Build for Under $800

[Cyanide89]

A friend of mine wants a computer built for under $800 (£500) and I want to know if these parts are good enough:

Gigabyte Z68A-D3H-B3 ATX

Intel 2500K

Corsair Vengeance 8GB 1600Mhz

Corsair Builder Series 500CXV2

(Need a HDD - suggestions?)

HAF 912

ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti (or less - he's using it for audio and video editing mostly, not too much gaming)

Total so far is $777.57 CDN

Feel free to suggest anything, or recommend a whole other build.

 

[fcb]

Will it be an OC-ed system or just a regular performance out of the box system? If he's not going to be gaming much, I'd probably just go for the basic i3 2100. Even though prices have gone up for hard drives, for now I will suggest a single WD 1TB Black for the OS and partitions for backups and file storage. With the Z68 board you've chosen, you have the option for SSDs and the Intel Smart Response Technology option in the future. You can also switch between onboard video and the video card so that's a great feature as well.

You may also find some good deals on Kingston HyperX memory. For the PSU, I'd go for a 550W for a little spare power. You may find the Seasonic M12II 620W to be a good deal also.

 

[yassarikhan786]

I agree with CocaCola. For the hard-drive how about a 1TB WD caviar Green. The black's price has gone way up. 1TB for £170. I got 2TB for £100, lol.

 

[ruthless_villain]

I agree with CocaCola. For the hard-drive how about a 1TB WD caviar Green. The black's price has gone way up. 1TB for £170. I got 2TB for £100, lol.

The green isnt meant to be that good as a boot drive

 

[fcb]

I agree with CocaCola. For the hard-drive how about a 1TB WD caviar Green. The black's price has gone way up. 1TB for £170. I got 2TB for £100, lol.

Yup that's a great idea. It's not the best for an OS type of drive, but it's still enough to use for now. Another alternative is if you already have extra storage around or that of a previous system, you could think about a 60/64GB SSD for the OS and use the storage drives from previous systems for the main storage in the new PC as well. This will definitely save your friend a bit of money as well.

 

[ruthless_villain]

I agree with CocaCola. For the hard-drive how about a 1TB WD caviar Green. The black's price has gone way up. 1TB for £170. I got 2TB for £100, lol.

The green isnt meant to be that good as a boot drive maybe a blue or a f3

 

[Cyanide89]

Thank you for the advice.

He is planning on doing minimal gaming as the majority of his work is with audio editing and some video.

The GPU isn't a necessity. Any CPU and motherboard combo suggestions would be great, it doesn't need to be an i5. The whole PC just needs to be somewhat quick for editing and decent for gaming.

 

[fcb]

Thank you for the advice.

He is planning on doing minimal gaming as the majority of his work is with audio editing and some video.

The GPU isn't a necessity. Any CPU and motherboard combo suggestions would be great, it doesn't need to be an i5. The whole PC just needs to be somewhat quick for editing and decent for gaming.

I think a combination of an i3 2100 and a HD6850 will be a good fit. For the hard drive, you may have to search around and see if you can find either a WD 1TB Blue/Green depending which is less expensive. As I've mentioned before, if your friend has left over storage drives that are still good to be used, you can discuss with him if it would be a good move to have a decent 60/64GB SSD as the boot drive as well. The Kingston V100 64GB is a nice transition which isn't too harsh on the wallet.

 

[yassarikhan786]

The green isnt meant to be that good as a boot drive maybe a blue or a f3

I only suggested it because of the price increases.

 

[fcb]

I only suggested it because of the price increases.

Yup I totally agree with you yassarikhan786. The Green drives, although not a great drive for an OS to be installed on, it still works perfectly fine. It's just better to be used as a storage drive. For those who have extra storage drives handy, it's definitely a life saver. It's expensive now, but a lot of people are still willing to pay the price for them. I think a lot of people will generally think that it's still worth it to pay for the overall amount of storage you get from these drives over the SSDs right now.

 

[Cyanide89]

Will the Gigabyte Z68M-D2H support a GeForce card? I read a forum where some people were saying GeForce cards and SLI were not supported.

 

[fcb]

Will the Gigabyte Z68M-D2H support a GeForce card? I read a forum where some people were saying GeForce cards and SLI were not supported.

From the official website, it looks like it only supports AMD single and dual video cards.

 

[Cyanide89]

From the official website, it looks like it only supports AMD single and dual video cards.

Are you serious?! Nooooooo!

 

[fcb]

Are you serious?! Nooooooo!

I recall the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 supports both nVidia and AMD, so that's a great one to look into as well.

 

[Cyanide89]

I recall the GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 supports both nVidia and AMD, so that's a great one to look into as well.

Thanks, will do.

 

[daniSAUR]

For single card set up 500W is more than enough for your uses.

Also, if you do end up going for the AMD aimed board, a 6950 (which in some tests out-performs a 560gtx-ti) would be more suitable if you're considering that route.

Just my 2c.

 

[Cyanide89]

I'll use the 500W one, he doesn't plan to do any hardcore gaming so a cheap video card is fine. Ill probably stick with the Intel setup and get a GTX 540.

 

[Cyanide89]

ASUS GTX 550Ti VS GTX 560Ti... thoughts?

 

[fcb]

If he's not going to be gaming much, then the GTX 550 Ti will be more than enough.

 

[Cyanide89]

If he's not going to be gaming much, then the GTX 550 Ti will be more than enough.

He wants to play Skyrim and other RPG and RTS games. I know the 550 is better than my old hd5770 in some cases and it ran BF3 on high... So it should be ok with Skyrim on low or medium right?