I Need Advice on a New Gaming Computer Build! (<$1000)

wakeboardnzx

Honorable
Aug 19, 2012
26
0
10,540
What are your thoughts on my proposed build?
http://pcpartpicker.com/p/VTzNHx

I've heard mixed reviews on the the motherboard I've selected (MSI 970 GAMING), and it's ability to successfully and safely overclock certain processors, with the AMD FX 8320 being no exception, due to thermal limitations. So I'm seeking some advice from the community.

I went ahead and selected the Hyper 212 EVO because of it's great reputation and cheap price, and I'm intending to try and achieve 4.5ghz over the stock 3.5ghz clock. (I've heard reports of people getting 4-4.5ghz pretty successfully on this processor with around 1.3-1.45v, and I figure the arctic silver thermal paste and 212 EVO will certainly help with this.

Then I've also heard that the fx 8320 will bottleneck the gtx 960 that I selected (thus partially the reasoning behind my proposed overclock, I'm estimating that the clock range would help balance it out on single threaded applications.) So what are you thoughts on this also?

Other thoughts:

-Maximum budget for this build is $1000 (excluding shipping)
-I'll primarily use this as a gaming computer, but I also use programs such as Photoshop, illustrator, Studio One, and Sony Vegas regularly.
-I'd like to be able to play most games on high settings at 1080p
-I'm trying to maintain a color scheme of black and red within the computer to really help compliment the large case window, and because I enjoy these colors :)
-I also realize that the power supply is slightly overkill, but I'm including that just for future expand-ability.
-120gb ssd will obviously be the boot-drive with the 1tb hdd being for storage.
-I'll be purchasing this computer in approximately 3-4 weeks, I just need to set aside a bit more cash.
-Reasoning behind building this computer is my laptop recently shit on itself and I've been needing an upgrade for a while now anyway.
 
If you decide to go PERFORMANCE over LOOKS get this:

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1231 V3 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor ($242.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Motherboard: ASRock H97 Anniversary ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($69.89 @ OutletPC)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1866 Memory ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 120GB 2.5&quot; Solid State Drive ($67.98 @ B&amp;H)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5&quot; 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($49.89 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0 Video Card ($316.99 @ NCIX US)
Case: Raidmax ATX-809B (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case ($19.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Antec High Current Gamer 620W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($44.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-14 DVD/CD Writer ($12.99 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 8.1 OEM (64-bit) ($87.98 @ OutletPC)
Total: $963.68
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2015-06-12 18:58 EDT-0400
 
Solution