Final compatability check - $1000 gaming PC

[tpigot]

Hi All

I'm planning on building on my first gaming rig and need a bit of advice/feedback on the parts that i am selecting. I live in australia, so I am not able to order from newegg, NCIX, etc, but ive put the newegg links for all of the parts im looking at.

Purchase Date: within the next 2 weeks

Budget Range: 1000-1300

Used for: Gaming; both FPS and RTS, web browsing

Parts not Required: Keyboard, mouse, monitor, Speakers, OS

Preferred Website: if any aussies out there have found a good site that ships to australia, then please let me know. if not i will by using either MSY.com.au or itestate.com.au.

Parts Preference: intel chipsets obv, pretty set on the 7850 GPU, but apart from that, its all fair game.

Overclocking; possibly down the track, hence the 2500K

Crossfire; quite possibly, maybe 2 7850s down the track

Monitor resolution; 1920x1080



Parts i have chosen so far:

Mobo: GIGABYTE GA-Z68MA-D2H-B3 @ $118 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813128495)

CPU: i5 2500K @ $219 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819115072)

GPU: Sapphire 7850 2GB @ $249 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102986)

RAM:G.Skill Sniper 8G Kit (4Gx2) DDR3 1600 @ $49 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231461)

HDD: Seagate Barracuda 500GB 7200RPM @ $72 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148767)

Optical Drive: Samsung SATA 22x Black DVD RW @ $23 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16827151255)

Case: Coolermaster HAF 912 A @ $105 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160) couldnt find the HAF 912 on newegg, i put the 932 in the link, let me know if the 912 is horrible

PSU: ASUS U-75HA 80+ 750Watt @ $99 (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371051)

Total is about 950, though if i can get away with cheaper for anything, thats always good. i would like to have some left over for an SSD in a month or so.

All feedback welcome, please don't bash though, this is my first time.

Peace out

 

[azeem40]

For $1 more, get the PCPC Silencer MK 750W. MUCH more reliable.

 

[aznshinobi]

Not bad, but that is definitely not the board choice I'd go with. Try the Asrock Extreme4 Z77 or Extreme3 Gen3 Z68.

 

[tpigot]

Not bad, but that is definitely not the board choice I'd go with. Try the Asrock Extreme4 Z77 or Extreme3 Gen3 Z68.

Any particular reason to opt for the extreme3 or 4? they seem to be a bit more expensive. Is the AsRock Z-68-Pro3 Gen. 3 a good alternative?

 

[aznshinobi]

Extreme3 Gen3 Z68 is a nice alt, cheaper for that matter. The Extreme4 Z77 just is nice because it has a huge combo that makes it cheaper and it's Z77 (not a that huge of a deal but it's just nice)

 

[azeem40]

You cannot CF/SLI with a Pro3 Gen3 as it only has one PCIe 3.0 slot.

 

[aznshinobi]

OH. He meant the PRo3.

Yeah, you can Crossfire. It will just be at 16x/4x. That's actually false about the PCI 3.0 mattering since it's one slot. Maybe when we further saturate PCI 3.0 it'll matter. But as of now, you could Crossfire 16x/4x on the Pro3 Gen3 just fine with no huge difference from two PCI 3.0 slots running PCI 3.0.

But, in short the Pro3 isn't really that good in that if you wanted to CF/SLI in the future, it only supports 16x/4x which is a much larger performance difference from 8x/8x.

Should also mention, any board that runs 2 cards at 16x/4x and not 8x/8x or better cannot run SLI.

 

[Why_Me]

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=25_31&products_id=15892 $105.00
CoolerMaster HAF 912 Advanced

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=15_995&products_id=15350 $129.00
Silverstone Strider Plus 750W ST75F-P 80 PLUS Silver 100% modular

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=138_711_1183&products_id=19867 $165.00
ASRock Z77 Extreme4 Motherboard

http://www.vortez.net/articles_pages/asrock_z77_extreme4_review,1.html <----- review of that board with benchmarks

http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?Model=Z77%20Extreme4 <----- another look at that board along with a link to the most recent bios update

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=187_346_1184&products_id=20138 $245.00
Intel Core i5 3570K

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=207_23_845&products_id=18670 $39.00
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO CPU Cooler

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=186_912&products_id=19632 $65.00
G.Skill Ares F3-1600C9D-8GAO 8GB (2x4GB)

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=658_667&products_id=19580 $22.00
LG GH24NS90 24x SATA DVD-RW Drive OEM

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_344&products_id=19747 $99.00
Seagate Barracuda 1TB ST1000DM003

http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=193_1373&products_id=19849 $279.00
Gigabyte Radeon HD7850 2GB OC

Total: $1,148.00 AUD inc. GST *not including shipping


http://www.pccasegear.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=210_902_1376&products_id=19790 $129.00
SanDisk Extreme Solid State Drive 120GB

http://kb.sandisk.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/10476/kw/SanDisk%20Extreme%20SDSSDX-120G-G25 <----- recent firmware update for that Sandisk SSD