Build Guides

Published on January 8th, 2013 | by Dan

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PC Build Guide – January 2013

Welcome to the January version of our PC build guides. As with before, we have implemented hard price limits ($500, $800, $1300, $1800) on ourselves and have had to make tough decisions with each build. Your personal budget will likely be flexible, but we hope this article will give you a baseline. You can of course spend more or spend less, but you run into a case of diminishing returns at either end. Please keep in mind that pricing information is immediate and may not necessarily reflect real prices by the time you have read this article.

January seems to be a volatile month for prices, as we’ve had to change our builds multiple times in the past few days to maximize each price point. But overall, we see some very positive movement as each build maintains or improves its strength relative to last month.

The first item to note is that we have removed the optical drive from each build. At this point, the optical drive is no longer the essential component it used to be, especially since it’s pretty easy to install Windows from a thumb drive. You can of course add in an optical drive if you still need one, but for the purposes of this guide, we want to squeeze in every bit of essential gaming value we can out of each price point.

The Starter build gets a couple of welcome upgrades, including another 4GB stick of memory (for a total of 8GB) and the newer Ivy Bridge counterpart to the i3-2100 we were using before. The Sweet Spot build is simply out of control at this point, as it now includes a stock-overclocked GTX 660 Ti from MSI to complement the 3570K. The top two builds stay largely the same compared to before.

The Starter ($500 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wwYU

• CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 ($109.99 @ NCIX US)
• Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G41 ATX LGA1155 ($79.98 @ SuperBiiz)
• Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 ($35.57 @ NCIX US)
• Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
• Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB ($129.99 @ Newegg)
• Case: Cooler Master Elite 430 ATX Mid Tower Case ($39.99 @ Amazon)
• Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W ($29.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $495.50

The Sweet Spot ($800 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wfWX

• CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K ($219.99 @ Amazon)
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus ($19.99 @ Newegg)
• Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 ATX LGA1155 ($102.55 @ Newegg)
• Memory: Mushkin Blackline 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 ($35.57 @ NCIX US)
• Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
• Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 660 Ti 2GB ($269.99 @ Newegg)
• Case: Cooler Master HAF 912 ATX Mid Tower Case ($51.52 @ NCIX US)
• Power Supply: Corsair Builder 500W ($29.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $799.59

The Enthusiast ($1300 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wg5s

• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K ($329.99 @ Newegg)
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus ($19.99 @ Newegg)
• Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 ($127.99 @ Amazon)
• Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1866 ($51.99 @ Newegg)
• Storage: Crucial M4 128GB 2.5″ SSD ($99.49 @ Amazon)
• Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($69.99 @ NCIX US)
• Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 670 2GB ($389.99 @ Newegg)
• Case: Fractal Design Define R4 ATX Mid Tower Case ($95.68 @ NCIX US)
• Power Supply: Corsair Professional 650W ($109.98 @ NCIX US)

Total: $1282.09

The Professional ($1800 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/wwHg

• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K ($329.99 @ Newegg)
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus ($19.99 @ Newegg)
• Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 ($127.99 @ Amazon)
• Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3-1866 ($91.99 @ Newegg)
• Storage: Crucial M4 256GB 2.5″ SSD ($189.99 @ Amazon)
• Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($64.99 @ NCIX US)
• Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 670 2GB – 2-Way SLI ($378.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 670 2GB – 2-Way SLI ($378.99 @ SuperBiiz)
• Case: Antec Eleven Hundred ATX Full Tower Case ($99.43 @ NCIX US)
• Power Supply: Corsair Professional 750W ($129.99 @ Newegg)

Total: $1798.34

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Tags: kbmod build guides january 2013

nipnops

Dan

I put the OO in Swagoo. One of the founders of KBMOD. I stream on Twitch as well as writing and editing for the website.

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