$2,000 Gaming PC w/ Monitor

Nice build, nice PSU, good cooling.

Youv done your Homework. going with 2 4870 CF is cheaper ex:

HIS or Gigabyte 4870 1gb sell for 160$ each. ( -20$ each MIR for the Gigabyte ) ending under 300$ for 2 4870 1gb.

But personnally o would go for a GOOD single GPU and maybe a CF-SLI later on the road when need or a complete swap when DX11 card reach the store.

EX : GTX285 or HD4890

Its a nice build anyway !

Get the newer DO version of the CPU. There's a place in NJ that sells it for quite a bit less. Also, if you are in a state that doesn't have a NewEgg physical presence (office or warehouse) you can probably avoid the sales tax.

Antec Twelve Hundred / Antec TruePower Quattro 1000W - $334.98
Intel Core i7 / ASUS P6T Deluxe V2 - $554.98
Noctua NH-U12P - $79.99 + Arctic Silver 5 - $8.94
OCZ Platinum 6GB DDR3 1600 / EVGA GTX 275 - $322.98
OCZ Vertex Series 30GB - $148.49
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB - $99.99
LG Black 22X (CAV) DVD+R - $23.99

ASUS VH236H Black 23" 2ms(GTG) - $199.99

If you want a hard drive for your OS get an SSD. Your choice of heatsink doesn't match the LGA 1366 socket. Going with one GTX 275 and one later will out perform the 4870x2, or buy a low end card and wait for the 300 series.

Being picky with the internal colour of a case really messes with the budget, you can paint it you know. As for the keyboard and mouse, thats a personal choice. If you want to lower the budget take the SSD out, the only real benefit from it is a faster boot up time and application load time.

Like strandwolf said, look for a D0 stepping i7 920.

It's not just the internal colour I'm being picky about, I just plan like the 1200 series. I like it's big size, the black color, the side window, the mesh in front, it looks niceee. And what is a D0 stepping i7 920?

Thank you, Why_Me, you posted just right before me. Your post was very useful!

Hi...it is a nice build but in general, you are paying more than what you will be using...
You can swap components to get a better overall system...And make use of it totally

1. Mobo - Change the mobo to this one...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131371

Reason -
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2302.html
And it has a very good onboard sound too...

2. For the CPU cooler, there are other cheaper options, which would perform as good or better than the Noctuna...So you need not spend extra cash for the same cooling...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6835233029
But if you buy just a single component - CPU cooler outside newegg, then it would be good as you can get one of the best cooler for i7, which is not available with newegg...
http://www.frozencpu.com/products/ [...] _1366.html
http://www.jab-tech.com/Thermalrig [...] -4332.html
http://coolpc.com/Thermalright-Ult [...] ce=froogle
http://www.sidewindercomputers.com/thulex13rt.html
http://www.heatsinkfactory.com/the [...] 66-rt.html
Just check who is the best store and get it from there...

3. HDD - For OS, buy the faster WD Black 640GB - just $5 more but is noticeably faster...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6822136319

4. Monitor, skip that and get something like this...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824236052

5. I agree with others that you wont be needing 1000W - unless you are planning to add one more 4870X2 in quad- crossfire anytime soon...
If you have such a plan please drop it as a single 4870X2 would easily max out all the current games @ that resolution and having 2 of them is just sheer waste of electricity and graphics power...
And by the time, you would need more graphics power, newer DirectX 11 graphics cards will be out and you can get them instead of hunting for another 4870X2...
and like Mrbumbum said, switch to 2x 4890s or GTX 275...

Switch Corsair 750TX PSU...

As the OP want to overclock and his budget allows that extra $20 on the CPU cooler, I would still recommed the TRUE eXtreme 1366 RT...

And I feel that ASUS board is worth the extra $12...but the UD4P is not bad though...

Did you go through the article that compares that ASUS board directly to the ASUS P6T?
http://www.tomshardware.com/review [...] ,2302.html
It is a premium series board, which has the Rampage badge - which means lots of tweak options, high quality components, circuitry...
It has outperformed it in most of the benchmarks...
And yes it would offer Full x16x16 SLI or xfire with its 2 PCIe 2.0 slots...

I would slightly lean towards the GTX 275 as SLI tends to scale little better than crossfire...
But either would do...So check the which card, plays your favourite games better and get that card...

I would go with a full size atx myself.

http://www.ewiz.com/detail.php?name=MB-EX58U4P $222.99 | $207.99 after rebate
GIGABYTE GA-EX58-UD4P Core i7/ Intel X58/ DDR3/ CorssFireX & 3-Way SLI/ A&GbE/ ATX Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813128374 <--- here's more pics and customer reviews on that board.

