Almost done need help

[juko]

Memory:Corsair XMS3 CMX4GX3M2A1600C9 4GB DDR3 2X2GB DDR3-1600 CL 9-9-9-24 Core i5 Dual Channel Memory
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=42530&promoid=1223

Mother board: EVGA P55 V SLI mATX LGA1156 DDR3 SLI 2PCI-E16 2PCI-E1 Sound GBLAN Motherboard
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=47878

Processor:Intel Core i5 760 Quad Core Processor Lynnfield LGA1156 2.8GHZ 8MB Cache Retail Box
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=54753&promoid=1223

DVD Drive:Samsung SH-S223L/BEBS 22X SATA Black DVD Writer Lightscribe OEM
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=42349&promoid=1223

GPU:I'm not sure about this, I heard sli gtx 460x2 is good? Can I combine these two cards(since one has a good offer, limit 1 per customer), or would I be better off buying something different?


http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=54626&promoid=1223
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=54624&vpn=N460GTX%20Cyclone1GD5/OC&manufacture=MSI/MicroStar


PSU:I have a 3 year old Cosair 650W PSU, should I buy a new one? I plan to pay to get my computer assembeled so I assume it's easier for them if I purchase a PSU?
OCZ StealthXStream 700W ATX12V 20/24PIN Active PFC ATX Power Supply 120MM Fan Black
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=39657&promoid=1223
Antec Three Hundred Mini Tower Gaming Case 300 ATX 3X5.25 6X3.5INT No PS Front USB & Audio
http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=29812&promoid=1223

HD: I plan on recording videos, but do I need RAID, SSD? No idea, any advice? If I buy SSD for main drive, and use a HD with just fraps installed, would the fraps drive even benefit from SSD? I really have no idea, lol.


Please help me and give any changes you'd make

 

[sirbuster223]

Everything IMO Is spot on.
As for the GPu, dual GTX 460s will give you the results you want.
I would STRONGLY suggest getting two of those bad boys.
The scaling on them is absolutly rediculous. (Up to 90-98% I believe with the current drivers)
I would strongly suggest getting a better case though.
A good case that everyone loves is the NZXT m59

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811146058&Tpk=nzxt%20m59

It's cheap and affordable, but comes with a butt load of features even for enthusiasts. I have owned this case for about 7 months and I love it.

As for the PSU I would definatly get a new oen, and if your going to SLI those GTX 460s, it wouldn't hurt to get at least a Corsair 850 watt, especially since your running that i7, but who knows, I'm running two HD 5770s crossfired with a quadcore cpu, and that corsair I have is only 650 and its been used for about 2 years(plus I OCED both my cards ).

But I wouldn't risk it. I'd go bigger just in case you might want to upgrade for a bigger gfx in the future.

As for the SD cards and such, I know nothing about. Best thing to do is buy a external drive for that since I have seen many gaming cases with sd slots inside of them ( I could be wrong).

Anyway these are my opinions but maybe this will help you!

P.S. On that m59 your going to get front panel audio plus two USB ports on the front, what a bonus =)

 

[gordon_81]

a good 650 watt should be able to SLI 2 gtx 460s, they are not power hungry like the rest of the gtx 4xx range which are gf100 cards, change your motherboard to an asus p7p55d-e pro, its the best lga 1156 motherboard price vs performance in my opinion, and if you do plan on getting a new psu only go for corsair, antec, silverstone, xfx and seasonic 1s. According to somebody 007, linus OCd a msi gtx 460 hawk to 5870 levels and was comparing it to a gtx 480, as for the rest its a good build, and the nzxt m59 is a decent case, its worth taking a look at

 

[abhijitkalyane]

RAID and SSDs are not going to have a great effect on your gaming experience, except for maybe level load times.
SSDs have a much better throughput and IOPS (read data transfer rate or time to copy files and latency) than HDDs, so they will help if you want a computer to boot faster and games to load quicker. Otherwise stick with HDD.
RAID is having two or more drives(HDD or SSD) in your setup to either increase performance or reliability or both.
RAID 0 has two or more drives mirrored (copied as is) - this has obvious effect of increased redundancy, in case one of the disks fails, you dont lose data.
RAID 1 has two or more drives together and data to be written is split and spread across them instead of going to just one drive, this increases performance since when you read the data, it is retrieved from all the drives so they can work in parallel and hence improve performance. But if any one of the disks fails you lose all your data.
Then there are RAID 0+1, 5, etc, which will give you a mix of redundancy, reliability and performance in different ratio.

Unless you specifically need any of the above features, you can stick to good ol' HDD, it will serve your purpose just fine.

SLI GTX460x2 is definitely a great choice, but I would personally recommend getting a single card and upgrading by adding another later. But in the end, it's up to you.

 

[gordon_81]

i agree ^ a more powerful single card is always a better choice, if you plan on getting 2 gtx 460s straight away then i would rather go for 1 gtx 480, but if you are going for 1 gtx 460 and are going to get a second 1 later, then its fine to go for a gtx 460, as nothing right now can beat its price vs performance

 

[gordon_81]

go for this ram http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=42745&vpn=F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL&manufacture=G.Skill&promoid=1223 it also has a nice combo with a corsair 750 watt PSU if you are changing your PSU

 

[juko]

Thanks a lot for your help gordon and abh.

Okay, I changed my motherboard to this http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=48014&promoid=1223
I changed my GPU to this : http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=55409

and I changed the memory you suggested.

I plan to buy a HD now and a good SSD when they drop in prices, but which HD should I buy? Also, I heard that if I installed fraps on a secondary drive in raid0 it would make video recording extremely smooth while using your computer.

I also plan on buying a 3d monitor fairly soon and I believe I need sli for those, and I also plan to buy a better sound card. Will this PSU be enough? http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?sku=26414&promoid=1223

 

[gordon_81]

samsung spinpoint f3 1tb HD

 

[juko]

NCIX doesn't seem to supply many samsung hd's

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php?minorcatid=109

 

[gordon_81]

get the caviar black then, its actually a faster HD, the samsung is just good price vs performance

 

[juko]

Ok everything is ready, the only thing I need now is an OS

Should I buy Windows 7 Ultimate or Professional?

 

[juko]

Best answer selected by JuKo.

 

[sirbuster223]

Ok everything is ready, the only thing I need now is an OS

Should I buy Windows 7 Ultimate or Professional?

IMO I would just get windows 7 64 bit home. Unless you want all the unwanted extras that you get with ult.
I just needed a OS to play my games on, and nothing else. As long as its 64 bit, I'm happy.

But thats my opinion