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Mainstream Gaming - Bang for the Buck

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, and this sounds like what you expect. If this describes you, you are in the right place.

The Mainstream Component List for August 2009

As mentioned in the introduction, all prices are from Newegg. 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.

CPU - No question in my mind here. If I was building a rig today, the CPU would be the Intel Core i7 920 (Nehalem) processor. This is likely to change when the socket LGA 1156 models (Core i5 and new Core i7s) come out, but today, there's no question at all. The Core i7 920 has proven to be very overclockable and just darn fast even at stock settings.

Motherboard - Unfortunately, we're forced to buy a motherboard with an X-58 chipset in it. There's nothing wrong with the chipset, but the prices hurt a little. Right now, most of the X-58 motherboards are quite similar to one another. Most have 6 DIMM sockets, 2 or 3 PCI-Express X16 sockets (that support both Nvidia SLI and ATI Crossfire for a change), ICH10R southbridge with the same RAID capabilities (0/1/5/1+0) and number of SATA ports (6, usually, but sometimes 7 or 8). The onboard audio is "pretty good," but exactly which (Realtek) chip they have varies. To that end, I've really been a fan of the Gigabyte board's Ultra Durable line. I've had several now with Core 2 Duos and Quads. I've had good success with them all so far. So, for this build, I'm going with the Gigabyte GA-EX58-UD4P motherboard. I looked long and hard at the MSI X58 Pro-E as well because it's $70 cheaper with similar features. I've just had such good luck with the Gigabyte UD3 and UD4 series boards that I'm going to stick with those.

Memory - Here, I'm recommending going with at least 6GB of DDR3. You could start with 3GB, but really, we're reaching the point where 4GB of RAM is useful. Since we want this build to be good for a few years - if were lucky - 6GB sounds like a good bit of insurance. I've gone with OCZ Platinum 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) model OCZ3P1600LV6GK. I've had very good experiences with the OCZ Platinum memory, so I have no problems recommending it. This will leave three of the six slots open for "future expansion."

Graphics Card - I mentioned in the budget build section that I've noted that a good match is to get a graphics card that costs roughly the same to about 10-15% more than the CPU. For this rig, that would mean a graphics card in the $280-322 range. Unfortunately, this is a virtual dead zone for current card prices. Nvidia GTX 275 and ATI 4890s top out at about $290, which most in the $230-$250 range. The next step up, the Nvidia GTX 285 starts at just under $330. That said, the Core i7 920 is a great CPU, but I feel its price is still artificially high because of a bad case of "no competition." Therefore, we'll take the low road and go with a competent Nvidia GTX 275. An ATI Radeon HD 4890 is another possibility, but I'm sticking with the GTX 275 for its slightly higher performance for the buck. I recently upgraded to an MSI N275GTX TwinFrozr OC GTX 275 as my graphics card. It comes with 896MB of 448-bit GDDR3 memory. What I really liked about this card other than the factory overclock is the cooling solutions MSI used. It's a twin fan, multiple heat-pipe cooler. I don't see this card ever go higher than 62°C even after hours of game play. I've paid for aftermarket coolers (in the $20-$40 range), so I consider this card worth at least $30 more than its $235 price. And speed .. Wow. Just wow. I run at 1920x1200 resolution with most games set at their max settings, and it's just beautiful.

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 - My gaming machine right now is in an Antec Nine Hundred case. I love the case. The only thing I wish it had (now that I know how useful they are) is a top/front ESATA port. Introducing the Antec Nine Hundred Two with an ESATA port in place of an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port. This case has lots of features that I like including:

• Bottom-mounted power supply
• Two removable drive cages (with independent cooling fans) that each can hold three drives. Without the drive cages, the case can hold even more than that. I tinker with my machine more often than most. These drive cages make life much easier.
• Again, lots of that ever important airflow and fans including a huge top fan.
• Sides come off and go on very smoothly and easily.
• Interior is painted black as well. This is another change from the Nine Hundred (in addition to moving and swapping the IEEE port for an ESATA port) which should make peering though the side window just that much prettier.

Power Supply - The PSU I've added for this system is the Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W SLI Ready & CrossFire Ready with active PFC. I've configured this build as a single card system, however, the motherboard supports up to three graphics cards. I can't see ever going to three, but two isn't out of the question. Therefore, the power supply has been given some extra groom. It still may not be enough depending on the cards used, but it's a great PSU for this build.

Hard Drive - Picking a pair of hard drive for this system's RAID 0 array was easy enough. I went with a pair of Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM drives. The motherboard, supports RAID 0 (as well as 1, 5 and 0+1) and RAID 0 striped drives truly make a system run faster.

DVD-RW - DVD/RW drives are truly commodity items. Still need one for loading Windows though. The DVD Burner du jour is the Lite-On iHAS422-08 Black 22X SATA DVD burner with LightScribe support. There are others out there that are just as good. If you happen to have a copy of Nero or Roxio CD Creator, feel free to go with one of them.

Operating System - For this, we go with the venerable Vista Home Premium 64-bit version. 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. This particular version is $10 more than usual because it includes an upgrade coupon to Windows 7.

Generally, I like to see the mainstream system come in right at $1400 or even a bit less. That didn't happen this go round mostly because the Core i7 920 and quality motherboards for the LGA 1366 socket are still pretty expensive .. inflated even. Still, that's the CPU to have in a gamer today. This rig should please all but the die hard enthusiast. If you have a Newegg account, you should be able to see this saved wish list with these components. 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.