[Solved] Seeking advice on my potential gaming build

Thanks, I was actually looking at the spinpoint, I'll probably go that way then. Unfortunately the first cooler you recommended isn't available with Prime The second one looks good though, I'll swap that one in instead.

How about my Ram is what I picked any good or is there something better in the same price range? How about any compatibility issues with anything I picked? That's probably what I'm most worried about since I'm just about to pull the trigger on buying these pieces.

Thanks I'll look around a little bit, any recommendations?

Have you checked the build section ? I'll bet there's a dozen $1000 - $1200 build that have been posted in the last 2 days:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] ming-build

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] ing-system

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/ [...] -1000-1200

Check these and the others out, I'm sure you'll come up with a lot of ideas.

I think I've seen all of those on Amazon, stupid question probably but how do I go about finding the CAS? It doesn't seem to be listed on most of the product pages.

How about either of these 3, I believe the first and last are cas 8 and I think the middle one might be cas 7?

http://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-Enha [...] 013&sr=1-5

http://www.amazon.com/Mushkin-Enha [...] =pd_cp_e_1


http://www.amazon.com/Corsair-TR3X [...] =de_a_smtd

Yeah unfortunately it looks like it doesn't ship for 2-4 weeks so I guess that one is out of the question. I'm going to take a trip to Fry's and see what they have tonight, hopefully they have the same Mushkin.

Fry's has about 30-40 stores and is largely out west, with a number of stores in Texas, and a few in other states. Microcenter is kind of all over, but only has about 20 stores.

Yeah Fry's is mainly out west, I'm in Northern California so unfortunately no Microcenter within 100 miles.

Just got back from Fry's and it looks like they have a special combo price on the cpu and mobo I had listed for 450 + tax, should be about 13$ cheaper then Amazon when it's all said and done so that was good, they didn't have the Apollo case but they had this one that is supposed to be good: Cooler Master 912 HAF (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B003ZM7YTA) Any opinions on that case?

No dice on the Samsung Spinpoint 1tb though they claimed it was new and wouldn't be in for a few weeks so I'll have to keep looking I guess, I'm reluctant to get it from Amazon since according to customer reviews they ship Hard Drives pretty poorly.

As for RAM they don't carry G.Skills or Mushkin but they had some 6gb (3x2gb) 1600mhz CAS 8 Corsair Dominators for 149$. For someone that probably won't be over-clocking or if I do it would probably only be a little bit, do you think the performance increase from cas 9 Corsairs to the cas 8's is worth the roughly $40 price increase?

Yeah it was pretty annoying that they didn't have it, I really want this thing built by Dec. 6 in preparation for the World of Warcraft Cataclysm launch so I'm not sure what to do now, I may just have to roll on the dice with Amazon. I can't really think of any other big chain stores that would sell Hard Drives, specifically the Samsung. I checked Best Buy's site it doesn't look like they carry them.

The only other 2 options I can think of would be to either just grab a different hard drive which I don't really want to do, or else maybe pick up a 64gb SSD drive, that way I could install Windows 7, a few necessary programs and then WoW if for some reason the Spinpoint I order is damaged, of course that adds about 120$ to my price which isn't good.

I'll probably just go with the cas 9 Ram then if it won't make a huge difference.

I really hope everything works because if I have to return anything to Amazon there is no way I can make my Dec. 6 due date.

Thanks again for all your help, I'm probably going to buy most of the pieces tomorrow.

CAS 8 vs. CAS 9 isn't worth $40. You're only likely to see the difference in benchmarks, I wouldn't expect to see any noticeable difference in gaming.

I wouldn't worry a whole lot about the hard drive being damaged in shipment. I mean, sure, it could happen, but if it does, you always have the backup plan of heading over to Fry's or wherever last minute if you need to.

If you end up getting an SSD around 64 GB, you should go for any of the 60 GB SandForce-1200 drives as your first option.

Wow, I didn't realize how much the sorting on amazon sucks, though I guess I usually use it to look for specific things, not to sort through a pile of options. Still. I have $300 SSDs in the list when filtering the price to $100-200, come on.
SF-1200 SSDs:
OCZ Vertex 2
OCZ Agility 2
Mushkin Callisto
Patriot Inferno
G.Skill Phoenix Pro
Corsair Force

Thanks again for all the help! I just placed half my order on Amazon, planning on picking up the CPU/MOBO combo tomorrow at Fry's as well as the RAM.

In the end it looks like I went with

Mushkin Callisto 60gb SSD - $119.99
Intel i7 950 - Combo with MOBO should be $490 after tax.
Gigabyte GA-X58A-UD3R -
XFX Radeon HD 6870 1 GB - 254.99

Either the Corsair 6 GB PC3-12800 1600MHz 240-Pin DDR3 or whatever I can find at Fry's should be $99-119$
Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB - $65.66
HAF 912 case - $60.99
Antec EarthWatts 750 Watt ATX12v v2.3 - $89.99
Cooler Master RR-B10-212P-G1 Hyper 212 Plus - $25.74

Total - about $1,215.37 after all taxes.

Still need to pick out a CD/DVD drive and buy my OS, but with student discount Win 7 should only be 65$ and the drive shouldn't run more then 20-25$

So all together the grand total should be right about $1,300 which was about 200$ more then I wanted to spend, but I think it will really be worth it especially splurging for the SSD drive to use as a boot drive and there really isn't anything I could do about having to fork over for the OS.

Is thermal paste 100% necessary? I was under the impression that when I removed whatever the default fan that came on the chip I could just re-use whatever was already on it.

Ok, thanks for the heads up though just in case. Worst case if it turns out I do need some now I know a couple brands to look for and I'm sure I can find some locally in a pinch. If I see either tomorrow when I head back I might just buy some to be on the safe side.

Don't reuse what's already on there. If you're installing from scratch, the thermal paste will be on the stock cooler, which won't be attached to the chip itself out of the box. If you put it together with the stock fan and run it some before installing the aftermarket HSF, make sure to clean off the thermal paste with isopropyl alcohol before putting the aftermarket HSF on.

Many coolers come with their own thermal paste, and there's no problem with using the paste that comes with the cooler. As vindictive mentions, if you're into serious overclocking, you should look into some fancy thermal paste, but you're not going to trash your rig by using whatever paste it comes with.

I looked into and I'm pretty sure the cooler I got comes with paste so I should be good there. I ended up getting the CAS 8 Corsair Dominators from Fry's, a friend ended up having an extra win 7 license I could have so I put the extra money towards the RAM. I wanted to get something locally in case I needed to return it (I typically have bad luck with RAM working right) and I didn't really like any of the cheaper options at Fry's. In a perfect world I would have put the extra money towards a bigger SSD instead but it already shipped.

LOL I wish! It was like pulling teeth to get the 1 I did get that, luckily Christmas was close so I was able to play that card!

Best answer selected by jimbodan1.