$1500 Gaming Build Advice

[hopz]

Hey guys, I have my build almost figured out. Just have a couple questions left to answer.

Approximate Purchase Date: in a week or so

Budget Range: around $1500

System Usage from Most to Least Important: Gaming, school (engineering/programming), internet

Parts Not Required: keyboard, mouse, monitor, speakers, OS

Preferred Website(s) for Parts: newegg.com, amazon, whats ever cheapest really

Country: USA

Parts Preferences:Intel, NVIDA

Overclocking: Yes slight, 4-4.2GHz

SLI or Crossfire: possibly in the future

Monitor Resolution: 1920x1080

Additional Comments: Would like it to last at least 3 or 4 years, would like it to be pretty quiet. (don't want an air plane in my room) basically want to be able to play any games on max settings.

Here's my build.

http://secure.newegg.com/WishList/PublicWishDetail.aspx?WishListNumber=19187772

1) For the motherboard, I've seen a lot of people recommend the GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-UD3H. Should I switch to that? Or stick with my Asrock extreme4? or switch to the extreme6?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128544

2) For my GPU I'm going with the 670, just haven't decided on a brand. Torn between EVGA and GIGABYTE. Heard the windforce was the way to go.

3) I'm also very unsettled about my SSD choice, have seen the Mushkin, Crucrail M4, and the Samgsung tossed around all over the place. But don't really know the difference or advantages of one over the others.

4) just wanted to make sure everything would fit in the Corsair 500r with a possible SLI in the future.

Thanks for all the advice in advance.

 

[azeem40]

The ASRock Extreme4 is just fine.
Not sure on brand.
Crucial M4 is slower in write, but that doesn't really matter. Really any will be fine.
It will.

 

[hopz]

K thats good to know thanks. Why does slow in write not really matter?

 

[manofchalk]

K thats good to know thanks. Why does slow in write not really matter?

In general, an SSD is used as a boot drive and where you install games and such. So it never really has new data written to it past the initial install, so the write speed doesn't matter as much. Though if you were using an SSD as a general storage device (movies, documents, etc), write speed would matter.

 

[hopz]

Ahh ok that makes sense. Word it matter much at all for Office? or not really sense they don't use much memory and don't really write much unless when saving? Is the write speed still faster then a normal HDD? or about similar?

 

[manofchalk]

Ahh ok that makes sense. Word it matter much at all for Office? or not really sense they don't use much memory and don't really write much unless when saving? Is the write speed still faster then a normal HDD? or about similar?

Everything about an SSD is faster than a HDD.

For the programs in Microsoft Office, write speeds wouldn't do anything to speed it up unless you are saving the documents to the SSD, even then it'd be negligible as there pretty small. I wouldn't save documents and files to an SSD anyway, that's what the cheap and cavernous HDD's are for.

Only thing that would write to the SSD after initial installs would be updates or extensions to any games, program or drivers on it. But again, itl do that faster than a HDD.

 

[hopz]

K cool thanks. Would you put the actual Office on their? And then just save everything to the HDD? or actually install the office on the HDD?

 

[manofchalk]

K cool thanks. Would you put the actual Office on their? And then just save everything to the HDD? or actually install the office on the HDD?

Programs on the SSD start up and work faster, so install Office on the SSD and save the documents to a HDD.

 

[hopz]

Awesome thank you manofchalk

 

[Why_Me]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.919543 $219.98 save: $30.00 - $20.00 Mail In Rebates
Corsair Carbide Series 500R White Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ComboDealDetails.aspx?ItemList=Combo.937424 $259.98 save: $30.00 - $20.00 Mail In Rebates
PC Power and Cooling Silencer Mk II 750W High Performance 80PLUS Silver SLI CrossFire ready Power Supply
Seagate Barracuda ST3000DM001 3TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

http://www.guru3d.com/news/pc-power-and-cooling-silencer-mkii-750w-psu-review/ <----- review of that psu @ johnny guru

 

[hopz]

Awesome thanks for those why_me, will save me $60 right off the bat. Would you say the rest of the build is solid as well then?

 

[Why_Me]

Awesome thanks for those why_me, will save me $60 right off the bat. Would you say the rest of the build is solid as well then?

Everything looks good. They don't have that gigabyte card in stock yet, but they have most all the other gtx 670's back in stock so hopefully they get that gigabyte card back in time.

 

[hopz]

Good to know, thanks again. Which of the SSD's would you pick out of those 3?

 

[Why_Me]

Good to know, thanks again. Which of the SSD's would you pick out of those 3?

That's a tough call. I mean all these SSD's are pretty much the same these days since they all have the new firmware update (fixes).

These new Kingston's have gotten some really good reviews form sites such as Storage Reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/Kingston-SSDNow-120GB-Solid-KW-S2120-4B/dp/B007B6YP9I/ref=pd_cp_pc_3 $114.99 & this item ships for FREE with Super Saver Shipping
Kingston SSDNow V+200 120GB SATA III 6Gb/s 2.5 Inch Solid State Drive KW-S2120-4B

 

[hopz]

Do the IOPS really matter? cause the Kingsston's are...
4KB Random Read: Up to 20,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write: Up to 44,000 IOPS

M4...
4KB Random Read: Up to 45,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write: Up to 20,000 IOPS

Mushkin...
4KB Random Write: Up to 90,000 IOPS

 

[Why_Me]

Do the IOPS really matter? cause the Kingsston's are...
4KB Random Read: Up to 20,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write: Up to 44,000 IOPS

M4...
4KB Random Read: Up to 45,000 IOPS
4KB Random Write: Up to 20,000 IOPS

Mushkin...
4KB Random Write: Up to 90,000 IOPS

I look at it this way. If you haven't ever owned an SSD they all seem fast. Crucial is slower than some but more stable, etc... but they all beat the h*ll out of a mechanical drive so I don't look into them all that much other than if they have stable firmware, which they all seem to have these days.

 

[hopz]

Ah alright, that makes sense. Thanks

 

[hopz]

Best answer selected by Hopz.