380 dollars on a video-card you dont need for a 23'' monitor unless the resolution is ridiculously high like 2000x2000 or something like that then you dont need such a ridiculous card, normal 23'' monitors are 1080p (1920x1080). In this case a 280 dollar GTX280 or even a cheaper GTX275 would be the best for that resolution and would save you like 150bucks+ which you could use to buy a nice 10,000 rpm velociraptor hard drive that would make games and applications open up lightning fast compared to your 7200rpm drive or buy a a small solid state drive to make applications open up literally lightning fast compared to any hard drive currently available and keep your storage like multimedia and stuff on an external drive while applications on the solid state.

i was writing based on his first post :0

It looks to be over clocked platinum. Iv'e never seen that particular ram tbh. I think it's new on the market for the fact three of the sites I went to to look it up were still waiting for it's arrival. You can get OCZ platinum or GSKILL 1600 for about the same price at newegg.

http://www.directron.com/3p1866c9lv6gk.html <---more specs on that RAM

Here's my input.

Your combo Antec 1200 with CP power supply are bang on. I own them and couldn't be happier. The case is top notch and I love how you can route all the cables in the back of the tray, also it comes with fan controllers built in.

Motherboard I would switch to this Asus. Just a tad better for virtually the same price.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6813131365

CPU is a good choice

Heatsink is a good choice. Glad you switch to the Xigmatech which is cheaper and supports the I7 out of the box. Something like the Sunbeamk Core Contact is a hair bit better but requires a bracket for I7 support.

RAM I would go back to the OCZ PLatinum. Why did you switch to the G-Skill?

That 1200 case comes with a blue side fan...you don't need the extra fan. The heatsink also comes with a bit of compound in a tube...no need to buy extra. In this day and age heatsinks are so well designed with heat pipes and stuff that super high end ceramic silver NASA compound won't make a difference compared to regular compound. Buy the compound if you want to have it if don't have any at home, since you can change it every 3-6 months or so. Also good to have for scraping the grey pad off the OEM heatsinks and adding your own. For aftermarket heatsinks you don't need to buy the compound.

For the hard drives why not get 2x1TB drives and run a striped RAID for blazing speed. You'll have super fast and 2TB of storage.

For Video Cards you could consider the 4890 1GB in Crossfire. It would be similar to the GTX 275 in SLI only a tad cheaper.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6814125276

For the monitor I'd switch to the 1080 as opposed to 1200. It'll support DVD players, consoles, etc... better with no black bars. It's more standard 1080P. It also doesn't have the built in webcam and is cheaper. If you want a webcam buy a good seperate one, not something built in.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6824236049

For the keyboard mouse combo I'd go all out. I love having a good keyboard mouse and this is my fave. It's pricey but I like that it's bluetooth, electroluminescent, and I like the slim natural style Microsoft uses with these new keyboards. I don't like Logitech...I find they arn't as durable.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6823109041


Overall you have a great system. I would jsut tweak it a bit towards my preferences.

Questions I am wondering is why a uATX board in an Antec 1200 case? Also why not just 2 1TB hard drives in RAID if you want speed. This gives you a spare hard drive if one crashes.

Also note, that there are some great mouse pads available form Raazor and steelseries. These $40 mouse pads are worth every penny. The surface is designed to pick up every movement.

I'd also like to add that if you ever think of adding a sound card the Asus Xonar D2X seems to be the best for gaming. It is the least buggy of all the card from Creative, Azuntech, Asus, etc.... The Asus jsut plain works. For games and movies I'd go the high end ASus route. For music that is a different kettle of fish, and if your into recording then you already know enough to choose a good recording sound card.

Enjoy the new system.

Why would you go back to the Platinum ? After reading reviews on a few diff. sites some people have great luck with that memory while others are having trouble getting advertised timings to work. Kinda like the OCZ from a few years back when it had to be volted through the roof to get it to work at it's specified timings...unlike G.SKILL and Mushkin which never have that problem. With the monitor higher resolution = way better....especially seeing how he is running 2 x gtx 275's in his build. Anything less resolution wise would be an insult to those cards in SLI. That board you chose does have a better lay out for two cards, but there again it's like $80+ more when you include the coupon promo and rebate of the Gigabyte mobo.

@why_me-whats so good about the gigabyte ud4p, compared to everything else?
better layout, or just price?