Two 1600 gaming upgradeable machines

[skydvejam]

Hello it has been a few years since I built my last gaming rig, and just was hoping to get a couple more eyes on this one and see if I got it built about right.
These are for me and the wife, we are going to be gaming on them, streaming media, and she is doing her degree work on them.
I need everything to go with these machines for the price, but I am also not going to get the parts until the middle of Feb since I am currently deployed, and my wife would not know the first thing about putting a machine together.
The plan is to most likely add another GPU to the mix in a few months, I am also trying to at least somewhat future proof the system, and that explains the 8 Gig of ram, as well as lots and lots of heavy WinRar usage while I am deployed.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=16979108

Let me know if I did balance this about right, I do want to be a little heavy on the CPU and the RAM, and overclocking will be in order, that is why I chose the setup that I did, I just want to be able to eek out some performance for a while and just replace the GPU as the newer stuff gets cheaper. Also I want everything but the OS to be retail due to the higher warranty coverage. Like I said overclocking will come, just when I decide the time is right.

 

[geofelt]

Keep planning, but do not buy until the last moment. Prices and specs change rapidly. In particular, see if the prices of SSD's become reasonable.

Here are some added thoughts.
1) Consider the i5-750/P55 system. At that price point, it is comparable to the x4-965, but my understanding is that it will overclock better.
2) Plan on upgrading your vga card to the next best thing by selling the 5770 and replacing it with a better single card. You can save $ now with a lower cost PSU in the 500-650w range. Your motherboard cost will also be lower if you do not need multiple pci-e x-16 slots.
3) A) Do you qualify for an academic license?
If so, you can get windows-7 at a discounted price.
B) Look for an upgrade version of home premium instead of OEM.
Upgrade is a retail version which gives you support from microsoft, unlike OEM(AKA system builder),
and allows a more hassel-free ability to transfer the os to a different pc(motherboard).
You get both 32 bit and 64 bit DVD's.

There is a legitimate two step instalation process to install an upgrade version
You install windows-7 from the cd, but do not initially enter the product code or activate.
After it installs, you have a fully functional OS for 30 days.
Step 2 is to insert the dvd again, while running Windows and then do an upgrade.
This time, enter your product code, and activate.
After activation. you may delete the initial version which is named windows.old.

C) Do you really need Ultimate? There are very few features that the home user would want.
Check out the differences on the microsoft Vista web site.
If you get a retail or upgrade version, you will still be able to upgrade to ultimate later.
4) Don't pay extra for faster ram or better timings. It makes little difference in real applications or FPS.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/memory-scaling-i7,2325-11.html

stay safe; be smart
---good luck---

 

[skydvejam]

I will look into the idea of a i5, as for the ram, I am also doing some coding, and I work some from home as well with some massive ram eating programs, I am not sure about the DDR3 making as much of a difference as it does with DDR2, but it helped me out a lot when I increased the speed of my ddr2 for the work I do from the house.
The other memory issue, I have never used G-skill, but I have used Kingston and Corsair a lot, and never had any issues with either of those. And I am looking at a paired up set so they will work dual channeled together. And the savings is 40 bucks there, but I will work a build on the i5 and see how that comes together. I am not the biggest Intel fan, but then again I used to not like anything but NVIDIA, but you have to go with what is best within your price range. The key things for me, is will it play my games good, can we do our work on it, and will it last for a long while. I will have to make a new build around the i5, and tinker with it.
As for SSD's I was thinking that too, or even a 10k drive, but we have to see what happens in price in the next month, the first Proc for this build was the 140W but now they have got that down to 125W
Thanks for your assistance and I will see what I can do with a different type of build.

 

[skydvejam]

Well I have now rebuilt it, went with 4gig of G-skill ram after a lot of research, and dropped the speed of it down, although with a little O.C. love it can run with the other stuff, and changed the GPU to a 5750, and it should be a screamer, right now I have the OEM drives in there, as long as newegg gets the retail version of the HDD's I will get those, if not I might just get them at a local retailer, I just want the warranty. As for the OS, I do need there higher end, and there is no way around that one but that is life sometimes.
Hoping next month has some good price changes on some of the parts, but time will tell.