Ok, sorry for the duplicate thread, the forum was bugging up for some reason. 
 
Edit: Fixed up the spacing, GB forum code doesn't mesh well with Word I guess. 
 

Table of Contents 

i.                      Introduction

ii.                    Methodology

iii.                   Terminology

iv.                  Graphics Card Rankings

v.                    $600 Build (Mid end)

vi.                  $1,000 Build (High end)

vii.                 $1,400 Build (Extreme)

viii.               What’s Ahead

ix.                  Closing Comments

x.                    Disclaimer and Terms of Use 

i.                      Introduction 

This is a new series which will be updated monthly and be used to showcase the most value and performance that can be bought for a gaming PC at 3 price points. These price points will be: $600, $1000, and $1400, providing a good range of builds. I’ve seen many people asking for help building a PC or buying parts at a particular price point, so hopefully this guide will prove useful. The following will be the guidelines to my methodology, along with a glossary containing brief definitions and descriptions of commonly used phrases and abbreviations that you will see a lot when reading about hardware. You can skip around by using Ctrl+F to get to the section that you want. 

Nvidia’s long awaited GTX 400 series has finally launched in late March, but how does that affect the graphics card market in terms of pricing? Well as it turns out, not very much. The GTX 480 and 470 both outperform the corresponding the HD Radeon 5870 and HD Radeon 5850, but at a higher price point as well. Therefore ATI should feel no pressure as it comfortably sits in the price brackets it currently dominates. We might see some greater conflict later on when Nvidia releases their lower derivative cards, or when they decide to drop prices on their current GT400 series cards, though that might not be for a while.

For this month, the GTX 400 series will not be under consideration. They have officially launched, but availability isn’t for another 1-2 weeks. We will see how they do next month.

In response to reader feedback I have closed the $2,000 build section because it seemed the least pertinent to the spirit of the guide, and that is to provide users with the best possible build they can get at a certain price point. Someone who is willing to spend $2,000 or more on a build is probably less focused on value. To cover a larger area of interest, I have changed the build spread from 800,1400,2000 to 600,1000,1400. The lower bound is what I believe to be the minimum budget required in order to achieve the performance outlined in my methodology.

In this edition I have also fixed some typos, clarified a few things, removed some definitions and added others to the glossary, and done some overall cleanup. I have also improved the graphics card hierarchy for greater accuracy (laughably, last month I placed the HD 5830 quite high when it is actually only slightly better than the 5770), and condensed the build information using pictures.

Thank you to mrhankey, monkeyroach and other users for corrections and suggestions. 

ii.                    Methodology 

Builds must have an acceptable performance in most of the latest games at high to highest quality settings. “Acceptable performance” is defined at a minimum of 40fps average, above 60 preferably. “High settings” is normally what you can enable in the game options menu minus things like high antialiasing (8x+ MSAA), ambient occlusion or tessellation which are extremely taxing for most systems. "Highest settings” is all slider bars pushed to max, including those options not included in “high settings”, and supersampling for older/less demanding games. The highest resolution for a ~$200 monitor will be the default resolution in consideration, which at the current moment is 1920x1080. 4xAA will be the default antialiasing setting since most reviews look at that level of antialiasing, and it provides a significant image quality improvement over 0xAA in most games.

All pricing will be from newegg.com, the largest North American e-tailer of computer components. Its prices are competitive, it has a good reputation amongst customers, and sticking with one website will keep pricing consistent. For Canadians there is newegg.ca, where prices are generally about 10% higher in Canadian dollars. Combo deals, rebates and sales will generally not be considered because they are extremely transient. Pricing and availability is subject to change and dependent entirely on the retailer, and other places where you may find similar or the same items are Amazon and TigerDirect. Prices used will be as recent as possible, about three days before the publishing date or less.  I will give myself about a 5% leeway in the final cost (meaning an “$600” build may cost up to $630).

All components will have a reasonable amount of quality to them. If a poorly-reviewed generic motherboard is $20 cheaper to a brand-name, well-reviewed motherboard while carrying the same specs, I am likely to choose the brand-name, well-reviewed motherboard because long term stability is worth more than $20.

