New Christmas Build!

[cranberrymuffin]

Merry Christmas, [H]|F,

In the picture below, you'll see the following still-packaged hardware:

Intel Core i7-2600K LGA1155
Asus P8P67 B3 LGA1155
4096MB x 4 G.Skill DDR3-2133
Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
120GB SSD Corsair Force

Missing hardware: A tower. I'm looking at this Antec Three Hundred on Newegg.
Update 1: CD-DVD ROM Drive

Any suggestions with the hardware, critique, questions?

Update 1: Unboxed the SSD, installing 64-bit Windows 7 now and playing with partitions

 

[Dangman]

Well a critique is tad useless at this point in time since you've already bought the hardware and may not be able to return it. With that said, I've got some time to kill before Christmas dinner so here we go:

Unless you're doing a ton of video/3D/audio editing/rendering or if you got that 2600K for less than the 2500K, for a gaming only setup, the regular Core i5 2500K would have been more than enough. There is little to no difference between the 2600K and 2500K in gaming. IN addition, there have been a few isolated cases where people have had to disable the 2600K's HT just to get smooth gameplay. But if you are doing a ton of video/3D/audio editing/rendering, then the 2600K is ok.

Motherboard wise, that mobo is a tad iffy considering that the Rev 3.0 version was so troublesome.

RAM wise, there was no need to get DDR3 2133 as the SB platform does not benefit that much from higher speed RAM, whether at stock or for overclocking. In fact, you would not notice a performance difference between that DDR3 2133 RAM and any DDR3 1333 RAM set.

SSD wise, I would not have gone with the Corsair force SSD considering that it's Sandforce based. Which means that you might run into the random BSOD issues that plague many of the Sandforce based SSD. Not only that, that Corsair Force SSD is actually one of the slower Sandforce SSDs. As such, hopefully you got it for a price better than the Crucial m4 or Corsair Force GT SSDs or otherwise you just overpaid.

Also, what PSU were you planning on using?

Case wise, I would not go with that Antec 300 considering how cramped it is and the fact that has little to no cable management features. I recommend any of these cases over the Antec 300:
$70 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K58 ATX Case
$70 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K56 ATX Case
$80 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K58W ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$98 - Cooler Master CM690 II Advance ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$100 - Corsair Carbide Series 400R ATX Case
$100 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$120 - Lian Li PC-9F ATX Case
$120 - Fractal Design Define R3 Arctic White ATX Case
$130 - Fractal Design Define R3 Black Pearl ATX Case
$120 - Fractal Design Define R3 Silver Arrow ATX Case
$133 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$137 - Antec P280 ATX Case
$140 - Antec Performance One Series P183 V3 ATX Case
$143 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$144 - Silverstone RV03B-W ATX case
$150 - Corsair Graphite Series 600TM ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case
$164 - Corsair Special Edition White Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$178 - Silverstone RV02B-EW ATX case
$190 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case
$230 - Silverstone FT02B ATX Case
$270 - Corsair Obsidian Series 800D CC800DW Full Tower ATX Case

 

[cranberrymuffin]

Well a critique is tad useless at this point in time since you've already bought the hardware and may not be able to return it. With that said, I've got some time to kill before Christmas dinner so here we go:

Unless you're doing a ton of video/3D/audio editing/rendering or if you got that 2600K for less than the 2500K, for a gaming only setup, the regular Core i5 2500K would have been more than enough. There is little to no difference between the 2600K and 2500K in gaming. IN addition, there have been a few isolated cases where people have had to disable the 2600K's HT just to get smooth gameplay. But if you are doing a ton of video/3D/audio editing/rendering, then the 2600K is ok.

...

Thanks for your in-depth reply Danny. Figures the one piece of hardware I've opened seems to be the most troublesome, according to your post. The Antec 300 is about 10 dollars cheaper than the two cheapest models you've listed. I'll probably stop by Fry's Electronics some other day and check out towers.

Is that a generally recommended list you've posted for towers? Thanks for bringing up cable management, I neglected that feature.

I'm a power user. I mostly use my machine for light gaming and graphics design. I tend to have several Windows accounts open at the same time with dozens of applications.

I'll be using my old BFG 800W PSU

 

[Dangman]

The Antec 300 is about 10 dollars cheaper than the two cheapest models you've listed. I'll probably stop by Fry's Electronics some other day and check out towers.

For someone who just spend $330 on a CPU, $170 on a motherboard, and $280 for a GPU, you're going to fret over $10 for significantly better cases?

Is that a generally recommended list you've posted for towers?

Yup. Got a case for virtually every budget and setup.

I'm a power user. I mostly use my machine for light gaming and graphics design. I tend to have several Windows accounts open at the same time with dozens of applications.

The 2600K might be an ok choice for you then.