get an i5, and your machine will be complete

Get a SSD and use an old HDD as storage until the HDD prices are back to something reasonable maybe

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1. i3's are bad, mkay. get an i5.
2. get a 500watt psu (not a B brand either). http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817171046 this is 460 watt and $ 35.
3. Don't buy a normal hdd right now, get an ssd instead and buy a storage hdd later when prices drop. Also if you do want one, buy an external hdd and take it out of the casing. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136500 $99 for 1TB
4. a $10 fan is that a casefan? if its a cpu cooller then theres no difference from the stock cooller really.
5. have a few extra bucks to spare? for $30 u can get a 6870 or gtx 460 instead of the 6850, quite a bit faster (20%).


maybe it'll cost a tiny bit more then u calculated but it's worth it in the long run.

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your proposition is really good for a budget build:

i3-2120 + ASRock Z68 Pro3 + 8 GB Kingston.

for games i3-2120 is as fast as AMD X4 Phenom 3,4 Ghz.
but it has only 65 W TDP.
benchmarks:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2011/intel_sandy_brid...ndex22.php

I would get Sapphire 6850 as GPU. coz its very silent.
(I think SApphire 6870 is a bit louder...you can overclock your 6850 to 6870 level anyway..)

its a good budget build tbh!


Btw maybe get a passive 6850 from Powercolor for 150 €.
Put a Scythe Slipstream 800 rpm on top and u have an awesome setup.
http://www.tomshardware.de/Powercolor-HD6850-...21-13.html

wait until next year spring/summer,
next year ssd's will get much cheaper and
ultrabooks come out, the new intel cpu gets released.

Someone buying a pc right now, will have completely outdated system by then

you could say that every time somebody wants to buy an electronic device, especially computer hardware or cell phones...

yeh its fucking annoying how fast technology becomes outdated :[

You're wrong. The next intel cpu release will be the sandy bridge tock. that means that a 2600k system has a direct upgrade path to their next release. It will be the same socket (never mind an i7 2600k running at 4.8 is way more power than anyone has ever had at their disposal).

This is the best time to build a cutting edge pc there has ever been price / performance wise.

Sandy bridge is amazing and can be heavily oc'd on stock ram and air cooling. The money you save being able to oc without boutique ram gets you a free vertex 3. (they are going back to FSB with their next cpus so this is a 1 time only thing never to be repeated)

I built this 5 months ago

asrock z68 xtreme 4
i7 2600k (4.8 24/7 on stock cooling)
vertex 3 120 gig (i haven't touched my data drive yet and run everything off my ssd without breaking the 80 percent rule)
1TB WD caviar black data drive
Lite on blu ray writer
8 gb gskill @ 1600 (tight timings)
gtx 570
corsair 850 watt modular (they have a higher failure rate and my first one did blow up on my initial overclock torture test but build is so clean without all the extra cables and it really helps airflow)
xigmatex elysium (this thing is gorgeous and is big enough to build a server in as well as have like 18 radiators inside the case)
I put this together for just over 2k Canadian. I've never been so satisfied with a computer. I can't even read the tips on loading screens they load so fast. I'm the first person into a new map in any game I play. Win 7 boots in 10 seconds. Everything I click or touch happens instantly (I can't express the satisfaction this brings to using a computer. It's like going from 2400 baud modem to 3mbs cable)

My last system build before this was at the end of the socket 939 era. I built an fx-60 based system and spared no expense. It cost well over 5k canadian and was shit by comparison. That was when HL2 came out. It lasted 7 years untouched.

Basically what I'm saying is you can build a world class system that puts you in the top 0.1 % of computer owners for less than half of what it would cost 7 or 8 years ago and the power gains are exponential. That's including 8 years of massive price inflation thanks to government run amok. Going budget on computer builds is for suckers. Spend 800 bucks to build a computer that sucks from the minute you build it??????????????? Are you retarded? It's rare that the number one performance processor is also the best price/performance wise. Don't miss out. If you don't build a sandy bridge system you are making a mistake.

maybe you are right ...
still I am not feeling like spending money on a new pc ...
my old one still plays most stuff more or less ...
and for the gfx heavy stuff I have my XBox 360
...
and if I want a fast OS I load up linux instead of Win 7 ...
still getting myself a new PC with SSD next year in summer or so ...

better yet, wait til 2020 when 1tb SSD is normal

1 tb ssd will be normal in 2 years
EDIT: k, let's make it 3 years

the build you have put there is already good enough to play the games you mentioned. I have an older generation dual core and a gtx260 and still runs SC2 pretty good, but yeah if you think you want to spend extra go for the i5.

Go with the decent SSD, 80 GB model. It will make your computer so much more responsive and smoother. The rest of the advice in this thread is very good too.

The most reliable SSDs are from Intel and Crucial.

on a slight tangent, how much more would it cost to have this but be able to do a bit more than 'light' photo and video editing, since i want to make some video tributes/montages with 3d modelling etc. or do you have to have much higher specs for that kind of thing?

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so would you need a powerful pc to make something with the same visual standard as this in 1080p or do you just have to wait hours for rendering etc?

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good to hear! i'm not so bothered about spending ages and ages on something. that's just will power. it would be more annoying for me to spend a lot more money on something that i didnt need much use for. thanks :)

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sorry i meant render heh :/

the best encoding comes from sandy bridge onboard hd video. It's significantly faster than any gpu solution. Just another reason to get sandy.