Build considerations will not include exterior features to components such as overclocking potential, core unlocking potential, wattage, temps etc. Many of those things are subjective or hard to measure, and excluding them will keep build methodology consistent. Components will be considered based on their stock performance. Because of the disregard for things like overclocking potential and temps, coolers will not be included in builds. Builds will not include monitor, mouse, keyboard, speakers or OS cost as it is presumed the buyer will get these based on their tastes and needs. In general, to add the cost of a typical monitor and OS you need to add $300. It should be of note however that Windows XP cannot run higher than DirectX9.0c, and 32-bit OS's have a low memory cap at about 3-3.5GB. Builds will also not include shipping or tax fees, for obvious reasons.

I will not be personally testing any of my builds; instead I will be using cross -analysis from several established hardware sites to give relatively accurate evaluation as to final performance. There are an abundant amount of reviews for each hardware component out there, and I will do my best to provide a fair conclusion for performance based on benchmarks. 

iii.                   Terminology (Alphabetical) (work in progress) 

Ambient Occlusion – Technique that provides realistic lighting effects on irregular surfaces. Generally very GPU-intensive.

Anisotropic Filtering – Filters textures so that they look more accurate over a distance at certain angles. A cobblestone road without AF will look like a muddy road in the distance; with AF turned on, it will still look distinctly like a cobblestone road even as it approaches the horizon. AF is generally not very GPU intensive, even on its highest setting (which is 16x at the moment).

Antialiasing - Image quality method that reduces the “jaggies” or pixilation around the edges of in-game objects. Typically carried out using the efficient multisampling method, there also exists supersampling antialiasing which uses brute force graphical power to calculate the image in many times its original size, and then downscales that for extreme detail. This typically looks better than any other form of antialiasing, but is also extremely intensive on the hardware. There is also coverage sample antialiasing, quincunx antialiasing, transparency antialiasing and edge-detect antialiasing.

ATX – Form factor of motherboards. Typically the larger the form factor, the larger the amount of ports and slots there are to use. ATX is the standard size which will fit in pretty much all cases, and other common types include MicroATX (smaller size board typically designed for very specialized uses) or EATX, which is a larger board that can generally only fit in full towers. Examples of such boards are the EVGA X58 Micro and the EVGA SR-2.

Bottlenecking – When one component significantly limits another. Components depend on each other to operate, and if one component reaches its maximum performance level, the corresponding performance level of a component that depends on it will be “bottlenecked”. Example: Game X has a maximum framerate of 100fps using an extremely fast processor and graphics card, and a framerate of 20fps using an extremely slow processor and the same fast graphics card. The graphics card is capable of attaining 100fps, but can’t due to the slow processor, and is thus being bottlenecked. The extra graphical power it is capable of is essentially being wasted. In system builds it is important for components to be both powerful and balanced.

CF - Crossfire, ATI’s multi-GPU scaling solution. Crossfire generally refers to 2 cards, Tri-fire 3, and Quad-fire 4. Like SLI, Crossfire will not achieve its theoretical 100% performance boost most of the time, but it will be fairly close.

CPU – Central Processing Unit. The “brain” of a computer, it essentially directs all of the actions of the other components. In gaming, it’s usually the GPU that is most important in determining performance but an abnormally weak CPU will bottleneck the performance of the graphics card.

Derivative – Any product coming out after an original hardware launch that is based on the same architecture, but has different specs thus delivering different performance. Generally referred to lower end models of the product line.

DirectX - An application programming interface for 3D applications including games, usually distributed in runtime libraries. DirectX11 is the newest version of the 3D development platform, sporting features including tessellation, better multithreading support, Shader Model 5.0, and more optimized performance.

Frames per second (framerate) - The amount of frames that are being processed through hardware per second. Each frame is a fully realized and fully processed view of the game. Games start to feel significantly laggy below 40fps, and 60fps is currently the standard for optimal performance (though higher frames up to 120 currently exist). The frames per second in games is slightly different from the frames per second in television in movies in that it typically lacks motion blur, so high amounts are needed in order to compensate for smoothness. This is why TV and movies look smooth at 24fps, while games are basically unplayable at that framerate.

FRAPS - Handy program that measures framerates, records benchmarks and movies, and takes screenshots. Generally what reviewers use to measure framerates for their benchmarks.

Frequency - Also referred to as the "clock". This pertains to the general speed of a component, or how many operations it can execute a second. The basic unit is the hertz (hz) and you will see them described with your processor, graphics card and even your memory. Generally the higher the hertz the better; the actual range of values that the hertz will be in is dependent on the component type and the architecture. For example, CPUs can have frequences over 4Ghz (Giga = billion) with overclocking, and over 3Ghz at stock values. Graphics cards on the other hand currently have hz measurements only in the 600-900Mhz (Mega = million) range, however they have hundreds or even thousands of smaller processors that do work in parallel (in comparison to the 4-8 that exist on a modern CPU).

