Rate my build please

[Okcookienc]

I'm putting together a new system after years of downtime. My goals are to game at high res and max settings and to do basic video editing. Please let me know what you think. I'm looking for feedack and advice. Thanks.


INTEL Core™ i7-2600K Quad-Core 3.4GHz, HD Graphics 3000, LGA1155, 8MB L3 Cache, 32nm, 95W, EM64T EIST HT TB VT-x XD, Retail
ARCTIC SILVER Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver
SERVICE Mild Overclocking, 10-20% Performance Increase
CORSAIR H60 Hydro CPU Liquid Cooling System, Socket LGA1155/1156/1366/775/AM3, Retail
CUSTOM Coolant, Crystal Clear
GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3, LGA1155, Intel® Z68, DDR3-2133 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2, SATA 3Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 6Gb/s /4, USB 3.0 /4, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail
CORSAIR 8GB (2 x 4GB) Vengeance™ PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
EVGA GeForce® GTX SuperClocked (1463) 560 850MHz, 1GB GDDR5 4104MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI + mini-HDMI, Retail
SEAGATE 1TB Barracuda® 7200.12, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache
RAID No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
SONY AD-7260S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, OEM
ANTEC VSK-2000 Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU
CUSTOM WIRING Standard Wiring with Round Cables
COOLER MASTER Silent Pro M 850W Power Supply w/ Modular Cables, 80 PLUS® Bronze, ATX12V 2.3 EPS12V 2.92, 6x 8/6-pin PCIe, SLI® Certified, Retail
MICROSOFT Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM

 

[sadams04]

Pretty good. My thoughts are below...

CPU - For gaming and basic video editing the 2600k is overkill. The 2500k will do the same job for less money.

CPU Cooler - Water cooling adds to the cool factor, but won't do much better than the Hyper 212+ (air cooler) for a fraction of the price.

Overclocking - I wouldn't pay someone to overclock when it is VERY easy to do yourself. 10% - 20% is very conservative for the 2500k / 2600k.

MEM - Fine and all, but would recommend going with lower latency if it fits within your budget. CL8 or CL7 would be a very welcome upgrade.

PSU - Any other options from either Antec, Corsair, XFX or Seasonic? 850w is overkill for a single GTX 560, but fine if you plan on adding a second down the road. If you plan on sticking with a single GPU, a good 650w unit would be fine.

Enjoy that rig!!

 

[Okcookienc]

Thanks for the reply. I haven't actually built my own pc in over 10 years, so I'm opting to pay a custom builder to create this system.

CPU - to clarify, are you suggesting Core i5 2500k instead of Core i7 2600k? If so, would the 6MB cache version be adequate?

I will certainly will opt for fan cooling if you think it'll be better and cheaper.

The 10-20 percent over clocking is included free of charge.

If I make the changes to the CPU, cooling and PSU that you suggested, the build price becomes: $1314.
The way I had it configured before it was $1530. Is it worth saving $200 to downgrade the CPU to Core i5?

It now looks like:

INTEL Core™ i5-2500K Quad-Core 3.3GHz, HD Graphics 3000, LGA1155, 6MB L3 Cache, 32nm, 95W, EM64T EIST TB VT-x XD, Retail
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler, Socket 1155/1156/1366/775/AM3/AM2, Copper/Aluminum, Retail
ARCTIC SILVER Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver
SERVICE Mild Overclocking, 10-20% Performance Increase
GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3, LGA1155, Intel® Z68, DDR3-2133 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2, SATA 3Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 6Gb/s /4, USB 3.0 /4, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail
CORSAIR 8GB (2 x 4GB) Vengeance™ PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL9 (9-9-9-24) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC
EVGA GeForce® GTX SuperClocked (1463) 560 850MHz, 1GB GDDR5 4104MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI + mini-HDMI, Retail
SEAGATE 1TB Barracuda® 7200.12, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache
RAID No RAID, Independent HDD Drives
SONY AD-7260S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, OEM
ANTEC VSK-2000 Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU
CUSTOM WIRING Standard Wiring with Round Cables
COOLER MASTER GX 650W, 80 PLUS®, 650W Power Supply, ATX12V 2.31 EPS12V, 2x 8/6-pin PCIe, SLI® Certified, Retail

 

[sadams04]

Yes. Drop down to the 2500k... You won't notice the difference as most games don't take advantage of hyperthreading on the 2600k.

I wouldn't say air cooling is "better", but will do a great job keeping temps in check at a smaller price. You won't regret going with the Hyper 212+.

Do you have different vendors for a power supply to choose from?

