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!

 

[Emelth]

Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, SilverStone are the brands I would go with

 

[Dr Clockworks]

And why the 560 Ti over just a 560?

 

[Dr Clockworks]

And what other case would anyone recommend? Yes, I would love something that has a very large side window but something with a fan on the side as well. The only reason that I decided on this case was because it had plenty of fans and looked decent.

 

[rmiiirusty]

Whoa whoa whoa

Drop the fans, up the GPU to a 560 Ti or a 6950

I would also up the PSU to a 750W you can SLI in the future, most of us would disagree with going any lower then that

The ROM drive you can save $4 get Lite-on should have one that will do as good if not better than the HP one

I was gonna suggest a ti as well but In other posts I have caught a lot of slackfor suggesting better components. It seems some of the guys are still rooting for the underdogs.
I like this one as I know its abilities and am very pleased with it

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121424

I wouldn't go with the TOP version cause you pay more for OC that you can do yourself

With the maximus iv gene-z I would not reccomend this one if you want to sli
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121480 because it will be to big and cover your second slot

This looks like a really good deal, but I don't have any experience with this card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121424R
they are out of stock at the moment but you could have them notify you when they are back in

 

[rmiiirusty]

sorry to double post but it would not let me edit.
I just noticed that my last link was the same card as my first only an open box deal lol

This is the case I have and love it. It has very good airflow and was easy to work with and I love the handles on top
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119196

 

[Emelth]

560 Ti is better than the original 560 I would go with either an EVGA or MSI brand. Or if you want to go with a 6950 HIS or Sapphire.

For motherboard to save a couple dollars go with the ASRock Extreme3 Gen3, unless you really want the ROG stuff from your current motherboard choice
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271

For PSU go for this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139021

Your case is a good choice but if you really want to switch it up I would say go with one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129066
or
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147153

For ROM drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827135204

 

[Emelth]

If thats the case you want get it then, you will appreciate it more knowing that you choosed it and that it fits your 'style'

 

[madchemist83]

xfx core edition or pc power and cooling mkII

 

[Dr Clockworks]

Well, do you really think that I'm going to need that much power for my resolution? I really need to keep my GPU under $200.00. I really doubt that I will ever SLI unless I really need to upgrade and all the new cards are priced insanely high for me.

The same goes with the PSU, I would love to keep it under $100.00. Although, I might (If I can find a good case with a very nice side window) decide to put some LED strips in the case to lighten everything up better. Can you guys make a nice suggestion for a case with this in mind?

 

[Emelth]

alrght if you dont plan to SLI drop down to a 650W and still get to keep the 560 Ti, the 560 Ti on a 1080 screen will be able to almost reach high settings on most games and sooner or later your gonna have to upgrade you monitor so I much rather have the PC ready till then

 

[rmiiirusty]

Well, do you really think that I'm going to need that much power for my resolution? I really need to keep my GPU under $200.00. I really doubt that I will ever SLI unless I really need to upgrade and all the new cards are priced insanely high for me.

The same goes with the PSU, I would love to keep it under $100.00. Although, I might (If I can find a good case with a very nice side window) decide to put some LED strips in the case to lighten everything up better. Can you guys make a nice suggestion for a case with this in mind?

For your resolution,if you want to stay there and for the games you want to play, consider these cards
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814121435

I have this in one of my computersand my son plays skyrim wow bf2 and rift with pretty good frame rates on above avg. settings .If you sli these I am sure you would do well with your res.

 

[rmiiirusty]

alrght if you dont plan to SLI drop down to a 650W and still get to keep the 560 Ti, the 560 Ti on a 1080 screen will be able to almost reach high settings on most games and sooner or later your gonna have to upgrade you monitor so I much rather have the PC ready till then

That is a good recommendation. I would be happier with 1 560ti than 2 550ti myself.

also if wanting to save on the 560ti, check out ebay. You only have to make sure the seller has 100% feedback scores and only get things from your country to avoid delayed shipping.

