Need gaming computer for under $1400

In My Humble Opinion
21

Putting together a $1400 computer with that video card is absurd. It’s like replacing a ferrari’s engine with a riding lawn mower’s engine and then saying well hey I like riding around on my lawnmower.

The 7570 is about 1/5th as powerful as the 660 TI. If you define “edge gaming” folks as anyone who wants better than a mid-range card in 2007, that’s pretty absurd. Whoopdidoo that you run console ports at “non-minimal settings”. That’s certainly not what this guy is aiming for with a beefy system.

As to the last proposed build, if you’re going to spend $200 on a CPU, you should go intel. If the water cooling is an enclosed unit like an H80 or something, then it’s no more maintenance than an air cooling unit and that shouldn’t scare you off.

It’s difficult to tell with genericized part names. For instance the 2tb hard drive - that could describe dozens of different models which range in performance. A WD Black drive of that type is going to be better than anything by seagate for example. Same problem with “500w power supply” - there’s a big difference between a high quality 500 watt unit and a generic one.

You should have an SSD for the OS drive. A 128gb SSD paired with a 2TB drive is about ideal.

That’s not a bad build, though, and I’m sure you’d be happy with it, but you could do much better for the same price if you built your own. It’s not really very hard. Lots of guides for it.

22

I can say that the liquid cooling system iBuyPower provides is maintenance free and very uncomplicated. It’s not exactly stellar, but it’s as good or better than a decent heatsink/fan combo. There’s just a little pump that covers the CPU, then a couple of pipes that run to the radiator which is attached to the back of the case. One or two fans will be attached to the radiator to expel the heat. It’s generally quieter than a computer with a heatsink/fan, since there’s no CPU fan and you’d have the radiator fan in the case anyway to move air through.

I’ve had two computers from IBP, and both have been pretty solid machines. The worst thing I’ve found about them is the case fans they provide are shit, and you’ll usually need to replace them with your own, but that’s only $20-40 depending on how fancy you want to get.

Personally I’d really recommend swapping out for an Intel i7 CPU and a Geforce 660. That’ll last you several years.

23

The 7870 is better than the 660. It’s slightly behind the 660 TI, which, due to nvidia’s stupid and arbitrary naming scheme, is actually a new generation chip.

And I don’t mean to shit on the 8350 build - it would be a great machine and you’d be happy with it, just trying to optimize it.

24

Here, I built a better system from ibuypower.

Intel Z77 Core i5/i7 Configurator
1 x Case ( CoolerMaster HAF 922 Gaming Case - Black )

0 x Case Lighting ( None )

0 x iBUYPOWER Labs - Noise Reduction ( None )

0 x iBUYPOWER Labs - Internal Expansion ( None )

1 x Processor ( Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i5-3570K )

0 x iBUYPOWER PowerDrive ( None )

1 x Processor Cooling ( Liquid CPU Cooling System [SOCKET-1155] - Standard 120mm Fan )

1 x Memory ( 8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand - FREE Upgrade to G.Skill Ripjaws )

1 x Video Card ( AMD Radeon HD 7950 - 3GB - Single Card )

1 x Video Card Brand ( Major Brand Powered by AMD or NVIDIA )

1 x Motherboard ( ASRock Z77 Extreme4 – 2x PCI-E 3.0 x16, 4x USB 3.0 )

0 x Intel Smart Response Technology ( None )

1 x Power Supply ( 600 Watt - Standard - FREE Upgrade to 650 Watt NZXT HALE82N-SI )

1 x Primary Hard Drive ( 120 GB Intel 520 SSD - Single Drive )

1 x Data Hard Drive ( 1 TB HARD DRIVE – 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive )

1 x Optical Drive ( 24X Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black )

0 x 2nd Optical Drive ( None )

0 x Flash Media Reader / Writer ( None )

0 x Meter Display ( None )

1 x Sound Card ( 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard )

1 x Network Card ( Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) )

1 x Operating System ( Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) - 64-Bit )

1 x Keyboard ( iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Keyboard )

1 x Mouse ( iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Mouse - Blood Red )

1 x Gaming Accessories ( Logitech G13 Advanced Gameboard )

0 x Monitor ( None )

0 x 2nd Monitor ( None )

0 x Speaker System ( None )

0 x Video Camera ( None )

0 x Case Engraving Service ( None )

1 x Warranty ( 3 Year Standard Warranty Service )

1 x Rush Service ( Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship date by 12-14-2012 )

Make sure you check all the freebies. With the 7950, you get Hitman Absolution, Far Cry 3, and Sleeping Dogs. There’s a free engraving service. Maybe some other stuff. But you have to specifically check it. Look thoroughly.

