Development and Gaming Build

[rscott919]

Looking for advice on a possible gaming and development build. It's my first new PC in about five years, I thought doing this coming from my current Macbook might be a nice change in power.

1) What will you be doing with this PC? Gaming? Photoshop? Web browsing? etc
- Development in Visual Studio, Ruby on Rails, and gaming. I'd like to try out SC2 and that Diablo clone. Also some light photo editing, I'd like to try Lightroom 3.
2) What's your budget? Are tax and shipping included?
- Less than $1000 shipped.
3) Where do you live?
- Bloomington, IN
4) What exact parts do you need for that budget? CPU, RAM, case, etc. "Everything" is not a valid answer. Please list out all the parts you'll need.
- PSU, GPU, CPU, mobo, RAM, SATA DVD drive
5) If reusing any parts, what parts will you be reusing? Please be especially specific about the power supply. List make and model.
- Was planning to reuse my Thermaltake Tsunami Dream case unless there is a good reason not to do so.
6) Will you be overclocking?
- I don't intend to.
7) What size monitor do you have and/or plan to have?
- I have a 22" 1680x1050 display.
8) When do you plan on building/buying the PC?
- Building.
9) What features do you need in a motherboard? RAID? Firewire? Crossfire or SLI support? etc.
- I think SLI support makes sense so I can pop another card in when they drop in 6-12 months.
10) Do you already have a legit and reusable/transferable OS key/license? If yes, what OS? 32bit or 64bit?
- Yes, Win 7 Pro (from a student discount 6-12 months ago).

With all of that said, here are the parts I was considering.

GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P LGA 1156 Intel P55 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard w/ USB 3.0 & SATA 6 Gb/s

EVGA 768-P3-1360-TR GeForce GTX 460 (Fermi) 768MB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

SeaSonic X650 Gold 650W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Modular Active PFC Power Supply

Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor BX80605I5750

CORSAIR XMS3 6GB (3 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Triple Channel Kit Desktop Memory Model TR3X6G1600C9

LG DVD Burner - Bulk Black SATA Model GH24NS50 - OEM

 

[Dangman]

Read questions 8 again. It's asking WHEN.

And did you need hard drives?

 

[rscott919]

Plan on buying in the next 2 weeks. I have a SATA 1TB 7200 rpm drive I'll be using.

 

[tiraides]

Give us the specific brand and model of the HDD, as well as how long you've had it for.

Additionally, swap out the Seasonic X650 for the Antec NEO ECO 620C, and go with the 1GB version of the GTX 460 instead. Though the X650 is more efficient in its power use, it's way more power than you need for your setup. Then again, so is the NEO ECO 620C, but it's considerably cheaper. The 1GB GTX 460 will allow you to utilize the GPU with Adobe programs (like Lightroom 3 and, if you have it, Photoshop) without any performance slowdown. (I've heard from some people here that 768MB is barely enough power for the CS5 programs.)

 

[rscott919]

Less than a year. How are the brand and model relevant? I don't recall, it's a WD I think. It's from an Iomega external that I opened up to verify it used SATA.

 

[tiraides]

The hard drives that we recommend these days use 500GB drive platters that make them faster than older model hard drives. In fact, these 500GB platter hard drives are competitive with the Western Digital VelociRaptors, which are the fastest SATA hard drives available.

You have some room in your budget to add a faster 1TB drive like the Samsung F3 HD103SJ. You can still use the WD drive, but it may better serve your needs as a storage drive.