Opinion on New Build Specs

[rancineb]

I'm getting ready to order my new build and wanted to get everyone's opinion. I haven't built a new computer in probably 7 years so hoping that I picked good components.

• 
  ■ COOLER MASTER HAF X Blue Edition RC-942-KKN3
  ■ ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77
  ■ Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155
  ■ G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM 1600
  ■ SAPPHIRE 100354XTL Radeon HD 7870 XT w/Boost 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0
  ■ SAMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD256BW 2.5" 256GB SATA III MLC Internal SSD
  ■ Western Digital WD Black WD2002FAEX 2TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal HD
  ■ LG Black 4MB Cache SATA BDXL Blu-ray Burner Bare Drive (WH14NS40)
  ■ XFX P1-650X-XXB9 650W ATX12V 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Modular PSU

Would love to hear any suggestions to improve my build.

 

[Transmaniacon]

You don't need a full tower case, there are dozens of good options for half the price or less. With that said, take the money you save and get a HD7950, it will be a big performance increase.

 

[TheBigTroll]

id probably throw most of that out. give me a budget and location, if you are going to run SLI or cf or not. ill piece something together for less

 

[rancineb]

You don't need a full tower case, there are dozens of good options for half the price or less. With that said, take the money you save and get a HD7950, it will be a big performance increase.

Would you recommend getting the Cooler Master Storm Sniper instead for the case?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119194

 

[Transmaniacon]

I personally do not like Cooler Master cases, but that one seems to be popular, along with the HAF XM and Storm Scout. I just feel its a lot more case than you need, and that money would be better spent on a nicer GPU. Check out NZXT, Antec, Corsair, and BitFenix for cases; if you like the HAF X then go for it.

 

[rancineb]

Thanks for your feedback Transmaniacon. I'll look at some of those other cases and see. I do like the HAF cases, but it is pretty big so that's something to consider.

 

[TheBigTroll]

haf xm is your best option then

 

[zehnman2]

You don't need a full tower case, there are dozens of good options for half the price or less. With that said, take the money you save and get a HD7950, it will be a big performance increase.

well, the difference between the 7870XT and the 7950 won't be that big... but still worth the money, imo

 

[Transmaniacon]

Well at stock maybe not, but with the OCing ability of the 7950, you can crank out a lot of performance from it.

 

[rancineb]

Would you recommend the Sapphire 7950? This seems to be a popular model of graphics card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814202026

Looks to be $40 more which isn't too bad. But you can say that about anything pretty much so is the 7950 a lot better then 7870XT? I heard that it's not that much and I don't plan on doing any OCing. Where would the advantage come in, just for gaming? I will do some gaming, but not much.

 

[Transmaniacon]

If you aren't doing a lot of gaming, then stick with the 7870XT. The only benefit of the better GPU is better gaming performance.

 

[rancineb]

The games that I'll mostly be playing would be stuff like Civilization and SimCity. Don't play a lot of FPS which I assume take advantage of the better graphics card. I am trying to future proof as much as I can (without spending too much money) but it doesn't seem like the 7950 would be that much better at play games in the future than the 7870XT.

 

[Transmaniacon]

Well, the 7950 has more VRam, and will last you longer than the 7870XT, but they are pretty close. I would say if getting the 7950 keeps you from getting something else you want, skip it. But if you want to future proof as much as you can, the GPU would be a good place to upgrade because that will be your main bottleneck.

 

[rancineb]

I'm not too worried about cost so the extra $40 to get the 7950 isn't an issue. If you think it'll be worth it, I might upgrade.

Awhile back I was thinking of getting an Intel Core i7, but everyone said it wasn't that much improvement for personal usage and not worth the money.

 

[Transmaniacon]

If it were me, I would get it so I don't have buyers remorse. I wouldn't get the i7 unless you need to utilize 8 threads. Things like video editing or virtual machines would benefit, but for gaming and browsing/media/etc. you won't need it.

 

[rancineb]

I do plan on some video editing with Adobe Premier, but just minor stuff and only for personal use so for the little amount of time that I'll be doing it, I don't think it's worth the money to get the i7.