I post this in CTH as well but I know there are a bunch of PC gamers in this forum so I thought I might have better luck in here. I'm hoping the thread can stay but I understand if it has to be locked.

I'm looking for a few words of wisdom. I'm haven't built a PC in probably a decade but I used to do tons of them in the 386/486 days. It would be great if you guys could take a look at the list below and make any recommendations.

I'm looking for something that will handle new games on the highest settings while on a modest budget. Besides games the PC will just be used for typical low resource things like email/web, file storage, etc..

Basically I'm trying to build the best rig I can for $1000.


CPU - AMD Phenom II X6 1090T Black Edition Thuban 3.2GHz 6 x 512KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache Socket AM3 125W Six-Core Desktop Processor

Mobo - GIGABYTE GA-890GPA-UD3H AM3 AMD 890GX HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

Storage - Western Digital Caviar Blue WD7500AALX 750GB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

Graphics - SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

Power - Antec BP550 Plus 550W Continuous Power ATX12V V2.2 80 PLUS Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Drive - LG Black 22X CD/DVD Burner LightScribe Support - OEM

OS - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM


I'm most concerned about the video card but I'm open to suggestions about any of the components. I'd like to keep the graphics card in the $200 range.

Any opinions on these 3 cards?

$170 - SAPPHIRE 100315L Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

$209 - SAPPHIRE 100314SR Radeon HD 6870 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity

$254 - GIGABYTE GV-R5876P-2GD-B Radeon HD 5870 (Cypress XT) 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Eyefinity 6 Edition Video Card

The 1090T seems like overkill/wasted cores. It costs almost as much as a 2500K, which would crush it for gaming.

well if you're gonna choose between 6850 and 6870, you can take the 6850. It actually is identical to the 6870 in its architecture, and can be flashed with a new bios (i believe, i'm not that savvy when it comes to this) and it will be a 6870 card. The instructions seem pretty noob-proof when i google it. Also, whatever card you get, get the TOXIC-edition from sapphire. When it comes to overclocking, the sapphire really gives a lot of value for money for their TOXIC-brand according to the reviews.

ps. i have the sapphire radeon 6850 TOXIC, and i'm running it in stock and have not flashed it yet. I'm running everything perfectly maxed out as is, and will start to experiment in a year or maybe 2 when it starts to fall behind. But according to my research, that should not be a problem when the time comes.

Thanks for the comments. Based on some advice from this thread and a little of my own research I've modified my build. Comments are still appreciated as I won't be placing the order until tomorrow afternoon.

bobman - you're completely right - the 1090T is just a waste of money. I was deciding whether to drop to the Phenom 955 or upgrade to the i5. I chose to upgrade... not much of an upgrade - only about $20 more.

CPU - Intel Core I5 2500K Quad Core Unlocked Processor LGA1155 3.3GHZ Sandy Bridge 6MB -

Mobo - ASUS P8P67 LE ATX LGA1155 P67 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 3PCI IDE USB3.0 Sandy Bridge B3 Motherboard

RAM - G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL

Case - Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case

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

Graphics - SAPPHIRE 100312SR Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity Power -

Antec Earthwatts 650W Power Supply ATX12V V2.2 EPS12V Active PFC 80PLUS 120MM Fan

Drive - LG Black 22X CD/DVD Burner LightScribe Support - OEM

OS - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit 1-Pack for System Builders - OEM

is that build still under $1k? it looks really nice

Why not get the 1100T for the same price but with 6 cores?

The psu is complete overkill for that build. If you are not overclocking 400w is optimal and even with heaviest overclocking i'd go for 500w max.

$1114 including taxes and delivery. I'm in Canada so if you're in the US you'll definitely pay less. Component prices are basically the same - maybe 5% more here but we also pay a 13% tax which is included in that final price.

13% tax would be awesome. I love the fact that we pay 20% on top of import taxes.

400w is lolwut

The card he is using is 500w min IIRC

btw, I'm building somethign similar:

CPU
Intel Core i5 750

RAM
Corsair XMS3 6GB Dual Channel DDR3 RAM 1600mhz

Video Card
Radeon HD 6850 1 Gb ddr5

Motherboard
ASUS P7P55 WS SUPERCOMPUTER socket LGA1156 chipset Intel P55 ATX

PSU
660w

CASE
COOLERMASTER Case Gladiator 600 Middle Tower

650€ Total

I did a facepalm.gif as well. 400W is ridiculously low regardless of whether I'm overclocking (which I am, of course). In fact I considered a 750W just to be safe for when I decide to add a second gpu.

