New Desktop Build
 

Been debating whether I could argue myself into building another desktop to save some money; sad reality is I don't see much savings for the sort of performance you can find out of a gaming laptop these days even trying to buy quality budget parts from the ground up in a desktop.

Here's a build I made, focusing on low cost, high reliability 'value' parts, that can suit an old school gamers needs, I don't play many flashy games. Skyrim is probably the only game I have that can even test my GPU on my 2 year old laptop, so I figure anything that can hang toe to toe with my g73 asus laptop should due.

http://secure.newegg.com/Shopping/ShoppingCart.aspx

Can anyone suggest a better quality build for a lower cost? Only area I can see shaving some cost is the SSD but frankly I feel like load speeds for zoning in Everquest and some of the older games is a nice feature.
In case my Cart doesn't load correctly:

The SSD is $170 with 10% off coupon of $17
There is a 10% coupon on RAM for $7
Shipping looks to be less than $4 bucks.



Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm ...
$49.99

Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE 7.1 Channels PCI Interface Sound Card - OEM
$29.99

XFX Core Edition PRO550W (P1-550S-XXB9) 550W ATX12V 2.2 & ESP12V 2.91 SLI Ready CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified ...
$69.99

GIGABYTE GA-Z77-DS3H LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
$104.99

SAMSUNG 840 Series MZ-7TD250KW 2.5" 250GB SATA III Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
$184.99

Intel Core i3-3225 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz LGA 1155 55W Dual-Core Desktop Processor ...
$139.99

MSI N650TI-1GD5/V1 GeForce GTX 650 Ti 1GB 128-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 HDCP Ready Video Card
$129.99

Seagate Barracuda ST1000DM003 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
$69.99

LITE-ON Black SATA DVD-ROM Drive Model iHDS118-04 - OEM
$21.99

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
$69.99

Shipping Method:
$3.86

DISCOUNT FOR AUTOADD #81781
-$49.99
Subtotal $871.90
Tax $0.00
Shipping $3.86
Promo Code -$25.50
Grand Total $850.26

(also $60 in MIR cards)

says shopping cart is empty

I feel like if you add another $200 you can get like double the specs. what i mean is an i5/7 and 2gb gfx card

8gb memory more than enough, unless you want to game with like 420 programs running

yeah, flaunting this i3 shit is confusing to me

or RAMDISC ***** L2PVPZONE

I had considered it, but RAM is cheap and easily upgradeable later (say, compared to the CPU). Zoning in EQ has a tick based timer, so with the SSD I don't think ramdisc is going to improve load times too much. But the minimized version of the client is only about 2gigs, so still plenty of room.

I initially was making builds with i5 and I then realized the i3 is a dual core running north of 3ghz stock. Where would I see an improvement in day to day gaming with an I5? I'm sure there's an argument for the i7 since its a quad core but would like to know the benefit I'd see using it.

Sorry my phone hard to type from musta hit font or text size :p

well even a dual core i3 can be "quad core" in that they have virtual/hyper threading (for instance, I have an i3 and Windows/Linux recognize it as a quad core processor). But having "real" cores is obviously better, and i5 can come with 4. In fact, the quad core i7's are recognized as 8 cores because of hyper threading.

I've read that hyper threading can cause drop-offs for gaming (I've not personally noticed this fwiw), and then also that newer games are taking advantage of it. Your best bet for EverQuest and 90% of games might be a non-hyper threaded i5 (Ivy > Sandy Bridge). I think all i3's/i7's have hyperthreading, and i5 was made to not, but Intel is confusingly nonheterosexual and you'll have to make a decision on if you want it or not and do the research on the one you buy.

Another thing to look at is the L1/L2/L3 caches, which is faster than RAM for the processor to store/retrieve data, and i5's will generally have larger cache than i3's (if the i3 and i5 are of the same generation... some newer i3 might be better than older i5)

Finally, we could get into a lengthy discussion about how the clock rate doesn't really tell you the whole story about a processor, the average CPI is arguably more important to look at, and that is where an i5 will perform vastly superior (again, if of the same generation). I built an 8 bit processor (CPU / ALU / Cache) and I had to crank the clock rate up real high because it had an average CPI nowhere near comparable to the processors produced by Intel, if you know what I mean.

Sorry if I confused the fuck outta you, I'm just saying an extra 80 bucks or whatever will give you much more bang.

tl;dr An i5 with 4 real cores >>>> i3 with 2 real cores and 2 virtual ones, with inferior L1/L2/L3 cache and CPI; even if the clock rate GHz is lower on the i5.