The architecture of the component will also affect speed; for instance, quad core intel CPUs based on the Nehalem architecture are faster than corresponding AMD quad cores at the same clock speeds .The GTX 295 with a core clock at 576 Mhz is actually almost twice as fast as the GTX 275 at 633 Mhz, since the 295 is dual GPU and has much more mini-processors (known as shaders and raster operators, and stream processors in ATI's cards etc). While a high frequency is indicative of speed, it always comes down to the real world benchmarks when measuring performance.

GPU – Graphics Processing Unit. This powers your graphics card and specializes in processing intensive 3D graphics in real time. In contrast to CPUs, they are highly parallel, with lower clock speeds but many more individual processing units. The most important factor in graphics performance.

GTX - Nvidia’s line of GPUs, the higher the number the better. Currently in the 4xx series.

HDD - Hard Disk Drive. This is your mass storage device that usually runs on the SATA interface. Windows users are probably familiar with it, it is the drive usually labeled “C:\” in My Computer.

Hyperthreading - Intel’s built in feature that allows a single physical core to be divided into 2 logical threads; enhances multitasking. Usually has little effect in games but functionality may increase as games become more multithreaded.

HyperTransport - Replacement for the front side bus, this system has a higher bandwidth and universalizes several different FSB frequencies.

LGA 1156 - Core i5 and i3 socket. The Core i5 line are quad core processors that serve to bridge the gap between mainstream and enthusiast processors. The Core i3 line of processors are dual core with hyperthreading.

Multi GPU – Either SLI or Crossfire configuration. When 2 or more graphics cards to communicate to each other over the PCI express lanes, achieving a theoretical x-scaling in performance where x is the number of graphics cards. In reality you usually see less than the theoretical scaling, but the performance benefits from multi-GPU can still be very significant, typically resulting in a 80-90% performance boost rather than the theoretical 100% To get an idea of the performance that multi-GPU yields, refer to these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCj4r2Gskqw&feature=player_embedded

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5800-crossfirex_5.html#sect0

http://benchmarkextreme.com/Articles/HD%205870%20TriFire/P1.html

OS - Operating System. For gaming PCs this will be Windows. The newest version of Windows is Windows 7, and it along with Windows Vista supports DirectX11.

PCIe - PCI express. This high bandwidth slot is where your graphics cards are inserted. The current version is 2.0, with a 2.1 revision. 3.0 may be arriving later this year (but will take several years still to become standard).

PhysX – Nvidia’s onboard physics solution. Many of Nvidia’s newer cards come with an onboard PhysX chip, which allows for the efficient processing of physics in games that support it. Physx actually doesn’t require much hardware power, but it will take up an entire graphics card in a multi-GPU setup. ATI cards are also unable to run Physx. That is why some people opt to buy a single, cheap Physx capable card such as the GT 220 and use that as a dedicated card to do Physx. There are other cards where an additional PhysX chip is actually onboard the video card itself, such as the GTX 275 Co-Op Edition.

QPI - Quick Path Interconnect. The successor to the front side bus and originally seen on AMD chips in the form of HyperTransport, it allows for extremely fast transfer rates from the memory controller to the CPU.

Radeon HD - ATI’s line of GPUs, the higher the number the better. Currently in the 5xxx series.

RAM - Random Access Memory, also referred to as just “memory”. These act essentially as worktables for the applications that you run, storing the data of currently active applications to be used. The more and faster RAM that you have, the better games will run (to an extent).

Resolution – This will affect the overall detail of your game. Changes in resolution decrease performance, as more pixels need to be processed per frame. Standard high end resolutions are 1680x1050, 1920x1080, 1920x1200, and 2560x1600.

SLI – Scalable Link Interface. Nvidia’s multi-GPU scaling solution. SLI generally refers to 2 cards, Tri-SLI 3, and Quad-SLI 4. Like Crossfire, SLI will not achieve its theoretical 100% performance boost most of the time, but it will be fairly close.

Socket AM3 - Socket for AMD’s current generation of processors including the Athlon II and Phenom II lines. The Phenom II series consist of triple and quad core CPUs while the Athlon II series consists of dual core CPUs.

