Bang for Your Buck HTPC/Gaming PC

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frankhuzzah

Weaksauce
Joined
Apr 18, 2007
Messages
96
1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
HTPC and Gaming
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
$300-400 - with shipping, I'm and Amazon Prime subscriber if that helps
3) Which country do you live in? If the U.S, please tell us the state and city if possible.
US - South of Fargo, ND
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc.
Likely, CPU, RAM, and Motherboard
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
Currenty own, Antec Fusion Case, EarthWatts 430W PS, ASUS EAH6770
6) Will you be overclocking?
No
7) What is the max resolution of your monitor? What size is it?
Panasonic Plasma TV - 1920x1080
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
Within the next month
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? USB 3.0? SATA 6Gb/s? eSATA? Onboard video (as a backup or main GPU)? UEFI? etc.
Not really any 'need', but I would like UEFI
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? Is it 32bit or 64bit?
Yes, Win7 64

I'm running a classic AMD 5000+ BE with 4GB of RAM currently for my HTPC. I bought the 6770 last year in the hopes that it'd make it a passable gaming PC and, for any older game, it has. With the recent Steam Holiday sale, I picked up some newish games (Saints Row 3, The Witcher 2, Deus Ex: HR, WoW:pandaria) and I'd like to actually enjoy them on my big screen. My current plan is to update the 'core' components now and await AMDs next iteration of graphics cards to get a new GPU and PSU.

Would an i3 suffice our would I be better served by upping it to an i5? What are your opinions of using a Xeon E3-1230v2 instead of an i5? Since I'm not an overclocker and the cost is about same, would the addition of hyperthreading help at all?

Thanks for the help.
 
For your budget, you should be able to fit in an i5, budget motherboard and 8GB of RAM easily. As for the Xeon E3-1230v2, not needed at all. Games do not take advantage of hyper threading either.

If you want closer to your $300 budget, you can get an i3. It will handle HTPC duties and gaming just fine. For reference, I'm rocking an Intel Pentium G860 in my HTPC just fine. I actually just finished playing L4D on it with the onboard GPU.
 
$189 - Intel Core i5-3470 CPU
$75 - Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H Intel B75 mATX Motherboard
$35 - Patriot Memory PSD38G13332 Signature 8GB DDR3 1333 RAM
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Total: $299 shipped
 
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Thanks for the tips! Is an H77 motherboard worth the little bit more that it'd cost? I've seen conflicting reports.
 
If you have to ask, probably not. If it has a feature that you need that B75 does not, then obviously it's worth the added cost. If you don't need anything it offers that B75 offers, then it's not worth the cost. So, what does H77 do that B75 can not that you need?
 
I haven't been happy with the cooling in my old Antec Fusion (or the horrible LCD, or the pointless volume knob) and I picked up a Fractal Design Node 304 for $65 from NCIX. What mITX board would you recommend?
 
I ended up getting a bit more money together and going with Intel DH77DF. I actually plan on using either the CEC or IR headers and the Intel NIC make it worth the cost for me. I also ordered the i5-3470.

Is the Patriot memory linked above still recommended, or is there something better suited?

Thanks!
 
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Cool, thanks a lot for the help Danny, I appreciate it. This is my first 'proper' gaming PC since my old E6600 and 8800GT, so I'm pretty jacked!
 
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