I'm currently attempting to build my first rig, primarily for gaming, and was hoping to get some input from the tech savvy crowd that frequents this neck of the woods. Following are links to all the parts in my build. I'd really appreciate any advice you guys could give me on switching stuff out or just generally advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hard Drive:

Monitor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824262011

Wireless Adapter: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833166073

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604

Keyboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16823109191

Mouse: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826104261

Mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157271

CPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072

Heatsink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065

SSD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

Case and Disk drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.845834

PSU and RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.843477

Right now the build is sitting around $1600, and I'd appreciate if any suggestions didn't bring the build over $1700 please.

 

Hi please answer the following so we can best help you.

Do you plan on overclocking you pc

Is noise a concern

How heavily do you plan on playing graphics intensive games

How often (and how much $) can you afford to upgrade one or more parts

What is the most intensive thing other than video games you'll expect to be doing on this pc

 

I notice you're missing a hard drive from your list. You've got the 64GB SSD, which should be enough for your /windows/ folder [mine is 25GB for a 2 year old Win 7 Pro 64-bit install].

That won't be even close to enough for your /Program Files/ and /Program Files (x86)/ directories, especially since you're going to install games on the system. Mine comes to 230 GB, and that's after purging a bunch of Steam games I wasn't actively playing, some of which are over 20GB each.

 

Looks reasonable. I wouldn't have chosen the keyboard/mouse combo and I'd definitely advise you to look up the differences between z68 and p67 and then find a motherboard that uses the latter. It's also worth noting that PCI-e 3.0 is entirely useless to you unless you're planning on using one of the new Ivy-Bridge CPUs. On a happier note those same Ivy-Bridge CPUs are just on their way in (April 2012 IIRC) and as such, your i5 2500k will hopefully take a drop in price (or you might splurge on a new processor, depends how you're feeling it).

I assume he has a hard disk in whatever it is he used to type this

 

At the price of that monitor, consider getting two of them. While dual screen gaming isn't all it's cracked up to be, dual monitor's are incredibly useful for day to day tasks. Eg. IRC client in one window, browsing/game in the other. Word in one monitor, sources in the second. It might seem a bit extravagant, but if you find yourself with some money left over it's not a bad option.

 

There is a 23in monitor on sale this weekend that is cheaper with rebate. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236079 I have a 23in monitor myself and I really like it.

I think you can save some money and pass on the combo deals.
8gigs will run you around $40-50 dollars. DDr3 1600 should definitely be fast enough.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...0006127&IsNodeId=1&name=DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

As far as your case, it looks great, but expensive. There are a lot of high quality inexpensive cases. If you still really like the HAF 932, the 922 is on sale this week. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produ...at_Computer_Cases-_-Weekly_Deals-_-11-119-197

 

You probably won't like my opinion but my quite well equipped desktop PC is mostly collecting dust these days as I use my macbook pro for my normal work, eeebox for 24h stuff and general terminal support because of the low power, xbox 360 for gaming as I think games are developed for consoles these days so why bother with expensive gfxcards any longer. Beyond that I have 2 Synology NAS systems to handle my storage/server demands which is far more flexible.

Instead of investing into the gaming aspect I would get a far bigger TFT and just a 360 because there's actually content you can play.

 

This so much. If you have to do any research then you should absolutely add a second monitor if you can. The ability to not have to minimize your source and hope you remember what it says etc is completely worth it.

 

Thanks for all the advise so far guys. It seems I forgot to link the hard drive so here it is http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152181 . So lets see if I can answer all the questions you guys asked,

I do eventually plan on overclocking, hence the aftermarket cooler the large PSU and the amazing fans on the 932. noise really won't be a concern because I mainly use a headset. I would probably only pump money into upgrades about every six months maybe, and then probably around $500 max. This rig will be used primarily for gaming and college work, no video editing for me.

Why is that? What information I found said that the z68 chip set was the newer version and had a few new features that the p67 did not have, any overwhelming reason why I should go with the p67?

Thanks for those links, I think i might jump on those monitors and buy two right now. The ram and PSU combo were picked mainly for the PSU, I'm looking to go SLI in the near future with two 560 ti's and wanted something nice and energy efficient that will last me a while, I know the ram is a little extra, but with the discount I think it comes out to about the same if I had bought them separately with 1600 ram. I had had the 922 in my list for a while, but I upgraded for 1) The big ass fans 2) Room to expand when need be, although looking at it right now, I think I might go ahead and just go for the 922.

Thanks for all the help so far guys, and advice you guys could give me regarding SLI and what mobo I should get for that, and whether or not my case will fit it would be awesome. The thing I'm most likely to switch out right now would be a mobo so any thoughts on that would be awesome.

