Making a PC

[Sephiroth73003]

Approximate Purchase Date: May 2010

Budget: unimportant, but naturally want best bang for my buck

System Usage: Gaming and 3ds max model creation/scene rendering. Games include lots of older titles and when I can get them Command and conquer 4, Starcraft 2, and a few FPS titles.

Preferred Websites for parts: Any site is alright, but been using newegg personally for ease of use.

Country of Origin: USA

Parts not Required: Monitor, DVD drive, and OS

Parts preference: Anything with a good warranty or guarantee. If it comes bricked I don’t want difficulty replacing it.
Overclocking: Yes

Crossfire: Not in the near future

Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1200

Additional Comments:
-Prefer fairly quiet PC
-Must use SSD (never going back to HDD except as external storage drive)
-Prefer SATA-6 and USB – 3.0
-This is kind of a present to myself for my graduation this spring, so I’m trying to spoil myself a bit and work on a powerful computer when doing my 3d modeling hobby rather than my laptop.

Current Build Idea:

Case - Antec 1200 – $159.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129043

Powersupply - AZZA Titan 850W – $79.99 after rebate
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817517004

Ram - Mushkin Enhanced Blackline DDR3 1600MHz (6GB) – $209.9
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226030

Harddrive - Crucial RealSSD C300 128GB - $418.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148348

Motherboard - AsusP6X58D – 309.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131614

Cpu - Intel Core i7 930 – 294.99 – 25 with combo deal 274.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115225

This is the first PC i've built from scratch in awhile and interested in trying out some cpu overclocking (only done gpu overclocking before). What would people reccomend I get with this to do the build on air?

GPU – single 5870 or single 5970 for now based on what people think is needed. I don’t see the point in getting 2 5870 when that’s greater than the price of a 5970 as it really doesn’t seem wise in the long run when driver supports start helping out the 5970 more and more. Really just comes from for what I specified above do people think I should use a 5870 or 5970. I just want to be able to play the games very close to max if not at max, and when using 3ds max I’d like a fairly hi polygon (40k or more) scene to be navigated without significant problems.

Keyboard/Mouse
Really not sure on what to get here, any preferences? I’ve been on my laptop solely for way to long.
Nothing extremely fancy needed, but maybe a programmable button or 2 on the keyboard would be nice for maybe opening a few programs or what not.

 

[MadAdmiral]

Do NOT touch that PSU. It's going to be a POS, which can very easily destroy your build. Get something quality from Antec, Corsair, SeaSonic, Silverstone or OCZ's Z Series line. My preference for high end builds is the OCZ Z Series 850W 80+ Gold for $170 after rebate.

I'm not a big fan of the Antec 1200. It's expensive and fairly small. If you decide on getting the 5970, it may not fit. Save yourself the $70 and get the HAF 922.

I would get the Corsair Nova 128 GB for $319 as the SSD instead of that Crucial.

For the GPU, either the 5870 or 5970 will be fine. Either one of these cards will play every game out there at max details at 1900x. I personally would get the 5970 because you won't need to upgrade it during the life of this build. By the time it's too weak, it'll be time to replace evertyhing. Also, the 5970 is technically two 5870s on one card. The cores have only been slightly downclocked at the factory, which can be undone with three clicks of the mouse with ATI's overclocking software. So you'd pay $700 for something that should cost $800+.

 

[Sephiroth73003]

Made the replacements to the power supply and Case which saved me a good chunk of money.

Question about the SSD it looks like it hs roughly 20% less read performance and 10% less write which for the money/speed seems like a better buy. However, it isn't Sata6 compatible I assume Sata3 can be connected to a Sata6 slot, but i'm not 100% on that. I've just heard the mobo has some annoying issues if your main boot drive isn't hooked up to the Sata6 ports and want to make sure. Also does this option leave me the expandability of being able to put in another SSD later for a raid0 configuration if I put it in the other Sata6 slot?

I just don't want annoying issues like the fact it is a Sata3 limiting the bandwidth of my Sata6 slot or whatever. I have no experience with Sata6 so I bet these issues don't really exist, just making sure there is no downside switching ssd's because of compatibility.

Ya that was my thoughts on the 5970 also thats why i didn't want some people who advocate 2x 5870 saying to do that. Might go with 5970 that makes sense. Thanks Admiral very helpful.

Any opinion on peripherals? I don't even know where to begin wading through the bs marketing on half the stuff out there.

 

[MadAdmiral]

You shouldn't worry about SATA III right now. All the "SATA III" drives out right now don't actually run at SATA III speeds. Both the port and device are backwards compatibile any way (a SATA III HDD can work with a SATA II port, a SATA II HDD can work in a SATA III port).

I don't really care for special keyboards/mice. I'm of the opinion that they're not worth the extra money over a generic set...