Also try to make sure that what you are buying is listed as new to avoid getting a burned out card. I purchased the Asus 560ti that I linked earlier about 2 weeks ago for $167.00 and it was here in two days. There were quite a few others for in the $190.00 range then. There are also many other brands. No matter what, If you don't like it when it arrives you have 7 days to get your money back from paypal.

 

[Dr Clockworks]

Ebay might be cheaper but I'm not going anywhere near it for this. I think )only as of right now) the only thing I would SLI would be two 550 Ti cards. But, seeing as I still want to keep the GPU under $200.00 I think I'm just going to stick with a 560.

 

[newbhtpc]

If i may offer one comment on the cases linked above. I own an older antec 300 and it appears from the photos that like mine, the one linked does not give you the behind the motherboard access panel (to install or upgrade an aftermarket cooler) which can be handy. Maybe irrelevant but as someone who just pussed out from installing a 212+ and is now on stock cooling until I am ready to suffer the hassle.. I wish my case had one.

 

[rmiiirusty]

Ebay might be cheaper but I'm not going anywhere near it for this. I think )only as of right now) the only thing I would SLI would be two 550 Ti cards. But, seeing as I still want to keep the GPU under $200.00 I think I'm just going to stick with a 560.

I don't blame you about Ebay, I had problems to until I learned to purchase only new and check feedback info on the seller.
Once I bought a Harddrive for a really good deal from a chec republic vendor that was supposed to be here about 2 wks later, never could get any tracking info on it and after allowing two more weeks, I called paypal and they gave me my total pymt back, no questions asked.

Amazingly ,after that was when I finally heard news from the seller, messages argueing pay pals decision etc. but it made no difference as the money was already back in my bank. And now months later, even tho the item was supposed to be on its way , It has never arrived .

This is not a reflection of Ebay, only my poor choice in vendor selection. Many of the Items are brand new from normal retailers, including NCIX.Outlet which is where I made my gpu purchases from. They were Brand new and as good as products from any other vendor.

I sell products on Ebay as well and I would never want to give someone a raw deal.

Just do your homework and remember you can always return within 7 days if you dont like what you get.

The other guy was saying that someday you would have to upgrade your monitor. While they do get old it is no reason you really have to go allot bigger if you don't want to. That choice is yours. I do recommend no matter what size your monitor, to use a dvi cable as apposed to vga if your monitor has the connection. Even on my 1600x900 res monitors it seems to make a clearer image and stands out even more on my 23 in.monitor.
I don't use it anyway though as I prefer a smaller monitor

 

[Dr Clockworks]

I would like to use Ebay for maybe a future purchase when I only need one thing but for my first build I want all of my items to arrive in the same shipment. I know there is always a very small possibility that something bad might happen with one of my parts and have to RMA it or it all might not arrive but by ordering it all from Newegg I can make that possibility that much smaller.

I'm pretty happy with the monitor I am using now and doubt that I will be upgrading for a few years so I think that I'm good for a while. And I agree, DVI is beautiful. I'll probably purchase a HDMI to HDMI cable adapter so I can take the Mini-HDMI cable and connect it to my much longer HDMI cables for my TV.

 

[rmiiirusty]

I would like to use Ebay for maybe a future purchase when I only need one thing but for my first build I want all of my items to arrive in the same shipment. I know there is always a very small possibility that something bad might happen with one of my parts and have to RMA it or it all might not arrive but by ordering it all from Newegg I can make that possibility that much smaller.

I'm pretty happy with the monitor I am using now and doubt that I will be upgrading for a few years so I think that I'm good for a while. And I agree, DVI is beautiful. I'll probably purchase a HDMI to HDMI cable adapter so I can take the Mini-HDMI cable and connect it to my much longer HDMI cables for my TV.

