[Homebuillt] First time assembling

Great GPU and CPU, pretty weak motherboard and is the extra $75 on a 2 TB SATA 6gb/s drive that necessary?

I would look to get a 500GB-1TB SATA3 HDD and a decent SSD.

I would also look at a better motherboard, the GA-Z68XP-UD4 or UD5 will be better or the ASUS P8Z68 V Pro or Deluxe.

Save another $100+ and drop to a i5 2500k.

The case is a bit big, though that is a personal choice, I from my part time building personally like the Cooler Master CM 690 II BASIC/ADVANCED as it is pretty up market and nifty for a virtual steal.

I'm learning also, what makes the mobo weak? From I price perspective shouldn't the any z68 provide nearly the same fps in the latest game? Thanks

Agree with Sari, go withe the I5 2500K. Save that $100 and get a cooler, clock up.
Also, 2TB is overkill for a beginner but HDD's are cheap.
Do you have a decent monitor? Really!
Can you push that GTX 580 to it's limits?
Unless you're going for a MONSTER build do you really need a full tower case. The case you selected is nice, 4 fans and all. But ther are some $60.00 cases out there with 3 fans (quiet) which you can add to if desired. I have an Antec 300 with it's 3rd build and am not disappointed. BTW, why would I need more than a $1000.00 rig?
Yeah, I game.

I tend to agree with the 2GB drive. Win7 defrag will naturally shortstroke the drive giving excellent performance -- faster boot time, faster level load time. And not sure what games you run, my kids using steam can fill a TB in no time. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/HDD-6Gbit,2528-12.h...
"...enthusiasts should definitely go either for Western Digital’s Caviar Black drive or the new Seagate Barracuda XT at 2TB. WD is slightly faster, while Seagate offers better efficiency ..."

Not sure the SSD cache idea really works yet. You have a z68 based MB. That's what I'd get in case SSD caching hits mainstream. http://www.anandtech.com/show/4337/z68-ssd-caching-with...

I'm getting the i7-2600 also, it has a larger cache. Not sure it's worth the extra money. The stock frequency is essentially the same between the i5-2500 and i6-2600.

Thank you for all the responses. Though what I really wanted to know was if I got everything and if they all would fit together  

I've made a few changes.

GPU
Nvidia GTX580
http://www.excaliberpc.com/600706/evga-geforce-gtx-580-... - $459.00

CPU
Intel CPU i7 2600K
http://www.excaliberpc.com/602234/intel-bx80623i72600k-... - $342.12

MOTHERBOARD
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO
http://www.excaliberpc.com/606959/asus-p8z68-v-pro-inte... - $195.00

RAM
Kingston HYPERX 8GB
http://www.excaliberpc.com/602789/kingston-hyperx-khx16... - $70.47

HDD
Seagate 1TB SATA
http://www.excaliberpc.com/602643/seagate-barracuda-720... - $53.90
+
Crucial M4 64GB SSD
http://www.excaliberpc.com/606642/crucial-m4-ct064m4ssd... - $114.90


PSU
Antec EarthWatts 750W
http://www.excaliberpc.com/607500/antec-ea-750-green-75... - $110.17

CASE
Cooler Master CM 690 II Advanced
http://www.excaliberpc.com/595479/cooler-master-cm-690-... - $84.90

DRIVE
Sony 24X SATA
http://www.excaliberpc.com/596292/sony-optiarc-ad-7260s... - $20.90

OVERALL

$1461.67

I'm not gonna make any sacrifices to the GPU or CPU. I want this rig to be future-proof.

You definitely need a good aftermarket cpu cooler. I like to add a few extra fans to my cases too.

Is a CPU cooler a necessity? I mean, will my system overheat if I don't get one?

If you ever get into overclocking then you will need one, that said, if you are not overclocking then the need for a 2500k or 2600k is irrelevent and you could get just as much out of a i5 2400.

The GTX 580 is a beast of a card but nothing that a 560 or 570 cannot produce, I have seen these two cards on a 2500k and 2100 build and they both destroy Crysis 2 with minimal fuss. You may get x number of years out of a 580 but future proofing a GPU is a feeble effort.

Well the i7 will guarentee you the next 5 odd years +, the GPU perhaps 3 years.

Look at GSkill RipJawsX or Corsair Vengeance RAM with C8 or C9, much better than kingston from my experiences.

Otherwise it looks solid, the only other upgrade is the V-Pro to Deluxe, but that is not really needed.

The obvious start is price, the difference in price tells you a lot about the features and quality of the board. In the case of ASUS or Gigabyte the path for motherboards will be something like; P8P67, P8P67 Pro, P8P67 EVO, P8P67 Deluxe, GA-____ D3/UD3, _____UD4,___UD5,____UD7.

Tech changes include the quality of capacitors and chokes, higher phase VRM, more SATA connections, more PCI-e, PCI-e x 16 etc, and the support for Crossfire and SLI.

Thanks for the detailed explanation, I also have been seeing advertisements for "japenese capacitors.". So how many more frames per second in crysis do you get with mobo that have higher prices vs the cheaper ones? Thanks

A motherboard does not directly correlate into better frames per second, but it directly influences the performance of the CPU, GPU and Memory, all have a influence on FPS.

If you aren't overclocking then you can get by fine with the stock cooler. For overclocking you need to get a good aftermarket cooler. A cooler of some sort is necessary though. If you try to run your cpu with no cooler it will die in a matter of seconds.

With current cpu's you can gain at least 33% more power by overclocking, and all that it costs you is the cost of the aftermarket cooler, so it's very cheap power. What will happen is that in the future you will some day decide your computer is too slow and you want to replace it. If it was overclocked you might go another year or more before you decide you need to replace it, so overclocking will save you money in the future.