$717 SWTOR Jedi Hardcore Gaming Build - December, 2011

With the release of Star Wars: The Old Republic getting closer, here at GN we have decided to prepare two builds for our awesome readers: a Jedi-themed build and a $430 budget Sith-themed rig. This build is designed to run SW:TOR and other games, like Battlefield 3 and Skyrim, at max or near-max settings while still retaining future-proof options, a sleek exterior, and upgradability.

Come to the Light Side, we have the winning team. Forget Vader and his minions -- the third movie sort of ruined Anakin for us, anyway. Come chill with Luke and Obi. And Jar-Jar.

Optional Add-ons (pick and choose as budget allows)

Video Card:

For a low-budget build, the 6870 is an excellent card and the mail-in rebate makes it all the better. This card provides the best performance for its price range, and should be able to run newer games without breaking a sweat. The 6870 is equipped with 1GB of GDDR5 memory and a 900MHz core clock (take that, Siths!), and a 256-bit memory interface (more than enough to run most games that are out, including Skyrim, BF3, and in the future, SW:TOR).

The next step up from this card is the 560 Ti, which would increase performance by a fair amount, however the price of the 6870 is unbeatable, and a 560 Ti would cost around $100 more.

Case:

The Corsair Carbide series are all cutting-edge in appearance, and the 500R is not an exception to this. This case comes with 2x120mm fans one the front, 1x200 mm fan on the side panel, and an exhaust fan in the back. It also comes with support for liquid cooling and room for another 2x120 mm fans on the top of the case. Even though the great features played a part in choosing this case for the build, aesthetically the case looks like it would make a great Jedi case, with its white exterior and white LEDs on the fans.

CPU:

The X4 960T is the best CPU out there for its price in accordance with the performance that it provides. It's a quad-core processor and runs at about 3.0 GHz. Not only that, but with the $15 instant discount that it has at Newegg, it makes it unbeatable at its price-point. The X4 960T has an impressive 6MB of L3 cache for extra processing efficiency and can be overclocked if desired (just consider an after-market heatsink if you go that route).

Motherboard:

ASUS has had the tendency lately to produce some great looking motherboards, and the heatsink and heatpiping design of this motherboard is testament to this. The motherboard stands strong with the Jedi theme of this build, especially with its glowy-blue coloring. Besides, it's only $90 after rebates. Not bad at all.

This particular motherboard, the ASUS M4A87TD, supports up to 16 GB of DDR3 2000(O.C.)/1600/1333/1066 RAM. The motherboard also includes two USB 3.0 ports, as well as support for SATA III in the event you go the SSD route.

Memory:

Kingston is not a brand that we have used too often in the past, but they're well-known for their heritage and new Hyper series. The great price provided with these 2x4GB sticks (8GB total) makes them an amazing choice. This RAM comes at a DDR3 1600MHz speed, which is more than enough for gaming in its current state. The RAM also comes in a light-blue color, keeping it consistent with the rest of our components included.

PSU:

Corsair is a great brand with some of the most reliable power supplies. The TX650 (650 watts) will provide enough power to sustain all the components picked out for this build -- not only that, but 650W will be more than enough to power future upgrades, unless of course you choose to implement a dual GPU configuration, in which case you'd need to double-check the wattage usage (post in the comment below if you want our advice). However, for the included components, the TX650 will do the job.

Hard Drive:

We managed to pick out a decent deal for this hard drive: a Seagate 500GB drive with 16MB of cache, which isn't necessarily the best, but with the natural disasters going on in Asia, this is as good as it gets right now. This drive should perform well until the prices for higher-end drives drop a bit, which should be after Spring of next year.

Optical Drive:

This drive will do what it's supposed to do: read and write discs. If you have an extra one lying around, we recommend just salvaging that since optical drive technology has barely changed in the past few years, and there won't be a noticeable performance decrease.

If you have any suggestions to make this rig look more "Jedi" like, feel free to post a comment below or post on our hardware forums! If you need help customizing, let us know so we can ensure you get the best possible system!

Don't forget to check Steve "Lelldorianx" Burke's budget Sith build!