2 replies to this topic

[ryang20]

I've never had a good PC that can handle the games I love and now have the ability to get a good PC. I've put together some components with a budget under 900$. Some of the specs were garnered with holiday deals. IS there anything I should change/substitute, upgrade or degrade? Before I finalize anything I just want to make sure it is reviewed by some veteran gamers. Looking to game at "Ultra" type settings on games like DayZ. (Assembled with iBuyPower)

 

AMD FX-8320 CPU (8x 3.50GHz/8MB L3 Cache)

Gigabyte GA-970A-D3P -- AMD 970

16 GB [8 GB x2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module [AMD] - Corsair  **Free Upgrade to DDR3-1866 G.SKILL RipjawsX**

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 - 2GB - Single Card

600W Standard

Asetek 510LC Liquid CPU Cooling System [AMD] - Standard 120mm Fan

2 TB Hard Drive

Windows 8.1

 

I'm also a bit worried about the liquid cooling fan as I am unsure whether that will require a good deal of maintenance? Would appreciate some advice on that topic. Thanks!

[Vagrant0]

Most commercial liquid cooling these days is closed loop, meaning that it is relatively low maintenance as long as you install it right and don't sprout any leaks. That said, unless you intend to overclock AND know how to (can afford to) overclock, you usually aren't gaining anything from liquid cooling other than it being quieter.

 

Hardware wise, you'll probably find the videocard to be slightly underpowered if you're looking forward to games 3 years from now. The GTX 7xx series of chips may have had initially good press, but also have a handful of issues while the 2gb of memory is no longer the suggested amount for new systems. You may want to consider a GTX 9xx or ATI R9 card if you're looking for something that will handle anything you can throw at it for the next 2-3 years. This may, of course, also mean needing a 750W powersupply (gold rated or better).

 

2TB drive for everything might also be a little small and start to bottleneck performance. My current recommendation is to either go with a 260gb SSD or 1TB >6000 rpm 2.5in drive for OS (SSD only if you know how to setup temporary and cache to be handled by another drive) and then try to get between 2-5tb of other drive space in <7000 rpm HDD depending on how much space is allowed by your case and power supply. Naturally, beyond the initial separate System and Data drives, you can hold off on extra space till later if budget is an issue. Having your system on one drive, and most other programs/data on another drive not only splits the amount of data reading when running, but also helps prolong the life of your system drive since it really only works when you're just booting up, or are making changes to your system. Going with a smaller hdd capacity also helps with seek times. Having the system drive as a 2.5in drive means that it has a smaller platter and is less likely to wear out its mechanical components while also being small enough to fit within nearly any build/case where you were previously only thinking about 3.5in drives.

[envoy23]

I agree with vagrant0, gtx970 is now the min spec for gaming pc, 650w ps is min, my suggestion is 200+gb ssd for system and 2+tb drive for games etc, big case so air can move around inside. allow if you can extra slots on motherboard so next upgrade you can run 2 x 970's which means 500w each, hehehehe its never ending.

my opinion > if you don't use mods then consider a console.

wow $900 ? I just upgraded from 640 to 970 and 400w to 650w and that cost me $800.

hope it all works good for you.