$820~ gaming build, critique please ordering asap!

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Veramont

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Sep 26, 2011
5
0
18,510
Approximate Purchase Date: Tomorrow morning

Budget Range: $820 before rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, general use.

Parts Not Required: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, OS.

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: Newegg.

Country of Origin: USA

Parts Preferences: Intel cpu/Nvidia 560 ti

Overclocking: Yes

SLI or Crossfire: No.

Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080 single monitor

Additional Comments: Gaming build meant for to play future titles for the next few years with ease on high settings. Can't really go past 820-830 as it is all I have (don't get paid for 2 more weeks, don't really wanna wait cause I think this will be sufficient).

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066
Antec Three Hundred Illusion Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case (15 DOLLARS OFF WITH PROMO)

Optic Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204
ASUS 24X DVD Burner - Bulk 24X (I realize there is a deal with this dvd drive and the Seagate Barricuda HDD, but I want the Samsung F3).

HDD:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371030
Antec NEO ECO 520C 520W Continuous Power ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V 80 PLUS Certified Active PFC Power Supply (Plenty of wattage for a single card, I do NOT want to use SLI. Also single rail/80 plus certified).

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820145345
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271
ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

COMBO: Cpu/Gpu: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.717978
CPU: Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) 4 x 256KB L2 Cache 6MB L3 Cache LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
GPU: MSI N560GTX-TI Twin Frozr II/OC GeForce GTX 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

With shipping/promo my total comes to $823 and some change. I've got about 835 max. Just wanted some critiquing on my build to see if you guys would change anything. Key things to know: I do NOT want to SLI, 1920 x 1080 monitor, gaming rig, 820ish budget. Thanks guys, this is my first time on this board and you people seem intelligent!




 
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I can't really find anything to fault with your choices. The NEO 520 is a really good low cost PSU. I put them in 2 of my builds and they handle mid/high-end cards beautifully. With the i5-2500k, it appears to be a powerful rig for 1920x1080 gaming with all/most eye candy. At one time I had a single GTX 460 768MB card running my 32" 1920x1080 HDTV and it handled any game I played on it at max settings (except Crysis and Metro 2033). Your GTX 560Ti should be at least a step above that.

One thing though... check the Asrock website for that board and see if that RAM is on their memory test list (QVL). If not, there's always a tiny chance it might cause issues.
 
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Hm, well I checked the Asrock site and for 4 gig sticks they do not have Corsair listed, but they do for the 2 gig sticks. They do have G. Skill for the 4 gigs, and they're roughly the same price I've just always heard Corsair is more reliable. Think I should switch over to the G. Skill instead?
 
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Hmmm... That's a toughie. I always go with the QVL list if possible. But that's because I had problems with an Asus board and RAM years ago. Asus boards seem to be finicky about RAM, though. Asrock, I don't know. If I had to guess, I'd bet you would probably be alright with your original choice. The only problem is, any problems won't show up untill the RAM is stressed or overclocked.
Btw, I'm jealous of your build. ;-)
 
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I think I'll just go with the Corsair. It has always seemed more reliable and they tested the 2g sticks with it, so I'm assuming it should work the same. Plus, the only bad thing I've read about the Vengeance Ram in relation to my mobo is that apparently it'll read it as 1333, not 1600. But you can go in and manually change it and then it works. So all things considered, I think it'll be fine. I am kinda concerned with the MSI card though. Yes it has the best cooling and performance (Though any of the TI's you can OC so that really doesn't matter, I'd simply picked the MSI card for the cooling). However, it seems to have an insane failure rate, where as EVGA cards have usually had a good rep. The MSI looks great on paper, but I don't want a card that is gonna be a pain in my ass the entire time versus a bit hotter EVGA that works flawlessly. Any thoughts on that? Lol, no need to be jealous! There are much better ones out there.
 
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I've never had a graphics card fail, so I can't say. But I never OC'd them past what the factory OC'd versions were rated at. I always felt that was safest. Ive only owned 2 brands in Nvidia; EVGA and Galaxy. Mostly EVGA. Afraid your on your own there...
 
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Well, I don't wanna get a reference 560 because the TI version has more process cores unlocked. As for the clock cores, the TI version basically just OC's it for you. The reference 560 is 822 cores, and the EVGA one I'm probably gonna get is 850. So it's just a bit over the reference. A lot of the other ones, like the MSI, are 880-1000. Yeah it's gonna have better performance, but the failure rate scares me. Not to mention I could just as easily manually OC my EVGA at 850 to 900+ if I felt the need to. So I think I'll just go with the lowest clocked TI for the extra processor cores..
 
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Ive had a couple of the MSi cards and both have ran beautifully ever since. No OCing though. This is a very good pick of parts. Try to get CAS8 DDR3 1600 RAM if you can. G. Skill or Corsair are great choices.
 
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I believe that MSi can be great, I just don't feel like taking a risk. EVGA might not run as cold, but it isn't gonna make a huge difference and I'd rather have the comfort there. I might grab some CAS8 G.Skill, it's only 10 bucks more. Other than that, I think it's solid.
 
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