 

[Okcookienc]

Ok that makes sense. I guess I'm wondering if in the future I'll regret not going i7? Of course I could always upgrade the CPU if needed. And for video editing, the i5 will do?

Thanks for the feedback on the fans.

I have several vendors to choose from for PSU...
Corsair, Antec, Coolermaster, In-Win, Enermax, Kingwin, Enermax, NZXT, OCZ, Thermaltake... The list goes on. Is there a brand/model you suggest?

Ps: I'm planning to run HDMI to my 1080p flatscreen TV and possibly purchase a monitor. I'd like to be able to switch back and forth, and the tv will likely be my main display for games. So I'll be running at 1080 most of the time, then at 1920 some times. Any thoughts on this?

Thank you so much for all your help.

 

[IntelEnthusiast]

Here is the issue with the Intel Core i7-2600K. Right now very few games and few applications can take advantage of more than 3 threads; because of this the value of the hyper-threading on the Intel Core i7-2600K is minimal in the gaming environment. One of the few areas in which hyper-threading can give you a performance advantage is in some audio/video editing software like Adobe CS. Here is a good comparison between these 2 processors http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/288?vs=287 . So you need to ask yourself how much you are going to be doing video type work and if the application will take advantage of the extra threads. If it isn’t worth the $100 price difference save yourself the money and put it into something that will make a difference, like a small SSD.

Christian Wood
Intel Enthusiast Team

 

[sadams04]

I have several vendors to choose from for PSU...
Corsair, Antec, Coolermaster, In-Win, Enermax, Kingwin, Enermax, NZXT, OCZ, Thermaltake... The list goes on. Is there a brand/model you suggest?

Go with either an Antec or Corsair PSU.

 

[jadedmonkey]

Several folks gave some very good suggestions. Let me smush them all together for you and give you some links.

8 GB RAM kit with lower latency
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233185
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231445

I'd also stick to Corsair or Antec PSUs, one of these is fine, ( i like the one thats modular for only like $15 more )
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Productcompare.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=100007657%2050001459%20600014022&IsNodeId=1&bop=And&CompareItemList=58|17-139-005^17-139-005-TS%2C17-139-020^17-139-020-TS%2C17-139-031^17-139-031-TS

I think you might be lowballing your GPU if you plan to use this as a gaming PC for a few years. 560 is great, but i might consider taking the $100 bucks you saved by going 2500k instead of 2600k and putting into a better GPU, like a 560Ti, or a HD 6950 2GB.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130604&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=fuhr0bgo4r1z
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814150527&nm_mc=AFC-C8Junction&cm_mmc=AFC-C8Junction-_-RSSDailyDeals-_-na-_-na&AID=10521304&PID=4176827&SID=7uwse0b5uzj5

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-performance-radeon-geforce,2997-4.html

Lastly, you configured a $1300-$1500 PC, and I don't see a SSD. I'd get one of those in there somehow, even if you gotta get a small-ish one

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441

 

[jeremy1183]

^+1 atleast 560 ti

 

[Okcookienc]

Thanks for all the feedback, guys.

So, here's what I'm working with:

CPU - I'm going to stick with the Core i7 2600K because I want the extra power from hyperthreading to be able to do video editing and to mess with 3D rendering. Unless, if I cap out my funds, and I need to pump more money into anything, then I'm going to make sure I have a good video card.

RAM - I'm going with 16GB of Corsair Vengeance PC3-12800 DD3 1600MHz CL8.

Video Card - EVGA GeForce GTX 570 Superclocked (TR) 797MHz, 1280MB GDDR5 3900MHz

PSU - Corsair TX650 V2 80+ Bronze

Am I making a smart video card choice here? My first priority is really gaming.

Also, I'm having a really hard time choosing a motherboard... I'd love to be able to run SLI at x16,x16 (two cards both at x16), but I don't know if that's possible yet. I can't find a definitive answer. Anyway, is the EVGA GeForce 570 Superclocked (TR) that I selected a good enough single card for my purposes (assuming I don't end up running 2 cards through SLI)?

I'm beginning to narrow it down, thanks largely to all the help you all have provided.

