+*+*+Need opinions on this build & help me make a wise decision+*+*+

[isuckatlyfe]

APPROXIMATE PURCHASE DATE: Within a month or 2

BUDGET RANGE: Under $1800

SYSTEM USAGE FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT: Gaming, internet, listening to music, movies

PARTS NOT REQUIRED: None

PREFERRED WEBSITE(S) FOR PARTS: www.newegg.com

COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: U.S.A

PARTS PREFERENCES: Full tower case (unless not advised), Intel i5 CPU, items with highest user ratings

OVERCLOCKING: In the future when necessary

SLI OR CROSSFIRE: Maybe

MONITOR RESOLUTION: 1920x1080

ADDITIONAL COMMENTS: Would prefer a quiet pc. And like mentioned highest user rated parts.

Are these good parts?
Will this be a very good gaming pc?
Are there any parts that I should change or reconsider?
Is everything compatible?
What do you think/advise/recommend?
Can Windows 7 play games from the 1980's, 90's, and early 2000's?

With the 2 mobos shown, is this necessary to buy?

Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835100007

Here's what I have so far, I need to decide on ram, mobo, hard drive, and case.

Intel Core i5-750 Lynnfield 2.66GHz 8MB L3 Cache LGA 1156 95W Quad-Core Processor - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115215

SAPPHIRE 100282SR Radeon HD 5850 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFire Supported Video Card w/ATI Eyefinity - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102857&cm_re=5850_1gb-_-14-102-857-_-Product

ARCTIC COOLING Freezer 7 Pro Rev.2 92mm Fluid Dynamic CPU Cooler - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835186134

SAMSUNG Black 22X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 22X DVD-R 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-ROM 2MB Cache SATA DVD Burner LightScribe Support - OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151188&cm_re=22X_DVD%2bR_48X_CD-ROM_sata_burner-_-27-151-188-_-Product


So that's what I've got so far, let me know if I should change anything.

And here's what I need to decide on:

HDD:

Western Digital Caviar Black WD1001FALS 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136284

or

SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822152185

RAM:

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM - Retail

or

G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL7D-4GBRH - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231279

MOBO:

ASRock P55 Extreme LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157172

^(Apparently has an odd layout which may be a problem sine this is my first time building a pc)

or

ASUS Maximus III Formula LGA 1156 Intel P55 ATX Intel Motherboard - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131482

Case:

Antec Twelve Hundred Black Steel ATX Full Tower Computer Case - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043

or

Anything you recommend

And finally, here are the speakers and monitor:

Logitech X-540 70 watts 5.1 Speakers - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16836121006

ASUS VH222H Black 21.5" 5ms HDMI Widescreen 16:9 Full HD 1080P LCD Monitor Built in Speakers 300 cd/m2 1000:1 (ASCR20000:1) w/ SPDIF out - Retail
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16824236053

As usual, thank you so much to anyone that helps. This is really stressful the first time around...

 

[whatelsematters]

a few quick suggestions:

swap out that freezer pro 7 for a cooler master hyper 212+. it's a MUCH better performer.

i'd take the samsung f3 over the WD, personally.

do you really need full tower? if you haven't seen one up close you should find one at a local computer shop before you buy, they are HUGE. the antec 900 is a good midsize option, as is the cooler master cm690.

with a 5850 i would consider getting a bigger monitor if you have room on your desk.

 

[isuckatlyfe]

a few quick suggestions:

swap out that freezer pro 7 for a cooler master hyper 212+. it's a MUCH better performer.

i'd take the samsung f3 over the WD, personally.

do you really need full tower? if you haven't seen one up close you should find one at a local computer shop before you buy, they are HUGE. the antec 900 is a good midsize option, as is the cooler master cm690.

with a 5850 i would consider getting a bigger monitor if you have room on your desk.

Well I figured with all these parts that I'd need a full tower.

What size tower would you recommend for these parts?

 

[whatelsematters]

a standard mid-tower will be just fine. i have a very similar build, everything fits no problem, lots of room to spare in my cooler master cm690 II.

 

[isuckatlyfe]

a standard mid-tower will be just fine. i have a very similar build, everything fits no problem, lots of room to spare in my cooler master cm690 II.

Okay, I'll check out that fan and those cases.

Any input on the ram or mobos I listed?

 

[verst]

+1 on the mid size case... the best one currently is CM HAF922 but that's a matter of your personal taste...

If you have the money go for the GBRH model, but GBRM will also serve you very well...

I would recommend getting this mobo: ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
It's priced right in between the ones you listed and supports the new USB3.0 and SATA6Gb

 

[isuckatlyfe]

+1 on the mid size case... the best one currently is CM HAF922 but that's a matter of your personal taste...

