Monthly High-end Gaming System Buyer's Guide

Introduction

A companion to our Entry-Level Gaming PC Buyer's Guide, our Enthusiast Gaming PC Guide offers processor and motherboard recommendations that provide the best bang for buck in a system with a $2000 budget. We provide suggestions for both an Intel and an AMD system, although most other components will remain the same for each of the systems.

The biggest difference you'll find in our first installation of the guide for 2012 is that for the Intel build we went with a Sandy Bridge processor. While the Sandy Bridge processors may not be the absolute fastest Intel processors available, they do offer the best performance-to-value ratio, especially when it comes to adhering to our $2000 budget.

Few of the component choices you make will have as significant — and as enduring — an impact on the system you end up with as the system case. Given how long you'll be living with this selection (potentially through multiple system builds and upgrades), you don't want to skimp here; at the same time you also don't want to break the bank.

In the spirit of this being the first enthusiast guide of the year, we're offering a new recommendation for the system case: the Antec Twelve Hundred V3. This full tower weighs 31.3 lbs and is sized at 8.4" (W) x 22.9" (H) x 20.2"(D).

Ventilation-wise, the Twelve Hundred V3 comes standard with two 120mm exhaust fans in the back, three 120mm intake fans in the front and a 200mm exhaust fan on the top of the case, all sporting blue LEDs, with a windowed side panel adding to the cool factor. Add to that its 13 drive bays, seven expansion slots, front ports that include two USB 2.0 ports, one USB 3.0 port and audio ports, and you have a case that should more than cover your needs both now and well into the future.

Our power supply recommendation remains the Corsair HX CMPSU-750HX 750W, an 80 Plus Silver certified modular unit that will help keep things from getting cluttered while still providing all the power you can expect to need in an enthusiast gaming system. Backed by a seven year warranty, this is a unit that demonstrates how Corsair earned its stout reputation in the industry.

For our AMD build, we're switching our CPU recommendation to the eight-core 3.6GHz FX-8150. We made the switch from the Phenom II X6 1100T partly because that older option is no longer widely available. This AM3+ socket processor comes with 8MB of L3 cache and 1MB of L2 cache dedicated to each of its eight cores. And if its out-of-the-box speeds aren't good enough for you, it's known to overclock well.

For our Intel build, we're once again sticking with the Core i7-2600K, a four-core processor with 1MB of L2 cache (256KB per core) and 8MB of L2 cache. Faster processors are available from Intel, of course, but at this price point and with this budget, the i7-2600K can't be beat.

As we've noted in the past, cooling is one of those things you have to decide for yourself how much you want to spend on. You can go with the stock cooling that the retail CPU kits include at no additional cost, or you can spend a fair bit more than $41 on a higher-end cooling solution. Our recommendation, the Zalman CNP9700, should meet the needs of most users at an attractive price-point.

Also making a return in our Enthusiast Gaming Guide is our recommendation of the ASUS Crosshair V Formula motherboard for the AMD build. As we previously mentioned, ASUS has long held the high esteem of gamers and enthusiasts. Powered by the 990FX and SB950 chipsets, this motherboard offers four PCI-E slots, four memory slots (with a max of 32GB of RAM), Gigabit LAN, integrated audio and seven SATA 6Gb/s. And if you're looking to overclock that AMD 3.6GHz FX-8150 CPU, this motherboard will let you do so easily.

Similarly returning to the guide is our motherboard recommendation for the Intel build, the MSI P67A-GD65. The MSI P67A-GD65 is an LGA 1155 chipset motherboard that is powered by the Intel P67 chipset. It offers two PCI-E 2.0 x 16 slots, three PXI Express x1 slots, four memory slots (with support for up to 32GB of RAM), two USB 3.0 ports, eight USB 2.0 ports, two e-SATA ports, one IEEE1394 ports, gigabit LAN, integrated audio, four SATA 3GB/s connections and four SATA 6Gb/s connections. And overclocking, finally, is made easier by the addition of MSI's OC Genie II.

For each of our builds, we've stuck with the CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8 8GB (2 x 4GB) kit from Corsair. This kit populates half of the available memory slots, leaving you room to grow in the future.