---------- Post automerged at 10:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:59 PM ----------

Went ahead and jumped on that monitor deal mentioned. Bought two.

 

buy a bigger ssd - 128 is good, 256 is better.

If you can't afford a bigger ssd right now, don't buy a 64gb one at all and instead buy a larger ssd when you can.

save yourself the pain of a multicard setup and just buy a high end card straight up (although maybe you don't even need a card better than a 560ti at 1080p).

gtx580 - this (the cooler on that retails for $90, so big value!)

hd7950 - this is maybe 5-10% better than the 580 on some things but doesn't come stock with the best aircooling you can buy. However eyefinity is a much better multimonitor implementation than whatever nvidia has cooked up, so maybe that's worth it overall.

If you don't think you'll be gaming at resolutions higher than 1080p, just buy a 448 core 560ti and be done with it.

There is no reason not to get the Asrock z68 motherboard, it's fantastic.

 

This, pretty much.

 

The asrock z68 xtreme3 gen3 is the best value motherboard you can get so who cares what chipset it is.

The real world differences between z68 and p67 (including ports or whatever) are completely irrelevant. Like who cares if you're missing two usb2 ports or a firewire port or something.

 

What's the logic behind that recommendation?

Personally, if I bought an SSD then it'd either be to put the Windows installation on it with the Program Files, Users, etc. directories on a standard harddrive, or else I'd put all of those directories on an SSD.

If it's just /Windows, then a 64GB drive is more than sufficient.

If it's /Windows, /Program Files, /Users, etc. then you need a 512GB-1TB disk for a gaming machine or else your disk will quickly be chock full and you'll be constantly deleting and uninstalling anything you can to make room. I've got a 480GB C: and I find myself frequently hunting for items which I can delete.

If I had a 128 or 256GB SSD then I'm not sure what I'd do with that extra space. I suppose the /users directory could go on it, but it wouldn't be much of a speed boost considering the price

A 512-1TB SSD would be very expensive, but seems to me to be the next logical step after a 64GB for a gamer. I just don't see much point in a 128 or 256GB SSD. What makes you suggest them?

That's not necessarily bad advice.

I'd go for the 64GB SSD now and at least get Windows booting from it. Leave Program Files on the regular drive and upgrade it to an SSD later when you have the money.

 

I have a 256gb crucial m4 and i can fit all my programs (including games), users and windows on it without issue.

I had a 128gb ssd and I could fit all my programs, users, windows and most commonly played 1-3 games on it without issue.

I haven't had a 64gb ssd but I do think that the smaller space is a significant Quality of Life decrease compared to a larger one.

 

My Steam directory alone is 200GB, and that's after purging it of excess games several times. I suppose the ideal SSD sizes for Platypus Assassin depends on his current Windows installation size.

Windows, Program Files, Program Files (x86), ProgramData, and Users are the main directories if you're interested in checking, PA.

 

I think that 64 gb should be fine for basic use. I have a 30gb partition for windows and it works fine. I still have over 20% free on disk right now. So it would give you room for a few games too. Although ssd won't work with storage. I have separate partitions and drives for games,movies, and tv shows, and I have over 1.5tb of data.

 

Currently looking at this motherboard to replace the one that I had been looking at earlier. Any thoughts on it? Also, I already have a 500gb hard drive from an old computer, I'm considering doing either RAID 0 or 1, have any f you guys done either in the past?

 

don't buy that the sata ports are facing upwards which means if you have a 3 slot graphics card (like the 580 i recommended) you instantly lose your two Sata3 ports, and if you ever go multi-gpu you lose all 4 of your sata2 ports.

Don't worry about the z68 v p67 bullshit, it's utterly irrelevant, just buy the best thing at the price point which is the Asrock z68 board.

RAID is pretty bleh. And it seems like you don't even know if you want or need it since raid 0 is for speed and raid 1 is for redundancy, so they have totally different applications. Also in a world where ssds exist, there isn't really a need for regular users to use RAID.

 

You can use onboard RAID from the motherboard which means that your CPU will be doing the grunt work, or use a proper RAID card [hundreds of dollars] to offset the work away from your main system and provide much better features. A cheap RAID card is no better than onboard RAID.

For RAID 0 [and I assume RAID 1], onboard RAID is perfectly okay. There isn't much extra work for your computer to do. I don't forsee any problems with getting a RAID 0 or 1 array going.

If you're doing RAID 5 or 6 which requires lots of parity calculations, then a proper RAID card is highly recommended.

 

I really don't see the need for a raid setup. It is just another failure point, and it really is unneeded. An ssd will do fine for speed, and raid isn't an acceptable backup solution.