 

[Okcookienc]

BTW, the build as it stands now looks like:

INTEL Core™ i7-2600K Quad-Core 3.4GHz, HD Graphics 3000, LGA1155, 8MB L3 Cache, 32nm, 95W, EM64T EIST HT TB VT-x XD, Retail

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler, Socket 1155/1156/1366/775/AM3/AM2, Copper/Aluminum, Retail

ARCTIC SILVER Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver

SERVICE Mild Overclocking, 10-20% Performance Increase

GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3, LGA1155, Intel® Z68, DDR3-2133 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2, SATA 3Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 6Gb/s /4, USB 3.0 /4, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail

CORSAIR 16GB (4 x 4GB) Vengeance™ PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL8 (8-8-8-24) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC

EVGA GeForce® GTX 570 Superclocked (AR) 797MHz, 1280MB GDDR5 3900MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI+mini-HDMI, Retail

SEAGATE 1TB Barracuda® 7200.12, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache

SONY AD-7260S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, OEM

ANTEC Three Hundred Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU

CORSAIR TX650 V2 Power Supply 650W, 80 PLUS® Bronze, 24-pin ATX12V v2.31 EPS12V 2.92, 2x 8/6-pin PCIe

MICROSOFT Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM

 

[inzone]

Hi , I don't know what your budget might be but if gaming is your main interest and your goal is to have the best gaming you might consider the Evga 580 GTX FTW Hydro Copper 2 3gb card. Its water cooled and with 3gb video mem you will have no problems maxing out the settings. They also have one with a fan set up if you prefer. I have two hydro's in sli and they are great. As far as motherboards go you might look for one that has the NF200 chip. Mine is the Asus P6 X58-E WS two slots running 16 lanes and an OCZ Revo Drive X2 in the next slot. Do your research and you will see the boards with the NF200 chip and what slots will support the 16 lanes.

 

[jadedmonkey]

yes a gtx 570 is more powerful than any other card anyone has mentioned/suggested in this entire thread. Be prepared to drop $330 on one though.

since you dealing with socket 1155 which is dual channel, you need a special board that is paired with a NF200 chip to get SLI/Xfire at 16x/16x, unlike the older x58 chipset that had more PCI lanes to go around. There are very few choices for boards of this type and they typically run at a premium. I could be mistaken, but I don't even currently see a board of this type for sale on newegg. I think you'll still be fine with a 16x/8x or a 8x/8x board. The performance lost is not earth-shattering.
There is a good review of exactly this here:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/p67-gaming-3-way-sli-three-card-crossfire,2910.html
I think the easiest thing to take away from that article is " you dont really need NF200 unless you going 3 way SLI/Xfire or more, for 2 way, 16x/16x is only slightly better than 16x/8x or 8x/8x. " I doubt you'd ever know the difference. Just dont ever put a GPU in a 16x/4x configuration, the card in the 4x will be heavily crippled.

EDIT: I did find a board on newegg that is 16x/16x or 16x/8x/8x, its not specifically NF200 but will allow dual/trip GPUs
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157269

 

[Okcookienc]

Ok, so my funds are kind of limited. So, it may come down to CPU vs. GPU for me. Given that I want to be able to do at least some basic video editing, and that gaming is my primary use for this rig, the question becomes:

1. Core i7 2600K with GTX 570 Superclocked 1280MB
or
2. Core i5 2500K with GTX 580 Superclocked 1536GB
????

 

[Okcookienc]

Inzone, I can't afford to pay for cards of that caliber.

Jadedmonkey, thanks for the info on the boards. I'm just going to go with a board that can run x16,x8 should I decide to put a second GPU in at some point in the future.

Everyone, please see my latest configuration and let me know what you think:

INTEL Core™ i7-2600K Quad-Core 3.4GHz, HD Graphics 3000, LGA1155, 8MB L3 Cache, 32nm, 95W, EM64T EIST HT TB VT-x XD, Retail

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler, Socket 1155/1156/1366/775/AM3/AM2, Copper/Aluminum, Retail

ARCTIC SILVER Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver

SERVICE Mild Overclocking, 10-20% Performance Increase

GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3, LGA1155, Intel® Z68, DDR3-2133 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2, SATA 3Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 6Gb/s /4, USB 3.0 /4, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail

CORSAIR 16GB (4 x 4GB) Vengeance™ PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL8 (8-8-8-24) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC

EVGA GeForce® GTX 570 Superclocked (AR) 797MHz, 1280MB GDDR5 3900MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI+mini-HDMI, Retail

SEAGATE 1TB Barracuda® 7200.12, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache

SONY AD-7260S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, OEM

ANTEC Three Hundred Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU

CORSAIR TX650 V2 Power Supply 650W, 80 PLUS® Bronze, 24-pin ATX12V v2.31 EPS12V 2.92, 2x 8/6-pin PCIe

MICROSOFT Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM

 

[jadedmonkey]

I'd still forget the 2600k and get a 2500k and take that $100 and get a Crucial M4 SSD. You'll see way more performance outta that SSD than you will from hyperthreading, particularly in regards to day-to-day apps and some gaming.

Otherwise, I have PC envy. Good build.