Hard drive prices have fortunately been making their ways back downwards after a significant uptick following the flooding in Thailand, albeit not as quickly as we'd like. Our recommended drive from Western Digital, the WD Caviar Black 1.0 TB, can now be had for $155, down $30 from the last edition of this guide.

To allow for faster OS performance, we've once again paired that larger storage drive with a 64GB SSD from Crucial and a bay conversion kit that you'll need in order to mount it into your case. By pairing the Crucial RealSSD C300 64GB drive (CT064M4SSD2) with the WD Caviar Black, you'll end up with a combination of storage and speed that will more than meet most users' needs.

With an 8MB cache and SATA interface, the LITE-ON iHBS112 drive remains our choice for the enthusiast gamer's build. It can burn BD-R discs at 12x, BD-RE at 2x, and DVD+R at 12x.

At this price point, we decided to stick with a GTX 560 video card. This time around, though, we're suggesting you take a look at the ASUS ENGTX560 GeForce GTX 560. As with the EVGA card we previously included in this guide, the ASUS ENGTX560 sports 1GB of GDDR5 memory, one mini HDMI port and two DVI ports.

For our display recommendation, we're once again sticking with the ASUS VE247H 23.6" LCD monitor. This TN display offers a 2ms response time, LED-backlighting, native 1920x1080 resolution and integrated speakers. Connections include one analog port, one DVI and one HDMI. And for those looking for more flexibility than the included stand offers, VESA 100x100m mounting holes provide plenty of options.

The integrated sound options offered by the two recommended motherboards continue to make sense for this build, as does sticking with the Logitech Z523 2.1 channel speaker system, most recently available for $70.

For our mouse and keyboard recommendations, we're once again going with the Logitech G9x gaming mouse and the Microsoft Sidewinder X4 wired keyboard, available for $65 and $50, respectively.

And finally, Windows 7 Professional 64-bit remains our pick as the best option for an operating system. Its price inched slightly upwards, this time around, to $140. But it remains the obvious choice for this enthusiast build.

AMD FX-8150 System
Case: Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Full Tower - $160
Power Supply: CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 - $130
Processor: FX-8150 (3.6GHz) - $270
CPU Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - $41
Motherboard: ASUS Crosshair V Formula (990FX) - $220
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2 x 4GB kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8) - $80
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB (WD1002FAEX) - $155
SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 (CT064M4SSD2) - $107 + $9 for Bay Converter
Optical Drive: LITE-ON iHBS112 12x BDR 2x BD-RE SATA - $96
Video Card: ASUS ENGTX560 GeForce GTX 560 - $200
Monitor: ASUS VE247H Black 23.6"- $189
Sound Card: Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $70
Mouse: Logitech G9x Wired Laser Gaming Mouse - $65
Keyboard: Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Keyboard - $50
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - $140
Total Price: $1982

Intel Core i7 System
Case: Antec Twelve Hundred V3 Full Tower - $160
Power Supply: CORSAIR HX Series CMPSU-750HX 750W ATX12V 2.3 - $130
Processor: Core i7-2600K (3.4GHz) - $315
CPU Cooling: ZALMAN CNPS9700 LED 110mm 2 Ball CPU Cooler - $41
Motherboard: MSI P67A-GD65 (P67) - $170
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB 2 x 4GB kit (CMZ8GX3M2A1600C8) - $80
Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB (WD1002FAEX) - $155
SSD: Crucial RealSSD C300 (CT064M4SSD2) - $107 + $9 for Bay Converter
Optical Drive: LITE-ON iHBS112 12x BDR 2x BD-RE SATA - $96
Video Card: ASUS ENGTX560 GeForce GTX 560 - $200
Monitor: ASUS VE247H Black 23.6"- $189
Sound Card: Integrated - $0
Speakers: Logitech Speaker System Z523 - $70
Mouse: Logitech G9x Wired Laser Gaming Mouse - $65
Keyboard: Microsoft Sidewinder X4 Keyboard - $50
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit - $140
Total Price: $1977

Hard drive prices are slowly settling back down, making it easier to stay within budget in this build. And while you'll want to make adjustments to meet your needs, we're confident that these builds will more meet the needs of most PC enthusiasts and gamers.