A long lasting gaming and multipurpose rig?

[dlf]

• Budget - Within about $1500 (American)
• Resolution - At first 1680 x 1050 - Eventually HD (and a dual monitor setup)
• Games / Settings Desired: Everything from DOS era on, yes you read that correctly. Most should probably be high settings (if not ultra)
• Any other intensive software or special things you do (Frequent video encoding, 3D modeling, etc) - Folding at home (may run in background) - no Video editing, no modeling
• Country - USA
• Parts that can be reused: Not that I can think of (see current specs as to why)
• Buying Parts: Before the end of the year, hopefully before fall or end of summer
• Will NOT prebuilt

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6qw1
Part price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6qw1/by_merchant/
Benchmarks: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6qw1/benchmarks/

• CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K 3.3GHz Quad-Core Processor ($179.99 @ Microcenter)
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master V6 GT 93.7 CFM CPU Cooler ($44.99 @ Newegg)
• Motherboard: Asus P8Z68-M Pro Micro ATX LGA1155 Motherboard ($118.99 @ NCIX US)
• Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws Z Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($81.00 @ Newegg)
• Hard Drive: Crucial M4 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk ($289.00 @ B&H)
• Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($119.99 @ NCIX US)
• Video Card: MSI Radeon HD 7850 2GB Video Card ($264.98 @ Newegg)
• Case: Corsair 500R White ATX Mid Tower Case ($139.98 @ Newegg)
• Power Supply: SeaSonic 650W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply ($151.29 @ Newegg)
• Optical Drive: LG WH12LS39 Blu-Ray/DVD/CD Writer ($69.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $1460.20
(Prices include shipping and discounts when available.)
(Generated 2012-04-04 11:32 EDT-0400)

These I will buy later. If a better monitor can be suggested that'd be excellent)

• Monitor: Asus VE276Q 27.0" Monitor ($273.42 @ Mac Connection)*
• Operating System: Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate Full (32/64-bit) ($239.99 @ B&H)

Current specs:

Case: No idea (although it is a HP slimline, gray) - that should give some idea of the sort of case.
Motherboard: Asus A8N-BR (Pyrite) (1 PCI, 2 DDR2 DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN, IEEE-1394)
Motherboard Chipset - nVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE, AMD Hammer
Power Supply: No idea
Processor: DualCore AMD Athlon 64 X2, 2000 MHz (10 x 200) 3800+
CPU Cooler: A fan
Memory:
- DIMM1: Kingston 1 GB DDR2-533 DDR2 SDRAM (5-4-4-12 (at) 266 MHz) (4-4-4-12 (at) 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 (at) 200 MHz)
- DIMM2: Kingston 2G-UDIMM 2 GB DDR2-667 DDR2 SDRAM (5-5-5-15 (at) 333 MHz) (4-4-4-12 (at) 266 MHz) (3-3-3-9 (at) 200 MHz)
Hard Drive: 250 GB ATA drive
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRRW GSA-H20L ATA Device (DVD+R9:8x, DVD-R9:4x, DVD+RW:16x/8x, DVD-RW:16x/6x, DVD-RAM:5x, DVD-ROM:16x, CD:48x/32x/48x DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM)
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 32 bit

And what I wanted in a new system:

Hardware

• USB 2.0 speeds that are minimum of 30 MB a second
• USB 3.0 speeds that are at lest 300+ MB/s [I will get / use an SSD]
• Firewire (and or eSata port) --- because I have a external hardrive that has both along with USB
• At lest a solid terabyte (1.5 TB)
• Has either a VGA or DVI port (current monitor I have has both)
• Also has support for HDMI (for the future monitor)
• Multi card reader (although I mainly need SD and Memory Pro Stick Duo)
• Able to use a PS3 controller AND A XBOX 360 controller (yes I know 360 is native support . . .)
• I would like a quad core.
• Multiple internal DVD drives - one blu-ray drive (watch movies, burn backups) - Also to make installations faster
• Plenty of 3.5/5.25 drive bays . . .

