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 then is $1400. 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 October 2009's build list, you may be feeling a sense of déjà vu. Very little has changed this month .. except the prices .. which went up in most cases.
CPU - The CPU of choice this month is again the new Core i7 860 and for the same reason. The LGA 1156 motherboards are more affordable than the LGA 1366 ones, which makes the mainstream price more palatable. The Core i7 860 itself costs $280 or only $8 less than the Core i7 920. Depending on which benchmarks I look at, the 860 is faster or slower than the 920. I guess that justifies the similar price, but I was hoping for the 860 to be priced at $220-$230 (which is can be if you happen to live near a Micro Center - see the sidenote). There are features in the 860 that I really like. The TDP of the 860 is 95W versus 130W in the 920, which means less heat to dissipate and (usually) means less power from the PSU is needed. The Turbo Boost technology, where unused cores are shut down and the remaining cores boosted in speed, should help with those games that are largely single-threaded. (That is the majority of games today.) The LGA1156 motherboards are cheaper. They also only use dual-channel DDR3 memory instead of triple-channel also means a lower cost of entry (at the cost of some memory bandwidth). This review at Tom's Hardware shows that the new Core i5 750 and Core i7s do just fine in dual SLI and Crossfire (even with only half the PCI lanes per graphics card). This review at Anandtech shows similar results, but also shows that the Core i7 870 (which goes for twice the price of the 860) is only negligibly faster than the 860.
Still I find it hard to recommend the 860 without some reservations. Most of the benchmarks above are shown at stock speeds, and so don't tell the whole story. The Core i7 920 has proven to be very overclockable. It seems like everyone can get 4GHz clock rates with simple air cooling. The 920 comes with the multiplier unlocked, which allows for more variance in overclocking. The 860 and 870 can still be overclocked, but the base clock must be increased to do so. The 920'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. Maybe it shouldn't bother me, but I like having that extra flexibility. The difference in cost though puts the 860 in this build this time.
Motherboard - Going with the P55 chipset (LGA 1156) is great news here. Very high quality motherboards go for nearly $100 less than those using the X-58 chipset. I'm still a big fan of the Gigabyte board's Ultra Durable line. So, for this build, I'm going with a newcomer in the UD4P line, the Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4P, which replaced the newcomer of the last build, the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P. The difference is this new board has two USB 3.0 and two SATA3 6Gb/s ports. While current SATA hard drives don't really push the SATA2 3.0Gb/s speed all that much, those ultra-cheap, solid-state drives you'll be able to buy in a year (or three) will love SATA3. (Same thing for USB 3.0.) The motherboard also has six SATA2 3.0Gb/s ports and two ESATA (3Gb/s) ports on the rear I/O panel from a JMB362 SATA2 chip (which even have RAID support). It also has dual gigabit LAN ports (that support teaming), eight 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 14 USB ports). If you run out of ports on this one, something's wrong. 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.
Memory - Holy moly, Batman! Memory prices again jumped since October. For the last build, I recommended G.SKILL Ripjaws 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) F3-12800CL7D-4GBRH, which cost $95 at that time. They are currently $135. I guess the word got out. I also guess it's time to look around some more. Looks like I'm headed back into the OCZ camp with OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model OCZ3P16004GK with its 7-7-7-24 timings at 1.7V. This still costs $22 more than the last build, but that's better than a $40 increase. This leaves two of the four slots open for expansion in case these prices ever go back to where they were.
Graphics Card - I'm again recommending the new ATI Radeon HD 5850 GPU for the mainstream build. The good new is these can actually be found in stock now - although their prices have risen about $20-40. Based on a 40nm die, which results in lower power consumption (that is greatly appreciated in the blast furnaces that GPUs have become), this card is one of the first to have DirectX 11. An article at PC Perspective has a nice table showing the differences. 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 $290-333. The Nvidia cards in this range include the higher-end GTX 260s, the GTX 275s and the lower-end GTX 285s. The GTX 260 and GTX 275-based cards seem to have dropped off the face of the earth, so it's good the 5850 has started to be in stock. The new 5870 is outside the range at about $380-390, but the 5850 is about $290-300. That's actually right in the target number. Early benchmark articles like the one above, this article at Anandtech and this Tom's Hardware article show the ATI HD 5850 keeps up with or outperforms the Nvidia GTX 285, which costs in the low to mid $300 range. Never one to just waste money, that's the card for this build. Sapphire has gotten quite a name for themselves in ATI-based cards lately, so my choice for this build is the SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 video card w/ATI Eyefinity. Eyefinity struck me as a gimmick when I first heard of it, but now that I've seen the articles and videos .. I want it. This card has it. I just need this card .. and another pair of monitors.
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. The Antec Nine Hundred Two comes with an ESATA port in place of an IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port on the front I/O panel. However, the case is $15 more (after a $5 price drop). (It was $20 more last time.) For the last build, I recommended the NZXT TEMPEST CS-NT-TEM-B for $100, but it's price has risen to $110 making the two cases only $5 apart. Back to the Antec Nine Hundred Two goes this build. This case has the a number of features that I like including:
Power Supply - The PSU I've chosen is making it's third 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.
Hard Drive - For this build, I picked a pair of Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM drives, which were in my August build, but only recently started showing up in stock reliably again. Unfortunately, they also managed to show up with a $5 price increase over August. 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. I went with a retail version in order to get the software. For this, I chose the new HP 24X DVD Writer with LightScribe Model 1270i. There's 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 an OEM drive.
Operating System - Here we go with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM version for $105. 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 i7-860 Lynnfield 2.8GHz | $290 |
| CPU Cooler | Stock | $0 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4P LGA 1156 | $185 |
| Memory | OCZ Platinum 4GB (2 x 2GB) DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model OCZ3P16004GK | $117 |
| Graphics Card | SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 | $300 |
| Sound | Integrated sound on motherboard | $0 |
| Case | Antec Nine Hundred Two Black Steel ATX Mid Tower | $115 |
| Power Supply | Corsair CMPSU-850TX 850W Active PFC | $140 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA2 3.0Gb/s (Times 2 for RAID 0) | $200 |
| DVD/RW Drive | LITE-ON Black SATA 24X DVD Writer | $30 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | $105 |
| Total | The final damage less shipping | $1482 |
Generally, I like to see the mainstream system come in right at $1400 or even a bit less. Price increases in almost every component coupled with a few minor upgrades brought this build in just under $1500 at $1482. This system is over $110 more than last October's build with very little gain to show for it. After months (even years) of falling prices, we've had a quarter of rising prices, and that took it's toll. The new USB 3.0 ports and SATA3 ports are a nice addition and offer some future proofing. The disk drives are slightly faster and come with a better warranty. Everything else is nearly the same. I guess it had to happen some time.
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.