I've picked parts for a gaming rig, input would be appreciated

[jcbullen]

Approximate purchase date: February 2012

Budget range: $1000-$2000 before rebates

System usage from most important to least important: Gaming, internet, media (music/video)

Parts not required: Keyboard/mouse

Preferred website for parts: www.newegg.com

Country: USA

Parts preferences: Intel

Overclocking: Yes

SLI/Crossfire: Maybe

Monitor resolution: 1920x1080

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So I've decided to build my first gaming PC and I haven't done this before. I have a decent sense of what to buy and what needs to go together, but it's always nice to get reassurance from the community.

CPU - Intel Core i5-2500K: I plan on overclocking the CPU and do mostly gaming, so this seemed like the best choice for me. A 2600K or higher doesn't seem necessary.

Heat Sink - COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 EVO: This seems to be an old faithful product. Would this keep my CPU cool if I overclocked to 4GHz?

MoBo - ASRock P67 Extreme 4: This motherboard looks like it has everything I need and can do SLI if I choose to do that down the road. Also, I've read that it's great for overclocking in BIOS.

Memory - CORSAIR Vengeance 2x4GB DDR3 1600: 8 gigs of RAM should be plenty for me for now. I can always upgrade to 16 later.

Video Card - SAPPHIRE Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit OC Edition: I thought about this long and hard and ended up on this card. It's powerful, I can SLI it when the price drops if I need to, and it's under $500. I'm going with the OC edition because I feel more comfortable having something OC'd for me and the fans/heatsink that come on it look like they will do a better cooling job than the non-OC edition.

PSU - Antec High Current Gamer Series 900W SLI Certified: This is a pretty high wattage PSU which may be more than I currently need, but if I SLI Radeon HD 7950s down the road, I might need this right?

Hard Drive 1 - Crucial M4 128GB SATA III SSD: Many people have told me to pick up a medium sized SSD for a boot drive and to install a few game on. The Crucial M4 was highly rated and not too horribly expensive. 128GB should be more than enough.

Hard Drive 2 - Western Digital 1TB 7200RPM SATA 3.0GB/s: A storage drive.

Disc Drive - Asus 24x DVD Burner: A basic drive. I don't really need anything special.

Case - COOLER MASTER HAF 922 Mid ATX: This case looks pretty nice, isn't expensive and reviewers say has nice airflow. I will also be adding a 200mm fan in the side panel for extra cooling.

Monitor: Asus 23.6" 1080P LCD Monitor: This was the highest rated monitor on newegg for less than 200 bucks. I think it will do everything I need it to do. I will also stream to my 52" TV so I don't need a huge expensive monitor.

OS - Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I've already got speakers so I don't need that, and I think the onboard sound chip will work well enough for me. Does this all look like it will work well together? Are there any suggestions to alternative parts that either work better than the ones I have listed without much, if any, of a price increase? Could I save money anywhere without sacrificing functionality?

 

[striker410]

Hi! Welcome to the forums.

Holy crap, you've done your research. Very impressive, very impressive indeed.
Everything looks fantastic, a few small tweaks though.
-Get this PSU: Corsair TX850M for ~$130 (with promo code) it's modular for the same price as that Antec. It's just as high quality, if not more so.
-This DVD burner: Sony Optiarc Doesn't have the nasty white scrawling on the front.

Other than that, I don't have any suggestions. You did awesome.

 

[aqe040466]

You are pretty ready to build your PC, What are you waitingg for? All the parts are okay you are ready to go.

 

[jcbullen]

Thanks for the quick replies! I came home the other day to find my computer not wanting to boot up properly, and since it's old I decided to say "to hell with troubleshooting, I'll build a new one". I've spent the better part of this week pouring over forums and reviews so I think I researched well enough (I'm a bit picky when it comes to purchasing electronics). Now I'm just waiting on a paycheck and tax return to pay for all of this, which should happen in the next week or so.

I'll look into your two suggestions as I'm not particularly attached to the PSU and DVD drive. I hear good things about both Antec and Corsair so we shall see!

