Purpose/Software:
My primary focus is gaming. I'd like to run World of Warcraft, Starcraft II, the Call of Duty: Black Ops, Battlefield 2, Battlefield Bad Company 2, etcetera etcetera. Essentially all the latest and greatest. 1920 x 1200 or 1920 x 1080, I'm not sure.
I also dabble in Photoshop. Here I need to emphasize dabble - the piece of crap I'm on right now handles what I do, so I think anything that can run those games will be fine for Photoshop.
I also have several messenger clients always on, including mIRC, MSN, and GTalk, and probably Ventrilo. Firefox and Windows Media Player are also frequently in use.
So we're looking at World of Warcraft (Or any of the others), Ventrilo, mIRC, MSN, GTalk, Firefox, Windows Media Player, whatever anti-virus software, task manger (AnVir), and potentially Photoshop, all running
simultaneously, with a fair amount of headroom to spare if I need to do something else.
CPU
I definitely want to go with Intel for the processor.
Overclocking is a possibility, but I have some concerns about stability.
I was thinking about going with the i7-2600K, but from what I understand the actual "enthusiast/ higher end" Sandy Bridge chips aren't coming out for half a year. I can wait that long if it's the right move. The article here at Tom's says:
" This time is different. Sandy Bridge is going to have to swim its way upstream, surfacing on the flagship LGA 2011 interface in the second half of this year for the real workstation-oriented aficionados. "
I'm assuming he means that on the low end, the 1155 sockets are going to replace the 1156 sockets, and on the higher end, the 2011 sockets are going to replace the 1336 sockets.
Probably want a CPU fan as well, just for the sake of making sure it stays cold.
Graphics
I'm leaning twoard Nvidia, but that's not set in stone. I'm thinking about starting off with a single GTX 570, and using SLI to add 1 or 2 more if it starts to slow down into the future.
Motherboard
- Room for future SLI
- I would like USB 3.0, however this is not really a huge sticking point, seeing as the number of devices that utilize USB 3 are slim to none.
- SATA III 6gb/s would be nice to have. From what I understand the current 7200 RPM HDDs can't use up the throughput of SATA II 3gb/s entirely, but I believe the higher speeds of 6gb/s would benefit solid state drives.
- I'm also going to need a way to get wireless N. I don't know if the best way to do this is with some sort of card inside the case that has antennas sticking out the back, or if I should use some sort of USB device. Obviously I'd like to use wired were I can but sometimes you just need to go wireless.
- I wouldn't call myself a huge audiophile, but I do enjoy high quality sound and I would like to get it where possible. From what I understand most motherboards already have capability for Dolby 7.1 and all that fancy jazz, so this shouldn't be an issue. I don't care enough to justify a sound card. I am thinking about getting some decent headphones (AX 720 as recommended by the Xbox 360 crowd at avsforum), so I'll probably need an optical out, but this isn't make or break.
- I don't think total number of USB 2.0 ports is a huge deal. I doubt I could use all of them anyway, and USB hubs are cheap. I have plenty laying around already.
Case
For the case, I'd like to go full tower. There are several factors that went into this decision:
- Expandability. I can keep throwing in terabyte drives as I need them.
- Space. GTX 570s aren't small cards. SLI is a probability in the future.
- Cooling. Overclocking - I don't want to end up burning out my hardware for an extra gigahertz that I does nothing except increase the size of my e-penis. If I do decide I want that extra gigahertz, I want it cold. As always, cooler hardware is better, and will live longer. Seeing as this is going to be one hell of a system, I want it to stay colder than an arctic winter... on air cooling. This build needs to last. Full tower = better cooling.
- Ease of assembly. I'm not incompetent by any means, but I realize that bigger cases are easier for first timers to get everything in to all nice and right. No point in hassling myself.
- Sturdy. This house is somewhat of a zoo. I don't want a cat or a dog going flying by and knocking it over on accident. An Antec 1200 weighs like 30 pounds with nothing in it. That sucker isn't going over easy. Not that it's going to be a huge issue, seeing as the pets don't ever really get close to the case in the first place, but peace of mind, y'know?
- Aesthetics. Walking into my room and seeing a giant ass full tower just feels good. Every time I look at it, I want to think " Damn, that looks fine. "
With all this in mind, I've picked out the Antec 1200 (if the blue LEDs annoy me I can disable them or replace the fans). I'm open to alternatives here. You can base your recommendations on build quality, expansion, cooling, functionality, and the like. Don't worry about how it looks - I can veto it if it doesn't jive right with me - I don't expect you to get /that/ far inside my head.
Power Supply
The potential future graphics cards along with potential increase of hard drives led me to settle on 1000w. Antec CP-1000 to go with the case.
RAM
1600mhz should be fine here, or maybe even down to 1333mhz. I believe Sandy Bridge is DDR2 dual thread, not DDR3 triple thread, I guess I could go with like 8 or 12? Higher quality brands would be good here. This is a computer of epic proportions, and I don't want to fill it up with crap.
Storage:
It seems to me that everyone is recommends using a solid state drive as the boot drive, containing the operating system as well as the programs. The problem with this, is, SSDs are RIDICULOUSLY. Freaking. Expensive. $200 for 120gb is just completely asinine. However, if the performance benefits are really, truly, and legitimately that amazing, I will do it. Like I mentioned, this is an epic build, deserving of epic performance.
The rest can be whatever, really. Fill it up with terabyte drives or whatever. My only stipulation here is high quality. I've read a lot about certain brands (Seagate?) crapping out and people losing data. I really don't want to have to deal with that kind of bullshit. I was thinking Western Digital, but you've been around a hell of a lot longer than I have. I defer to wisdom.
Furthermore, I was considering doing a RAID-5 array. From what I understand RAID-5 would make access to data faster while providing redundancy. What do you think about this? From what I understand that if a mobo does happen to have a RAID controller, it's low quality, so I can think about adding a RAID controller or whatever, as well.
Keyboard and Mouse:
My keyboard is the one pictured
here . Essentially your standard keyboard, I guess. I'd like to get something backlit for night gaming. I don't really know what would be good here. I suppose you can just take into consideration that I'm a gamer, and go from there.
As for the mouse, I'm currently running a
Logitech MX 610 (it took me the past hour to figure out what this bedamnned thing is). All I know, is, it's wireless and it works. It's got forward and back buttons, scroll wheel with left/right push. It also has two buttons that launch my email and messenger when they get pressed, and they can't be disabled. I HATE this.
I would love mouse with good DPI, wireless, forward and back buttons, a scroll wheel with left/right. Custom buttons are okay, as long as I can customize them - including disabling them. If I could have turned the email and messenger buttons into something else on this mouse, it would have been great. As it is, I'm pissed. Once again, gaming in mind.
Monitor
Currently, I have a Vizio VP322 (32 inch plasma 720p) on my desk, running triple duty between my Xbox 360, cable TV, and computer, depending on which input is selected. The VGA D Sub 15 input I've been using can go up to 1366 x 768, according to the
manual (.pdf). However, the system I'm on now is driving it at 1024 x 768.
Seeing as I'm used to the 32 inch, I probably don't want a small monitor. I guess a 24" would work? 1980 x 1200 would be nice... or 1980 x 1080, I guess.
I'll want to go dual screen, too, so a pair of those? How much would two good, high quality monitors at 1980 x 1200 24I for gaming, cost? Don't factor this in to the final build cost in the budget. Actually, if you can, that wouldn't hurt.
That's about it. I spent the past three hours (no sh!t) compiling my thoughts and information. I hope it conveys my mindset well.
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