Rate my new build

[InsanePerson]

Looking forward to building a new system in about 2 weeks. My budget was $2000, before tax and shipping this build is at $1830.
Looking to see if there's any obvious performance improvements that can be made and keep it within the budget.
I do not need a monitor for this.

Case - Antec Twelve Hundred V3 $167.99
Motherboard - ASUS P8P67 DELUXE (REV 3.0) $239.99
CPU - Intel Core i7-2600K $328.99
CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-D14 CPU Cooler $89.99
Memory - CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) $119.99
Video - EVGA GeForce GTX 570 $359.99
PSU - CORSAIR 750W $169.99
Hard Drive - OCZ Vertex 2 120GB $269.99
Hard Drive - Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB (2x) $89.99
Optical Drive - LITE-ON 24X DVD Writer $24.49

 

[Dangman]

Not that good of a setup for the money. Also you've listed the wrong prices for some of those parts.

The main issues:
- At $180 shipped, that case is stupidly overpriced. There are significantly better quality and roomier cases out there for around if not less:
$80 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K58W ATX Case
$90 - NZXT Tempest Evo TEVO-001BK ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K56 ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master CM690 II Advance ATX Case
$100 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$106 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$110 - NZXT Whisper WHI - 001BK ATX Full Tower Case
$120 - Velocity Micro GX2-W Silver Classic Aluminum Case with Side Window
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$165 - Corsair Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case
$220 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case

So in other words, don't get the Antec 1200.

- SSD wise, pretty much all current OCZ SSDs should be avoided for two reasons:
1) They're based on the Sandforce SF-1200 SSD which means that their real world performance is far far less than the stated speed.
2) OCZ recently switch NAND flash types which lowered the performance of their SSDs even further.

So that OCZ SSD is fairly slow by SSD standards. So I recommend this significantly faster SSD:
$265 - Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC0128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SSD

- The Sandy Bridge CPUs run relatively cool to point that you can actually get a good OC with the stock HSF. As such, you really don't need to spend $90 on a HSF unless you're trying to break world records. You'll be fine with this HSF:
$30 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156

- Despite the SATA 6.0Gb/s, due to their internal design, those WD Black drives are still equal in performance to the significantly cheaper Samsung F3 1TB drives:
$65 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

- You're not gonna notice an iota of real world difference between DDR3 1600 and DDR3 1333 RAM. So you could save yourself $15 to $20 by going with these RAM:
$80 - G.Skill Value Series F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$85 - G.Skill Ripjaws F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM

 

[Spooony]

Not that good of a setup for the money. Also you've listed the wrong prices for some of those parts.

The main issues:
- At $180 shipped, that case is stupidly overpriced. There are significantly better quality and roomier cases out there for around if not less:
$80 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K58W ATX Case
$90 - NZXT Tempest Evo TEVO-001BK ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K56 ATX Case
$90 - Cooler Master CM690 II Advance ATX Case
$100 - Cooler Master HAF 922 RC-922M-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$90 - Lian Li Lancool PC-K7B ATX Case
$106 - Lian Li PC-7B Plus II ATX Case
$110 - NZXT Whisper WHI - 001BK ATX Full Tower Case
$120 - Velocity Micro GX2-W Silver Classic Aluminum Case with Side Window
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001WT White Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - NZXT Phantom PHAN-001BK Black Full Tower ATX Case
$140 - Cooler Master HAF 932 RC-932-KKN1-GP ATX Case
$165 - Corsair Graphite Series 600T ATX Case
$160 - Silverstone RV02B-W ATX case
$220 - Corsair Obsidian Series 650D ATX Case

So in other words, don't get the Antec 1200.

- SSD wise, pretty much all current OCZ SSDs should be avoided for two reasons:
1) They're based on the Sandforce SF-1200 SSD which means that their real world performance is far far less than the stated speed.
2) OCZ recently switch NAND flash types which lowered the performance of their SSDs even further.