Tower – Otherwise known as a “case”, these will come in mid sized and full sized varieties. Mid sized towers are good for most configurations, but for hot running high end systems or systems containing large components like the higher end Radeon 5000 cards, a full tower or a large sized mid-tower is better for air flow, space, and cooling. Larger cases also allow for easier further expansion such as larger motherboards, additional hard drives or disc bays, and liquid cooling. It is recommended to get a good full tower if you can, since it will be the component that stays with you the longest, but it depends on the system you’re building and your budget as well.

Vertical sync – Locks your framerate to that of your monitor (usually 60). The benefit of this is it prevents screen tearing, which appears as a thin horizontal line that stretches across your screen momentarily due to the frames exceeding that of your monitor and not matching up, and smooths the overall look of the game. The downside is it reduces performance and creates stuttering if you can’t achieve a consistent 60+ framerate. 

iv.                  Graphics Card Rankings (strongest to weakest, “=” implies similar average performance) 

Radeon HD 5970 = Radeon HD 5850 CF

GTX 480 = GTX 295 = GTX 260 SLI

Radeon HD 5870

GTX 470

Radeon HD 5850

GTX 285

GTX 275 = GTX 280 = Radeon HD 4890

Radeon HD 4870

GTX 260

Radeon HD 5830

Radeon HD 5770

(anything under this point is not really worthwhile to get in terms of a new gaming PC) 

v.                    $600 Build (Mid End)

Important Specs:

AMD Athlon II X3 Triple Core Processor 2.9Ghz, 4Ghz Hypertransport, 1.5MB L2 cache

XFX Radeon HD 5770 128-bit 1GB GDDR5

G.Skill 4GB DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz

Western Digital Caviar Blue 500GB 16MB cache 7200 RPM HDD 

Conclusion: I found this to be a very well-balanced system, with the X3 435 providing around 75 - 80% of the performance of high end processors for less than half the price. The 5770 also holds its own with many popular games out there at 1920x1080 and 4xAA, getting not quite 60fps average in most cases but certainly playable framerates. In addition, all of the other components are built around the base specs with no excess material being wasted, while at the same time keeping a fairly high degree of quality with a the sturdy Centurion 5 case from Cooler Master, and the modest but proficient Corsair 450W PSU. The motherboard is also very good and allows for an easy upgrade path into the hearty AM3 line. Except in relatively demanding games such as Far Cry 2, Crysis or World in Conflict, this setup will give you outstanding performance at high settings in HD resolution. 

vi.                  $1,000 Build (High End)

Important Specs:

AMD Phenom II X4 Quad Core Processor 3.2Ghz, 4Ghz Hypertransport, 2MB L2 cache, 6MB L3 cache

XFX Radeon HD 5870 256-bit 1GB GDDR5

G.Skill 4GB DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz

Western Digital Caviar Black 640GB 32MB cache 7200 RPM HDD 

Conclusion: A gaming machine that has a $1,000 base cost should be able to play the vast majority of titles out there at highest settings – and this does. The Phenom II X4 955 is no slouch and plays with the big boys in most tests. Even more spectacularly, the Radeon HD 5870 plays nearly every game at high to highest settings with above 60fps – extra antialiasing or enabling some ambient occlusion and tesselation should be no problem with this card as well. The usual suspects (Stalker, Crysis etc) may still cause some problems at HD resolutions, but as far as current gaming goes, this build featuring an X4 955 and a 5870 is both a powerful and elegant solution for your gaming needs. 

vii.                 $1,400 Build (Extreme)

Important Specs:

Intel Core i5-750 Quad Core Processor 2.66Ghz, 8MB L3 cache

Diamond Radeon HD 5850 256-bit 1GB GDDR5 Crossfire

G.Skill 4GB DDR3 RAM 1600Mhz

Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 32MB cache 7200 RPM HDD 

Conclusion:   This extreme end build manifests the maximum power that can be attained from discrete components at this point in time. The Core i5-750 matches the gaming performance of several fold more expensive top end Core i7 processors. The graphics card configuration of two Radeon HD 5850s in Crossfire matches the performance of the world’s strongest discrete graphics card at the moment, the Radeon HD 5970, while being less expensive and easier to obtain. Not only will you be getting utterly ridiculous 100-150+ framerates in modern games at max settings, but you’ll also be able to play at super HD resolutions such as 2560x1600 (if you have a monitor that supports it), use supersampling on less demanding games such as those that run on the Source or Unreal 3 engine, and enable all of the eye candy to the fullest including all of the new DX11 features. Finally, all of that is with a 1TB Western Digital hard drive to store all your files, housed in an extremely sturdy and cool looking Antec 1200, and powered by a robust and dependable Corsair 750W PSU. With this build, you will seriously get what you paid for. 

viii.               What’s Ahead? 

