How To: Build yourself a mid-range Ivy Bridge gaming rig

HDD - Seagate Barracuda - 1 TB Rs. 5,300

With the hard drive prices having gone through the roof because of Thailand floods, a standard 1 TB hard drive is the best bet both price-wise and capacity-wise. If you want an SSD as the primary drive, use this as a secondary drive to store everything else, besides the operating system, applications and games.

The graphics card

Graphics card - Asus HD7770-DC-1GD5 - Radeon HD 7770 - Rs. 10,500

The Radeon HD 7770 is the best GPU in the sub-Rs. 10,000 range. Its performance figures lie between those of GeForce GTX 550 Ti And GTX 560 and the power consumption is very low. Nvidia fans can resort to GTX 560, which costs Rs. 2,000 more or wait for a little time for the 6-series mid-range GPUs to launch and use the CPU's integrated graphics in the mean time.

Optical drive - LG GH22 SATA 22x DVD-writer - Rs. 950

It's the cheapest component, but it plays a very important role - media playback, data backup, software/game installation, among many other functions. The average price of a DVD-writer with SATA interface is around Rs. 950 and there's hardly any difference between the available models. We chose this drive because it's popular.

BenQ

Display - BenQ GL2250HM - 21.5-inch LED – Rs. 9,150

The BenQ GL2250HM has everything that's needed for a mid-range gaming PC - LED lit, full HD panel, HDMI input and more over it's affordably priced.

Input devices - Logitech Gaming Combo G100 – Rs. 1,550

The choice of input devices is very personal and i depends on how much you wish to spend and the features you need. Going by what's currently available in the market, you can't go wrong with the Logitech Gaming Combo G100, which is retailing for Rs. 1,550. The mouse features a 2500 dpi optical sensor and on-the-fly dpi switching. The keyboard features a standard layout with highlighted arrow and WASD keys.

Speakers - F&D F680 - Rs. 4,990

This one's thel latest offering by F&D. It sports a sleek design and the satellites are reminiscent of Creative Gigaworks T3 or Bose Companion 3. The overall sound quality and volume levels are good for both gaming and media playback.

Cooler Master Elite 311 Plus

PC Case - Cooler Master Elite 311 Plus – Rs. 3,200

The Elite 311 Plus is an enhanced variant of Elite 311 with USB 3.0 headers, transparent side panel, tool-free design and blue LED front fan. It has sufficient room to comfortably house all the hardware needed to build a mid-range gaming PC and it's a good looker, too.

Power supply - Cooler Master GX 550W – Rs. 4,600

A 500 W power supply provides enough juice to handle mid-range configurations wherein a major portion of power would be guzzled by the graphics card. The Cooler Master GX 550W is ideal for PCs running mid-range graphics cards, such as Radon HD 7770 or GTX 560 Ti.

Win 7 Home Premium

Operating system - Windows 7 Home Premium – Rs. 6,200

Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Ultimate or Linux. It's a personal choice. Windows 8 should be available after a few months.

The grand total comes up to Rs. 72,790. Here's a quick look at the specifications one more time:

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