Need help with a build...

[DarkJustice]

A friend told me to ask people here, so... from the sticky here are my answers to "the questions".

1. This will primarily be a gaming computer.

2. My budget is roughly $1400 could probably come up with a bit more but thats my base. That price does include shipping and tax.

3. I live in Southern Wisconsin

4. Parts needed: Case, CPU, MoBo, PSU, Mem, Video card, HDD, Fans, CD/DVD RW

5. I will not be reusing any parts as my current pc will become a HTPC.

6. Will not be overclocking right away but would like the option to.

7. I have twin 23in 1080p Samsung Monitors ToC

8. I plan to build this pc within the next month or two

9. SLI will be needed for future expansion, good on-board sound with Fiber Optic out

10. I will be buying a system builders OS disk Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit


Here is a list of what I have picked so far...

i7-930 LGA 1366 CPU

EVGA E758-A1 3-way SLI LGA 1366 X58 MoBo

6GB G. Skill DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Trip Channel (3x2GB)

Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W PSU 80 PLUS Certified

2X Lite-ON 24x CD/DVD RW

Antec Twelve Hundered Black Steel ATX Mid Case

WD 1TB HDD WD1001FALS 7200RPM

EVGA 012-P3-1470-AR GTX 470 (Fermi) 1280MB 320-bit GDDR5

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit System Builders OEM


Ok, I think thats everything. So is there anything I should change in this line up?

The cost of the above items is $1,491.81 including shipping.


This is my first post on these forums so I just want to say your help and advice is greatly appreciated and THANKS in advance

 

[Dangman]

In about 1 to 2 weeks from now, bump this thread up. In that time, there will be new AMD cards out that may be worth buying over current cards. Or they may drive down prices of current cards. Either way, at least for the GPU portion, hold off on that and come back later.

For the rest of the parts:
1) For a gaming only setup, you might want to considering switching to the Core i5 750 + LGA 1156 motherboard instead for the following reasons:
The 2.8Ghz Core i7 930 only provides about a 2 to 5FPS difference over the Core i5 750 as shown in this review:
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_pages/gaming_the_core_debate,1.html

Additional proof: The $1040 3.3Ghz Core i7 975 Extreme Edition CPU is only 15% to 30% faster than the Core i5 750 with only a specific set of games and video cards:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/display/cpus-and-games-2010.html

So considering the the i7 975 is faster than the i7 930 and i7 950 and yet only provides 15% to 30% under the most ideal conditions, the Core i7 930/950 is definitely not gonna be that much faster than the i5 750 or i5 760. At least fast enough to justify the higher costs anyway. In addition, there's very little real world difference between triple channel and dual channel RAM in real world apps and games.

So platform wise, you can save around $150 to $200 if you switch to the Core i7 760 route and still get very similar performance in games. Dunno about you but $150 to $200 is too high for minimal gains in gaming. It'll only extend the life of your PC by 2 months at most.

So if you can buy the PC before October 31st, you can take advantage of this great combo deal
$360 - Intel Core i5 750 CPU + Asus P7P55D-E Pro Intel P55 ATX Motherboard Combo

That mobo supports SLI and Crossfire as well SATA 6Gb/s and USB 3.0. As part of that combo deal, it's only $160, making it an excellent buy for the money.

RAM wise, I recommend this RAM:
$85 - G.Skill F3-12800CL9D-4GBNQ 2 x 2GB DDR3 1600 RAM

There's no difference between 4GB and 6GB of RAM for gaming. So you're really not losing out on anything.

2) Case wise, the Antec 1200 is a not a good buy for the money as there are far better cases in terms of construction quality, cooling capability, cable mangagement, and actual room for a lower or equal price. So I recommend going with one of these cases instead:
$70 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K56 ATX Case
$70 - Cooler Master RC-590-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$70 - Cooler Master CM690 II Basic ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master CM690 II Advance ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$105 - Fractal Design Define R3 Black ATX Case
$105 - Fractal Design Define R3 Titanium ATX Case
$105 - Fractal Design Define R3 Silver ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$110 - Lian Li PC-7FN ATX Case
$120 - Velocity Micro GX2-W Silver Classic Aluminum Case with Side Window
$130 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$140 - Antec P183 ATX Case
$160 - Corsair Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case

Any of the above cases would be a significantly better buy than the Antec 1200.

3) Ditch that hard drive and get this faster drive instead:
$75 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

4) The Corsair 750TX 750W is a good PSU but for the same price, you can get a better quality PSU with a bit more power on the +12V rail:
$110 - Antec Truepower New TP-750 750W PSU

 

[sugosugita]

If you buy today you can get the Sammy F3 for $52.70 shipped here

Use coupon code COLUMBUS15.

Even if you are still deciding on other hardware, the F3 drive will be in pretty much every recommendation Danny will throw at you, so might as well save twenty bucks and order today.