Gaming Build under $950

[y2kbug77]

Hello People. I'm new to the forums. I just wanted some opinions/help on the build I'm planning and this seemed like the best place on the internet to do that. I (hopefully) have someone buying my current rig this weekend for $850 and I would only want to throw in $100 of my own money.

Approximate Purchase Date: 1-2 weeks. Can be longer if people think price drops are coming

Budget Range: $950 before rebates

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, emulation (My PS2 doesn't work anymore), and movies

Parts Not Required: Monitor and any sort of sound system

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com or amazon.com. I wouldn't be opposed to Tigerdirect, but they never seem to have the best prices.

Country of Origin: America

Parts Preferences: Sandy Bridge CPU

Overclocking: Not planning on it.

SLI or Crossfire: I'll probably buy a second card for SLI next year.

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080p 40" LCD TV

Additional Comments: Considering I'm not OC'ing I think the i5-2400 will be just fine. I can't really justify another $30 for the i5-2500k. And I know the i5-2400 will still smoke my current Phenom II X4 970. The motherboard and power supply I've picked both support SLI. I've heard that there isn't that much of a difference between x16, x4 and x16, x8. So that doesn't bother me.

Alrighty, This is my parts list so far.

Raidmax Tornado ATX Black/Red - $47 including Shipping

ASRock P67 PRO3 SE LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard - $98 including shipping

Intel i5-2400 - $190

G-Skill Sniper 8GB DDR3 1600 Memory - $52

Galaxy Geforce 560 Ti (Fermi) 1GB - $238 with shipping

OCZ OCZ750FTY 750W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Ready 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Power Supply - $100

Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive - $60

Samsung 12x Blu Ray Drive - $66 including shipping

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit OEM - $100

Total = $946 after rebates = $881

Thanks in advance!!

 

[Why_Me]

That Asrock board doesn't support SLI / dual vid cards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502 $121.99 FREE SHIPPING
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard Virtu, Touch BIOS, Smart Response SSD, 2-Way SLI, HDMI

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.730392 $147.98 FREE SHIPPING 10% off w/ promo code EMCKAKA24, ends 9/15
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9B

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.723031 $276.98 FREE SHIPPING
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52400

 

[y2kbug77]

That Asrock board doesn't support SLI / dual vid cards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128502 $121.99 FREE SHIPPING
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard Virtu, Touch BIOS, Smart Response SSD, 2-Way SLI, HDMI

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.730392 $147.98 FREE SHIPPING 10% off w/ promo code EMCKAKA24, ends 9/15
CORSAIR Enthusiast Series TX750 V2 750W ATX12V v2.31/ EPS12V v2.92 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC High Performance Power Supply
CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9B

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.723031 $276.98 FREE SHIPPING
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit - OEM
Intel Core i5-2400 Sandy Bridge 3.1GHz (3.4GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52400

That motherboard has two PCI-E 2.0 slots. One runs at 16X and the other at 4X. So why wouldn't it support CF or SLI?

That Corsair Power supply only has one 12V rail. That wouldn't do me any good later on for SLI.

Thanks for that CPU/OS combo though. I wouldn't have even thought about getting Windows bundled with anything else.

 

[Why_Me]

That motherboard has two PCI-E 2.0 slots. One runs at 16X and the other at 4X. So why wouldn't it support CF or SLI?

That Corsair Power supply only has one 12V rail. That wouldn't do me any good later on for SLI.

Thanks for that CPU/OS combo though. I wouldn't have even thought about getting Windows bundled with anything else.

1) You don't want dual vid cards running @ x4. It would seriously make a big time dent in FPS. Standard issue for dual cards is both running @ x8. Also any board that runs dual cards @ x4 will not support SLI/dual Nvidia cards. That board is a no go for dual cards unless you plan on running dual AMD cards @ x4 which would be a total waste.

2) A single rail has zero to do with the connectors on a psu. It just means your amps are carried in one single rail instead of multiple rails.

 

[y2kbug77]

So the one 4X slot would knock both cards down to 4X. I will look for a different motherboard then.
OH, I just saw the amount of 6+2 connections that the corsair has. I've been shopping PSUs totally wrong. lol. I hope they still have that deal when it's time for me to buy all my parts.
Thanks for the info! That's why I came here.