Budget Rigs for ARR - First Timer

[Tsukichu]

Hey all, I'm trying to fashion together a new rig that can run AAR at max settings and a few other games I'm looking to pick up in the downtime until 2.0 releases.

I have never purchased nor built my own gaming PC before, I really don't know the first thing about which parts are better than others. I've done a little research on Newegg and on several different forums and this is what I've come up with:

Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor

Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler

ASRock Z77 Extreme3 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard

G.Skill Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive

Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 3GB Video Card

Corsair CX500 V2 Power Supply


All that up there is about 900 dollars including the tower that I haven't mentioned.
I have 1000$ to work with, but my husband would like me to keep it down to 900 if I can.

Any help is super appreciative, and be nice to this noobie. ^^; It's alright if I can't run it at max settings too, I would just like to, I just want it as pretty as possible.

Thanks! (Sorry if this is off topic mods!)

[Cedri]

I would wait to build anything until you get your hands on ARR.

[Duuude007]

Sapphire has a erm.. stigma to it. may want to read reviews before you unbox it, if you haven't already.

[Naraku_Diabolos]

I would wait to build anything until you get your hands on ARR.

How will she be able to put ARR on the computer when she wouldn't have a computer first? You mean to use on the older one and see if it runs on there? I'm also wanting to upgrade my desktop's graphics card (it's an NVIDIA GeForce 260 GTX) to a 660 Ti later on.

[Tsukichu]

That's what my husband was telling me but I wanted to buy it after the holidays so I could play GW2 and Tera on it among other things. The above rig has been tested to run Blade and Soul at max settings/fps. I would just like a little advise on whether or not I can get the same power for cheaper.

How does it stack against 1.0? I know we have no clue to ARR recommended specs yet.

[Tsukichu]

How will she be able to put ARR on the computer when she wouldn't have a computer first? You mean to use on the older one and see if it runs on there? I'm also wanting to upgrade my desktop's graphics card (it's an NVIDIA GeForce 260 GTX) to a 660 Ti later on.

I've been playing 1.0 on my macbook pro...Tis why I would like to get a proper PC. ^^ It worked fine but you know...It was laggy amongst other things.

[Aenarion]

It's hard to get a good handle on how much hardware you'd need for ARR until the benchmark is out, but at first glance your list looks alright. It'd be worth keeping an eye out for deals this shopping season and see what you can snag for cheap, especially a SSD.

[Tsukichu]

It's hard to get a good handle on how much hardware you'd need for ARR until the benchmark is out, but at first glance your list looks alright. It'd be worth keeping an eye out for deals this shopping season and see what you can snag for cheap, especially a SSD.

-nod- If I play my cards right I believe one of my relatives have an SSD waiting for me under the tree. ^^

[Jynx_McNinja]

The only recommendation I would make is get an nivdia graphics card instead of AMD, now I am biased towards nvidia but I'm building my own PC as well & I've found out in my research that nvidia cards are optimized for intel CPUs, so if you want the most out of your graphics card i would go nvidia (i personally recommend a GTX 500 series or better). Hope this helps & good luck with your build!

[Tsukichu]

The only recommendation I would make is get an nivdia graphics card instead of AMD, now I am biased towards nvidia but I'm building my own PC as well & I've found out in my research that nvidia cards are optimized for intel CPUs, so if you want the most out of your graphics card i would go nvidia (i personally recommend a GTX 500 series or better). Hope this helps & good luck with your build!

Thank you, I've heard that as well but Nvidia's seem to be slightly more expensive I've noticed. But it turns out for 12 dollars less I can actually get a GTX 660 ti 2gb. I'll probably go with that instead.