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Welcome to our 2013 Holiday gaming

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system buyers guide we're going to be taking three different price points so

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that is $500 or what we're calling just games because it's a no frills gaming

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box I mean it doesn't even have USB 3 our second price point is around $11,000

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and we're calling that game now because it's a well-rounded gaming box built for

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today it's that gamer sweet spot and then our third price point we're calling

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game on or the more futureproof and upgradeable gaming box although really I

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hate using those words because there's no such thing as a futureproof system

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but at any rate it has some extra bells and whistles and it costs a little bit

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more to go along with that it comes in at around $1,700 well it always starts

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with the CPU doesn't it so the Athlon x4

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750k at 80 bucks is a great choice it's about $5 more than the 740 but you get

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that K unlocked multiplier which might not be relevant with the hardware we

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have in there I really don't recommend overclocking this system in its current config but who knows you might make

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changes in the future that'll help that out now the reason we went with an AMD

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quad core as opposed to an Intel dual core is that in the past or even really

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in the present most games benefit more from fewer but more powerful cor so we

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would recommend Corey 3s normally but

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we're seeing Frostbite 3 as well as AMD's mantle API upcoming that are going

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to make much better use of more cores even if they're less powerful so that

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makes me pretty confident in this recommendation for the near future now

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for RAM we went with a single 8 gig module of whatever was the cheapest RAM

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we could find it's about 60 bucks and the reason we went with a single module

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is that our fm2 a55m dgs r2.0

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motherboard only has two memory slots so

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while we do get slightly lower performance for going with a single

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module versus dual Channel operation what that means is we can upgrade to 16

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gigs of RAM later on down the road by simply adding another 8 gig module

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rather than forcing ourselves to remove two 4 gig modules throw them away and

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add two 8 gig modules in order to achieve the same effect now this board

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doesn't have really any features to speak of it doesn't even have USB 3 but

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for 50 bucks it's hard to go wrong and it does work we do have one so if you

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want other stuff you can spend another 20 bucks or whatever else and you can

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get a more feature board but this one is just game that's what it does for our

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power supply this is where we never recommend buying generic so we went with

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the most basic brand name power supply we could get which was the anch basic

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350 at 30 bucks it's around $10 $15 more

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expensive than a generic power supply but at the very least you know that it's

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rated for continuous power and you know that if it says it has over current

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protection on it or whatever safety certification on it that it actually has

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it and it was actually tested you'd be amazed how many power supplies out there

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are not validated and don't have the features that they claim to have so

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that's why we went with that um again the not overclocking ready components

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and speaking of not overclocking ready we are using the stock cooler and the

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like the cheapest Apex case we could find you can get this thing for as low

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as 20 bucks it's functional but it doesn't have great cooling so no

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overclocking so far except the CPU so guys you would need to make some

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upgrades to the config for overclocking now okay the case does have one thing

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going for it though and that is it does have ventilation in the side panel above

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the CPU area as well as above the graphics card area so when we put that

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HD 7850 whether we get a 1 gig card or a

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two gig card that'll affect pricing by about 25 bucks but a two gig card will

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run you around $155 it'll have somewhere to exhaust the

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heat now this card is an Untouchable value I would have loved to present you

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guys with here's the AMD option here's the NVIDIA option that makes sense at

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this price point NVIDIA doesn't really have anything that's that competitive at

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this price point but the cold hard truth of the matter is neither does AMD the

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7850 is an outgoing card it's it's a discontinued model so once these are

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gone they're pretty much going to be gone so I would recommend grabbing one now if you're interested in it for our

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storage you have a couple of options so number one is the Western Digital blue

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one terab it's available for around $70

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number two is the Kingston v312 20 gig SSD for around $880 I had

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people telling me a little while ago I was talking about something oh you're crazy lonus you can't put an SSD in a

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$500 machine yes you can and yes it absolutely makes a very big difference

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it's a matter of whether you're willing to go for the SSD now install just some

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of your games and wait until you can add a hard drive later when you get another

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allowance or you get another paycheck or whatever else or whether you must have

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the storage now in which case go with the WD blue now our pricing for this

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system was before Windows Windows 8 is about $100 but if you already have a

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window license that you can reuse or if you're planning to use a free OS such as

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Linux then you obviously don't have to buy that so that is what we'd consider

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to be optional our game now system I actually struggled with a fair bit I um