The 3570k your best bet there, in no way is the 3770k they offer for $130 more worth it. The motherboard and case are what I personally use (well, I use the p67 extreme4) and very good.

You have a 120gb SSD along with the 1TB drive. You can get a bigger drive if you think you need the space, or you can just add another one later. But you definitely want an SSD. If you do go with the 2TB hd, go with the extra fee to upgrade to WD black. There’s no such option for 1tb unfortunately.

Buying the 600w class PSU gets you a free upgrade to a good 650w unit. It’s a rebadged Seasonic unit, which is good. Definitely worth it over a generic 500w.

Don’t pay for their overclocking service, do it yourself. With current intel chips it’s super easy. In fact it’s probably as simple as going into your bios and flipping the 4.4ghz preset and seeing if it works. Maybe 4.2 if it doesn’t. If you do decide to overclock, I’d probably pay the extra $20+10 or whatever it was to upgrade to a corsair h60 and TX-2 thermal compound. It will help if you plan to overclock, otherwise unnecesary. Also consider their wire routing service - they should really build it clean, but it’s worth having for $20.

You’ll also want to overclock the 7950, since they’re known as being great overclockers and almost all can get a 25% increase in performance.

The build I just gave is significantly better than any of the others proposed in the thread, and not any more expensive.

25

Assuming SenorBeef’s system comes in under budget (since he didn’t give the total or I missed it), it gets my endorsement. The 7950 is a great card and one of your best returns for the dollar before hitting the couple very expensive cards above it. Someday when the price on them drops further, you can add a second one and leap ahead. I have a 3GB 7950 and play my stuff at High or Ultra settings (although my monitor caps out at 1680x1050).

The processor will last you for years. For gaming, most people agree that the jump from i5 to i7 isn’t worth the upcharge. While a better CPU does matter, you’ve largely plateaued by that point and the i7 is better suited for intensive nongaming applications. Not that an i7 would hurt you, it just doesn’t deliver the return on investment that an i5 with the extra money put into your GPU provides.

$1400 is a significant chunk of change and so for a “gaming computer” I assume you want something that’ll let you crank up the settings and let you feel like you’re seeing the latest games how they’re meant to be seen. The system provided is your best option for doing so.

26

Woops, total was $1340ish. Didn’t notice it wasn’t in the details.

Jophiel, get yourself a korean 2560x1440. Also recommended for the OP. You get the A or A- grade batches of the same panels in the Apple Cinema displays (A and A- means there are defects in like 10-20% of the units so Apple won’t buy them - but the defects can be minor like 1 dead pixel out of 4 million) for around $300. Most units are perfect anyway, just 1/4th the price. Warranty service can be impractical though.

My build listed some logitech weirdo gaming controller, if I checked it it was by accident.

27

Actually, I guess my build comes in at about $1300 with the accidental logitech controller thing there. You could spend the extra on more hard drive space (most people don’t need more than a tb, and you can add later, so up to you) or the h60/tx-2 combo, or doubling the ram (most people are more than fine with 8) and still come under $1400.

28

Or save the $100 and spend it on $5 games during all the digital download game sales later this month since you’ll have a new gaming computer :wink:

29

this isn’t a computer specifically designed for gaming.

i7- will never be utilized. i-5’s are cheaper and will get the job done from ANY game.
16gigs of ram is also overkill. 8gb is fine
gtx 660 is a mid-range card, something like a 670,680, 7950, or 7970 would be better suited in this budget for a gaming card.

blu ray - if your sun doesn’t own blu-ray movies, it’s pointless.
also see if you can throw in a small SSD (128gb or so) in addition to the storage drive. it will make games load obscenely fast (skyrim loading screens are about three seconds on my pc).

30

I’ve bought my last 3 computers from CyberPower PC, which is an extremely similar company to iBuyPower. I’ve had no major complaints with the computers or their service. Just throwing it out there because I usually run the same specs at both companies to see who has the better deals at the time.

31

Fine. Say instead a computer with enough power to handle gaming. Most computers that are not sold as gaming computers do not because they skimp on the video card. A computer that is sold as a gaming computer will have the power to handle games, regardless of any other bells or whistles on it. Said bells and whistles are usually appreciated, as a computer designed for gaming is usually used for other tasks as well.

Sheesh, some people are so eager to score points.

32

There’s nothing to worry about with liquid cooling. Indeed liquid cooling units are often cooler and quieter and smaller.

Do be aware that the -k model CPUs have certain virtualisation modes disabled.

I concur with going for Intel over AMD and the GPUs andrewbub lists.

