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Posted by: Ferrari DuDe856
Where is your $5000 rig? The i3 is not bad for gaming as long as you got a good GPU by it's side. The 550 Ti isn't bad for a budget build either. There are far worse GPUs out there.My complaint wasn't with the i3 (it's a wonderful CPU), it was with the 550Ti. The 560/560Ti isn't a large step up in price, but it is a fair whack in quality. The coolers for it are better, and the potential for upgrading to a second card for SLi would give you performance pushing GTX 580 levels or better. Since they'll come down in price with newer cards on the market, it's always worth looking into.
Besides, why would I ever spend $5k on a rig? Last rig I built cost just over $1k (£650) including VAT and a monitor and peripherals. i5 2500k, GTX 560 Ti, 8GB RAM, 1TB HDD. The price isn't comparable to US prices, as VAT (think sales tax) is 20%, but you get the point.
Though, if we're really talking a $500 build, if you're planning to add to it later, doesn't it become more cost effective to run off the iGPU now and upgrade to a better GPU later if you're planning to save up for a dGPU? Stops you buying two CPUs for no good reason. Besides, for gaming the 3770K is going to do nothing for you, so the 3570K is probably a better bet. Reduces part redundancy, not to mention having to change the CPU.
The problem I have isn't so much the 'budget' side of it, but his upgrade path. If his build was going to cost $500 and that was all he was spending on it, I'd still suggest the 560 Ti. Give me a few minutes to put a build together and I'll get back to you.
$170 GTX 560 Ti after rebate
$105 PSU/case combo. Not used the PSU, but I've built using that model of case. They aren't wonderful things, but at your budget you have to compromise on the case a little.
$85 motherboard. No real SLI capability, but that's to be expected.
$45 for 8GB RAM.
i3 2100 at $120 causes an overspend of $25, so this would cost $525 and be a bit disappointing. You could go for 4GB instead of 8GB of RAM and see about cheapening the case and PSU some more, admittedly.
Now, if you were to take this (fairly rough) build and swap out the GPU and CPU for a 3570K, you're $35 under budget and you have a computer that work and will do some gaming until you throw a proper GPU in it. Honestly, I'd invest the $35 into a better motherboard if possible, but the cheapest 'good' motherboard I'd really suggest is $135, so $15 over budget.
This assumes you're going to be using the hard drive from your old computer as well as CD drive and peripherals. Otherwise $500 is really getting towards AMD territory.
[Edited on 08.19.2012 9:58 AM PDT]