Building a Gaming Computer

[2cmorgan]

Hello,
My name is Michael. I do not know about computers but my son dose and he wants to buill a gaming PC. We want to get the parts for him for christmas and this want I came up with. If you all can give me feed back or better suggestins.

CPU – Intel Core i5 2500K
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004EBUXHQ/cupcre06-20


Motherboard – Wanted MSI Z68A-GD55 (G3) but can’t seem to find one, so I’m thinking of-
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO What do you think?
http://www.amazon.com/Asus-P8Z68-V-PRO-ASUS-Motherboard/dp/B00503EA80


Memory - 8GB Corsair Vengeance 1600MHz DDR3 Low Profile 1.5v Memory

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00569K7LM/cupcre06-20


Video Card – MSI GTX 560 Ti 448 Core Twin Frozr III

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B006FCCOII/cupcre06-20


Boot Drive – Crucial m4 128GB SSD

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004W2JKZI/cupcre06-20


PSU – Corsair TX650 V2

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B004LB5AZY/cupcre06-20


Optical Drive – Lite-On iHES112-04 12X Internal Blu-Ray/DVDRW

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=2043563&CatId=3635


Case – DIABLOTEK Gamer Series CPA-8950

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3429710&CatId=1509

 

[Sakkura]

I would recommend a Radeon HD 7870 instead of the Geforce GTX 560 Ti 448 Core. Costs about the same but much better performance.

You should also consider an aftermarket cooler for the CPU; a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is a pretty affordable option and much better than the stock cooler.

 

[2cmorgan]

Thank You for your suggestions I will change my video card

 

[Avenged7x]

Why not get the I5-3570K which is the same price from Amazon?
It is the newer generation Ivy-Bridge chip which is more efficient and also has a slightly higher stock clock speed.

 

[redeemer]

ASUS P8Z77-V PRO
i5 3570k
7870

only changes other than that your build looks great!

 

[2cmorgan]

I would recommend a Radeon HD 7870 instead of the Geforce GTX 560 Ti 448 Core. Costs about the same but much better performance.

You should also consider an aftermarket cooler for the CPU; a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo is a pretty affordable option and much better than the stock cooler.

Is tis a good choice? XFX Double D Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition FX-787A-CDFC Video Card

 

[Sakkura]

Yeah it has pretty good reviews and is even the cheapest 7870 on Newegg.

 

[Deemo13]

If you are going to overclock, you are going to want a CPU fan.

If you do not want to overclock, then you can save a chunk of cash on a processor that doesn't have an overclocking ability with the same performance.

If you don't know what overclocking is, its basically clocking the processor higher to work fater. Like when it runs at 2.0GHz, you can manually increase the clock to say 2.4GHz. Its an option and usually costs a bit more for the higher end parts.

 

[2cmorgan]

I got my son a Crucial M4 1 28GB 2.5" SSD this dose takes the place of a hard drive? He says he needs a sound card any suggestions?

 

[Sakkura]

I got my son a Crucial M4 1 28GB 2.5" SSD this dose takes the place of a hard drive? He says he needs a sound card any suggestions?

It works just like a normal hard drive except it's much faster and doesn't need to be defragmented (in fact, defragmenting it would be a bad idea). The only problem is it's kinda small. Not room for tons of videos or games with 128 GB.

The motherboard comes with an integrated sound card. It's high enough quality for any normal use.

 

[2cmorgan]

Can he add more or do we have to get a bigger ssd?

 

[Sakkura]

Can he add more or do we have to get a bigger ssd?

He can add more hard drives or SSDs whenever. A common configuration is to have a relatively small SSD and a large regular hard drive. I have a 120 GB SSD and a 500 GB hard drive in my computer, for example.

 

[2cmorgan]

Thanks what do I need to have SSD and a HD?

 

[Sakkura]

Well I don't think you should need anything more than you already have. Each of them plugs into the motherboard with a SATA data cable; the motherboard should come with two of those. They're also each plugged into the power supply with a SATA power connector. The power supply has plenty of those.

A little tip for installation: First off, just plug in the SSD, make sure it's set to AHCI mode in BIOS, and install Windows on it. Then afterwards you can plug in the hard drive.

Edit: Just checked, the Asus P8Z68-V PRO actually comes with four SATA data cables. So that's one for the SSD, one for the hard drive, one for the optical drive, plus a spare.