New Gaming Build from scratch. Q on Mobo/psu/case...mostly

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bakedbacon

bakedbacon

Honorable
Apr 3, 2013
3
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10,510
After years of being stuck in the gaming laptop world (had to travel for work way to much) I am finally taking a crack a building a decent gaming desktop completely from scratch. This is my first build since the 90's soooo yea. Any help/advise at all would be greatly appreciated!

Build date: No rush. most likely mid may-june.
Budget: Trying to stay around the $1300 range. Have some flexibility and currently holding at $1275.
System Useage: Mostly Gaming and simple office work.
Game Types: BF3*, DIablo 3, Crysis, Bioshock, GTA, Skyrim, Dragon Age, Dark Souls, etc...
OC: No
SLI/Crossfire Maybe, but not now.
Monitors/resolution Sticking with 1 monitor at 1920 x 1080.

So again, this build is entirely from scratch. I am having to buy everything from CPU to keyboard. Below is what I have put together. I would like to follow up after with a few questions.

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K
Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-V
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131820
GPU: EVGA Gefore GTX 670 2gb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130782
PSU: CORSAIR TX Series CMPSU-650TX 650W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139005
Case: Antec Three Hundered
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042
Monitor: ASUS VX238H
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236327
Optical: ASUS DRW-24B1ST/BLK/B/AS Black SATA 24X DVD Burner - Bulk - OEM
Keyboard: :D Microsoft Sidewinder
OS: Windows 8

Questions:
PSU: Is the PSU I have chosen sufficient for this build and a possible SLI/Crossfire if I were to choose to do so?
Mobo: I have actually struggled most with this choice. It seems that all mobo manufactures have really bad support. With that said, how does Asus hold up in the end? I am very open to suggestion about mobo changes. If I am going to put anymore money into this system this is where I am thinking it would be needed. I have choosen this asus board for the built in wifi (amongst other things). My house is a little nuts and if i want to commute this rig to my room to play on my HDTV then I would need a wifi connection. I have recently concluded that most wifi adapters seem to be, well, not so great, and would have to work a client bridge into the picture which would tack on another $50.
Case: Will it fit? ;) Will it stay cool? I understand the Gefore gtx 670 that I have chosen runs a little big and hot. I am just trying to make sure this case will be adequate for my needs.
Monitor: I am looking for a non-glossy monitor around 23-24" $150-170. I believe what I have chosen should do the trick nicely. Wouldn't mind any input from anyone who knows the thing, or has suggestion in what I am looking for.


Again, Thank you guys very much. These forums and the community have been a great help in helping my attempt to optimize my build, so thank you even if you don't reply you helped anyways.
P.S. Sorry for the long post!
 
Solution
marshallbradley
PSU is more than acceptable, though not for SLI. 650W is a bit of a weird power as well. You only need 550W for your setup at the very most (i.e. if you were as overcautious as you could be about ensuring you never went over 80% load or so on the power supply), and that could easily drop down to 500W or even lower since you aren't overclocking. On the other hand 750W is the sweet spot as far as SLI is concerned, so your power supply lies in a sort of bad middle ground. For a single 1080p monitor I believe that SLI will never be worth it. By the time comes that you want to add a 2nd GTX 670 for SLI (i.e. it can no longer handle 1080p) there will be much better single card alternatives on the market, that are more power efficient, quieter...
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marshallbradley

marshallbradley

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Sep 24, 2012
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PSU is more than acceptable, though not for SLI. 650W is a bit of a weird power as well. You only need 550W for your setup at the very most (i.e. if you were as overcautious as you could be about ensuring you never went over 80% load or so on the power supply), and that could easily drop down to 500W or even lower since you aren't overclocking. On the other hand 750W is the sweet spot as far as SLI is concerned, so your power supply lies in a sort of bad middle ground. For a single 1080p monitor I believe that SLI will never be worth it. By the time comes that you want to add a 2nd GTX 670 for SLI (i.e. it can no longer handle 1080p) there will be much better single card alternatives on the market, that are more power efficient, quieter than SLI, cheaper and will perform better. SLI is only really a good idea for multiple monitor/high resolution gaming. Given the above, I'd drop to a quality (and semi-modular) 500-550W supply like the 520W M12ii from SeaSonic. You get much better features for a lower price and only lose some unnecessary wattage.

Speaking of overclocking, since you say you won't do any (which is fine) there's really not much point going with a Z77 board and a K series CPU. The only advantages of Z77 are that you can overclock and it supports multiple video cards. There's obviously quite a price premium on this compared to say a H77 chipset board. Since I don't believe you'll ever really want to go with multiple video cards, stick to a H77 and an i5-3470/3350P These perform very close to a stock 3570K and again don't have the price premium, since they aren't overclockable (a needless feature for you).

ASUS do have a rather high reputation in motherboards. I wouldn't worry too much about going with any of their H77/Z77 models. Despite the threads you see hating on X Y Z company for "shitty service" or "DoA" motherboards (this is impossible to prevent all the time) this is just because people are more inclined to post about bad service. 99% of people are very satisfied with ASUS/ASRock/Gigabyte motherboards I'm sure, but you simply don't make a thread because you got good service, that's what people expect in the first place.

It's a solid case, though they have updated it with the Antec Three Hundred Two I believe. You might want to check that out for a slightly better/more modern feature set.

Otherwise it looks good!

All the best,

M
 
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Solution
bakedbacon

bakedbacon

Honorable
Apr 3, 2013
3
0
10,510
Wow! Thank you very much for the quick and thorough response. Everything you said was very helpful. I went back to try and figure out why I chose a 650W PSU like that instead of heading to the 750W range and not also not down and I was the price in the end, $69.99 after rebate. However, everything you said made perfect sense and going to look into the 500-550 range, because rebates are never a sure thing and that's $30 in my pocket right now.
In regards to the mobo, my bane atm, i am going to really look at the H77, because as you said the Z77 is overkill for the build. I wasn't to happy spending $180 anyways when i wasn't overclock and was mostly doing it for the built in wifi, and a solid board. However, after consideration I am just going to buy a $20 adapter and hope it works out.
Again, with the maximizing I am going to look into I will hopefully be able to trim everything down $100 or so, and if I'm felling crazy just throw it into the GPU if it looks to be possible. Although the 670 looks purddy no matter what.
 
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