Fermi has officially launched and has very interesting performance numbers, but will the cost be justified by the performance? Will they even be available in mass quantities? We’ll have to wait till next month to see. ATI’s responding with a 5870 2GB version that doubles the available memory for high resolution gaming, and later Intel will be releasing their “K” series of CPUs to the LGA 1156 line in order to combat AMD’s successful “Black Edition” CPUs. Who will arise the victor? Well the consumers of course! All that and more in the coming editions. 

ix.                  Closing Comments 

For this month, I really liked the change to the build spread. It provided me with more defined boundaries and forced me to think more carefully about what kind of performance I could squeeze out of each component. This led to more “fat-free” configurations, and a more diverse set of hardware choices. Thanks again for reading and I hope it has helped or informed you in some way. As always, if you have any corrections or suggestions feel free to tell me and I will look into it. 

x.                    Disclaimer and Terms of Use 

Disclaimer: This is merely a guide to what is currently available in terms of hardware. It is up to you to buy, build, and use responsibly, and by reading this article you agree that I cannot be held liable or indemnible for any damages incurred as a result of the content in this article to any party whatsoever.  

Terms of Use: This information may be freely used and distributed :). Happy building!

I love me some computing.

Awesome work dude, very informative well put together.

I find it funny how the extreme build costs about as much as a MacBook Pro. 
 
Oh, Apple.

Love the revisions. Perhaps you could do a $1600 build involving Core i7?
 
Also, before anyone runs and buys and new Nvidia Fermi card, take a look at tech Techreport's findings.

" Love the revisions. Perhaps you could do a $1600 build involving Core i7?
 
Also, before anyone runs and buys and new Nvidia Fermi card, take a look at tech Techreport's findings. "

lol@extereme build... i5 and a 5850. Redefining extreme, aren't we? That's called a budget extreme.

" @Geno: True about Core i7, i regret that upgrade for my own pc. Wish I'd gone with Core i5 or AMD quad cores.   My question for you, do you think the technologies Nvidia has invested in...PhysX, 3d Gaming and Tesselation will be important to gamers or will they continue to be a novelty? "

" @Geno: True about Core i7, i regret that upgrade for my own pc. Wish I'd gone with Core i5 or AMD quad cores.   My question for you, do you think the technologies Nvidia has invested in...PhysX, 3d Gaming and Tesselation will be important to gamers or will they continue to be a novelty? "

@PhannIOUS

" lol@extereme build... i5 and a 5850. Redefining extreme, aren't we? That's called a budget extreme. "

I noticed you used DDR3 1600 memory sticks in all three builds. Is 1600 the sweet spot for performance and price?

" lol@extereme build... i5 and a 5850. Redefining extreme, aren't we? That's called a budget extreme. "

" I noticed you used DDR3 1600 memory sticks in all three builds. Is 1600 the sweet spot for performance and price? "

Great work, dude.  It sucks to see how much more I could get for the price I payed for a computer last year.  Although it would be more expensive if you add in the monitor, keyboard, and mouse I got.

"   You can add that a 5870= two 5770s in Crossfire.  That's what all the benchmarks suggest and my computer (Which has that) agrees.  Also, 2 5770s are about the same price as a 5870 (Or cheaper in my case).

Nice thread. I'll check it out if you update it and if I upgrade this summer

" @Geno: True about Core i7, i regret that upgrade for my own pc. Wish I'd gone with Core i5 or AMD quad cores.   My question for you, do you think the technologies Nvidia has invested in...PhysX, 3d Gaming and Tesselation will be important to gamers or will they continue to be a novelty? "

i've been looking around at core i5 motherboards.
what would you say is THE best P55 board?  as far as features, such as overclocking and crossfire.

" i've been looking around at core i5 motherboards. what would you say is THE best P55 board?  as far as features, such as overclocking and crossfire. "

" @mrhankey said:

" @Geno: True about Core i7, i regret that upgrade for my own pc. Wish I'd gone with Core i5 or AMD quad cores.   My question for you, do you think the technologies Nvidia has invested in...PhysX, 3d Gaming and Tesselation will be important to gamers or will they continue to be a novelty? "

i think the core i5 CPU's themselves are great, but the problem is the motherboards aren't really what i'd call "high-end"   there are some good ones, but they're over 200 dollars, so at that point, why not just get core i7. "

Fucking awesome post man.  Thanks a lot.  I am gonna build my first gaming PC this summer and so glad to have something like this around.

