Budget gaming machine

I'm not aiming at a completely silent case but (according to Tom's Hardware review) Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 does have some noise and vibration issues. So I'm more and more tempted by Drithius' choice of Corsair Carbide Series 500R. In black of course :)
 
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One thing to keep in mind when considering a new pc now is that hybrid memory cube (hmc) is expected to launch sometime this year and at launch will be 15 times faster then ddr3 ram with an expected doubling within a year.
Just what this will mean for future games and performance in general is uncertain but 15 times faster memory does sound like it will have a significant impact.
Also if on a budget i would suggest not going intel/invidia and instead look at amd/ati's offerings as they typically give alot more bang for your buck in the budget tiers.
 
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Corsair carbide is quite nice - it's more like a mid-tower and a half in terms of size, plus the bulge in the side panel makes it somewhat easier to hide wiring behind your motherboard. For me, it was also very nice in that it allows you to swallow up a corsair h100i cpu cooler under the top panel.

I'm trying to remember some of the other cases that I looked at but I'm drawing a blank, sorry. It is indeed difficult to find a budget-minded case that isn't a jumble of plastic parts designed to appeal to the 15-25 crowd.
 
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I would also go with a larger SSD, personally. I'm always struggling to fit the right games on my 256GB SSD. I have more than one game that takes up 30+ GB, by the way.

But I use a large archive HD to move directories of installed games back and forth, so it's not as much of a hassle. So, you could just add a very large HD for your archive - though it's still annoying.

Unless you're the sort of person who only plays a few games at a time - I would definitely reconsider, as GBG was saying.

I can't say it's a vital thing, but it's very convenient in the long term.
 
Unless you're the sort of person who only plays a few games at a time - I would definitely reconsider, as GBG was saying.

I appreciate what you and GBG are saying guys but, if I spend more on SSD, I will have less on something else so it's a "short blanket" scenario: if you pull it over your head, your feet start sticking out. And I don't really see where I could make any savings to get bigger SSD.
 
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I appreciate what you and GBG are saying guys but, if I spend more on SSD, I will have less on something else so it's a "short blanket" scenario: if you pull it over your head, your feet start sticking out. And I don't really see where I could make any savings to get bigger SSD.

An SSD with 128GB for the OS is enough, backed by a decent hard drive (at least with 7200 rpm or 10,000 rpm, Hitachi or Toshiba are good and quiet).

You also made a good choice with the Corsair power supply, and Crucial RAM size.

Why don't you go with an AMD graphics card to make a bit of saving?
 
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Which one would you recommend SF?
 
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When I had an ATI/AMD GPU, I would always become a little frustrated when a Physx-based game would get released. I currently have an overclocked EVGA GTX670 (comparable to the 770 with updated instruction sets) and I'm plenty satisfied - the only thing that's taxed it has been Might and Magic X's exemplary coding. :rolleyes:
 
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Looks like a sweet setup. My things to consider:

I run a similar setup but with a "K" version 8m cashe cpu. It'll be about $25 more for the K but the unlocked multiplier lets you do some good fine tuning on your overclock. You don't buy i5 without planning to overclock, do you?! The non-K still overclocks alright but you'll squeeze more out of it with the extra increment options an unlocked multiplier gives you.

The GTX770 is a GTX680 with slightly faster ram. I wrote up some a pretty thorough post about this the other week, but basically 600 and 700 series are all Kepler GPUs and Maxwell GPUs are just around the corner. The recently released 750ti (The first card with a Maxwell GPU) has as much guts as the 480 but uses just a tiny 60watts while the 770 uses about 200watts at full power draw. Clearly these GPUs are much more power efficient than Kepler, therefore they'll run cooler at the same power settings or the same temperate with much more power. Consider waiting a few months and seeing how the 800 series go.

Titanfalls "insane" graphics option says it needs 3gig VRAM. I can run it fine with 2gb, with fps dips down to 55ish, but it still feels better playing on "high" with solid 60. I'd consider this cos Titanfall beta was FUN like no multiplayer FPS game has been in years.

So, yeah…. Good box, it'll be just fine, It beats the next gen consoles so you could even struggle on using this system at lower res for all console games of this generation. Maybe 8 years! But the 600/700 series has been out a looooong time now and even though no games make full use of the Titan the real next gen nvidia cards are just around the corner!

PS. I heard the 900 series plans to have the vram embedded into the GPU and run in unannounced 40x PCIE slots!
 
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As others have said I'd wait on the video card until the 800 series is released. Also I'd save some money for more storage at some point down the road.

30 GB games are becoming pretty common and they will only get bigger. Titanfall is a whopping 48 GB.

Remember performance starts to degrade on a HD at about 50% capacity. It shouldn't be very noticeable though until about 80-85% but something to keep in mind.

The rest looks good. Not sure where you live but if it's near a microcenter their CPU prices are outstanding usually.
 
I guess I will wait for 800 series. I just hope that the prices will not leave me gasping for breath :)

Thanks everybody!
 
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The waiting game can potentially go on forever - as it's never as ideal as it seems. Just a word of advice based on many, many years of building PCs.
 
I don't think the case is important as the power supply - and fans!

The case should fit 5.25" fans or larger as they tend to be a lot quieter than than 3.5" fans.

Also a decent heat sync - lots of copper and even fan connected to it.

Also, I would suggest upgrading your old hard drive. The stupid things are rated on a system that was meant for unmoving electronics. Also, there's unseen space on it to accommodate when sectors go dead, so there's a lot a of wear and tear on them.

Get a handful of drives (at least three) and RAID them out for safety's sake. Or, if you want increased performance, get four drives and go RAID 10 (you'll need at least 4) and use a dedicated RAID card if they're cheap enough.
 
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The waiting game can potentially go on forever - as it's never as ideal as it seems. Just a word of advice based on many, many years of building PCs.

True, but in this case I have a deadline (release of Witcher 3) so I still have a bit of time to make my final decision.
 
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I will check this out JDR. Thanks.
 
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