Software

- Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) (Main OS) -- Mostly for languages
- Windows 7 Ultimate 32 bit (if needed)
- May first run Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit - as I have both 32/64 bit discs now)
- Windows XP (if 64 bit won't run some of the games I have) (if needed)
- Folding@home - (although I use my PS3 for that when I'm not using it)

Gaming Software:

- Will use steam:
-- Elder Scrolls (Morrowind -> Skyrim)
-- Portal 1 & 2
-- Batman Arkham (Asylum/City)
-- Sonic Generations
-- Quake (all)
-- Doom (all)
-- Wolfenstein (3D) & 2009 - and the others
-- Commander keen
-- Bioshock (1/2) (perhaps infinite)
-- L.A. Noire
-- Bejeweled 2/3
-- Peggle
-- Various COD's
-- anything else that interests me

- Will use CD/DVD's of the games I have:
-- Warcraft 2 - Tides of Darkness & Beyond the Dark Portal
-- Warcraft 3 - Reign of Chaos & Frozen Throne
-- Diablo 1 - 3 (when it comes out)
-- The Sims 1 - And all expansions
-- The Sims 2 (probably)
-- Simcity 4000 & Rushhour
- May use emulation (to run up to the PS2/Wii)

Other Thoughts

• Eventually a dual monitor setup (and one be HD resolution)
• I will wait for some parts (hard drives, GPU, etc) to drop in price.
• Will wait for IvyBridge. . . .
• I WANT UEFI, NOT regular old BIOS (that this slimline has
• May eventually like a dual GPU (crossfire?)

Monitor Thoughts:

• First and foremost: HD
• Supports: HDMI, DVI, Displayport (if the motherboard of the computer does)
• Within 1 - 2 MS response time
• Screen size - 25 to about 27 inches (this desk doesn't really have a lot of room)
• Also is widescreen.

 

[Reefsmoka]

Power supply could do with being more powerful if you were planning on going down the crossfire road later on. You might be able to pick up a newer processor and board by the time you build it, sandybridge-e is already past sandybridge so ivy will be past sandy-e, so you might want to wait

 

[dlf]

Was going to wait anyway and I have to -- don't have enough to build it today. Some build I had weeks ago had a 800 watt PSU. This Slimline probably uses LESS than 100 watts, so going to 650 or 800 (as in a build I had weeks ago) is large. The more efficient the PSU is (80 plus silver/gold, I'd think) the better.

 

[Reefsmoka]

a 650w wont give you much wiggle room, especially if you overclock the cpu and/or graphics card also you wont be running crossfire with a 650w psu no matter how efficient it is. Get a big corsair PSU

 

[dlf]

I doubt I'll overclock -- I'd rather stick to fans than water or liquid cooling. How much power would you think? 700? 750? 800?

 

[Reefsmoka]

If your going to crossfire then no less than 800w. If you do get a i5-2500k you should overclock it, people have them at 4.6ghz+ 100% stable on air 24/7! its a free performance unpgrade, it should be law to have to have a sandybridge chip overclocked if you own one

 

[dlf]

Jezz 800 is a lot compared to this slimline . . . I did find one that's 850 watts for $99 and 80plus Gold. http://pcpartpicker.com/part/raidmax-power-supply-rx850ae presumming Ivy bridge drops the prices of Sandy bridge I could probably get a 7970 . . . Also to make crossfire clearer -- I can use any other 7900 (7950?) GPU as well as the 7970 but not 7800 (7850).

 

[Reefsmoka]

Dont skimp out on a no make PSU, go either Seasonic, Corsair or Coolermaster. Alot of people like XFX but i dont know much about them.

 

[dlf]

my god this is to complicated might as well stick to my PS3

 

[floppybootstomp]

Not really complicated.

At the heart of any PC system is the power supply. The better specced and higher powered the better.

Consider this - the whole system depends on enough juice being supplied so the PSU couold be considered the most important component. So don't skimp.

My personal view: Crossfire and sli a complete waste of time. Lottsa money for very little gain. Money spent better on high specced graphics card, either twin or single GPU.

If you waited for next PC development you'd be waiting forever so buy what's available NOW. Unless, of course, next development is about 5 days away.

Just do it.