So that OCZ SSD is fairly slow by SSD standards. So I recommend this significantly faster SSD:
$265 - Crucial RealSSD C300 CTFDDAC0128MAG-1G1 2.5" 128GB SSD

- The Sandy Bridge CPUs run relatively cool to point that you can actually get a good OC with the stock HSF. As such, you really don't need to spend $90 on a HSF unless you're trying to break world records. You'll be fine with this HSF:
$30 - Cooler Master Hyper 212 Plus HSF for LGA 1366 and LGA 1156

- Despite the SATA 6.0Gb/s, due to their internal design, those WD Black drives are still equal in performance to the significantly cheaper Samsung F3 1TB drives:
$65 - Samsung Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive

- You're not gonna notice an iota of real world difference between DDR3 1600 and DDR3 1333 RAM. So you could save yourself $15 to $20 by going with these RAM:
$80 - G.Skill Value Series F3-10600CL9D-8GBNT 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM
$85 - G.Skill Ripjaws F3-10666CL9D-8GBRL 2 x 4GB DDR3 1333 RAM

yeah and the samsung got no issues with raid unlike the WD ones

 

[Joe Average]

Just curious, but is there a specific reason you chose the i7-2600K over the "almost the same chip minus hyperthreading" i5-2500K which is ~$100 less? I know the i5 has 6MB of L3 compared to the i7 which can be noticeable but only in very specific uses (video encoding might be one, something like a 5% difference from the cache size alone), but I'm honestly curious...

If I had money to burn, I'd get the i7 - and that could be the reason, just getting the best you can buy while you have the opportunity, which I'm not knocking. With a little overclocking going on that i5-2500K can best the i7-2600K, that's something that's pretty easy to do, especially on that Asus motherboard you've chosen. The Sandy Bridge CPUs run so cool, I mean... overclocking is almost an afterthought anymore. Most people just using the stock Intel HSF can push 4.4 GHz with nary a worry on the i5-2500K.

Aside from the cache and the HT support (which is useful as well but again, there are situations where it really helps (again, video encoding being the most noticeable use) while most of the time it's just somewhat beneficial and in some particular situations it's been shown to have a negative impact, as weird as it sounds.

That extra $100 could be put towards making the optical drive a flat out Blu-ray 12x burner...

 

[Spooony]

If you want a mobo for overclocking then look at this one

GIGABYTE GA-P67A-UD7 CF/SLI (2*16x,2*8x)

 

[InsanePerson]

I appreciate the replies and suggestions. I am still busy reading reviews, including on some of the suggested changes.

@Danny Bui - It seems I copied the prices before instant discounts, doh. The Antec 1200 (rev 1) is a case I already own, and enjoyed very much building my current system into, hence choosing it again. I am not dead set on it, and still looking at a few other cases.
I do thank you for the call out on the OCZ SSD drives and have shifted my focus to the Crucial 128gb drive you suggested.
I do plan on seeing how far I can OC, but a problem I have is that my room temp can get a bit warm in the summer so I did want to ensure overkill on cooling, and I've liked the Noctua coolers in the past.

@Joe Average - I dont get to upgrade very often, so after I've set my budget I try to go big within that limit. I have not made the jump to Blu-ray so a burner is not really something I'm interested in.

@Spooony - My current motherboard is a Gigabyte so I will definitely consider the GA-P67A-UD7... if I can find it sold anywhere. Granted even the board I do want is back ordered at this time, but that Gigabyte board is not even listed at Newegg and Amazon, the only places I tend to shop.

 

[E4g1e]

In addition, unless you need those extra features, you don't need the P8P67 Deluxe. You can save more than $50 by going with the P8P67 Pro. The extra $50+ for the Deluxe buys you only four extra power phases (16-phase versus 12-phase), a secondary onboard Realtek LAN and a convenient CMOS reset button on the rear panel.

 

[`br4dz-]

Not a bad build at all. If you don't need the speed of the WD Black 1TB's, you could just buy a Samsung Spinpoint F4 2TB for ~$75. I own two of them, and they run pretty fast for a 5400 rpm drive, and they are ~6C cooler on average than my 1TB Black. Just a suggestion .