First build in 10 years, just looking for some opinions or suggestions

Solidgear4

Reputable
Mar 4, 2014
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4,510
This is the build I decided on, priced around 2,000 US. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd be glad to hear them as it's been a while since I've done this.

Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-990FXA-UD3 AM3+ AMD 990FX + SB950 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX AMD Motherboard

Processor: AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W 8-Core Desktop Processor FD8350FRHKBOX

CPU Fan: Enermax ETS-T40-BK Black 120mm Twister CPU Cooler with TB Apollish Blue LED PWM Fan

Power Supply: APEVIA WARLOCK POWER ATX-WA900W 900W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready CrossFire Ready Active PFC Power Supply

Graphics Card: PNY VCGGTX660XPB GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster Z 70SB150200000 5.1 Channels 24-bit PCI Express (x1, x4 or x16) Interface Sound Card - OEM

Ram: Kingston HyperX Black 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model KHX16C10B1BK2/16X

SSD: SAMSUNG 840 EVO MZ-7TE250BW 2.5" 250GB SATA 6Gb/s MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)

Data HDD:WD BLACK SERIES WD2003FZEX 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive

DVD: ASUS Black 12X BD-ROM 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM SATA Internal Blu-ray Drive Model BC-12B1ST/BLK/B/AS - OEM

Card Reader: Rosewill RDCR-11004 5.25" 2 Port USB 3.0 / 4 Port USB 2.0 Hub / eSATA Multi-in-1 Internal Card Reader w/ USB3.0 Connector

Case: Cooler Master HAF XB EVO - High Air Flow Test Bench and LAN Box Desktop Computer Case with ATX Motherboard Support

I'll be running Win7 HP, not too fond of 8, using the SSD as an OS drive, 2 of the HDDs, SLI setup, and 2 sets of the ram for a total of 32GBs.

I appreciate any helpful thoughts or suggestions anyone might have. Thanks guys.

Edit: Sorry, forgot to mention the $2000 budget is to include a monitor, speaker system, keyboard and mouse.
 
Solution
I have a few comments for you.
1. Unless you do a lot of video editing or rendering of types, there is no need for more than 8GB of RAM. I even edit and render with 8GB and it works fine for me.
2. You should NOT by any means start off getting 2 GTX 660's. You should instead a GTX 770 or something like that. It will be in the same ballpark of power and price, yet also have a wider memory bus for more effective video memory usage, and you can add another 770 in the future for an SLI config. Also, single card configurations are always better than SLI, SLI is not a perfect performance double and comes with a lot of other issues.
3. For a budget of $2,000, you should really be using a i7-4770K or i7-4930K. I saw a YouTuber who used a GTX...
I have a few comments for you.
1. Unless you do a lot of video editing or rendering of types, there is no need for more than 8GB of RAM. I even edit and render with 8GB and it works fine for me.
2. You should NOT by any means start off getting 2 GTX 660's. You should instead a GTX 770 or something like that. It will be in the same ballpark of power and price, yet also have a wider memory bus for more effective video memory usage, and you can add another 770 in the future for an SLI config. Also, single card configurations are always better than SLI, SLI is not a perfect performance double and comes with a lot of other issues.
3. For a budget of $2,000, you should really be using a i7-4770K or i7-4930K. I saw a YouTuber who used a GTX 780 Ti and i7-4930K as well as other high performance components (32GB RAM as well) and kept the budget under or around $2,000, also in the US.
4. You really don't need a sound card unless you're a huge audiophile, and even then it would be better to get a good pair of headphones instead.

Hope this helps!
 
Solution