Opinions? Budget gaming PC

[Forde]

Hey all,

This here is my very first gaming build, which I put together back in June 2012, just thought I'd share it. Got so tied up and busy with it I completely forgot to post it online. Budget gaming PC.

I understand the guts are not so pretty, I think its bleghh myself... full ATX board was way out of budget in my part of the world, but the important part is I'm able to run my games very nicely with this Latest drivers installed, all games run swell! I had been thinking of upping the RAM to 8GB by simply adding in another 4GB of the same RAM (board supports dual channel), that is what reminded me that I never posted the build here!

Please let me know what you think. Looking forward to hearing from you guys!

System specs:

i3 2100 3.1Ghz
Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3V mATX
Sapphire Radeon HD 6850 1GB GDDR5
1x4GB DDR3 1333Mhz RAM Kingston
Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 7200rpm
LiteOn DVD/RW
Corsair CX500 500W 80+ power supply
Thermaltake V3 Black Edition case

The SoundBlaster sound card is from my previous computer.

Some of my latest pictures, cable management and stuff:

 

[Ken g6]

Looks like a nice little budget build...in a big, giant case. Nice cable management, though.

More RAM couldn't hurt. You could clearly use an SSD, if you can afford one.

 

[mfenn]

Looks fine to me except the case is kind of, erm, large. :awe:

 

[Charlie98]

That reminds me of my build... in a HAF922 case. You can crawl in there and go to sleep...

How do you like your Gigabyte board? I'm considering the -D3H version of that for my HTPC build if I can't find a H61 with HDMI at a reasonable price.

 

[bononos]

Looks fine to me except the case is kind of, erm, large. :awe:

Is the case large or is the matx mb making the case look large?

Edit: I don't think a normal atx size mb could make use of the cutouts at the bottom.

 

[Forde]

Is the case large or is the matx mb making the case look large?

Edit: I don't think a normal atx size mb could make use of the cutouts at the bottom.

Its a mid-tower case, its definitely the tiny mobo that makes it look large. Looking at the embedded stand-offs on the panel, no a full ATX would not make use of the cutout

The only gripe I have against my build is the tiny mobo... it just looks silly in there haha! I'm considering selling it and getting a full-size Z77 now that their prices have gone down. At the time of my purchase, the only full ATX mobos were Z68 / Z77, starting prices ranged around $180!!!

Would you recommend I get a full ATX Z77 now and save up for an i5-3570K? Or would it be better to wait for Haswell?

 

[Termie]

Its a mid-tower case, its definitely the tiny mobo that makes it look large. Looking at the embedded stand-offs on the panel, no a full ATX would not make use of the cutout

The only gripe I have against my build is the tiny mobo... it just looks silly in there haha! I'm considering selling it and getting a full-size Z77 now that their prices have gone down. At the time of my purchase, the only full ATX mobos were Z68 / Z77, starting prices ranged around $180!!!

Would you recommend I get a full ATX Z77 now and save up for an i5-3570K? Or would it be better to wait for Haswell?

Don't upgrade your motherboard just for looks!

Just close the case, press the power button, and enjoy. That's a nice, balanced gaming build (but yes, the case is a bit big - you could have just gone mATX).

When Haswell comes around, you can upgrade the MB/CPU/GPU to get to the next level of performance.

 

[bononos]

Its a mid-tower case, its definitely the tiny mobo that makes it look large. Looking at the embedded stand-offs on the panel, no a full ATX would not make use of the cutout

The only gripe I have against my build is the tiny mobo... it just looks silly in there haha! I'm considering selling it and getting a full-size Z77 now that their prices have gone down. At the time of my purchase, the only full ATX mobos were Z68 / Z77, starting prices ranged around $180!!!

Would you recommend I get a full ATX Z77 now and save up for an i5-3570K? Or would it be better to wait for Haswell?

It looks great for a budget build, not silly at all. I use a mini tower case with similar dimensions and had trouble routing cables and changing harddisks because the rightmost edge of the full atx mb is close to the disk cage.

And I would think that you would want to change the casing to a smaller one instead a new mb.

 

[Charlie98]

Just close the case, press the power button, and enjoy.

Nothing wrong with a little elbow room... :biggrin:

 

[mfenn]

Don't upgrade your motherboard just for looks!

Just close the case, press the power button, and enjoy. That's a nice, balanced gaming build (but yes, the case is a bit big - you could have just gone mATX).

Most definitely. I was just joking around with the large case comment. I didn't seriously mean that you should replace any components.