If you have the money go for the GBRH model, but GBRM will also serve you very well...

I would recommend getting this mobo: ASUS P7P55D-E Pro
It's priced right in between the ones you listed and supports the new USB3.0 and SATA6Gb

In the reviews they talk about a high pitched whining noise...
That makes me hesitant.

 

[verst]

You can try going with the: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P
keeping in mind that you lose U3S6 features if you crossfire or sli... or go with more expensive ASUS mobo's like P7P55D-E Deluxe...

 

[isuckatlyfe]

You can try going with the: GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P
keeping in mind that you lose U3S6 features if you crossfire or sli... or go with more expensive ASUS mobo's like P7P55D-E Deluxe...

How am I supposed to tell if a mobo loses the u3s6 features when I sli/crossfire?

 

[verst]

By reading reviews

 

[mrmotion]

antec 900 case is a good one, can be quiet, though it can sound like a tornado. One question for you is why not go with a i7 920 for future proofing and then a SSD for the main drive and some other drive for storage? Will you really use 1tb of space?

 

[isuckatlyfe]

antec 900 case is a good one, can be quiet, though it can sound like a tornado. One question for you is why not go with a i7 920 for future proofing and then a SSD for the main drive and some other drive for storage? Will you really use 1tb of space?

No, I really won't be needing 1tb of space.
As far as I know, going with the i5 saves me the most money.
And apparently I won't notice the difference in performance too much.

 

[Truhls]

Actually the i5 loses you money, you could swap that out for an AMD chip and not really lose out on anything, but your wallet would be thicker. The only time intel is worth the price is generally with a 1500+ build, for encoding and work tasks. Any AMD processor will do what you listed at comparably the same performance as an intel chip while saving you money.

Two dont read into the newegg reviews too much, go search google for REAL reviews and buy off of those. think about it, the people giving the reviews on newegg are well, people like you. Most of them think they know a lot about computers, but 90% of the reviews on newegg are completely worthless made by idiots who think they know what they are talking about.

I realize that sounds like a riff on you, but i wont change it because it still stands. But im not trying to insult you, just get a point across.

 

[isuckatlyfe]

Actually the i5 loses you money, you could swap that out for an AMD chip and not really lose out on anything, but your wallet would be thicker. The only time intel is worth the price is generally with a 1500+ build, for encoding and work tasks. Any AMD processor will do what you listed at comparably the same performance as an intel chip while saving you money.

Two dont read into the newegg reviews too much, go search google for REAL reviews and buy off of those. think about it, the people giving the reviews on newegg are well, people like you. Most of them think they know a lot about computers, but 90% of the reviews on newegg are completely worthless made by idiots who think they know what they are talking about.

I realize that sounds like a riff on you, but i wont change it because it still stands. But im not trying to insult you, just get a point across.

So would you recommend AMD or Intel I7?
(If you advise AMD tell me which ones to look into because I know absolutely nothing about their CPU's)

 

[Truhls]

Quite honestly for your build i would go with AMD. Everything you listed isnt exactly CPU heavy, except some gaming. And you would get far better performance with gaming by getting a better GPU then CPU. But you already have a really nice GPU, you really wont need anything better then that for most games.

For gaming, something like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103652

Will save you 100 dollars, and actually give you better performance in some games just because of the higher clock rate of the lynnfield. Sadly most games barely take advantage of dual cores yet, let alone 4 cores. This is a triple core, which leaves room for things to run in the background while playing. Plus you have the possiblity of unlocking the 4th core ( Just a nice little benefit if you can ) so for 100 bucks getting a 2.8ghz 4 core quad with 6 mb l3 cache ( Well a chance, but the chance is generally good, just dont count on it ).

If you dont like that, ( especially cus its OEM, but i dont mind OEM )

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103706
Is another great choice. Its a quad clocked at 2.6 ghz. It doesnt have l3 cache but l3cache only amounts to about 200 MHZ clock speed to make up for it, so if you raised it by 200 mhz it would perform on par with a cpu that had l3 cache.

Or if you still want to spend money,

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819103808

Which will actually outperform the lynnfield for gaming at stock speeds, because its clocked higher out of the box. And still save you almost 40 bucks.


And then something like

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128415

This MOBO comes with Sata 6 and USB 3 support and is STILL cheaper then the one you had for the intel board, this here will save you 100 bucks. Plus it has two PCI X 16 slots running in dual x16 for if you crossfire ( though careful if you run something else that needs one of the pci slots it will share bandwitdth and change PCI 2 to x8 )but that usually isnt a problem ( also in a crossfire setup the difference between dual 16x and 16x and 8x is only a few % ).