Widescreen Gaming Forum

Due to a very expensive hobby, my new gaming computer budget is quite limited. My original goal was to buy a full Eyefinity system but the cost of a complete new system plus three monitors is just too much. Instead of doing it all at once, i will have to do it in two steps. The goal will be to purchase components that will give me the best price/performance ratio.

Motherboard.
1156 motherboards are a lot cheaper than the 1366 ones while providing a very good future upgrade path. It would be a snap to replace the CPU in a year or two with a 32nm quad core when the budget allows it instead of having to buy a new CPU/motherboard combo. USB 3.0 will probably be a requirement for me.

Cpu.
I'm thinking that since triple screen gaming tends to be GPU limited, an i5 750 provides me with a good quad core CPU that is very affordable. I was originally planning to get an i7 860 but that's a full 100$ more (on Newegg.ca) for an extra 3-4 fps at high resolutions.

Display.
I have a 61" Panasonic HDTV that i currently use for my 360 and PS3. It wouldn't require me to spend any money and would allow me to save for a triple monitor setup later. I have seen the pc version of Dirt 2 on a 60" tv at a friend's house and it was more impressive than the console's versions.

Video card.
5870 or 5850? The 5850 would be sufficient to power the 1920 x 1080 resolution of my television. Add another one in Crossfire later when the budget allows and i will be ready for triple screen. Unless the 2 Gb 5870 proves to be a lot more performant...or the 5830 offers incredible value.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

I doubt a 2GB card will make much difference at 1080p... the extra RAM is mostly going to help EyeFinity users. :) I'd probably go 5850 - 90% of the performance for 60% of the price.

I don't like Socket 1156, but to each their own. I'd be more tempted to see what the AMD offerings are like, as for gaming systems there really isn't much advantage to Intel. If you want to video encode, then yes, i5/i7 is the way to go... but gaming? How much would a Phenom II 955/965 set you back?

There isn't much difference pricewise between an i5 750 and a Phenom II 965. I just bought a GoPro HD so video encoding is a consideration.

Always a good source of information and reviews, but they also provide this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/best-gaming-cpu,review-31815.html

and this:
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/best-gaming-graphics-card,review-31807.html

As a rule of thumb if your going to be only playing games you don't need an expensive CPU, you'll only need an expensive CPU if you do allot of CPU demanding tasks, like video and audio encoded, 3D rendering of large software compiling. So you should always spend more of your GPU because 9 times out of 10 thats where the game will bottleneck.

Edit: oh, the only other reason you would need an expensive CPU is if your a serious overclocker.
<-- i7 920 @ 4.0GHz with HT still turned on, on air, which in fairness isn't do hard to do with a D stepping 920.