wruzic1 said:
Hey dudes -
I'm looking to put together a new PC to replace my aging 6 year old rig.
I'm looking for something for gaming (currently at 1920x1200), productivity, and playing and backing-up Blu-rays.
The components I'm looking at are:
Intel Core i5-2500K Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz
GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Model F3-12800CL8D-8GBXM
MSI R6950-2PM2D2GD5 Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16
- I've always gone with Nvidia in the past but this is Tom's current rec in my price range and the possibility to unlock to 6970
sounds great; maybe Crossfire down the line?
Intel 320 Series SSDSA2CW120G310 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) - OEM
- as the OS program drive of course
SAMSUNG EcoGreen F4 HD204UI 2TB SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
- planning to put 3 of these in a RAID 5 or 10 array
ASUS Black Blu-ray Burner SATA BW-12B1LT LightScribe Support - OEM
Antec Performance One Series P183 V3 Black Aluminum / Steel / Plastic ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
Antec CP-850 850W Continuous Power CPX SLI Certified CrossFire Ready 80 PLUS
Over at newegg this totals to $1625
Any thoughts?
Should I splurge on the i7-2600K?
Is that a decent HDD for RAID? Any recs for Raid 5 vs. 10?
Any thoughts on the motherboard - I was looking for one with video outputs (is it true that that's required to use the iGPU and quicksinq?) and I really don't need one that'll hold 3 video cards.
The board has SATA 3.0 - do you think it'd be worth it to move up to the Intel 510 120 gb drive from the 320? - My understanding is that it won't make any noticeable difference.
I don't have any idea how to choose a PSU - is that one overkill?
I'd really appreaciate any advice anyone can send my way. I've put together 2 computers in the past ~10 years, so I'm really very amateur.
Thanks in advance...
The 2500K is the premo gaming CPU. I wouldn't go withthe 2600K unless you have spreadsheet modeling, design or higher CPU needs.
With the SSD you are getting lots of speed. Why do you want to raid? For speed? If so you will not get any increase over the SSD. If you're planning to raid for data redundancy remember that you still need to back up. If you do a raid 5 or 10 you should stick with the same manufacturer and HDD model. If you look at user ratings at newegg you will see that WD is the best rated. This is not to diss Samsung, but I'd go with the most reliable OEM in setting up a raid.
I'd recommend the ASRock Z68 Extreme4 if you are going Z68, or the ASRock P67 Extreme4 if you don't do extensive video transcoding. ASRock is the features/price champ for lower and mid end mobos. Unless you need a high end board with PCIE 16 X 16 in Xfire/SLI this class will do.
The PSU is more than you need for a single GPU, but if you ever go to Xfire/SLI it is a good idea.
Antec makes good cases, but I really like Corsair's 600 T cases. They are well cooled, quiet, have good cable management and toolless construction (except for screwing the mobo to the case).