How's this build...?

If it's for gaming, get 8GB of RAM instead. 12GB unless you're video editing is never utilized. Use that money to get the i5 3570K.

Putting two 7870s in crossfire is kinda lame. If you have that kind of money to spend you should get a single 7970 and save up to add a second one in crossfire later

You also need to change up that memory because that set is meant for an LGA 1366 platform. If Newegg is pairing that with a Z77 it's likely that they're just trying to flush out inventory but it's a total waste. You need to get a 2 or 4 DIMM set

Just browsing over the differences btwn the i5 3550 and the i5 3570 the only thing I see is 0.1 GHz... is that really worth the extra money?

The system is mostly for gaming, Rift to be specific and D3 soon enough. I do some video editing but not on a regular basis, probably about twice a month. I already purchased the 12 GB 3 pack like I said i had a BBY gift card so it ended up only being $22, which I thought was pretty good. Should I look into getting different memory and just sell that memory I bought?

woah slow down there tiger. Rift absolutely HATES the Radeon 7000 series cards and will not work at all with 7000 series cards in Crossfire, it will deadlock within 30 seconds. Rift is an NVidia game through and through

ROFL allright then help... I'm a Rifter thru and Thru, although Im only 2 months old to the game lol

all it calls for is Nvidia® GTS 250 or better
which is really out dated imo... I just want to maximize for my dollar and have something that will last me for 4-5 years like my current desktop has done.

It just doesn't like the 7000 cards for some reason. My old 6970 worked alright, 7970 not so much

I was considering the Asus Rage Mobo with the i5? any opinions on that?

Im looking into different GPUs atm also, work is very boring atm lol

I would generally recommend Asus motherboards over ASRock (Disclosure: I've owned dozens of Asus boards and never an ASRock so I'm a bit biased). If you want to play Rift I suggest an NVidia 600 series card

EDIT: If by Rage you mean Rampage those are ultra high end enthusiast boards and I don't believe that there is a Rampage board available for the 1155 platform, only 1366 and 2011

I have always personnaly used nothing but Asus myself. I was actually going to build this time around based on reviews and such... But you are the second person to tell me to stick to Asus... I have never had an issue with them and I did just come across that warped/thin mobo thread about ASRock.

So if you have the time, hopefully you are bored out of your skull at work too... lol for <=$1000 I'd love to see your recomended build...? All I am looking for is a Mobo, CPU, GPU, and Memory...

-Mat

So here is what I have now...

Mobo: ASUS P8Z77-V DELUXE
CPU: Intel Core i5-3550 Ivy Bridge 3.3GHz
GPU: ASUS GTX680-DC2T-2GD5 GeForce GTX 680 2GB 256-bit GDDR5
Memory: G.SKILL Trident X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3 DDR3 2600 (PC3 20800)

how am I looking now?

The deluxe motherboard is a bit overkill. It really doesn't have a lot that the Pro doesn't. If it doesn't have something that you need, get the pro instead and save 70 bucks

CPU is fine but I would spend the extra money and get a 3570k with an unlocked multiplier

Don't bother with that memory, it's hard to get memory stable at speeds above 1866 and a lot of motherboards tend to cap out around 2133. There's very little gain at speeds higher than 1600, the extra capacity is far more useful than the extra bus speed. The vengeance ram that I linked before is absolutely terrific

This thread went like 10 post too long. Things to change: RAM, video card, cpu and I'l show you another board to consider.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?Ite... $364.98 save: $10.00
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z77%20Extre... <----- another look at that board

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/asrock_z77_extreme... <----- review of that board w/benchmarks

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $399.99 FREE SHIPPING
MSI N670GTX-PM2D2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 670 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5818/nvidia-geforce-gtx-6... <----- review of the 670 w/benchmarks


http://www.amazon.com/Cooler-Master-Hyper-212-RR-212E-2... $34.95 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping
Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler (RR-212E-20PK-R2)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E168... $41.99 FREE SHIPPING
Patriot Signature 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory with heatshield Model PSD38G1600KH

Best answer selected by Matlo779.

The GTX 670 performs better than the 7950 and a little less than the 7970.