Gaming rig advice $1500 - $1700

Hi guys - been an off the shelf computer guy who played alot of games for a long time; but after battling with overheating issues and running on mid-low setting on games for a few years I want to make my first "game rig" purchase.

1.) Budget:  $1400 - $1700

2.) Equip Needs:  only the tower. I do not need monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers

3.) Usage:  gaming @ 1920 x 1080  ... playing MMO's (SW:ToR, GW2), Diablo 3, Torchlight 2, maybe Skyrim? some random games. Light amateur multimedia and web surfing.

4.) Needs:  good cooling, not excessively loud, ideally upgradeable going forward


I was thinking about the grabbing the ODE 1. My concerns with it were

• upgrade-ability.... PSU and MOBO not being able to SLI or Crossfire in the future if it became the norm. That being said ... I'm leary of the concept as is because of my heat issues of the past. If I had my druthers I would try and keep getting high end single cards; but I don't want to handcuff myself terribly.
  
  
• Cooling ...  ODE1 looks air cooled. Not sure if it would be better for me to do a liquid cooling thingMaybe I shouldn't care about upgrade-ability and go with it?

Maybe I should try and push my pockets and get a custom build?  (if so I would need some help)  Any thoughts and advice would be greatly appreciated!


Edited by stayghost - 24 Oct 2011 at 10:54am

If you want a good system that can do dual sli whatever, and has sli 570, its gonna cost you around $2800, thats with everything, ssd and etc.

if you want a system with one gpu that can do dual sli whatever its gonna cost you around $2100, no ssd.

the a70 is a great cooler, to beat it you have to go to stage 4 lc, which is not in budget.

so your options are ode 1 or expand the budget.

let me know which and I will help you.

what is your room temp?

for most mmos you don't need sli, for most fps games you do.

once you get to 80f temp you gonna start possibly having temp issues.

Here you go Ticket# 608906 --- $2,135 (To see this build click here)

Copy of Specifications:
Chassis Model: Special Deal Hot Seller - Cooler Master 942 HAF X
Exterior Finish: - Standard Factory Finish
Trim Accents: - Standard Factory Finish
Processor: Intel Core i7 2600K 3.40GHz (Unlocked CPU for Extreme Overclocking) (Quad Core)
Motherboard: ASUS P8P67 Deluxe (Intel P67 Chipset) (New & Improved B3 Revision Without SATA 3G Issue)
System Memory: 8GB DDR3 1600MHz Digital Storm Certified Performance Series (Highly Recommended) (Hand Tested)
Power Supply: 1050W Corsair Pro Silver 1050HX (Dual/Triple/Quad SLI Compatible)
Expansion Bay: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 1: Operating System: 1x (1TB Western Digital Caviar (7200 RPM) (Model: Black Edition)
Set 1 Raid Options: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 2: Multimedia\Data: - No Thanks
Hard Drive Set 3: Backup\Misc.: - No Thanks
Optical Drive 1: DVD-R/RW/CD-R/RW (DVD Writer 24x / CD-Writer 48x)
Optical Drive 2: - No Thanks
Internet Access: High Speed Network Port (Supports High-Speed Cable / DSL / Network Connections)
Video Card: 1x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 570 1.2GB (Includes PhysX Technology) (EVGA Edition)
Add-on Card: - No Thanks
Sound Card: Integrated Motherboard Audio
Extreme Cooling: AIR: Stage 2: Corsair A70 Dual 120mm Fans High Performance Cooler
H20 Tube Color:- Not Applicable, I do not have a FrostChill or Sub-Zero LCS Cooling System Selected
Chassis Airflow: Standard Factory Chassis Fans
Internal Lighting: - No Thanks
Enhancements: - No Thanks
Chassis Mods: - No Thanks
Noise Reduction: - No Thanks
LaserMark: - No Thanks
Boost Processor: Stage 2: Overclock CPU 4.5GHz to 4.8GHz (Requires Pro or Deluxe Series Motherboard)
Boost Video Card: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my video card(s)
Boost Memory: - No Thanks, Please do not overclock my memory
Boost OS: - No Thanks, Please do not tweak the services on the operating system
Windows OS: Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-Bit Edition)
Recovery Tools: Windows Recovery Toolkit (Bundled with Windows 7 CD)
Virus Protection: - No Thanks
Office: - No Thanks
Install/Test Game: - No Thanks
Display: - No Thanks
Surge Shield: - No Thanks
Speakers: - No Thanks
Keyboard: - No Thanks
Mouse: - No Thanks
External Storage: - No Thanks
Exclusive T-Shirt: - No Thanks
Priority Build: - No Thanks, Ship Within 5-15 Business Days After Order Is Successfully Processed
Warranty: Life-time Expert Customer Care with 3 Year Limited Warranty

Ask DS specifically for this fan to be added to the top, so you endup with 4 x 200mm fans:

haf 200mm non led fan

when you looking at cpu, don't just look at test benches that have nothing to do with our pc environment, test benches test one app/game at a time, we have multiple stuff running, also win7 supports ht, with 2500k you won't be taking advantage of that, also don't just go by how its doing today, you want to own the pc for the next 3 to 5 years, so think about how it will feel then, with apps/games moving toward multi core/thread support, the 2600k will feel more powerful in the future than the 2500k. Also win7 itself uses HT. with 2500k you will be missing out on that.

Edited by DST4ME - 25 Oct 2011 at 6:39pm