Yep, is definately a plus to recieve all of your parts @ once and can save shipping by having all @ once from same vendor.
I do this frequently when building for a customer, but when it came to building mine I wasn't able to put all the cash in @ once.
I had to purchase over a two or three week time frame and focused on the parts I needed to check before installation i.e. mobo,,psu,cpu. I did my set-up with those, some ram from one of my other computers my larger monitor and a gpu from another computer just to make sure that the mobo posted before the complete build The next week I bought the ram ,new gpu,psu and case, and the third week I bought the a\m cooler,monitor keyboard and mouse,as well as some extra case lighting.
I was lucky that of all the vendors used that every thing worked with no probs. The only thing that really worked to my advantage was being able to take advantage of the great deals that I wouldn't have found all from one place. I didn't pay much for shipping tho cause most came from amazon. One item I payed $10.00 for shipping but had saved $20.00 on the price.

All in all adding my parts up on one site costed me around 10% more from any single vendor, but is still worth it to get it all at once.

 

[Dr Clockworks]

Well, after looking at http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html It seems to me that the Radeon HD 6870 performed better than the Geforce GTX 560. Do you guys think I should go with a 6870 instead? If so, could you post a few links to some cards that you would suggest? Just please remember to keep it below $200.00. Haha, sometimes I wish I could just go through and chose all sorts of super high end GPU's and CPU's.

 

[raptorxrx]

Don't we all ;buying the super high end? But really, all of those are great cards for the price. Just go on newegg, and look for the highest rated 6870/560 if you go that way. Nvidia is optimized for most games, so sometimes their slightly less powerful cards will beat ATI's slightly more powerful cards. And some people say Physx has a big difference. I would go 560, but others will say 6870. It'll be interesting to see what everyone else says too.

 

[rmiiirusty]

Well, after looking at http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html It seems to me that the Radeon HD 6870 performed better than the Geforce GTX 560. Do you guys think I should go with a 6870 instead? If so, could you post a few links to some cards that you would suggest? Just please remember to keep it below $200.00. Haha, sometimes I wish I could just go through and chose all sorts of super high end GPU's and CPU's.

yeah, and I like nvidea for the fact I have never had a problem with them, while with radeon I sometimes have compatability issues with my board,software problems with catalyst, etc... If you can get them to work,they do seem to out perform nvidea in the mid price card range , but I find it not worth the hastle to start with when I know nvidea will work right out of the box.

 

[Dr Clockworks]

With this being my first build and all I really can't say much about Nvidia and AMD's Radeon cards. But it seems to me that Nvidia + EVGA = No hassle, awesome cooling, and can pretty much take on anything. So I think I'm pretty set with a GTX 560. But that's just from reviews I've read.

Haha, I do believe that I've finally decided on a case. It's the Corsair Carbide 400r. It looks purty, has 2 USB 3.0 ports on the front panel, TONS of fans, amazing cable management, and a lovely interior. The only thing that I don't like about it is there is no side window. It has two 120mm fan placements on the left side with some mesh but that's about it.

Anyways, the question that I have now is what PSU should I get? I have no idea what type of connectors I will need for the front panel or for all the fans. The case comes with 3 stock fans (Two front intake and one rear exhaust) and I would like to add more. Along with the 3 stock I would like to put two on the top for extra exhaust and a CPU cooler. Maybe in the future I might put a second fan on the Cooler Master Hyper 212 but that is only if I have trouble keeping my CPU temp at reasonable levels. So.. as long as I have the option to hook up 7 or 8 fans along with the other necessary components I think I'd be all set. Although.. it does seem like overkill..

What do you guys think would be a good PSU for a set up like this and what do you guys think is a good amount of case fans?

 

[rmiiirusty]

With this being my first build and all I really can't say much about Nvidia and AMD's Radeon cards. But it seems to me that Nvidia + EVGA = No hassle, awesome cooling, and can pretty much take on anything. So I think I'm pretty set with a GTX 560. But that's just from reviews I've read.

Haha, I do believe that I've finally decided on a case. It's the Corsair Carbide 400r. It looks purty, has 2 USB 3.0 ports on the front panel, TONS of fans, amazing cable management, and a lovely interior. The only thing that I don't like about it is there is no side window. It has two 120mm fan placements on the left side with some mesh but that's about it.