 

[justjohn5]

Take the intel core i5 2500k with the gtx 570. What more would you ask for?
The cpu is amazing, and the gtx 570 will max out almost all games easily on a single monitor. Best of luck

 

[Okcookienc]

Ok, so I'm hearing overwhelming support for the i5 over the i7, particularly because of the cost savings. Regarding SSD, I've heard too many horror stories about the stability of low-moderate cost SSD. Are you guys suggesting I get a 60GB SSD to boot off, in order to speed up booting and processing? Truth is, for me, I don't want the hassle of having to reinstall Windows after my SSD goes down, as I've heard they tend to do.

I'll save $113 if I go down to i5 2500K. Perhaps I'll just take that money and pocket it.

Finally, does anyone know the difference between the GTX 570 Superclocked and the GTX 570 HD - I mean, beyond the Superclocked being an overclocked version... why is the HD a few dollars more? My goal is to output to my 1080P HD TV... the Superclocked has mini-HDMI, so won't that work?

Anyway, forgive me... I'm pretty much a newb all over again. As I said, it's been years.

 

[jadedmonkey]

even with all the 'problems' surrounding SSDs, (Particularly OCZ & other sandforce based controllers ) an SSD is still far, far more reliable than any magnetic drive. And the performance difference is off the scale.
Check out some Crucial SSDs versus a 5400 rpm drive. Pay particular attention to page 9: starting apps.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/m4-ssd-capacity-comparison,2957.html

and this one made me laugh, its 2x SSDs in RAID 0 benchmarked against 4x 15k HDDs in RAID 0 and 8x 15k drives in RAID 0. Its a disaster... i can't... look...away. Poor magnetic drives. Didn't stand a chance.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-raid-array-hard-drive,2775.html

 

[Okcookienc]

So, solid state drives are actually LESS likely to crash than magnetic drives are?

Even so, I'm reluctant to pay a premium for an ultra-fast hard drive. This whole thing raises one more question, though: if I'm purchasing simply a 1TB magnetic HD, will my games slow down because of the lack of RAID? I'm more inclined to just buy a single HD, but if my gaming will truly suffer, then I'll have to go with an alternative.

 

[jadedmonkey]

Nah, the difference between 1x 7200 and 2x 7200 drives in RAID 0 when it comes to gaming is almost nothing. The difference between an HDD and an SSD for gaming is definately a smaller margin then when talking about HDD vs SSD for startup times and application launch times, moving data, etc etc, but it IS a difference for sure.

Heres a specifically gaming related article might make it clearer
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-gaming-performance,2991-14.html

Here's one from 2009, keep in mind SSDs are much, much faster now.
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/windows-ssd-performance,2518-6.html

dont bother using more than 1 standard HDD in RAID 0 for performance boosts of your OS or games. You could use more than 1 in RAID 0 if you want additional capacity on 1 logical volume, or you could RAID 1 for redundancy. But once you try an SSD you will understand the 'snappy-ness' factor of SSDs. Again, gaming is probably the least dependent on HDD performance than any other piece of hardware in your build. Don't fret if you just wanna stick with the 1TB Seagate.

 

[clonazepam]

Ok, so I'm hearing overwhelming support for the i5 over the i7, particularly because of the cost savings. Regarding SSD, I've heard too many horror stories about the stability of low-moderate cost SSD. Are you guys suggesting I get a 60GB SSD to boot off, in order to speed up booting and processing? Truth is, for me, I don't want the hassle of having to reinstall Windows after my SSD goes down, as I've heard they tend to do.

I'll save $113 if I go down to i5 2500K. Perhaps I'll just take that money and pocket it.

Finally, does anyone know the difference between the GTX 570 Superclocked and the GTX 570 HD - I mean, beyond the Superclocked being an overclocked version... why is the HD a few dollars more? My goal is to output to my 1080P HD TV... the Superclocked has mini-HDMI, so won't that work?

Anyway, forgive me... I'm pretty much a newb all over again. As I said, it's been years.

You claim gaming is priority #1, so go with the i5-2500k. If you intend to work with and create audio/video files of several gigabytes and / or encrypting really large files or entire storage drives, then the i7-2600k will earn its msrp. (compared to 2007 and the $300+ price tag of the Q6600)

As far as SSDs go, here's the real picture. You're paying someone else to build the system so its their potential headache, not yours. The builder should be hooking the SSD up to another system to make sure it has the latest firmware before proceeding to build your system. If there's any major problems with the SSD he will discover it at that point, or while installing Windows, drivers, and software. All told, by the time the system is done, it'll have had atleast 20-25 gigabytes of data written to it, and a lot of reads as well. If the SSD gives no problems at that point, it probably won't at all... the odds are in favor of it being perfectly fine.