Keep it up Geno. I love reading these and one day I'll use it to actualy buy a new system.

Your post was very useful in choosing the part for a new system. I really appreciate the work you've done here, and it has certainly helped me greatly.

Okay guys, first of all thank you for your comments. 
 
I'm going to be choosing components for next month's edition in a couple of weeks and I was wondering about some things:  
 
1) Do you guys want operating system cost included in total?  
2) Do you guys want bare minimum or reasonable minimum when it comes to "non-critical" components such as cases and hard drives. Because substantial money can certainly be skimped on those but it can lead to awkward systems like a high end build with only 250GB HDD or an extreme build in a mid tower case etc. Right now I am trying to keep a reasonable minimum with non-critical components scaling with the processor and GPU, but that obviously incurs a higher cost.  
 
Tell me what you think. 

" This is the most retarted list I have ever seen.  First off, I wouldnt sell or tell an asshole I know to go out and buy an antec Earthwatts power supply, I mean at least get the new TP-II ones, at the very most you want corsair/pc power and cooling. 

@nabokovfan87

 How about you make an Intel list and an AMD list go dual core, low speed quad for the midrange, and finish it off with the most expensive parts you can buy from either side.

@nabokovfan87

 Instead of saying buy xxxxx video card and xxxxx case and xxxxx hard drive, why not list specifications (Ex: 1 tb 7200 RPM Sata II drive) and an estimated cost.  For video cards/cases I find it is best to just say "video card budget" $200-$250 or something like that.  Same with memory, you cannot choose one brand over the other simply because that is what YOU like. 

@nabokovfan87

 Lastly, this is the 2nd time I have seen these pictures on this board, WTF are you doing telling people to buy a TX powersupply from corsair when the HX version is clearly better, more effecient, and will help keep things cooler and wiring easier. "

 The title of this thread is "best performance for the price", therefore parts are picked on performance/price, not brands. Currently the most value for money can be derived from triple and mid-high speed quad cores, with dual cores costing almost as much or more than a very good tri-core , the X3 435 while being worse. I also don't see the point of listing the most expensive parts possible, especially given the purpose of this thread.  
 

First of all, that is what I'm doing, I'm merely offering those listed in the pictures as examples. Anything from other manufacturers with the same or comparable specs, and from any other reputable retailer is perfectly acceptable (this is listed in my methodology). I also think that it would be more useful for readers to operate on a distinct budget, and not just list components over broad ranges like "$200-$250". For instance I think recommending a 5870 (due to its performance/price) for a high end system and providing benchmarks is more useful than saying "you should get a GPU setup for around $350-$450".  
 
The power supply I listed is both the highest rated and bestselling power supply on Newegg (and therefore also the highest rated and bestselling PSU at its wattage), while being only about 2/3 the cost of the one you are suggesting. I've also seen it in the cases of many professional builders and enthusiasts. It must be doing something right. "

 
TP-II New stuff:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371022  

Take a look at the actual rating of the two corsair 750 watt power supplies, one the TX model is non-modular and has a basic 80 plus rating, the HX model is 80 plus SILVER and costs 50 dollars more, offers modularity and if you dig around in the actual mechanics of what is inside the boxes, you get better quality capacitors and such inside so there is a legitimate reason behind the ratings.  Notice how your power supply is "750 watts" but is actually only 720 while the one I suggested is 744 watts  As far as you ARE doing what I said, how the hell is listing a case, hard drive, and a specific video card a budget?  saying you need xxxx spec for video cards is rediculous unless you say DX11 $150-$200 "

Oh wow. Thanks for this. I'm always looking for the right time to build a computer. This is totally helpful.

