Gaming Mobo/CPU/RAM suggestions?

[Mr. Analog]

Hey gang, I have another bonus coming up here soon and well I thought it's time to cycle some hardware again, I won my current setup at Fraga almost 5 years back (a Intel DX48BT2). I've upgraded the processor about as far as you can go for socket T, one set of paired RAM never worked out of the box but I didn't figure it out until it was too late to replace so currently I only have 4 GB of DDR3 1333 MHz loaded (memtest never shows errors, the hardware boots with it but Windows chokes, even on a fresh re-install). Regardless, I have the money and the wherewithal to make the change so...

Pretty much all that's on my gaming rig at the moment is Steam, Frams and Minecraft, BUT I do want to be ready for new games coming down the pipe (like Bioshock Infinite) which will likely push my current system pretty hard (it's already straining on some games like Hitman).

So any thoughts on something that is stable, fast and still has some room for future upgrade?

[Melbosa]

Well we've had the gaming laptop discussion other places... so won't discuss that over here again.

Seems Asus is still well received for a Motherboard Manufacturer still, although your top 3 are Asus, Gigabyte and MSI. Intel is winning the CPU market at the moment, AMD falling behind on a pure core to core comparison, so AMD makes up for it with more cores per $.  Nvidia and AMD are kinda a toss-up right now for graphics.  RAM, well you can go with a Cosair, Kingston, or Crucial - all seem very stable now-a-days (others I have had some issues with).  HDs, Samsung and Plextor are pretty top right now for SSDs, but then again SSDs are fast no matter whom you go with.  PSU, I really like Cosairs for longevity and reliability - had some issues with Antec. Case is always user preference.  Onboard NIC and Sound is good enough with most motherboards now-a-days.

Of course this is all IMO - you may find others with conflicting experiences.

Key features in my mind now-a-days:

• USB 3.0 - lots of ports
• HDMI out on Video (allows for options for displays) - even though adapters handle this, I think it should be there by default IMO
• Raid is really not required anymore with solid state drives for performance (for redundancy, well that is a different story) - and solid state is a must (which I am sure you know)
• Latest Chipset for CPU is best as those seem to be changing fast - so for longevity the best you can get for your money makes it last longer
• At least 16GB of ram available on Motherboard specs

If I think of anything else I'll post it up!

[Mr. Analog]

I have a BEEFY video card already, my plan was to move up the rest of the specs after January and lo and behold bonus check is coming so yay.

The main thing I'm looking for are decent combinations, maybe I'll hit up some tech review sites later. The Bonetrail 2 was very good to me over the years (once I got the power issue figured out), but I've hit the CPU limit and I need features like USB 3 moving forward.

It's hard for me to think that it's been more than 5 years since I built my own from scratch

[Tom]

I'd say go for a motherboard with decent reviews that isn't under $100-150. You will almost certainly be disappointed with a cheaper motherboard.

I've heard good things about the i5 3570k and its gaming performance. I think you will probably want to go with an Ivy bridge chip, rather than the older sandybridge.

SSDs don't make a very big difference during game play, but they will make loading faster. There are a lot of good options for SSDs. I recently-ish bought a Kingston HyperX 3K, which gets 500MB/s write, and 550MB/s read. its incredibly insane.

[Mr. Analog]

Thanks! That gives me an idea of what to narrow down, I fully expect to drop somewhere around $500 upgrading-ish.

Though I do find SSDs make a difference in gameplay for any game that needs to pull map files or textures (I had a SSD as my primary drive for a while)

Not sure I will go that way mind you, I have plenty of HDDs to play with as is.

[Darren Dirt]

There are a lot of good options for SSDs. I recently-ish bought a Kingston HyperX 3K, which gets 500MB/s write, and 550MB/s read. its incredibly insane.

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820239046

Kingston HyperX 3K SH103S3/240G 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) (Stand-Alone Drive)
(5eggs/5 from 70 reviews)

2.5"
240GB
SATA III
   
$189.99

WOW. Rare to see any piece of hardware earn a perfect score from almost 100 reviews! Also, BOY do I feel old, to think that back about 14 years ago me and Melbosa went halfers on a "zippy" little backup external drive, it was either 50MB or 100MB, can't remember exactly but IIRC it was $199 or $299 total price. And we had to contend with the Click Of Death too. and DEFINITELY a transfer speed slower than 30gb/minute 

[Melbosa]

I own a HyperX (like that model there), a Crucial, an OCZ Vortex 4, an Intel, and a Samsung, all around the 256GB size (not all drives adhere to the old scale of sizing as SSDs are not limited to the old size model).  The Samsung is the newest and the fastest out of all of them and I paid $179 at MemEx for it.  I bought my HyperX on sale at $119 a while back.  OCZ I got for $149 and the Intel on Boxing Week for $99.  Out of all of them the Intel has been the one I am least happy with (had some firmware issues with it).

[Mr. Analog]

Hmm, I'm always sceptical when I see hardware with near-perfect reviews.

But yeah, hard to believe how fast the prices are coming down.

[Melbosa]

I should mention, all of mine are boot drives in various computers (including my laptop at work).  Encase you were still worried about an SSD as a primary drive.  I'm on 6 months on most and have had no issues.

[Mr. Analog]

I had experience, though I was also having power issues so YMMV, within a year I was noticing problems, it's still a viable drive but I wouldn't put anything of value on it, in fact I plan on using it as a massive cache for Windows (once I figure out where I put it)

[Tom]

Hmm, I'm always sceptical when I see hardware with near-perfect reviews.

But yeah, hard to believe how fast the prices are coming down.

I have a HyperX 3K. It is a very nice drive. Haven't had any issues with it at all. Its very fast, and it got a very good reccomendation from a tech vblogger I started following a few weeks ago. He tells it like it is, and isn't afraid to give an unpopular review, even if its a review unit.

Just recently he was testing some Intel and AMD setups both cpu and gpu wise, and the result he got surprised him, so they did it several times, and even after all the testing the results didn't change, and some of the viewers claimed he was somehow paid off by AMD apparently one of AMDs new FX cpus did much better than expected against some popular intel parts, contrary to other site's reviews. So he ran them again, and got the same results, and /other/ sites re-did their tests after that and I think came to the same conclusions. Fun times. They also reject review samples from companies that require "input" into the review.