Gaming Build Advice for a first time builder

[Dr Clockworks]

Hello, everyone! As the title of this thread reads, I am needing some help with my build.

Purchase Date: As of right now I am planning on purchasing every part of the build during the second week in January.

Budget: I'd like to keep it at $1000.00 but if it seems like this isn't enough then I can go a little higher. So I'd cap it off at $1,200.00

System Usage: It will almost be entirely for gaming. The only games I won't play on it will be FPS. I'd rather play FPS games on a console. The majority of games that I will be playing will be MMORPG games, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2. A few RPG games, such as Skyrim and The Witcher 2. And a few other games with interesting multiplayer like LoL and DoTa 2. I know that The Old Republic and Guild Wars 2 haven't been released yet so I guess with MMORPG games the most difficult to run as of right now would be Rift? I've been out of PC gaming for quite a while now so I'm not really sure.

Parts Not Required: Mouse, Keyboard, Speakers. The OS will be Win7 home 64 bit.

Country: United States

Parts Preference: I have almost no preference as of right now. I've been back and forth between AMD and Intel for the past 3 months that I feel that I really don't have a clue.

Preferred website: I'd really like to get everything from Newegg. I live in a very rural community so there are no retail shops that I know of where I could buy any of my components. Other than a Best Buy but from what I looked at they didn't have much of a selection of anything.

Overclocking: Maybe for the CPU but I won't OC anything else.

SLI/Crossfire: Maybe in the near future. But for now I am only looking to use one card.

Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050

Comments: I really want a large case. Plenty of room for future upgrades, fans, and a nice window to view it all. So far the Cooler Master HAF X is what I'm set on at the moment. If anyone has any opinions on it or a better case please do say so. Multiple large fans and LED's are a must. I do love my flashy lights.

I pretty much need advice on every component. I understand what each part does and I understand what most of the details on each component mean but since this is my first build I really don't know anything in terms of build quality or performance from certain brands as compared to others.

I really appreciate any help that I can get on this subject! Please let me know if I left anything important out or you may just ask!

 

[rmiiirusty]

Man this thing boots FAST! What a kick in the pants!!! g'night for now...

Hey Ellmo, just catching up on your posts. Sounds like lots of fun.

Not sure you should need a driver for the cd\dvd rom, unless it is much different than a typical one.

Usually (more Important) on the disk is software in case you have an image burner etc.

You shouldn't really need to adjust much in the bios for the most part and most of your overclocking can be done through the ai suite in windows. To be honest I haven't ever even needed to do that. But it does score higher in benchmarks when o.c.'d.
Sounds like you are having a wonderful time.

 

[Dr Clockworks]

Well, everything in mine seems to be running pretty great so far. I'm not really to worried about my RAM speeds as everything has been going at an incredible speed already.

The only thing I have a question about now is my temperatures. What should I be looking for for everything to be stable at? Maximum of 60 C?

 

[azeem40]

My Computer downstairs runs at around 70C and it has yet to run into any overheating problems. 60C is also good.

 

[raptorxrx]

I wouldn't want anything above 65C in my computer, and I haven't had any problems. If you are really worried about temps, download HWmonitor, furmark and prime 95. Open up hwmonitor, than run prime 95 for ~30min. If your CPU is below 70C than no worries, unless it gets really hot out your cpu should be fine. Than do that for furmark, just look at your GPU temp. Of course if you ever OC, these temps will change. Prime and Furmark maxxx out your CPU and GPU, so they shouldn't get hotter than that, except for if your room temp changes.

Azeem, what are the Specs for your downstairs computer? For ventilation?

 

[azeem40]

It is a laptop and it has a laptop cooling pad underneath it.

 

[Dr Clockworks]

Ahh, okay. Now, when I run those programs, Should I be looking at each individual Core and the Package under the actual CPU? Or should I be looking at the 3 listed as: SYSTIN, CPUTIN, and AUXTIN?

Also, I forgot to mention that I believe I'm having a sensor problem on those. So far, the only game I've played is SWTOR. About every 20-30 minutes I'll Windows tab out and check HWMonitor and these temperatures will be insane. The highest I've seen them go was 120 degrees Celsius but that was just listed under Max. I'm pretty sure this is wrong because I've never seen it in the value and I never see it anywhere around this, above or below it until I get around 60 or 70 degrees.

Oh, after my friend and I built our systems another friend of ours decided he wanted to build himself one also, haha. I found a very nice combo on Newegg here - http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboBundleDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.770956

The big thing that I noticed is that it's a i5-2500k with a 560 Ti for just over $800.00. He wants to keep it at or under $800.00 but I think with that he will gladly fork out the extra $14.00.

My other friend put together a build that is some what similar. It had a 550 Ti with 2Gb of VRAM and some AMD processor (I don't remember which). I think he got it around $630.00. I'll try to get everything that he put together on here so you guys can tell me what you guys think.

So, what do you guys think? Do you like that Intel combo that I listed above or perhaps you can come up with one even better? He's not a real hardcore guy and is really looking to play mostly RTS games and MMORPG games. I guess the best example would be Supreme Commander (The most graphic intensive RTS that I know of) and either Guild Wars 2 or SWTOR.

Opinions, thoughts, comments? And this goes without saying but, I really love how active this one forum post has become!