1st Build would like experienced opinion

[jemcglot]

I am focusing on gaming primarily Battlefield 3, SWTOR, Skyrim at 60FPS on 1080p resolution. I also download and stream movies/t.v shows often but I do not keep them on my current laptop after viewing them. I would be interested in burning blu-ray movies and dvd's.

My max budget for this PC $1,500 roughly any ideas on where I could save money and still have peak performance I am all ears.

I am currently looking at hardware from newegg.com because they have such an expansive selection and easy to navigate website. I have found cheaper prices on Amazon.com for some of the hardware. I would however more than likely buy all hardware from one site.

CPU: i5 2500K
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072
MOBO: ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131790
GPU: Sapphire Radeon HD 7970
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102961
RAM: Corsair Vengeance (2x8GB) DDR3 16GB (1600)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233246
HDD: Western Digital Caviar Black 1.5TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136793
PSU: SeaSonic Platinum 860W
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151111
Optical Drive: Samsung Black 12X BD-ROM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151232
Case: Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower w/Upgraded USB 3.0
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021
OS: Windows 7 Home Professional 64-bit OEM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16832116986

I would like to overclock and I have no experience with it or building a PC, but I am sure I can figure it out I have already been looking into it. I am not sure if I should look into downgrading GPU's and running SLI/Crossfire or even saving up for another GTX 580. I thought I read somewhere that PCIE 3.0 x16 will run PCIE 2.0 GPU's at x32 but I have no clue if that is true or what effect it would have on performance. I also read that PCIE 3.0 is unusable at the moment until Intel's Ivy Bridge releases which brings me to my other thought. Should I wait for the Ivy Bridge processors to release and possibly get one of them or stick with what I have chosen and hope the price drops on some of the hardware over the next month or so. I have no time table as to when I need to complete this build but I am getting my tax return soon so I am not sure if I will have the willpower to hold out.

If anyone has any better suggestions for hardware and heatsinks/cooling if you think I will need it please respond. I also looked into SSD's but I have heard that I should wait for the price per GB to drop on them. I look forward to your input and recommendations.

Total Price: $1,573 USD

 

[charon711]

In my honest opinion the Rosewill Blackhawk is a much better case at the same price. Also you might want to look at your USB 3 ports. The antec 900 has 2 of them and they appear to be internal connections. Your current choice for a motherboard doesnt have internal USB 3. But the ASRock P67 EXTREME4 GEN3 does. Also your first pick for mobo doest allow to xfire or sli, my pick does if you choose to do so in the future and its only $20 more.

EDIT:

also i think your psu is a bit overkill but the power will be there if you need it i guess, but i would recomend going with a better brand name like SeaSonic, Corsair, or OCZ. Also even though it is a gold it is a "tier 3" psu.

Use This to help decide on a better PSU.

EDIT 2:

why 16GB? its a bit overkill and if your planning to OC the CPU its actually harder with all 4 ram slots in use.

I would wait on IB untill the 2nd or 3rd generation comes out.

 

[g-unit1111]

I would wait on IB untill the 2nd or 3rd generation comes out.

Ivy is not going to be the massive improvement everyone thinks it is - it will be like P55 was to X58. If you want to be future proof, X79 is the way to go but that will run you quite a bit more - the i7-3820 will far out perform the i5-3950K. But that's also using quad channel RAM and things like that.

The proposed build looks really good but I'd swap out the case with the Corsair Carbide 400R: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139008

And then for storage I'd switch out the 1.5TB hard drive for a WD Caviar Blue 500GB and a 64GB Crucial M4 for boot drive. Also drop the 16GB of RAM to 8GB.

Crucial M4: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148441
Western Digital Caviar Blue: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136769

Also don't get the Vengeance with the tall heat sinks especially if you plan on using an aftermarket cooler. Not only do the tall heat sinks not do anything but Corsair makes a low profile version of the same RAM for just this reason: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233196