Another Skyrim Build for $1500 by January

[HyperRainbow]

Please tell me your recommendations for the best motherboard, GPU, and CPU.

Also, if I buy an HD 6950 and flash to a 6970, then purchase a 6970 next year, will they work?


Approximate Purchase Date: Computer to be running by January 2012.

Budget Range: ~$1500

System Usage from Most to Least Important:
1) Programming, Web Surfing, Using Office products
2) Gaming: Skyrim (Max), League of Legends (Max), Modern Warfare 3 (Max), Battlefield 3 (Best possible).
3) Watching Movies.

Parts Not Required: OS (Win7-64bit), speakers, mouse, keyboard

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: ebay.ca, ncix.com, canadacomputers.com, tigerdirect.ca.

Country: Canada

Parts Preferences: Best performance on Skyrim and possibly BF3.

Overclocking: Yes.

SLI or Crossfire: Future.

Monitor Resolution: 1024x768 – Planning to purchase higher resolution monitor next year or during boxing day.

Additional Comments:

Currently Planned Build:

CPU: i5 - 2500k - possibly 2600k since I plan to overclock the 6950 to a 6970 (and purchase another one at a later date).

MOBO: asrock z68 extreme3 gen3 or asus p8z68-v - TBD

GPU: PowerColor HD 6950 2GB (planning to flash to 6970 and to purchase a second one next year).

Case: 500r Corsair

PSU: Seasonic x-850

Cooling: H100 corsair

RAM: Corsair Vengence 8GB DD3 1600Mhz CL9 DIMMs

HD: Corsair Force Series 3 120GB SATA III SSD

 

[chuglife]

If you're looking to flash a 6950, look at the 6950 toxic, it has a physical switch that you flip on the card and you just reboot your computer and it attempts to unlock the additional shaders.

The i7 2600k gives no advantage in gaming over the 2500k so save your money.

the asrock extreme3 gen3 is a great mobo, im using it now actually.

Holy *** there's no way you need to drop $220 on a 850w psu... http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139009 that one is 150, just as good. The only difference is that it isn't modular, meaning you need to hide more cables.. but honestly if you care that much you could also go with the hx fully modular series and still save some money while getting a really good quality psu http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139011&Tpk=hx%20850

cooling looks fine, if you want to go with air instead look at the scythe mugen 3 http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835185168&Tpk=scythe%20mugen%203

rams fine

A little more spendy but i like the crucial m4 128gb ssd, its super stable and always gets great reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148442