"
Go on newegg and search for antec tp new 
 
here is another link to the exact same thing, again. 
 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371025     Did I say anything about if it was an appreciable difference?  Look, these two are supposed to be made by the same company the same wattage except for the modularity of it, CLEARLY one is a hell of a lot better then the other just going by the silver rating, and if you look at the output wattage you can see why.  I'm done arguing and giving you links, you clearly are an idiot. "

I checked out the one that you linked to. Firstly, it's a Bronze rating, not Silver, so that makes the efficiency difference between 80 Plus and Bronze about 3%, which is in line with the numbers that you provided yourself; about 20-25W.  This whole time you have been talking about efficiency and modularity and how my choice of power supply was grossly subpar. The effective wattage difference you yourself supplied shows that the efficiency difference is very little, and in terms of the build doesn't affect it anyway since the build would barely approach the max wattage even under peak load. If you don't care whether or not it was an appreciable difference, then why did you supply the numbers and make a big deal out of it? 

 Luckily, I did some further research to find one advantageous aspect of the TP-750 - noise. According to the PCPer review, the noise level stays relatively constant at all loads at around 30 dBa. The 750TX on the other hand goes up to 40 and above at peak loads - this was one aspect I was not aware of. Considering their close price proximity, this actually makes the TP-750 an attractive offer. Despite your attitude and general lack of awareness towards the purpose of this guide, it seems you have actually provided some fairly valuable information. If I use it in the next edition you will get credit, if you want.           

@nabokovfan87

" Your video card "ranking" has a lot of incorrect information, perhaps you should remove that.   Especially considering you aren't doing a price/performance comparison, seperate dx11 and dx10 lists, sort of just clumping into one big misinformation. "

 no, not all of your cards are dx11, the gtx 2xx crap isnt at all

@nabokovfan87

you have the 480 listed with the 295 wich is wrong

@nabokovfan87

you have the 5970 as two 5850's which it is two 5870's

@nabokovfan87

THE CORSAIR 750 MODULAR POWER SUPPLY IS SILVER RATED.  NOW DO YOU KNOW WHY I SAID USE THAT ONE! I'm sick and tired of explaining the same shit over again.  Just keep reading until it all makes sense. "

 First of all, you linked to this one:     

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371025  
 
Which is bronze  

Someone needs to go take a nap or something.
 
Anyways. Thanks for creating this thread. I'm sure it will prove useful to me in the somewhat near future.

 

The cards I recommend in my builds are HD 5770, HD 5870, and HD 5850 CF. I never recommended any GT 200 cards. They are simply there on the hierarchy chart in order for people currently owning GT200 cards to know where their current performance stands. You must have misinterpreted the function of the chart.  

 iv.                  Graphics Card Rankings     

iv.                  Graphics Card Rankings (strongest to weakest, “=” implies similar average performance) 

Radeon HD 5970 = Radeon HD 5850 CF

GTX 480 = GTX 295 = GTX 260 SLI

Radeon HD 5870

GTX 470

Radeon HD 5850

GTX 285

GTX 275 = GTX 280 = Radeon HD 4890

Radeon HD 4870

GTX 260

Radeon HD 5830

Radeon HD 5770

(anything under this point is not really worthwhile to get in terms of a new gaming PC)      

 
Like I said before,  your shit is just wrong, it all depends on the test, the site who performed, the game the test was run, hell, according to this one, the 5850 is the best shit out there. 
 

or you can go by any one of these and get a different result: 
 

But you know everything and your the smartest person in the world so YOU tell everyone the truth right?
 

First of all, you linked to this one:     

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371025  
 
Which is bronze    

   
You further corroborated my assumption that that was the one you were referring to when you used the review link I provided of the TP-750 and didn't say anything.  
 
Secondly, I have addressed long ago that the 750HX is not necessarily worth its $50 price premium over the TX. According to tests the HX offers only about a 4% efficiency difference over the TX. The 750TX is the highest rated and best selling PSU on Newegg for a reason; because it's the best performance over price at the moment. Modularity is also not really a consideration in this thread because were are talking game performance in terms of how these components are chosen and how the budget is split up. That is why according to my methodology (which you probably still haven't read) such extraneous features are not immediately under consideration. "  

This is the most retarted list I have ever seen.  First off, I wouldnt sell or tell an asshole I know to go out and buy an antec Earthwatts power supply, I mean at least get the new TP-II ones, at the very most you want corsair/pc power and cooling.     

Very nice effort. Very much like Tom's Hardware System Builder Marathons which they do every once in a while. They did one last month I believe, also with 3 different price points one of which they went crazy with. At the end, they did a value comparison. I'll let you guess which build won.... ;)
 
$750:  http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/value-gaming-pc,2578.html
$1500:  http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/best-core-i7,2582.html
$3000:  http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/performance-pc-ssd,2568.html 
 Value comparison: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/system-builder-marathon,2581.html