Anyways, the question that I have now is what PSU should I get? I have no idea what type of connectors I will need for the front panel or for all the fans. The case comes with 3 stock fans (Two front intake and one rear exhaust) and I would like to add more. Along with the 3 stock I would like to put two on the top for extra exhaust and a CPU cooler. Maybe in the future I might put a second fan on the Cooler Master Hyper 212 but that is only if I have trouble keeping my CPU temp at reasonable levels. So.. as long as I have the option to hook up 7 or 8 fans along with the other necessary components I think I'd be all set. Although.. it does seem like overkill..

What do you guys think would be a good PSU for a set up like this and what do you guys think is a good amount of case fans?

Well if you are still getting the maximus it has I think four fan headers on the board, besides the two that it gives you for the cpu cooling, so four of your fans will plug into those if they are the little 4 pin connectors, If not, you can get adaptors from newegg,amazon etc. Some of the cases come with 4 pin molex fan plugs so if your unsure go ahead and order a few with your order cause they only cost around a buck each. If you do hook your fans to your board you can use your boards software to monitor and control them , setting them to work harder when warmer etc.

Also if you should want, you could instead get a fan controller that mounts in cd rom rack that all of your fans could run to and control them that way. If you use the mobo option for most of your fans you wont have to worry about a cable from the psu for them. If you use the fan controller unit you should only need 1 plug for it. You should go to corsair website to look up your case and see if it has details like which plugs it uses for fans.
Also if you decide to use a second fan for the hyper 212 like you said, there are indeed two fan headers right by the cpu for them.
You should still shop around for a good deal on the ti version of the gtx560, maybe you can find a deal, and it would serve you better.

 

[Dr Clockworks]

What exactly is the difference between the GTX 560 and the GTX 560 Ti?

I've sorta tossed around the idea between the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 vs. the Asus Maximus Gene-Z. I really can't see any major reason to get one over the other. Well, besides your review and the comments of your customers. Unless there is something major that I am missing?

I think the Gene-Z has 5 x 4-pin connectors but I might be wrong. Haha, I would really love to be able to take a look through the manual now so I can see everything that it has. But I think I will order a few of those Molex plugs just to be safe. I'll probably just connect the exhaust fans to the PSU so I can regulate the speed for the intake. I wasn't able to find anything on what connectors the case uses on their website but I'll check some other websites.

When you say that I'll only need one plug for the fan controller do you mean that I could connect all my fans to the fan controller and then use one plug from the fan controller and connect it to the PSU? Haha.. I am sorry for causing you such a hassle. I just want to be sure that I get everything right.

 

[rmiiirusty]

What exactly is the difference between the GTX 560 and the GTX 560 Ti?

I've sorta tossed around the idea between the ASRock Z68 Extreme3 Gen3 vs. the Asus Maximus Gene-Z. I really can't see any major reason to get one over the other. Well, besides your review and the comments of your customers. Unless there is something major that I am missing?

I think the Gene-Z has 5 x 4-pin connectors but I might be wrong. Haha, I would really love to be able to take a look through the manual now so I can see everything that it has. But I think I will order a few of those Molex plugs just to be safe. I'll probably just connect the exhaust fans to the PSU so I can regulate the speed for the intake. I wasn't able to find anything on what connectors the case uses on their website but I'll check some other websites.

When you say that I'll only need one plug for the fan controller do you mean that I could connect all my fans to the fan controller and then use one plug from the fan controller and connect it to the PSU? Haha.. I am sorry for causing you such a hassle. I just want to be sure that I get everything right.

Yeah most fan controllers use only one power plug from psu.
The Asrock board is good by most reviews,however I suggested last week to a guy on this forum to get the maximus and a die hard ASUS slammer talked him into the Asrock extr 3 gen 3 and well he reposted after the build saying he could not get his first pci slot to work . I suggested rma the board and by the time I finished my message , he could not get second slot to work either.
I have heard some horror stories about the memory slots on those boards but this was the first I had heard af pci problems. Maybe was a fluke. I wonder tho why so many of the guys swear by those boards when so many problems.

 

[rmiiirusty]

read this forum link to see the story I just told you about the gen3 board
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/328617-31-building-intel-system