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I ended up with some recommendations that I think are going to sound a little bit unusual but if you guys hear me out

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maybe you'll agree and if you don't of course let me know in the comments so for the CPU I went with a core i5

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3330 this is a nonk skew but unlike

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Haswell ivybridge nonk CP use can be

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overclocked a little bit and you can get around 3.6 comfortably out of these

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chips which will put it in about the same performance range as something like

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a 4670k which costs a full $50 more that

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gives us a lot of money to work with elsewhere in the build so for memory we

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went with 8 gigs of RAM again at around 60 bucks you can get either a single

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module or a dual Channel kit and you can

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decide whether you care more about having the extra little bit of

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performance from Dual Channel now or if you care more about being able to expand

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to 32 gigs of RAM in the future depending which way you go because both

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boards that are options at this price range the z77 Pro 3 or Pro 4 are

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available for around $95 however z77

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boards are becoming less common so pretty much buy whatever you can for the

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power supply we went with the cic 620 wat this is the s122 this is a much

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better power supply than the one in the last system which was nothing special

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other than that it just had a proper brand name and like prop certifications

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on it at $65 to $80 the cic 620 wat unit

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is efficient it's quiet and it is just fantastic um speaking of things that are

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efficient and quiet we went with the hyper 212 plus again we're talking about

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a moderate overclocking system here and for 30 bucks this is a great value

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because the stock cooler just really isn't good enough for any overclocking

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these days for the case we went with the 200r same thing more solid build quality

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so this is around a $50 $60 case than that $20 $30 case that we looked at

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before much better ventilation better brand a better looks just better in

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every possible way in very in very practical ways now the video card is

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something that some people will agree with and some people won't but I narrowed it down to I really think the

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gtx770 makes the most sense in this

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configuration you can get great performance out of it remember this is

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basically equivalent to a GTX 680 and with the holiday bundle which includes

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Assassin's Creed 4 Batman Arkham Origins and splinter cell black Blacklist

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there's just not really much on the AMD side that is comparable to that the 280X

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is about the same price I was able to find 770s as cheap as around

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$310 and just doesn't have the

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same oomph that the 770 does not to

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mention I'm a huge advocate of NVIDIA Shield I think it's awesome and 770 is

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the lowest end card that allows you to get $100 off a shield so you can get it

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for $200 now because of some of the money that we saved elsewhere in the

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build our store solution becomes a lot more robust so for our SSD we went with

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a Kingston v300 120 gig drive it's not the fastest SSD in the world but for $80

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to $90 it is a very compelling value and you will notice a difference if you

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install your OS and your most frequently used programs on it then we were able to

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grab a 2 tab Seagate hard drive and throw that at the system for mass

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storage now this gives us a ton of flexibility we could go with 90 gigs of

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os SSD and allocate 30 gigs to use as a c using smart response technology on the

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hard drive or we could just go 120/2 terb or whatever else the case may be

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either way because of that money that we saved by giving up4 gigahertz and a 10%

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IPC Improvement and then doing a little bit of overclocking we were able to get

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this great storage solution and a rocking video card then of course if you

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need Windows then that's an extra $100 and whether or not you already have that

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is your business in the performance uh

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game on segment where we're you know future proofing things a little bit and

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color matching them a little bit it became a lot easier because I have a bit

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of flexibility I don't have to worry about every $3 that I'm spending and is

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it contributing to the bottom line in terms of performance so we started with

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the 4770k which gives you pretty much no

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benefit today over something like a 4670k but again Frostbite 3 and mantle

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coming with you know there being more benefit to more threads we're going to

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go ahead we're going to sort of place our bets and spend an extra hundred bucks on something with hyper threading

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and overclocking potential and all that stuff for RAM we went with 16 gigs right

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out of the gate both of the other configs went for 8 gigs and while there's really no benefit from a gaming

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perspective to 16 gigs of 1866 Corsair Vengeance blue today it matches our

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motherboard and it is a little bit more future proof although again I really

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hate that word I hate that word for motherboard we went with the ASUS Z87

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Pro it's got Wireless AC it's an extremely solid board ASUS really is my

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number one choice when it comes to motherboards so anything other than ASUS

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you know that I'm probably making a compromise somewhere along the line

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either of those other configurations you could pay an extra 2030 or even $40 and

