Build Guides

Published on June 5th, 2013 | by Brandon

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PC Build Guide – June 2013

Welcome to the June 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.

We didn’t have a build guide in May, but with all the new hardware that just came out, we knew changes might be big in June. For the $500 build, we don’t see much change except for memory, where prices remain a bit higher than we’ve become accustomed to over the past couple of years. The $800 build also takes a slight hit, going from a GTX 660 Ti to an AMD 7870 GHz Edition (but on a positive note, you do get an excellent game bundle with the AMD card).

The $1300 build is where things start to get a little more interesting. Due to price constraints, we stick with Ivy Bridge, but we do upgrade from our stalwart GTX 670 to a Sapphire 7970 GHz Edition. We think the excellent game bundle included with the AMD card makes it a great value right now, but you could just as easily swap in Nvidia’s brand new GTX 770 if you’re looking for better render times or are still a bit wary of AMD’s driver situation. From a performance standpoint, benchmarks for these two cards are a virtual toss-up, depending on which games you play.

Finally, the $1800 build gets the first major facelift it’s seen in a while. We add the brand new Haswell i7-4770K chip from Intel, along with a new ASRock Z87 motherboard. And to top it off, you get a pair of SLI GTX 770s from MSI. This build continues to be a monster that is the closest thing to a “future proof” gaming machine as we recommend right now.

The Starter ($500 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/12Q9Y

• CPU: Intel Core i3-3220 ($113.99 @ NCIX US)
• Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G41 ATX LGA1155 ($89.99 @ Newegg)
• Memory: Patriot Viper 3 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1600 ($55.99 @ NCIX US)
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($69.98 @ Outlet PC)
• Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7770 GHz Edition 1GB ($109.98 @ Newegg)
• Case: Apex SK-393-C ATX Mid Tower Case ($24.99 @ NCIX US)
• Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 500W ($27.99 @ Microcenter)

Total: $493.89

The Sweet Spot ($800 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/12TDR

• CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus ($24.98 @ Outlet PC)
• Motherboard: MSI Z77A-G45 ATX LGA1155 ($118.18 @ Newegg)
• Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1866 ($67.99 @ Newegg)
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($64.98 @ Outlet PC)
• Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB ($224.99 @ Newegg)
• Case: Cooler Master Elite 430 ATX Mid Tower Case ($29.99 @ Newegg)
• Power Supply: Thermaltake TR2 600W ($44.99 @ Microcenter)

Total: $793.90

The Enthusiast ($1300 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/12TVe

• CPU: Intel Core i7-3770K ($313.77 @ Amazon)
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus ($24.98 @ Outlet PC)
• Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 ($129.98 @ Outlet PC)
• Memory: G.Skill Ares Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1866 ($67.99 @ Newegg)
• Storage: Samsung 840 Series 120GB 2.5″ SSD ($98.76 @ Amazon)
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($64.98 @ Outlet PC)
• Video Card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition 3GB ($407.86 @ Newegg)
• Case: NZXT Phantom (Black) ATX Full Tower Case ($89.99 @ Newegg)
• Power Supply: Corsair Gaming 600W ($97.98 @ Outlet PC)

Total: $1293.44

The Professional ($1800 maximum)

Part list permalink: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/12UC6

• CPU: Intel Core i7-4770K ($349.99 @ Newegg)
• CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus ($19.99 @ Newegg)
• Motherboard: ASRock Z87 Extreme3 ATX LGA1150 ($145.86 @ Newegg)
• Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1866 ($69.98 @ NCIX US)
• Storage: Samsung 840 Series 250GB 2.5″ SSD ($159.99 @ NCIX US)
• Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM ($64.99 @ Newegg)
• Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB – 2-Way SLI ($399.99 @ NCIX US)
• Video Card: MSI GeForce GTX 770 2GB – 2-Way SLI ($399.99 @ NCIX US)
• Case: NZXT Phantom (Black) ATX Full Tower Case ($89.99 @ Newegg)
• Power Supply: Corsair Professional 750W ($90.50 @ Newegg)

Total: $1786.27

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Tags: build guide june 2013, gtx 770, haswell

vol1tion

Brandon

Brandon started his PC gaming days playing Doom II (IDDQD/IDKFA for life) and has been hooked on online gaming since the original Starsiege: Tribes. The way to his heart is through proper grammar, corn dogs, and cookie cake.

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