No my GTX 570 is fried

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I'll have it if you've still got it. I still say you should bake that 8800, feels manly breathing life back into electronics. And a backup is always handy.

Sorry, meltdown got it in the Steam thread.

My case is falling apart, I have a lot of trouble having it fit together. Not only that, but the pin that holds my GPU to the mobo just broke off. It is firmly in place with the screws though.

But I might be due for an upgrade for the case, mobo and CPU.

What's the best affordable Intel CPU for games? Also can I just take the cheapest mobo I find?

Best bang for buck is an i5 2500k, a mobo that's compatible with it will generally be pretty good seeing as how new they are so any Z68 will do you fine, MSI and Gigabyte are generally solid makers of mobos.

So long as you stick with a solid brand like Gigabyte, MSI, Asus etc. you should be okay. Just look for the features and price you want (SATA 3 and USB 3 might be nice and aren't on all older boards), and do research to see if they have any outstanding BIOS or reliability issues.

something like this is fine if you arent an overclocker http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157326

pair it up with an i5-3450. its not the greatest of motherboards (probably got a shitty phase design, not much cooling, only one pcie x16 lane etc) but it wont make much of a difference if you arent going to overclock anyway. virtually any case will do, you can pick up cheap stuff like the nzxt source for ~60 or so dollars. if you want to spend a bit more, 90-100 bucks will get you a silverstone tj08e, probably one of the better matx cases on the market

Don't Z68 MB have problems with the SATA bug?

That was a year or so ago, all models since then that are manufactured have resolved the issue. If you want to make sure it's the updated version, only buy a motherboard if it has "B3" somewhere in the name as that's the code for the updated chipset.

the cougar point flaw? that was p67 i believe

Affected the Z68 range too as the Z is a combination of P67 and H67.

but the z68s were released after stepping that fixed the p67s...why would intel introduce them with the flaw?

Sorry I was incorrect.

The obvious answer is God doesn't want you to play vidya games.

no worries, i still have a first gen p67 mobo and no problems here couldnt be bothered with the free RMA

Finally got my desktop setup just like I wanted it. I picked an i7-3770k, wanted something future-proof. Also got a P280 case, pretty nice. Very quiet, and well ventilated. Miles away from my old cheap gamer case.

Wow, that thing flies! Now I'm going to be good for a long while, and will just have to change the GPU in about 2.5-3 years. With the 7970 performance is really really good. Now I can finally install Guild Wars 2.

The only part of your computer that can be future proof is the case. A good one could last up to 10 years or more. Your monitor also could last quite a while without the necessity to upgrade.

Everything else will become obsolete in three to four years tops.

Truth be told, that hasn't really been the case lately. My PC from three years ago; 4 gigs of RAM, E8400 and a GTX 280 was more than capable of playing everything at max details at 16x10. Well maybe I had to turn off AA in Metro 2033 and Crysis and couldn't get DX11, but apart from that it was all smooth. I wouldn't have even thought about replacing it, if my card didn't have a manufacturing failure which made it useless.

I actually felt kind of guilty about upgrading, as I saw it and still do, as more of a frivolous desire than a necessary purchase.

a good power supply can last a long time. usually the fan is the first thing to go, but nowadays you can get quality fans with fluid dynamic bearings which have long lives. mech keyboards also, supposedly, last for while, although i dont know much about them.

I was talking about the CPU lasting me a long time, at least 4 years. This one is actually the best money can buy if you don't want to pay 1000$.

This is exactly why I never live on the cutting edge when it comes to tech. I'm running on a fairly antiquated system right now and considered upgrading to the Nvidia 600 series to be a bit ahead of the curve but I'll probably take Crispy's advice from the other thread and just wait a year for prices to come down... or just get a 500 series now for about $150ish.

It's not as though there's anything worthy to be on the cutting edge for at this time. Particularly now that that edge seems to have dulled to the point where any Codexian can meet it for around a grand.

The only thing I don't like so far is that I'd like to select maintain aspect ratio, but the option is greyed out in my Catalyst control center.