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How good is this build?

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I am buying pre-built from ibuypower (sadly don't have the time nor the resources to do my own build), and I am planning to do some minor or moderate overclocking in the near future, and I will perhaps add crossfire later on as well.

AZZA Armour Gaming Case
Intel® Core™ i5-3570K Processor (4x 3.40GHz/6MB L3 Cache)
Asetek 550LC Liquid CPU Cooling System (Intel) with standard 120mm fan
8 GB [4 GB X2] DDR3-1600 Memory Module (Corsair or Major Brand)
AMD Radeon HD 7970 - 3GB (single card)
MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt (6+2 power phase)
750 Watt - Corsair CX750
1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s
24X Sony Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive
12-In-1 Internal Flash Media Card Reader/Writer
Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100)
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium + Office Starter 2010 (Includes basic versions of Word and Excel) 64-Bit

How well do you think I can overclock this build? Do you think it's solid?

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The cpu and gpu are as good as it gets.
You might need more than 750w if you plan on crossfire 7970 cards, more like 800w.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

I see liquid cooling as a total waste. It is expensive noisy, and less reliable.
A top air cooler will do the job. better.

A build with this budget deserves at least a 120gb ssd for the os and a handful of games.

If you have no plans for thunderbolt, you are wasting money on the motherboard.
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geofelt said:
The cpu and gpu are as good as it gets.
You might need more than 750w if you plan on crossfire 7970 cards, more like 800w.
http://www.realhardtechx.com/index_archivos/Page362.htm

I see liquid cooling as a total waste. It is expensive noisy, and less reliable.
A top air cooler will do the job. better.

A build with this budget deserves at least a 120gb ssd for the os and a handful of games.

If you have no plans for thunderbolt, you are wasting money on the motherboard.

I don't currently have any plans for thunderbolt, but all the cheaper boards available only had a 4+1 power phase design, and I wasn't sure if that would cut it for a moderate (~4.5ghz) overclock. Do you think the 6+2 power phase is good for OCing to a moderate amount? And I was planning on adding a SSD eventually, just not sure what to get now. Thank you for your help by the way.

vance09 said:
I don't currently have any plans for thunderbolt, but all the cheaper boards available only had a 4+1 power phase design, and I wasn't sure if that would cut it for a moderate (~4.5ghz) overclock. Do you think the 6+2 power phase is good for OCing to a moderate amount? And I was planning on adding a SSD eventually, just not sure what to get now. Thank you for your help by the way.


How high you can OC is determined by your luck in the chip binning and to some extent the cooler.
Any Z77 based motherboard will give you a conservative oc of 4.3 on air.
That really is more than you need for any game.
Past that, you run into heat issues before you run into voltage issues.
The expensive enthusiast motherboards are for competitive overclockers and professional gamers with unlimited budgets.

geofelt said:
How high you can OC is determined by your luck in the chip binning and to some extent the cooler.
Any Z77 based motherboard will give you a conservative oc of 4.3 on air.
That really is more than you need for any game.
Past that, you run into heat issues before you run into voltage issues.
The expensive enthusiast motherboards are for competitive overclockers and professional gamers with unlimited budgets.

Thanks a lot. So this motherboard is good for the life of the build right? Sorry I'm being so picky, I'm just OCD with my electronics. Thanks a lot, once again.

And I've also heard that poor quality parts in the VRM and mofsets actually decrease the life of the board. Is this true with this board? I haven't heard any reviews suggesting this, but I'm not completely sure now.

vance09 said:
Thanks a lot. So this motherboard is good for the life of the build right? Sorry I'm being so picky, I'm just OCD with my electronics. Thanks a lot, once again.


I do not know exactly what you mean by "life of the build"
Motherboards, in general will go obsolete before they fail.
If they fail, it will usually be within the warranty period.
I would not be overly worried.
But, realize that ibuypower is in the business to make a profit.
They are incented tobuy the cheapest parts that will work.
If you think a different brand/model of motherboard would be better, can you so specify?

Try and look into a SSD something like a 120GB Corsair Force 3 or a Crucial M4 and any build like that i think should have one for the operating system and your favorite games.
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