My Gaming PC

[jcox26]

Hey guys I am planning on getting a new gaming rig soon and would like to know what you think about my planned rig. Any recommendations and constructive criticism would be appreciated. Anyway here is the build.

Case: Antec Eleven Hundred
Motherboard: (Still looking)
CPU: 3rd Generation I7
Ram: 16GB DDR3 Crucial Ram
Graphics card: Dual AMD Radeon 7950
CD/DVD: 2 LG BH08LS20


Any things I should change or if you have any idea on Motherboards let me know. Cheers.

 

[mercer95]

i would get a gtx 670 instead of the AMD 7950, and you don't need that much ram for gaming 8gb will do nicely.

 

[jcox26]

I did consider the 670 but I have been looking inot it and for the extra money you only get a 10%-20% power/performance increase. That is why I was looking at the graphics cards under the latest one and running them duel which would end up been better than one of the highest cards. Thanks for the suggestion on the ram i will grab 8gb instead of 16. Cheers

 

[mercer95]

they are both good graphics cards and will play any game at ultra with out a hitch its just personal preference, also what other than gaming will you be doing on your PC, i think the i7 might be a little overkill, if you drop down to an i5 3750k you wont see a performance hit in games and it mean that you can use the £100 or however many $'s on a SSD it will make a much bigger difference than an i7 over an i5.

as for a motherboard how much would you like to spend?

im currently waiting for the Asus Maximus V Formula to be released (some time next week i think) and then i can put my rig together i already have an i5 3750k and a Asus GTX 670 Direct CU II TOP.

 

[HEXiT]

its better to have 1 powerful gfx card than 2 weaker 1s always... you may get more fps but you will also get micro stutter and not all games work with 2 cards...
the 7950 is a good card but the 670 is about 30% avg stronger than the 7950...
but its not 30% more expencive...
a typical 7950 goes for £250 while the 670 comes in at less than 285 if you shop around and just over 310 on average...
i would say if you have the money then get the best you can afford and at the moment that is the 670...

 

[jcox26]

I will also be doing video editing and putting together music so the I7 seemed like the best choice i will be mainly using it for gaming though. I hadn't considered micro stutter althought hat doesn't really bother me as long as it is not to bad what is worrying is some games won't play with dual graphics. I sahll look into the 7970 and the the 670 although i would still refer to get one under the highest so possibly a single 7950 or gtx 680. I will also take a look at 3r generation i5 as an option. I have the money so that is not a problem i want the best build i possibly can get so forget about money been a problem i can easily afford the best although in the case of graphics cards i don't want the best. Thanks for all the help any other recommendations especially motherboard wise.

 

[jcox26]

Oh and i am looking at a Cosair AX1200 and 3 terrabyte WD Caviar Black and 60gb intel SSD 910.

 

[HEXiT]

that psu is a waste. you will need a maximum of 850w to run sli/crossfire and still have headroom. so save yourslef 100+ by getting a smaller unit.
i cant honestly recommend the 680 over the 670 when theres less than 5% performance gains in most cases. especially as it costs 1/3 more 450 being the average.
its just not worth the extra for the outlay... also reduce the size of the hdd to 2 gig as there more reliable and the money you save with a smaller psu and hdd can easily get you a decent 250gig ssd which will be much more useful than mass storage. check toms own guides on the best ssd for the money... 250gig does give better usability. as a smaller drive will run out of space very quickly...
especially when you have lots of extra storage...
i have 3tb of spinpoint drives. 2 in rad 0 partitioned to 2x250gig each for 1 partition and the rest for fast storage on the other partition. with 1 full tb of extra slow storage... end result i still run out of install space on the 2x250gig install partition. so the bigger the ssd the more useful it is when you have lots of extra storage.

 

[jcox26]

Can you recommend a power supply then i want to keep the option to run dual graphics cards that is why i chose a powerful power supply i will go with the 670 then or the 7950. Money is not an issue and i want room toexpand in the future so you think i should get 2 terrabytes and then get a 120gb intell ssd 900 series instead of 3 terrabytes of hdd. Keeping in mind that money is not an option could you reccomend a build which icludes all requirements and room to expand. This is for a hardcore gaming system.

 

[HEXiT]

http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/ssd-storage-value,review-32431.html
check here for options on ssd's personally i think 250gigs is as small as you wanna go or 2x120's in raid 0 for blistering performance.
seasonic, corsair and xfx make great to good psu's and it really depends on how long it will be b4 you decide to throw another gfx card at it as to what size you should get...
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/psu-power-supply,review-2385.html some tips and tech on what to look for in a psu...
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/charts/power-supplies,26.html some psu suggestions, ratings and reviews.

i know this is a pain, but its better to read up and make an informed decision rather than taking my word for it...

 

[jcox26]

Cheers I will read up on it. I won't throw another card at it for at least a year if i get a single one. Corsair are my personal favourite for PSU. but other than the power supply and only getting 8gb of ram is the rest good

 

[jcox26]

Might get a Samsung 830 ssd 256gb and a corsair hx1050 or a corsair ax850