UPDATED:
Been looking around a lot and reading up on stuff. I think I agree with your recommendation to grab a 6950 and upgrade it. Switched a few other pieces based on feedback and other build reviews. The big question is now where to get the vid card as newegg is out of stock and amazon is listing the MSI Frozr III card at $387 which seems ridiculous.
I singled out MSI as it seems to be considered among the best with the least amount of issues from upgrading. But as always, I am open to suggestions!
Also, I am sticking with an SSD as it seems to be regarded as the single best upgrade you can make to a system these days in terms of the overall feel of system speed. I like to alt-tab out of games alot and I always hated the HD thrashing from the virtual memory with a passion. I would like to minimize that as much as possible without going crazy with the budget (on a side note that is why I was looking at 12gb ram initially as the amount of free memory seems to have an effect on how painful that alt-tabbing out of games is).
That said I have been reading recommendations that suggest staying away from the new SF drives to avoid a lot of the issues that have been emerging. The M4 line was suggested as a low price alternative to the intel controllers. Given all that my decision has been mainly determining if I should go with 128 or 256. I'm thinking that for boot + a few regularly played games on board (for level load performance mainly) + having sufficient free space the 256 is probably a better bet.
*****************
Hi all. Been researching this build for a few days now. I've got a bit of wiggle room with this build. Initially I was looking at getting two of the graphics board listed below but I am somewhat unsure whether to mess with SLI or not after reading the MicroStutter article. Please let me know what you think.
Approximate Purchase Date: 1-2 weeks
Budget Range: (e.g.: 600-800) ~$1700 After Rebates
System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming
Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com
Country of Origin: USA
Parts Preferences: none
Overclocking: Yes on CPU
SLI or Crossfire: Yes
Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050 moving to 1920x1080 ina few months
Additional Comments:
Core i5 2500K LGA 1155 Boxed Processor
GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0, Black Interior and Four Fans-1x 230mm front RED LED fan, 1x 140mm rear fan, 1x 230mm top fan, and 1x 230mm side fan
Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-900 900W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
ASUS Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM 8MB Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS - OEM
Been looking around a lot and reading up on stuff. I think I agree with your recommendation to grab a 6950 and upgrade it. Switched a few other pieces based on feedback and other build reviews. The big question is now where to get the vid card as newegg is out of stock and amazon is listing the MSI Frozr III card at $387 which seems ridiculous.
I singled out MSI as it seems to be considered among the best with the least amount of issues from upgrading. But as always, I am open to suggestions!
Also, I am sticking with an SSD as it seems to be regarded as the single best upgrade you can make to a system these days in terms of the overall feel of system speed. I like to alt-tab out of games alot and I always hated the HD thrashing from the virtual memory with a passion. I would like to minimize that as much as possible without going crazy with the budget (on a side note that is why I was looking at 12gb ram initially as the amount of free memory seems to have an effect on how painful that alt-tabbing out of games is).
That said I have been reading recommendations that suggest staying away from the new SF drives to avoid a lot of the issues that have been emerging. The M4 line was suggested as a low price alternative to the intel controllers. Given all that my decision has been mainly determining if I should go with 128 or 256. I'm thinking that for boot + a few regularly played games on board (for level load performance mainly) + having sufficient free space the 256 is probably a better bet.
*****************
Hi all. Been researching this build for a few days now. I've got a bit of wiggle room with this build. Initially I was looking at getting two of the graphics board listed below but I am somewhat unsure whether to mess with SLI or not after reading the MicroStutter article. Please let me know what you think.
Approximate Purchase Date: 1-2 weeks
Budget Range: (e.g.: 600-800) ~$1700 After Rebates
System Usage from Most to Least Important: gaming
Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS
Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com
Country of Origin: USA
Parts Preferences: none
Overclocking: Yes on CPU
SLI or Crossfire: Yes
Monitor Resolution: 1680x1050 moving to 1920x1080 ina few months
Additional Comments:
Core i5 2500K LGA 1155 Boxed Processor
GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3 LGA 1155 Intel Z68 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
G.SKILL Ripjaws Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model F3-12800CL9D-8GBRL
Crucial M4 CT256M4SSD2 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
SAMSUNG Spinpoint F3 HD103SJ 1TB 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive
COOLER MASTER Hyper 212 Plus RR-B10-212P-G1 "Heatpipe Direct Contact" Long Life Sleeve 120mm
COOLER MASTER HAF 932 Advanced RC-932-KKN5-GP Black Steel ATX Full Tower Compucase Case with USB 3.0, Black Interior and Four Fans-1x 230mm front RED LED fan, 1x 140mm rear fan, 1x 230mm top fan, and 1x 230mm side fan
Antec High Current Gamer Series HCG-900 900W ATX12V v2.3 / EPS12V v2.91 SLI Certified CrossFire Certified 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
MSI R6950 Twin Frozr III PE/OC Radeon HD 6950 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.1 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card with Eyefinity
ASUS Black 12X BD-R 2X BD-RE 16X DVD+R 12X DVD-RAM 8X BD-ROM 8MB Cache SATA Blu-ray Burner BW-12B1ST/BLK/G/AS - OEM
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