What am I doing wrong?

McBain

http://amzn.com/w/IIC7MZL19S4O

This ought to work for all of my latest gaming desires? MW3, Skyrim, etc.,

Help me trim the fat.

Also, newegg is fine for linking, but I've got a bunch of amazon gift cards and they still don't charge sales tax in CA, so that will be my place of purchase.

primesuspect

The link doesn't work.

Tushon

Make sure you list is set to public

McBain

lol - that wasn't even what I asked for help on....

Fix't link. http://amzn.com/w/IIC7MZL19S4O

McBain

Basically I want a recommendations on how to trim the cost of this down to 800$ or so, while still being able to satisfy my desire for MW3 and similar style games.

Do I need this level of equipment? Does the vertex 3 provide such a benefit above a cheaper drive? Is my video card overkill? Etc. Beyond that, I want to be able to put this in a small mini-ITX case that is wife friendly.

midga

I dunno, you should be able to run MechWarrior 3 on most anything decent nowadays.

Thrax

Basically I want a recommendations on how to trim the cost of this down to 800$ or so, while still being able to satisfy my desire for MW3 and similar style games.

Do I need this level of equipment? Does the vertex 3 provide such a benefit above a cheaper drive? Is my video card overkill? Etc. Beyond that, I want to be able to put this in a small mini-ITX case that is wife friendly.

If that's your goal, you have several issues to look at:

1) Your motherboard is ATX, not mITX.

2) The case you've picked is a large-ish mid tower?

3) If you wait 5 days, the Radeon 7850 will be on the market. It's shorter, uses 40% less power, and is about 30% faster than any version of the GTX 560 Ti. It'll also be $20 cheaper than the GPU you've picked. (SHILL ALERT: I work for AMD Radeon)

tl;dr version: I'm just not sure what direction you're trying to go. You have a full desktop rig, but you claim ITX aspirations.

Straight_Man

I am figuring you know that the i5-2500 needs a K (meaning unlocked multiplier) after the 2500 to OC well, so given your pick for CPU and cooler I hope you are not planning to OC much at all.

McBain

Not planning on OC'ing. Planned on using stock cooler, and a smaller case.

@Thrax I'm aware of the itx mobo and case. Those will be shrunk, but i wanted input on the chipset/mfg of the mobo.

And I appreciate the heads up on the video card...

Thoughts on the SSD?

Thrax

Chipset and mobo mfgr is great. I love gigabyte boards, and z68 is the chipset to get right now.

SSD is great, too, but you can probably save a few bucks by dropping back to a Vertex 2 for similar performance. Your call.

Tushon

Get this cooler instead.

The only way you are going to reduce the price is getting smaller parts. Most of what you have is about what I'd expect for a semi-future proof build, but you could go with a smaller SSD (60GB knocks $70 off) and a caviar green HDD to shave another $20

EDIT: plus what Thrax said about video card and chipset. Responses don't seem to be flowing in for me while page is open.

pigflipper

@McBain

I second the opinion of dropping to a smaller, slightly older SSD (I have a Vertex 2 and it is not slow or "average" in any way) as a boot drive/game drive and a decent sized standard HDD for storage. You should be able to get both for just about the same cost (+/- 10%) as the single, larger Vertex 3.

I also recently purchased the HSF unit that @Tushon linked to and I have been very impressed with it on my i7 system; highly recommend it as the best bang for the buck. That being said, going to a smaller case as you seem to want to do, you might need to look around for a lower profile HSF, just, for the love of whatever Holy Being you believe in, do not use the stock Intel HSF.

I know you want to use the Amazon gift cards, but you might be able to save a bit more money by buying some of the components from Newegg.

Thrax

If you're going miniITX, I cannot recommend the Prolimatech Samuel17 enough. Pair it with the 12mm-tall Scythe Slipstream fan for an incredible low-profile cooling solution.

I used it in my HTPC with the Gigabyte H55N and a Core i3, and I love it.

Tushon

I only believe in a giant Cupcake, and I don't use the stock Intel cooler.

McBain

Thanks @Thrax @Pigflipper @Tushon !

Great advice guys....exactly the scope I was looking for.

McBain

@Thrax , Why does the early benchmarks not hold up your performance claim on the 7850? Not doubting the claim, just wonder about the discrepancy.

Tushon

(you should probably link to benchmarks that you are asking about)

If it is this Tom's Hardware one, then you may attribute part of it to stability problems (which may indicate a buyer beware for the first round)

Thrax

The THG article is a known issue: the reviewer totally butchered his system configuration. He's in the process of revisiting his article, actually.

Go look at other sites. The 7850 screams at 19x10 and 19x12:

PCPer: http://pcper.com/image/view/11310?return=node/53741

PCPer Battlefield 3: http://pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7870-2GB-and-HD-7850-2GB-Pitcairn-Review/Battlefield-3-Radeon-0

PCPer Skyrim: http://pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/AMD-Radeon-HD-7870-2GB-and-HD-7850-2GB-Pitcairn-Review/Elder-Scrolls-V-Skyr-0

And so on.

Techreport, PCPer, Anandtech, etc. All reputable sites that prove my claim.

Tushon

Good deal. Figured you would have an answer, since, you know ... shill

McBain

It was the THG review...but thanks for the response.

McBain

Pulled the trigger....it's definitely not $800.00

But I did decide to wait on the 7850...

McBain

Also added to the order...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125419

Thrax

You will very likely be able to get 1050MHz GPU/1400MHz RAM out of that card. I got one for my dad and all I did was pull up the sliders in Catalyst, and I was done. No problems.