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 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 - This build, we're going back to the future. The CPU for this build is the Core i7 920. I had been going with the Core i7 860 because of the price of LGA 1366 motherboards. However, the price of LGA 1366 motherboards has dropped such that a very good one can be had for the same price as a comparable LGA 1156 motherboard. Since of the introduction of the Core i7 930, the i7 920 costs the same as the 860 - $280. The more benchmarks I look at, the more of them show that the 860 is a little slower than the 920 in most cases. The two penalties for going with the 920 are the cost for an extra stick of DDR3 RAM to support triple-channel and the TDP of the 920 is 130W versus the 860's 95W. The latter means that with the i7 920, 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 920 has proven to be very overclockable. It seems like everyone can get 4GHz clock rates with simple air cooling. 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. The difference in cost between the 860 and 920 has all but disappeared. Once all the 920s are gone, the Core i7 930 will likely be my choice. It is $15 more currently (for a very, very small bump in the stock clock speed, which we can easily overclock past).
Motherboard - For this build, we are going with a new version of the Gigabyte GA-X58-UD3R, the Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58. 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, but at least they seem to have stabilized. For this build, I need a triple-channel memory kit, so where going with Patriot Viper 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666). The memory is CAS level 7 with overall timings of 7-7-7-20. 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 - I'm again recommending the new ATI Radeon HD 5850 GPU for the mainstream build. 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 ($280), we have a range of $280-322. The Nvidia cards in this range really just can't keep up with the 5850. The 5870 is outside the range at about $380-390, but the 5850 is about $280-340. 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, the 5850 is 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 100282-3CODSR Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 video card w/ATI Eyefinity. The "COD" means that Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 is included with the card. 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.
I was really hoping to be able to recommend the Nvidia GTX 470 (as it is now named) in this build, but the expected price of $349 puts it solidly outside of the target price. That and they aren't actually available to buy yet. I'm going to be watching the 470 and 480 closely to see how their prices hold. I also wouldn't be surprised if the next Nvidia driver or two doesn't improve their performance a bit.
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 - I had been recommending the Antec Nine Hundred Two case in the last few builds, but its price keeps going up for no particular good reason and is now at $130. There are better cases for less money such as the Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP. 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.
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. 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 $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 i7-920 Bloomfield 2.66GHz | $280 |
| CPU Cooler | Stock | $0 |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R LGA 1366 Intel X58 | $200 |
| Memory | Patriot Viper 6GB (3 x 2GB) DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) Model PVT36G1333LLK | $176 |
| Graphics Card | SAPPHIRE 100282-3CODSR Radeon HD 5850 1GB GDDR5 | $305 |
| Sound | Integrated sound on motherboard | $0 |
| Case | Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP | $100 |
| 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 iHAS-324-98 SATA 24X DVD Writer | $30 |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit | $105 |
| Total | The final damage less shipping | $1536 |
Generally, I like to see the mainstream system come in right at $1400 or even a bit less. Price increases in some component coupled going back to an X58 LGA 1366 chipset solutions brought this build in over $1500 at $1536. In fact, most of the increased cost is in the extra stick of RAM in the triple-channel kit. After months (even years) of falling prices, we've had two quarters 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 fast and come with a good warranty, but the day is coming when there will be an SSD in this build. This build also is sporting a new case, the very popular HAF 922. It's a bit flashier than the Antec 902. Cheaper, too. A lot cheaper.
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.
January 2010
October 2009
August 2009