Finalizing $800 Build Before Ordering Tonight.

This is a nice build. The 650W PSU is powerful enough to SLI another 560ti if necessary. The choice is motherboad, hard drive, and case are good as well. Can't really comment on a $20 optical drive. Just don't go over $20 for it ever. However, since you're using Sandy Bridge, the sweet spot for RAM is 1600MHz. You can find decent brands for 2x2GB DDR3 1600MHz for under $40 from Kingston and G.Skill. Otherwise, this looks good.

its going to be $5 cheaper if you get the cpu+mobo combo:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...
and buy the case separately

thats a 5400 rpm HDD, meaning its going to be significantly slower than a 7200 rpm drive:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite...
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

personally id always prefer 750w for 560 ti SLI, but its definitely been done with 650w. you will need to use pci-e to molex connectors to power an additional card, though.

If you can spare the investment, the Antec HCG-750 can be had for $94.99 ( before $25 rebate, so it will end up being $10 more than the one you have listed ).
But it has nice high AMP rails and it should easily handle 560Ti SLI.

FREE SHIPPING for this entire build.

A 650w psu is cutting it very very close for two of those cards.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $49.99 FREE SHIPPING
Rosewill CHALLENGER Black Gaming ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, comes with Three Fans-1x Front Blue LED 120mm Fan, 1x Top 140mm Fan, 1x Rear 120mm Fan, option Fans-2x Side 120mm Fan

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $94.99 - $69.99 after mail-in rebate FREE SHIPPING
Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-750 750W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite... $313.98 save: $25.00 FREE SHIPPING
Intel Core i5-2500 Sandy Bridge 3.3GHz (3.7GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor BX80623I52500
GIGABYTE GA-Z68A-D3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $36.99 FREE SHIPPING
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-4GBXL

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Spinpoint-3-5-Inch-Intern... $59.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping
Samsung Desktop Class Spinpoint F3 1 TB SATA 3.0 Gb-s 32 MB Cache 3.5-Inch Internal Bare-OEM Drives, HD103SJ

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $19.99 FREE SHIPPING
Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner 24X DVD+R 8X DVD+RW 12X DVD+R DL 24X DVD-R 6X DVD-RW 16X DVD-ROM 48X CD-R 32X CD-RW 48X CD-ROM Black SATA Model AD-7260S-0B - OEM

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $234.99 (Before $25.00 Mail-In Rebate Card) FREE SHIPPING
EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $14.99 FREE SHIPPING
Rosewill RK-800G Black 104 Normal Keys PS/2 Wired Gaming Keyboard

Total: $821.91 * not including mail in rebates

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $24.99 FREE SHIPPING
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm CPU Cooler Compatible Intel Core i5 & Intel Core i7

^your build is missing ram.

lol....oops. That build just lost it's CM 212+ and it's over budget now.  

btw thanks for the heads up.  

I just built a computer 2 weeks ago. I used the same Antec PSU. However, for a total of $750, I bought a phenom ii 955 and overclocked it to 4.1Ghz. I also bought an AMD HD6950 for $250, Gskillz Sniper 8gigs DDR3 1866RAM. The reason I bought a 955 was because I bought an AM3+ Motherboard, so I will upgrade to Rev.2 of the bulldozer later which is far better than the current Intel 2600K

For my processor to run overclocked I use a Zalman HSF that's silent.

I wanted to wait for ivy bridge, but i got tired of waiting and figured i'd settle on the bulldozer.

I didn't buy a DVD drive, I feel like they're a little dated for my uses. I installed windows 7 from a USB, which was quicker to install.

The issues I see with your build are that the sandy bridge socket is soon to be dated by ivy bridge.

PCI-e 3.0 is soon to come out as well. These cards are likely to have lower power and better tdp.

Your 560ti video card runs high temps and sucks a lot of power at idle. It will have a noisy fan.

I recommend the HD6950 overclocked to hold more performance and better energy efficiency over the 560ti. It's also quieter. On the whole it's a better card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168...

This is a better hard drive for the money. It's got faster read/write times, and runs cooler. It's also silent.

So seeing how you say the AMD BD is better than the 2600K...well post those benchmarks showing us how much better it is. Myself along with many others on here would really like to see those Bulldozer benchmarks and how it stacks up against the Sandy Bridge cpu's.

Post them for us please.

btw I believe it's the other way around. I believe after waiting for months upon months peeps got sick and tired of waiting for AMD to release BD.

Instead of posting some horribly photo shopped image on here of performance results. I'm just going to come out and say that I don't have any hard proof. We'll just have to wait for results.

I think that Ivy Bridge will be far superior to Bulldozer, and bulldozer's only competitor might be sandy bridge.

For the time being, every game I've come across has been playable at max settings with my set up.


I was tempted to buy the 2500K, and I don't think it would have been worse than what I have. For the money I think what I have can handle some future upgrades. That's fine with me.

I appreciate all your help. I'll switch up to the hard drive and disc drive combo. Did anything look wrong with my build compatibility wise though?

Also is the 650watt enough for SLI or not?

people have different margins of safety for PSU's. The cards wont be going over the limit of the PSU, but they can potentially load it higher than some people would like. Imo, its worth the extra $25 ($10 after rebate) for a psu with proper connections for 2 cards (4x pci-e connectors) and more headroom in terms of wattage. I can also tell you that there are definitely people out there who run dual 560 ti's with a 650w psu and have zero problems.

You might be able to get by with a 650w, but you will have ZERO headroom fro o/c the cards, cpu, extra fans, drives, etc... it's going to be cutting it way close to the bone. Do a google on " gtx 560 ti SLI power requirements " and you will see what were talking about. On top of that chances are it's gong to shorten the lifespan of that 650w psu...and if and when it wears out...good luck with your other components like the mobo if and when you hear a giant "pop" followed by a burnt smell.

Thanks, well I won't be using SLI at least until 8 months from now. For now I won't worry about it, and in the future I'll upgrade the PSU.

Also thanks a lot to everyone who offered advice. I'm going to order the build tomorrow, since it doesn't matter anyway because newegg doesn't ship on the weekend.

Cheers, and here is to be going from and Athlon Dual Core with no dedicated GPU to this monster!

EDIT: Question: Do I have to purchase a DVI to HDMI to run the GPU to my 28" 1080p TV/Monitor?

I strongly advise against the Seagate brand. They're known to have the most problems. I've gone through several bad Seagate drives on customer's computers, just regular users, and Dell users. I will never buy Seagate in my life.

Western Digital is the best HDD Brand, and I happen to own the hitachi i sent the link for. It works great!