<$1000 Build Advice

[Morpheus23]

Here is my build that i am putting together primarily to play Diablo 3. It will also be used for watching and streaming hd video to other media devices. I will be adding a secondary regular HDD once the prices start coming down again. My budget is $1000 or less (not including monitor, speakers, keyboard & mouse). I might look into doing some OCing and Crossfiring in the future as well so I got a 750W power supply for future-proofing.


Motherboard: ASRock Z68 EXTREME3 GEN3 ATX LGA1155 DDR3 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E SATA3 USB3.0 SLI CrossFireX Motherboard $139.79
Power Supply: Corsair Professional HX750W 750W ATX 12V 62A 24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply Active PFC 140MM Fan $122.49
CPU: Intel Core i5 2550K Quad Core Unlocked Processor LGA1155 3.4GHZ Sandy Bridge 6MB No Onboard Graphics $173.60
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon HD 6850 Windforce 820MHZ 1GB 4.2GHZ GDDR5 2xDVI HDMI Display Port PCI-E Video Card $119.99
Memory: HyperX Genesis 8GB DDR3-1600MHz CL9 Dual Channel Kit (2 x 4GB) w/ Intel XMP $47.49
SSD: Crucial M4 SSD Micron C400 128GB 2.5IN Solid State Disk Flash Drive SATA3 6Gbps* $110.36
Network Adapter: D-LINK DWA-552 Xtreme N Desktop Adapter 802.11B/G/N Triple Antenna PCI Adapter $9.96
Disk Drive: ASUS DRW-24B1ST 24X SATA DVD Writer OEM Black $19.80
Case: Antec Eleven Hundred Performance Gaming Case XL-ATX 3X5.25 2X2.5 6X3.5IN 2XUSB3 INT No PSU $84.84
Cooling: Coolermaster Hyper 212 Plus Direct Touch 4 Heatpipe Heatsink AM2 AM3 LGA1366 LGA1155 LGA1156 120MM* $20.31
OS: Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit OEM $81.37

Total (Before Tax): $961.67

I think I got a lot of good deals on the components so I was able to save quite a bit. Any feedback or suggestions are welcome!

[Adzsask]

Looks pretty darn good, try and up the cooler with the remaining $40, or at the very least grab a pair of better fans for the 212+. I would snag a closed loop cooler with the extra $$$.

[Dzzope]

Crossfire is a bugger.. and AMD is very slow at releasing profiles for new games (which means x-fire doesn't work with them until they do)
If your going to be using 2 cards for sure I would lean to a 560 Ti.. and a 850 watt PSU, a 750 will probably just drive them, but if you want to OC as well.. Gonna be a bit tight..
(sli 560 TI's will suck 430 watts at load, leaving just 320 for the rest of your machine on a 750 Watt PSU.. Assuming it can deliver the full 750..)


If you need to cut cost somewhere.. then a P67 board will allow you to OC and save a few bucks.. Very few features lost, (ssd caching, igp switching)

[GT7R]

At the near future you should see dirt cheap 560Ti's and 570s from second hand... If you want new, then non-Ti 560's should be around 160-170ish.

[Dzzope]

Don't know if I could run my main pc with just 120GB... it's going to be MONTHS before we see a big drop in HDD prices and a very long time before they get back to where they were..

I would drop the SSD for a HDD and hopefully have a little more budget for a bigger GPU too..

You can always add a SSD when have saved again.. Apart from boot times and load times of games (still have to wait for net anyway with most games) an ssd is no benefit..
As I've said before in many threads, I wish I could get my money back for my ssd and bump my GPU a few notches.

Other possible savings can be made on a P67 board instead of z68.. there is no ssd caching and you can't use the IGP on the processor.. but you should be able to get the same clocks out of the chip..

That or as said above.. look second-hand for 570's when the 670 is launched on the 10th.. :)

[Morpheus23]

Thanks guys, I will see what I can do about getting a better video card and cooling. I might stick with my 6850 for now and replace it with something better once the new models come out and bring some of the prices down. I think if i`m going to be playing just Diablo 3, then a 6850 should do fine in the short term as the system requirements for Diablo 3 seem pretty light.

I managed to get a Seagate 1TB internal HD for $65 which should hopefully do fine as a secondary drive that will hold media files.