it gets outperformed in gaming by cheaper AMD CPUs, not to mention the cheaper AMD boards. The difference between an i3/P55 build and an X4/AM3 build is the difference between a 5850 and a 5870...

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Reply to MadAdmiral

Check out this little benchmark a guy made on aion forums. It's intel cpu running Crysis at 1.6 clock and then at 4.5. You'll notice there is no real fps change since Crysis just wants a beefy gpu and could care less about your cpu.

http://www.aionsource.com/forum/te [...] t-cpu.html

That's another reason why people love the AMD build.

This is a nice little read as well. http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] 540-8.html

Its comparing two new dual core cpu's and in the benchmarks you can see that even though the i5 does let some games play at higher fps, the dual cores are all within playable levels. As the resolutions get higher you can see the difference in fps decrease.

The nice thing about that article is that they are using a 5850 graphics card and an i5 to get those benchmarks, so the numbers are going to be close to that i5 build i threw together up there.

Google up some technical forums on the games you are interested in playing, lots of info there on what people are using to get their fps. Just make sure they are taking screenshots and not saying that their 8800 is getting 1000 fps in crysis. =D

Reply to dimmzeta73

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