Rate my build (already ordered) + some questions

[bigmantenor]

Hey guys. So I ordered my rig and all is on the way:

Phenom II 965

ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 AM3 AMD 890GX SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard

Hyper 212+

2 of these kits: G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)

Coolermaster Storm Sniper Black Edition

Corsair 750HX Modular PSU, 80+ Silver Rated

Shin Etsu TIM

No graphics card as of yet: The reasoning behind this is twofold. I'm pretty sure I want to go with a single 6870 right now,
possibly CrossfireX later and get another. I was thinking I would wait a few weeks for some of the non-reference cooling solutions to come out for the 6870. Another reason I waited is that I had some reward points saved up on my debit card, so I ordered $150 worth of Amazon.com gift cards with them, but they're not here yet, and I was going to order my GPU from Amazon (I have Prime, plus the gift cards, so it just makes sense to order from there).

After rebates, my build comes out to $604 WITHOUT GPU, so once I order the GPU I'm looking at about $800 spent on this rig (after you take off what I'm saving with the Amazon cards).

Questions:

1. As my first build for myself, how did I do? Anything I could have done better?

2. Is the 6870 a good choice for my PC? I want to be able to play everything smoothly, but this computer doesn't have to blow up the benchmarks or anything.

3. I wanted to sleeve the front I/O panel cables on the Storm Sniper (probably only the ones I can't hide); any suggestions for sleeving kits?

4. I know the Sniper has great airflow stock, but should I replace any of the stock fans, or perhaps order fans for the optional mounts? I will be trying to overclock on air, but not shooting for 4+ GHz or anything.

I think that's all the questions I had (for now lol). Thank you all for your help, happy holidays!!

Adam

 

[ScrewySqrl]

overall its a fine build. the 6870 will be great. You should be able to overclock the 965 to 3.6 GHz just fine, by just increasing the multiplier a step. With voltage changes 3.8 to 4.0 GHZ stable should be doable. However with 4 ram slots filled overclocking can get a bit trickier.

 

[bigmantenor]

Should I have gotten 2 X 4 GB sticks instead?? I didn't realize it would hinder my overclock.... I can't change it now according to Newegg, all I could do is return it once it got here. I was actually going to buy 2 X 4 GB sticks of the 1333 Mhz GSkill Ripjaws, but I figured this was a bit faster.

 

[ScrewySqrl]

its not impossible. check with the overclocking forums here and elsewhere on that, Just that its tricker. It might reduce your stable overclock by a few MHz, but 3.6 GHz is achievable without messing with the RAM or voltage at all. Since you have a black edition, you should be able to just boost the multiplier as long as you keep the voltage under 1.5V without messing with RAM at all.

Its the other kind of overclock (where you fiddle with the front side bus speeds) that more RAM can get in the way.

 

[bigmantenor]

Best answer selected by bigmantenor.