You want to build a rig to play the latest games and you'll like that investment to be good for the next year or two. Systems in this section tend to run from $1200-$1700 depending on the current winds. The general target is $1400-1450. If this describes you, you are in the right place.
As mentioned in the introduction, all prices are from Newegg unless explicitly specified otherwise. No special prices (e.g., after mail-in-rebate prices or combo prices) are used if that can be avoided. You should be able to load these items in your cart and get them at or near the prices quoted. If you looked at March 2010's build list, you may be feeling a sense of déjà vu. Very little has changed this month .. except the prices .. which went down in most cases.
CPU - This build, we're switching from the Core i7 920 to the 930. Since of the introduction of the Core i7 930, the i7 920 costs has either gone out of stock or actually costs more than the 930 (for reasons I can't figure out). The two penalties for going with the 930 over something like the Core i7 860 are the cost for an extra stick of DDR3 RAM to support triple-channel and the TDP of the 930 is 130W versus the 860's 95W. The latter means that with the i7 930, there is more heat to dissipate and (usually) means more power is required from the PSU.
Most of the benchmarks above are shown at stock speeds, and so don't tell the whole story. The Core i7 930 has proven to be as overclockable as the 920. It seems like everyone can get 4GHz clock rates with simple air cooling. The 930's separate triple-channel memory controller can also allow for higher overclocking of the CPU and more tweaking of individual clocks. That said, overclocking for the mainstream system isn't as important as for the high-end system where we are trying to get the CPU to be able to keep up with a multiple-CPU SLI or Crossfire setup. While the $290 price is $10 than in the March build, there is no difference in cost between the 860 and 920 (at Newegg), so I can't see why I'd want one over the 930.
Motherboard - For this build, we are sticking with a the same Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 as was used in the March build. It's a great board and now, it's $15 less. The 'A' version comes with two USB 3.0 ports (on the rear panel) and two SATA3 (6.0 Gb/s) ports. We won't need the SATA3 ports right away, but with prices of solid-state drives (SSDs) dropping rapidly, that's a likely upgrade before this box becomes obsolete. SSDs are one of the few things that really make use of SATA3. As for the USB 3.0 ports, there are already external backup drives using the new USB standard. These drive run at nearly ESATA speeds and are backward compatible with USB 2.0 ports (at 2.0 speeds, of course). The motherboard also has eight SATA2 3.0Gb/s ports and two combo USB/ESATA (3Gb/s) ports on the rear I/O panel. It also has one gigabit LAN port, four 2.0 USB ports on the rear I/O panel and headers for two pairs of two USB ports for front panel connections (for a total of 12 USB ports). The manual for this motherboard is available at Gigabyte's web site and general information on this new motherboard can also be found at Gigabyte. The original Gigabyte GA-X58-UD3R is still available, but with only $11 separating the two, the newer USB 3.0 and SATA3 ports are a cheap upgrade.
Memory - Memory prices still make me cry a little. For this build, I need a triple-channel memory kit, so where going with G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Model F3-10666CL7T-6GBPK. The memory is CAS level 7 with overall timings of 7-7-7-18. This is a little better timing than the Patriot memory recommended in March, and runs on lower voltage (1.5V - 1.6V). Even better is it's $26 cheaper. I like to start with CAS level 7 so that I can back off memory timings if we ever overclock (e.g., 9-9-9-24 when running at DDR3 2000). This leaves three of the six slots open for expansion in case these prices ever go back to reality.
Graphics Card - Woot! Something changed! The prices of the Nvidia GTX 470 have dropped into the $330 level, which brings this card just into range for this build. Using my rule of thumb where the graphics card should cost 1.0 to 1.15 times the cost of the CPU ($290), we have a range of $290-$334. With the latest drivers, the Nvidia GTX 470 outpeforms the 5850 (and often the 5870) in just about every gaming benchmark I've seen. Check out the reviews at HardwareCanucks (check out the superclocked and the stock numbers), the Guru of 3D (the Palit model is reviewed, but has the same clock timings), and Maximum PC (also the superclocked model).
I'm really happy to be able to recommend the Nvidia GTX 470 in this build. I've always had fewer driver issues with Nvidia versus ATI cards for one thing. It's been a while since Nvidia had a new card, but the 470 is definitely the price/performance leader at the moment. With DirectX11 and the beta drivers with 3D Vision Surround, this is quite the competitor to the 5850 and 5870. I do hope that Nvidia comes out with Surround without the 3D requirements though.
Sound - For this build, we're going with the integrated sound provided by the motherboard. While I still prefer discrete sound cards, the difference isn't worth the cost even on this midrange rig.
Case - There case recommended for this build is the same as in March, the Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP. The price has dropped $10 since the March build. This case has the a number of features that I like including:
More information about this case can be found at the Cooler Master site. The manual is located here. An additional 200mm red LED fan for the side panel costs $20 plus shipping.
Power Supply - The PSU I've chosen is making it's fourth appearance in midrange build list - Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W SLI Ready & CrossFire Ready with active PFC. This build is a single-card system, however, the motherboard supports two graphics cards. Therefore, the power supply has been given some extra headroom. It still may not be enough depending on the cards used, but it's a great PSU for this build. This month, the price drops $10 (with an additional rebate card for $20 available at the time of this writing).
Hard Drive - For this build, I picked a pair of Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM drives, which were oringally in my August build. Happily, the price has dropped to $90 each. The Western Digital Caviar Black series has a five year warranty. The motherboard supports RAID 0 (as well as 1, 5 and 0+1) and RAID 0 striped drives truly make a system run faster, so we will need a pair of these.
DVD-RW - DVD/RW drives are truly commodity items. Still need one for loading Windows though. For this build, I chose the Lite-On iHAS-324-98 24X DVD Writer, retail version. The retail version includes the burning software.
Operating System - Here we go with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM version for $95, which is $10 less than in the March build. This particular version is for system builders, which means you get to do your own product support. I'm not sure how that's any different than the retail version when it comes right down to it. I always end up tracking down my software issues myself. There's just so much info available on the web I've never found the need to use the Microsoft telephone support system.
| Component | Description | Cost |
|---|---|---|
| CPU | Intel Core i7-930 Bloomfield 2.8GHz | $290 |
| CPU Cooler | Stock | $0 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 | $185 |
| Memory | G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 Model F3-10666CL7T-6GBPK | $150 |
| Graphics Card | EVGA 012-P3-1470-AR GeForce GTX 470 1280MB | $330 |
| Sound | Integrated sound on motherboard | $0 |
| Case | Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP | $90 |
| Power Supply | Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W Active PFC | $130 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA2 3.0Gb/s (Times 2 for RAID 0) | $180 |
| DVD/RW Drive | LITE-ON Black iHAS-324-98 SATA 24X DVD Writer | $26 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | $95 |
| Total | The final damage less shipping | $1476 |
Generally, I like to see the mainstream system come in right at $1400-$1450 or even a bit less. Some nice price reductions bought this system in at just under $1500 at $1476. This is much better than last March's build price of $1536, and we even get a nice bump in graphics performance. The USB 3.0 ports and SATA3 ports are a nice addition and offer some future proofing. The disk drives are fast and come with a good warranty, but I still predict the day is coming when there will be an SSD in this build.
As always, if you build this system (or one based off of it), I love to hear from you with any tips, problems, praises or jeers you have by emailing me.
March 2010
January 2010
October 2009
August 2009