 

[JackNaylorPE]

Heat Sink:

Hyper 212 for 4.4 - 4.5 Ghz
Hyper 612 PWM / SCythe Mugen 3 for 4.6 - 4.7 GHz
Thermaltake Silver Arrow or Phanteks PH-TC14PE for 4.8 - 5.0 Ghz +

MoBo: I have an issue investing that amount of money when basing the entire build on a MoBo vendor who is the only major vendor who doesn't offer an industry standard 3 year warranty.

RAM - What's the attraction to these tall toothy heat sinks ? The Hyper 212 and this RAM are mutually exclusive. The RAM will hit the cooler.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100006519%2050001459%2040000147&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&ActiveSearchResult=True&CompareItemList=147|20-233-196^20-233-196-TS%2C20-233-186^20-233-186-TS%2C20-233-199^20-233-199-TS

GFX - AMD card do CF not SLI. Right now we can't judge the performance of the card in CF as

Crysis 2 would not scale whatsoever, we had a weird freeze in Far Cry 2, Lost Planet 2 was rather unstable, Dirt 2 showed massive corruption

This **should** be resolved w/ future driver updates but right now I will have to withhold judgement. Personally I never buy GFX cards between January and June as drivers for the newer cards are immature and I don;t wanna deal with the "oopsies" of Revision A and Revision B hardware.

Case / PSU - No front USB 3.0 ports kills the 922 for me .... consider the following combos:

Corsair 500R w/ HX850 ($278) - Well reviewed case w/ 10.0 jonnyguru performance rated PSU

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&N=100006644&isNodeId=1&Description=500r&x=0&y=0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011&Tpk=Hx850

Antec DF-85 or 1200V3 w/ CP-850 ($280) - Well reviewed cases w/ 10.0 jonnyguru performance rated PSU. Case and PSU designed specifically for one another to reduce noise, and heat.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129087
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129087

SSD - The m4 is a Tier 5 SSD
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-review-benchmark,3115-6.html

Why not tier 3 which is 21% faster for less money ?

$170 after MIR and $20 off w/ promo code HARDOCPX2X8E, ends 2/14
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820220599
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E1681737102

Monitor: If ya can squeeze the budget, Id suggest a 120Hz monitor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236104

 

[jcbullen]

Thanks Jack. I agree that the RAM is pretty gaudy looking and I'll definitely pick out a different set.

Can you recommend another MoBo that would be compatible with everything and offer a warranty?

CF, not SLI, my bad!

So long as the MoBo has USB 3.0, I don't really care. I will be able to access the back of the computer just as easily as the front. Also I think I'd rather a mid-size case because a full wouldn't fit in my desk area.

That SSD is actually a pretty good deal, assuming I can order all of this in the next 4 days, I'll look into that one.

120Hz monitors are quite a bit more expensive and I'd probably do a lot of the gaming on my TV anyways so I'll probably avoid going that route.

Thanks for all of your feedback, very helpful.

 

[jcbullen]

Although after some more research, the 120Hz monitor does seem like it would give me a lot smoother gameplay... decisions decisions.

 

[striker410]

The ASRock mobo is fine. Jack doesn't like ASRock, dunno why. Having used many of their boards with no problems, I highly recommend them as they give you a massive amount of bang for buck without a compromise in quality. But hey, it's all personal opinion.

I do agree that the Patriot Wildfire is an excellent choice, seeing as it has toggle mode NAND, which gives it high stability as well as crazy speed.

120Hz monitors are cool! Quite expensive though. If you have a quality HDTV, it's most likely already 120Hz. Your call though.

 

[jcbullen]

Depending on how much my girlfriend will let me hog the TV for computer games, it might be a good idea for me to invest in a 120Hz monitor. I'll try to cut down a couple other things to keep this beast under 2 grand.

I'm seeing that the Patriot Wildfire is a really good SSD.... when it works. Seems like there are a lot of reviews on newegg concerning DOA units and units that crap out after minimal use. Hopefully those issues have been fixed by now.

 

[striker410]

Yes, that is the issue with Sandforce SSD's. For some reason, some just wear out, which is why the Crucial M4 is loved by many. Honestly, you won't see the difference. It's going to be so fricking fast no matter which one you pick.

60Hz monitors look fine. It's a price thing in my opinion.
Something to keep in mind is that with 120Hz comes the ability to do 3D... That's sure to be fun