These rigs represents some great routes to go with when building your gaming RIG’s this year. We’ll update them with new parts and changing swings of the market as they happen.
Intel I5-2500K - $230 – Easily one of my hands down favorite gaming CPU’s of all time. This thing stumps I7′s and can hold up to almost any gaming CPU on the market right now… and the best part, the damn price.
Asrock H61ICAFE - $70 – With USB3.0 and Sata 6 Support this will allow your rig to be fairly future proof and it also allows for more expansion RAM wise later down the road.
G.Skills Ripjaws X-Series (8GB 2x4GB) – $40 – I’ve always been a fan of the Ripjaws, and they look pretty cool to. 8GB of DDR3 is gonna do you just fine, and beast through any game you want to put this rig up to.
Rosewill CHALLENGER - $55 – As you’ll soon learn I love Rosewill cases, I flat out just don’t consider any other brands. The Challenger is an amazing case with great quality, plenty of room, and 3 included fans for the low ass price of 55 bucks.
APEVIA 700W - $65 – I’m going to be honest hear I was a little worried about the quality of this PSU however I did some research and talked to some people that had these and there actually pretty good PSU’s for there price, and they’re BLLEWW. This will probably be my go-to PSU for the majority of the builds, including the budget ones, from hear on out.
Seagate 1TB - $130 – While HD prices are still a little high they’ve been steadily coming back down and the price range for Seagates 1TB are finally back into the “comfortable to buy” zone of things. Aside from that she’s got Sata 6 and 7200 RPM to take full advantage of the motherboard.
XFX HD 6970 - $350 – One of ATI’s top running GPU’s the 6970 really packs a serious punch for the 350 dollar price point. Not to mention the additional 2GB’s of dedicated RAM on the GPU alone.
Total Price : $940
*NOTE: This doesn’t include an optical drive, they will usually run you about 20 bucks but it’s best to pick one out the day you’re buying your PC; they’re usually on sale.
AMD Phenom II 980 BE - $160 – The 980BE Has great unlocking potential, and paired with this motherboard (if you can cool it) you can push this thing to 7GHZ per core. 980BE Is one of AMD’s top CPU’s and with a $160 price tag it’s hard to pass up. NOTE: This is an OEM version so it DOESNT come with a cooler, i’ll link a cheap one below.
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 - $30 – One of my favorite stock air coolers, it’s compatible with almost every CPU socket in modern rigs; and it’s pretty cheap.
GIGABYTE GA-970A-D3 - $90 – I’ve never been a fan of spending more than 100 on a motherboard, I understand there are “features” i’m missing out on and performance jumps but it’s just not my cup of tea. This is one of the nicest AMD boards I’ve seen for it’s price point in a while. For whatever it’s worth I currently use it in my rig. She’s got plenty of USB ports, both 2 and 3. The SATA layout (SATA 6) is fantastic if you’re useing GPU’s and it works wonders with unlocking Black Edition CPU’s.
G.Skills Ripjaws X-Series (8GB 2x4GB) – $40 – I’ve always been a fan of the Ripjaws, and they look pretty cool to. 8GB of DDR3 is gonna do you just fine, and beast through any game you want to put this rig up to.
Rosewill CHALLENGER - $55 – As you’ll soon learn I love Rosewill cases, I flat out just don’t consider any other brands. The Challenger is an amazing case with great quality, plenty of room, and 3 included fans for the low ass price of 55 bucks.
APEVIA 700W - $65 – I’m going to be honest hear I was a little worried about the quality of this PSU however I did some research and talked to some people that had these and there actually pretty good PSU’s for there price, and they’re BLLEWW. This will probably be my go-to PSU for the majority of the builds, including the budget ones, from hear on out.
Seagate 1TB - $130 – While HD prices are still a little high they’ve been steadily coming back down and the price range for Seagates 1TB are finally back into the “comfortable to buy” zone of things. Aside from that she’s got Sata 6 and 7200 RPM to take full advantage of the motherboard.
XFX HD 6970 - $350 – One of ATI’s top running GPU’s the 6970 really packs a serious punch for the 350 dollar price point. Not to mention the additional 2GB’s of dedicated RAM on the GPU alone.
Total Price : $920