I think the gtx 570 and the similarly priced 6970 (even 6950) could arguably be some of the best pound for pound video cards out there. You can find them on average for $300-330. If you look around, at some brick and mortar stores, you could find the PNY GTX 580 for as low as $400-420 w/ rebates. You can't go wrong with any of those cards. It also depends what games you intend to play and what their requirements might be for gaming at 1080p at maxed settings. For 99.9% of the games available as of today, the 6950/6970 and gtx 570 will own them at 1080p / single monitor set-up.

 

[clonazepam]

So, solid state drives are actually LESS likely to crash than magnetic drives are?

Even so, I'm reluctant to pay a premium for an ultra-fast hard drive. This whole thing raises one more question, though: if I'm purchasing simply a 1TB magnetic HD, will my games slow down because of the lack of RAID? I'm more inclined to just buy a single HD, but if my gaming will truly suffer, then I'll have to go with an alternative.

jadedmonkey pretty much said it all...

all of my games load off my 1TB drive... its just fine and dandy. I think the only game I would consider installing onto my SSD is Star Wars The Old Republic... just because its a mmorpg and its special lol .... right now I'm playing around with Rift, another mmo, and there's no reason to believe that installing it to the ssd would do any good.

 

[Okcookienc]

Ok, so the build is getting really close to final:

INTEL Core™ i5-2500K Quad-Core 3.3GHz, HD Graphics 3000, LGA1155, 6MB L3 Cache, 32nm, 95W, EM64T EIST TB VT-x XD, Retail

COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus CPU Cooler, Socket 1155/1156/1366/775/AM3/AM2, Copper/Aluminum, Retail

ARCTIC SILVER Arctic Silver 5 Thermal Compound, Polysynthetic Silver

SERVICE Mild Overclocking, 10-20% Performance Increase

GIGABYTE GA-Z68XP-UD3, LGA1155, Intel® Z68, DDR3-2133 32GB /4, PCIe x16 SLI CF /2, SATA 3Gb/s RAID 5 /4, 6Gb/s /4, USB 3.0 /4, HDMI, HDA, GbLAN, FW /2, ATX, Retail

CORSAIR 16GB (4 x 4GB) Vengeance™ PC3-12800 DDR3 1600MHz CL8 (8-8-8-24) 1.5V SDRAM DIMM, Non-ECC

EVGA GeForce® GTX 570 Superclocked (AR) 797MHz, 1280MB GDDR5 3900MHz, PCIe x16 SLI, 2x DVI+mini-HDMI, Retail

SEAGATE 1TB Barracuda® 7200.12, SATA 6 Gb/s, 7200 RPM, 32MB cache

RAID No RAID, Independent HDD Drives

SONY AD-7260S Black 24x DVD±R/RW Dual-Layer Burner, SATA, OEM

ANTEC Three Hundred Black Mid-Tower Case, ATX, No PSU

CUSTOM WIRING Standard Wiring with Round Cables

CORSAIR TX650 V2 Power Supply 650W, 80 PLUS® Bronze, 24-pin ATX12V v2.31 EPS12V 2.92, 2x 8/6-pin PCIe

MICROSOFT Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition w/ SP1, OEM

What do you guys think? The plan is to run Star Craft 2, Diablo 3, Battlefield 3 (when it comes out), RAGE, etc. at max settings on a 1080P HD TV. I'll be editing some basic HD video pulled from my Canon HD handycam. Those video files can get really big, but I'm not all that concerned with render time as long as the final product looks good. I'm hoping to place the order by Thursday, so I'm definitely getting close to a final build here.

To all those writing about SSDs: I'm not trying to outright reject your advice. I'm very close to capping out on funds at this point. I have all of about $100 to maneuver with, and that's simply not enough for a decent SSD. If anything, I'll use that money to go i7 instead.

Anyway, final thoughts?

 

[clonazepam]

Looking pretty good...

I'm not pushing SSD on you, but nowadays, when a new computer build reaches a certain price point, a lot of people wonder, if its that much, why no SSD? That's the mode of thinking you are likely seeing here.

I'll just add this link - http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-z68-express-smart-response-technology-ssd-caching,2938-3.html - to a Tom's article about Intel's Smart Response Technology, available on your motherboard.

The hardest part about a build, at least for me, is pulling the trigger on the chosen components. You might think to yourself, well supposedly Bulldozer will be out next month. Intel's releasing new processors sometime this year... and AMD's got new graphics cards right around the corner too... yada yada... you can't wait for the next best thing to arrive, or you'll wait forever.

I always tend to be long-winded. It's the meds. That's a great system anyone would be proud to own.