33

First of all, I’d like to thank SenorBeef for what looks to be an great build, though I’ll probably downgrade to the 2Gig Video and upgrade to the 2TB WD Black. Second, at first I was just going to get the 32’’ moniter since it is a free upgrade, but after looking at some reviews, I decided against it. So now I’m looking for a decent moniter 24’’+ in the $200-ish range.

34

I’m guessing that 32" monitor upgrade is actually a TV, which you generally don’t want. Monitors are better than TVs pretty much across the board. I’m not aware of any 32" monitors, and if they existed, they’d probably cost $1500.

A great gaming monitor with great reactivity is the Asus VW246H, they’ve sold a gazillion of them to gamers and you can probably find one for $160 on a holiday sale. If you want an IPS panel, which has better viewing angles and more consistent color, the Asus VG23AH is good for around $230.

When you say “downgrade to the 2gb video”, what are you referring to? For a gaming machine, the GPU is the heart of the machine - I would be hesistant to skimp on that part. But if you mean going down to a 7870, that’s not bad - but I’d still pay the extra for a 7950.

35

I bought this Microtel from Amazon for about $800.

Specs: 3.4GHz AMD Phenom II X4 965 Processor, 12GB DDR3 1333mhz, 1TB Hard Drive 7200RPM, 24X DVD-RW, Nvidia 550 GTX-TI 1GB Video Card, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Full Version CD - 64 bit + WiFi.

It also comes with game-enhancing software that will temporarily shut down unnecessary programs that interfere with game playing. Also has overclocking software, which I haven’t used.

So far, it’s performed flawlessly.

36

Honestly, I wouldn’t pay $1400 for any computer that didn’t come from Falcon NW (And that includes Alienware which is just another Dell department, these days.)

Exigencies required me to get a new computer a couple months ago. I got this one, from Dell, for about $650.

XPS 8500
3rd Generation Intel Core i5-3350P processor (6M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)
8GB DDR3 SDRAM AT 1600MHZ-2x4GB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 620 1GB DDR3 for Win 8
1TB SATA Hard Drive 7200 RPM
XPS 8500, Black Chassis w/19:1 media card reader
Windows 8, 64-bit, English
Integrated 10/100/1000 Ethernet

It’s a good CPU and a mediocre GPU - but here’s the important part - it’s a better GPU than the xBox 360 has, and all the major games being designed today are designed to work crossplatform. So far, this Dell has been a great little machine. Probably the most taxing thing I’ve done so far is Skyrim with about fifty mods. It handled it like a champ.

Here’s the second most important part - I can spend another $250 next year, once the warrenty’s up, and put in a bitchin’ graphics card and double the RAM - and I’ll still have only spent half of what you want to give iBuyPower.

Which is not to say you shouldn’t buy the more expensive machine. I wanted to buy the more expensive machine, too, but I couldn’t. Just to say - it’s really not necessary if you want to play computer games. Between the way parts drop in price and the way new parts come out every week, I prefer to spend a little less money upfront and plan to upgrade it more frequently down the road.

37

To put it another way - the machine you want is twice as expensive as the machine I bought, but it’s not going to be twice as powerful.

38

I agree that he could build an adequate system for much cheaper, but I disagree that his system wouldn’t be twice as powerful as yours. I mean, it depends on how we quantify “twice”, but the graphics card alone would on the order of 10 or 20 times more powerful than yours, and that’s the heart of any gaming system. You are correct that the 620 is “better than the gpu in an xbox 360”, but that’s an insanely low standard to settle for when you could go for 20-50x better than an xbox 360.

The build I priced out for him is significantly better than yours. As far as what the end user would feel, I’d say it would give an impression of being twice as fast. It’s hard to quantify - for instance, things would load several times faster with the SSD, and he’d have 20 times more gpu power, but the cpu isn’t quite twice as fast, so it’s hard to quantify that into a “how many times faster”, but I assure you, if you want to spend the extra money on a PC, the build I priced out for you is going to be very noticibly better. If he’d have given me an $800 budget, I’d have worked within that too.

39

That’s a $50 junk video card. If you’re happy with it, go for it, but no one would stick a card like that in a computer and call it a gaming rig. I used to have a fairly low end card (9800 GTX+, still better than yours) and felt happy enough with it until I got a high end card and saw the difference it made. Slower processor with less overhead to OC (plus the 3570k is designed for overclocking), air cooled vs water cooling, looks like it’s a 460W generic PSU (which will need to get replaced when you upgrade the video card).

It’s a decent computer for the price but it’s not really close to comparable.

40

No ability to OC - you can technically overclock non-K chips but it would be in a way where you’d be struggling to do 10%, and it wouldn’t be stable. Basically all intel overclocking is done through K chips now. It’s much simpler and more flexible than previous generations.