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get an ASUS equivalent board but that's exactly the problem is on a$1 th000 rig

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or on a $500 rig I don't feel comfortable spending that kind of extra

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money on something that really just doesn't contribute to Performance and

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contributes more to features and robustness so this is something I'd feel

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very comfortable overclocking as high as we could go speaking of overclocking as

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high as we want to go we went with a Corsair txm 750 W power supply it has

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four PCI Express connectors for a potential dual GPU SLI or Crossfire

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upgrade in the future and is very wellb built and modular it has like

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disconnectable cables again we're we're wasting a few bucks on something that

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doesn't contribute to Performance but it does make your system look better and it

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does actually make your air flow slightly better depending on how your

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cable management goes for cooling we went with the nhu12s it's quiet it

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performs extremely well and it's knocked to us so of course I think think it's the bee's knees because just all their

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stuff is fantastic in fact probably have no to stuff here see this is an

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excellent fan the NF p12 although it's not my favorite fan anymore the NF F12

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is now my favorite fan for the case I went with a fractal design Define R4 the

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extra like $6 we're spending on this case versus the Corsair 200r is purely

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for looks and overall build quality and

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you know quiet sound dampening material and stuff like that does not contribute

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anything to Performance and in fact the thermals probably aren't even quite as

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good as the 200 R it's just this is a really really really nice case and we're

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going for a more luxurious build here now while everything else about this

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system was relatively easy I really struggled with the video card on this

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one because at this kind of a price range you can probably afford to jump up

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to a 780 but it costs a full $100 more

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than a 290 it does come with three games

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as opposed to one so you can find 290s that come with Battlefield 4 or you can

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find 780s that come with the Assassin's Creed 4 Batman Arkham Origins as well as

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Splinter Cell Blacklist bundle but and the 290 is louder

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noticeably louder runs hotter than the 780 but is near it in terms of sheer FPS

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performance and costs about $100 less so

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you guys got to make a decision here do you want to spend an extra $100 for

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better temperatures uh lower noise

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potentially better game bundle depending how you feel about the games that are including Ed it the $200 discount on

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Shield um NVIDIA gsync potentially in

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the future if you wanted to upgrade your monitor in a couple months and get something because it's really is

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revolutionary it's awesome or if you want to go ahead go for the more value

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oriented solution now and you're willing to take a hit on power consumption as

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well as Acoustics and temperatures you think AMD mantle is going to be an

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outstanding piece of technology even though we really haven't seen it yet then 290 looks like a good bet so if I

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had to pick one in this price point I

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kind of had to go with 290 but I think

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780 is also a very solid choice if you have the extra $100 to spend now for

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storage things got easy again because the Samsung 840 Evo is just playing a

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better drive than the more value oriented SSD where we were looking at before we can afford a 250 gig drive so

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you can actually fit your OS and like a fair number of games and programs on it

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and it's got some awesome features like their data migration software as well as

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rapid which allows you to use RAM in order to accelerate the drive itself and

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is very intuitive to set up and actually works really well and then for our

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storage drive we went with a wd red 3 terb this might seem like a weird option

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cuz it's a raid drive but the things that make it a good raid drive like the

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fact that it's more resistant to vibration and is just generally more

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robust even though it's not the fastest drive in the world compared to something

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like a blue or a black makes it a very compelling option if you're not putting

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your most you know performance sensitive data on it which you're not because you

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have a 250 gig SSD in your system so overall this system is very well-rounded

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Windows is of course another $100 very well-rounded extremely high performance

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when it comes to gaming and I think is a more normal overall build I hope that

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you enjoyed our shopping for a PC holiday build guide generally uh why did

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we do this well reason number one was that you guys have been asking us to do

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this absolutely forever and reason number two is that we've I I don't know

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if you noticed this but we did not have a pre-roll on this video so we are

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experimenting with using affiliate Revenue where we take the knowledge that

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we have about what's good that you guys want to know and we tell you and then

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you click on the links that we provide you with to buy them and then we get a commission out of that we're

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experimenting with using that as a way to supplement or even longterm perhaps

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replace um paid advertising spots on our

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videos so let me know what you think of that idea let me know what you thought

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of the holiday buyer guide and I think

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that's pretty much it like the video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment if you have something

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to say about my my choices and how they were terrible or how they were fantastic

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um and as always guys don't forget to subscribe