1st Rig Build

[mikemaravani]

COOLER MASTER HAF X Full Tower Case ...$189.00
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO Motherboard ...$194.99
EVGA SuperClocked 012-P3-1572-AR GeForce GTX 570 (Fermi) GPU ...$319.99
SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W Power Supply ...$159.99
Intel Core i7-2700K Sandy Bridge 3.9GHz Quad Core CPU ...$339.99
CORSAIR Vengeance 16GB DDR3 Ram ...$99.99
Noctua NH-D14 120mm & 140mm SSO CPU Cooler ...$99.99
Western Digital Caviar Black 1.5Tb Hd ...$149.99
Corsair Force Series 3 SSD ...$94.99

I want to play games like ShoGun2 and Crysis. This is my first rig that I am building. I have been reading over the other posts and it's nice to see that people actually know what they're talking about. I just want a general opinion of the masses. My limit is 2000k, though 1600 would be optimum.

I want my computer to last around 5 years.

-Mike

 

[Robi_g]

* Get an i5 2500k instead, possibly look at a water cooling unit like a corsair H80 or H100
* spend money saved on CPU to get better GPU, wait until the Nvidia 600 series comes out and get one of them or the new AMD 7000 series

 

[mikemaravani]

* Get an i5 2500k instead, possibly look at a water cooling unit like a corsair H80 or H100
* spend money saved on CPU to get better GPU, wait until the Nvidia 600 series comes out and get one of them or the new AMD 7000 series

Water cooling is a waste with the Sandy Bridge CPU's. Also less risk involved. Why an i5 instead of an i7? And is it worth the wait for the new Ivy Bridge?

 

[casualcolors]

Water cooling is a waste with the Sandy Bridge CPU's. Also less risk involved. Why an i5 instead of an i7? And is it worth the wait for the new Ivy Bridge?

Not worth waiting for Ivy Bridge unless you need the moderately better non-gaming performance, or if you plan to do 3way x-fire in all X4 lanes and need PCIE 3.0. That is the only way that you would risk fully saturating PCIE 2.0.

I agree with Robi. Get a 2500k, put the extra money into a better GPU. I own a 570 right now (the exact model you're looking at actually) and you'll experience immediate growing pains with it. For a build of your quality I wouldn't go any less than a 580 or 7950. Optimally I'd recommend aiming at the 499.99 GTX 680 which is significantly faster than the 570 (hell it's significantly faster than the 580 and 7950 as well).

On the topic of SSD, unless you get a great deal on that Corsair, I'd really recommend Samsung 830 series or Crucial M4 series. They are more reliable as Crucial and Samsung have their own specifically manufactured nand flash mem. You can more or less ignore the SSD speed benchmarks on this front. You just want the best quality SATA III ssd that you can get your hands on within your price range (at a minimum of 120/128 gb).

Other than those 2 things, you're going to have a great build. The Noctua is a good cooler, and like Robi mentioned the H80 and H100 are also good coolers. The 2500k does pretty well on temps and so any of the 3 are good options. There's no real risk with sealed loops like the H80 and H100, but the Noctua does just as good on temps as either of the two water loops, so really it's just pick your poison.