GL with your build.

I'm still a bit baffled about the Mobo. I was about to switch to your Mobo, but then I realised my CPU wouldn't fit; why is your i5 a lga1155 while mine is lga1156. WTF? Bah...

Apparently your i5 is also faster for only 10€ more, so I think I'll go over to your build for mobo / cpu

edit: oh, so your CPU is second generation, while mine is first. Time for the switch imo You just saved me 60€ and I got more speed out of it! lol

what do I pick for RAM? 4gb or 8gb? Also is 9-9-9-24 good as latency?

Sorry for offering my help. But how about posting that build on your preferred overclockers/hardware/whatever forum and see if my advice is so lolwut/facepalm.

Just from the top of my head for power consumption, I didn't include USB peripherals.

MB : 70W
CPU: 125W
Video : 200W
HDD : 20W
CD : 10W

Total : 425W.

As a good practice when building this kind of stuff, you should add a minimum of 10% on top of that.
So, 400W is not enough, and 500W is definitely not overkill. Personally I would go for 750W for this kind of system.

dude, just stop talking. I have a lesser system than what he's building and i actually have a read-out on my powersocket, and i can assure you he will top 400W on heavy load often. Given the small difference in price, the longetivity of psu that aren't required to run on the top of their power all the time compared to those that do, the ability for future upgrades, 650W seems like a good bottomline for his configuration. dude, just stop talking.

I did spend time on overclockers.com as well as other sites researching my build and no one is recommending going with a 400W psu. Just because my system may pull less than 500W doesn't mean a 500W psu is sufficient. Having some overhead isn't going to hurt anything.

In fact I was I probably should have went with a 750W unit when you factor in overclocking and the possible additions of a SSD and second gpu.

So yeah... lolwut/facepalm.

My understanding is that unless you are doing regularly doing tons of resource intensive video editing that 4GB is plenty. If you google the topic you can find some tests that have been run and the conclusion seems to be that for gaming there is no noticeable difference when exceeding 4 GB.

I'm not certain about latency. When I purchased my RAM I just trusted the recommendation of people who know a lot more about this stuff than I do.

The only change I made to the build I posted was an upgrade to the mobo from the P8P67LE to the standard P8P67. And not the micro ATX one. the full ATX P8P67 (standard). The 12+2 phase power will supposedly increase stability for overclocks (voltage regulation is tighter)

Total using a combination of Newegg and DirectCanada was $1114.

Just to clarify this:
We are talking the i5 2500K, 6950, etc. build from post #5 ?
Because i'm not sure if i'm getting leveled or if people are really that clueless about PSUs.

yeap , u got the system right,
please do explain how 400W is enough, considering :
-the cpu power consumption is 106/198W idle/under load.
-the video card power consumption is 138/256W idle/under load.

PAy attention to the revision. Revision B2 has faulty Sata ports; buy revision B3 if you can.

I'm not taking a side but here's a review of the motherboard op is using: http://www.legitreviews.com/article/1500/15/

power consumption running 3Dmark11 is < 200w, and ~70w at idle using an i5 2500k and 6950 etc.

They used a 750w psu though. Can anyone explain what is going on?

I don't know where you get these ridiculous numbers, but it takes about 30 seconds of google research to find the TDP for both the GPU and the CPU.

Core i5 2500K: TDP 95W
HD 6950: TDP 200W

The TDP is the absolute maximum those components use and you'll never reach these numbers unless you use a prime/furmark benchmark combo (or something similar).
Now please add up the remaining components of that build and show me how 400W is not enough.

jfc. I acknowledged that I'm not going to pull 650W with my current setup. I also mentioned I'll be overclocking as well as eventually adding a SSD and possibly a second GPU.

The fact you care so passionately about the psu is bizarre. Who cares if I installed a 1000W psu? Is the extra wattage I'm not consuming rerouted somewhere and used to torture babies or something?