That would be my shopping cart, though I'm not too set on the IceQ Radeon. Anybody have any alternative suggestions that would fit these tweaks better?
Why is the 7870 a beast? I was always told go Nvidia or go home. Thanks for the power supply link. Also, how crucial is it to have a SSD, I don't have any hardcore gaming experience with computers. Would I be able to dump the SSD completely and go for a 1TB HD? How much would that affect gameplay?
7870 is a beast. Also, try this power supply and if you dont have already have a hard drive and your downloading and playing lots of games, that ssd wont cut it. you will also need a hard drive
go for a new fx vishera, the phenoms were great in their day, but their just too old. and a 240gb ssd is excessive, 120g is fine. $50 for 4 gigs?!?!?!?!?! get 8, be about $40.
need an aftermarket heat sink regardless. you also need a data drve, i reccomend the WD green or blue
About how much can a 6300 vishera OC to with a cheap aftermarket heatsink and fan similar to a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus? A lower memory SSD paired with a HDD would be cost effective... Just put the OS, Steam, and Games on the SSD then? Also, I was going quality over quantity with the 2 Mushkin 4 gigs. Isn't 16 gigs of RAM is overkill anyway?
7870 beats the competeing nvidia card at the same price (gtx 660).While the 660 ti does beat the 7870, if your in that price range go with the 7950. Personally i have an nvidia card (gtx 480) and i kinda of prefer them but at the price point your looking at the 7870 has better performance. Btw anybody who says things like go Nvidia or go home is obviously a fanboy.
Now about SSD's, they dont affect actual gameplay, just load times every now and again, along with boot up times. You can completely ditch the idea of SSD's, but then your boot time will be like 10 seconds slower. Since you were looking $200 240gb SSD. Instead I'd recomend to go with a 120gb SSD and a 1 or 2 TB hard drive. Maybe even a 3 TB hard drive, because its such a great value.
recommending XFX 7870. I really prefer that brand, I damaged my 6950 and they replaced it. As for storage I also agree trash the 240GB SSD unless you plan on only having like 10 games at a time. Grab a WD blue or black 1TB.
CPU, I'm on the intel side, but if you're going to go AMD then yes, jump up to one of the newer FX series chips. Well worth buying newest generation.
Good choice on the PSU btw, although you MAY be able to go a bit lower if you don't plan on adding much more.
Actually if you are new; i highly recommend the arcticles on this site in regards to building a cost effective gaming rig. Then work your way up in the future as you are more comfortable.