I Need A Reality Check From Those In The Know

[Herkaleez]

My home desktop just bit the dust after 7 or 8 years.....so I mentioned it to a co-worker and he brought up the idea of building my own. We work on the newest C-130 in the Air Forces inventory so this shouldn't be to much of a stretch for me and he's built 9 or 10 custom towers over the years and would be ready if I needed. I want it to edit digital photographs (HDR) and do some light gaming and together we came up with the parts list below. I like to order from NEWEGG because I usually get my items from them the very next day using standard shipping....and the list is from their website. My wife works for a surgical group of Docs and they have an "I.T. GUY" who maintains their computer system at work and said she would run it by him to get an opinion from an "I.T. Professional". First he tells her NEWEGG is nothing but trouble.....apparently one of the girls that work there had some difficulty with an order.....whatever......Second he tells her the motherboard is outdated and mediocre and that she could go to BESTBUY and get an off-the-shelf name-brand that would out perform this build for around 800 bucks.......................Personally, I think he's delusional or has no earthly idea what he's talking about............how about y'all......am I wrong?
Any suggestions about this build would be appreciated too......I'm trying to keep this as economical as I can.....the build list is below. I plan on using the optical drives from my old tower
Thanks,
Dan



COOLER MASTER HAF 922 BLUE RC-922M-KWN2-GP Black ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Side window
$99.99


Western Digital Caviar Green WD15EARX 1.5TB SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
$79.99


HIS H467QR1GH Radeon HD 4670 1GB 128-bit DDR3 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
$69.99

Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
$94.99


Kensington 64325 Black 4 Buttons USB Wired TrackBall Ultimate Trackball Mouse
$79.99


CORSAIR DOMINATOR 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMP8GX3M2A1600C9
$99.99


GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3P LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
$179.99


Intel Core i7-2600K Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I72600K
$314.99

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
$99.99

Subtotal: $1,119.91

 

[beenthere]

I see no obvious issues other than the Vid card is pretty low power for digital editing. As far as Bad Buy and other suppliers - you can buy a lot for $700. but many people prefer to build a custom PC so it has exactly what they need/desire as one size does not fit all. Custom built will always cost a little more but if it better fits your needs then it's usually the way to go.

 

[inzone]

I have been dealing with Newegg for years and they are light years ahead of Best Buy in terms of service and customer support ,no contest. As for your build I would look at a different motherboard and video card. Everything else is fine.

EVGA Z68 SLI 130-SB-E685-KR LGA 1155 Intel Z68 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Intel Motherboard $209.99 and a $10 rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813188097

ASUS P8Z68-V PRO LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS $199.99

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131730

EVGA SuperClocked 01G-P3-1557-KR GeForce GTX 550 Ti (Fermi) 1GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $159.99 and a $20 rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130629

HIS H685FN1GD Radeon HD 6850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity $149.99 and a $10 rebate.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161384

 

[Herkaleez]

Yah....I know about the video card, the reason I went with it is because I bought the same for my old desktop thinking it was my issue.....it wasn't. So I thought I could get another for 69 bucks and use it in the crossfire configuration and it should suite my needs.....and I wouldn't have one just sitting around.
Appreciate your help............Thanks!

 

[dontcrosthestreams]

some people have issues with the green line of hdd

 

[mouse24]

newegg is amazing, however for 60-70 bucks id grab a 5670 and i dont think there is any reason for a 750 watt on that pc, id grab a 650 ish... but thats not a bad price so its really meh.

and why are you paying 80 bucks for a mouse? 0_0

 

[Herkaleez]

I'm not stuck on the mouse.....I need one that's faily comfortable.....any suggestion?

 

[jbart1981]

That is an awfully high price for the 2600K

Try microcenter

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0354587

 

[jbart1981]

Since you are going with the 2600K you will want to budget for a decent CPU cooler. For the price ~$30 it is tough to beat the Coolermaster Hyper 212. Ditch the fan that comes with it as it is kinda loud and replace it with 2x coolermaster sickle flow 120mm fans. Mount them as push/pull and you will get much better performance and lower noise.

If you are not going to Overclock no reason to spend the extra cash on the 2600K just get the regular 2600

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0354588

 

[Silvune]

$100 for 8GB is a bit much. Also the Sandy Bridge memory controller prefers 1.5V or below. Tall heatspreaders on DDR3 RAM is unnecessary and is just likely to cause issues if you ever wanted to install an aftermarket CPU cooler.
Corsair Vengeance LP 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Low Profile Desktop Memory Model CML8GX3M2A1600C9 $53
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233186

The only reason I would change the motherboard is if you wanted one with a UEFI bios.

A green drive is fine for a purely storage drive, but it would probably be a bit slow for programs to run off.

Agree that 750W is overkill for a build with two 4670s. Keep it if you think you will ever use it for/in a build with two much more powerful/hungry graphics card tho.

These are some options for cheaper units which are more appropriate to a build with two 4670s:
Antec Earthwatts Green EA-650 80Plus Bronze $70 ($20 rebate, $10 off promo code)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371044

Antec High Current Gamer HCG-620 80Plus Bronze $70 ($20 rebate)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371048

lol@ "...the motherboard is outdated and mediocre...".
Z68 is one of the most recent chipsets and that mobo in particular is quite high end. So it definitely sounds like he doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[toordog]

Let's try to put thing straight.


3 thing I can see from a quick look

Your motherboard used a older chipset than what is currently available. P67 is the lastest chipset : example of motherboard: Asus P8P67 Rev 3.1 *other rev had issue but has been resolved in 3.1*
This motherboard will provide you with up to 4x pci-e16 (or 3x pci-e16 with pro version), 6x 6G Sata, usb 3 ... about 189$ for pro and 290$ for WS

Ram is 1600Mhz while your processor can support up to 2200Mhz, maybe look for a faster RAM and a motherboard that support it.

you picked a i7-2600K The only reason to buy a K version is if you want to overclock it which you told you are not a heavy gamer and not tech savvy which mean you will probably not overclock it.

Buy the CPU i7-2600 versoin which should cost you 50-60$ less.



This is personnal opinion, but I would avoid ATI at all cost. They have very poor driver coder and they always have issue.

NVidia is rock solid.

I don't know much about the others but when it comes to video card, you got what you paid for. Invest more you will get better feature and performance. You can even now find a video card with WHDI *Wireless HD video stream to your HDMI TV, monitor etc.*