Building A Gaming Computer with These Specs

[TheEbolaVirus]

This will be my first true gaming PC that I would have built and all around this build comes up to around $1600, any advice or changes I should make?


Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 Intel Z68 Motherboard

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K

CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro H100 CPU Liquid Cooler

RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 16GB (4 x 4GB)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SuperClocked (1536MB GDDR5)

Sound Card: Asus Xonar Essence STX PCIe Sound Card

Hard Drives: Seagate Barracuda 1TB (7200rpm, 64MB cache)and OCZ Agility 3 Series Solid State Drive 120GB

Optical Drive: Lite-On Internal Blu-Ray Burner

Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D

Power Supply: OCZ ZX Series Modular Power Supply 850W

 

[TheEbolaVirus]

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ok cool thanks for the advice

 

[distortedreality]

Yeah i'd ditch the sound card and the i7.

I'd probably keep the PSU, because on the off chance that you do another upgrade in a couple of years, that PSU will be able to be used.

You don't technically need it right now, but worth keeping imo.

Otherwise looks good.

 

[ResonanceSD]

I've got a 2600K and two 580's, if you are going with EVGA, get a vanilla card and overclock it yourself, and avoid the useless premiums on their super editions.

Also yeah, you probably don't need an i7, or a soundcard


EDIT: I'm using an 850W PSU to power an overclocked 2600k and SLI 580's, so you'll be fine.

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I want to add that unless you're planning on using your computer as your main movie watching machine, I would ditch the Blu-Ray burner in favor of a DVD burner for the following reasons:

1. DVD burners are waaaaay cheaper.

2. Rewritable Blu-Rays are way more expensive than rewritable DVDs, and have less uses. Odds are, most of the things you would put on a disk could easily fit on a DVD unless you plan on using it as your primary backup, which I wouldn't recommend anyway, as external hard drives are much more reliable for backup than optical disks.

3.Optical drives are super easy to add in later, so if you do find yourself needing a Blu-Ray burner, it's really not a big deal.

 

[veloper]

Instead
get a 2500K for the millionth time;

Stick with 4 or 8 GB RAM. No game needs 16 GB.

Sound is mixed on the CPU ever since windows Vista, so take a basic soundcard with only a decent quality DAC, like a SB audigy SE. Costs next to nothing. Don't rely on crappy onboard sound either, just a really basic SB.

A 500W PSU is enough, unless you want two 580s.

Ignore all the overclocking suggestions. If you knew to do it properly, you woulnd't be asking any of us here.

 

[LordFish]

You seem to have a lot of money to throw at this, so awesome. But if you wanted to save money you could ditch the BD drive, sound card, maybe a cheaper case and drop to 8gb of RAM. I'd guess you wanted the BD burner for a reason, but bluray disks are expensive and are you ever going to want to burn 50gbs to optical media? you're call.

Also *important bit* I've heard those sealed water-cooling units can be troublesome, and in benchmark tests don't displace as much heat as high end air cooling.. Maybe have a look at the Noctua NH-D14 first, only if you plan on OCing the chip of course.

Also others raise excellent points, only thing I might mention is its best to get a Clean supply from your PSU, generally if you have $100 to spend on a PSU you could get 850W or 500W with a good make on it... I tend to recommend the latter

 

[Mr Jack]

Motherboard: Fine.

CPU and Cooler: Do you plan to overclock? If not, get an i5 2500 and forget the H100. If you do, get an i5 2500K and consider dropping the H100 for something a bit cheaper. It's good, but probably more than you need, even if you plan to overclock. Pick up a Hyper 212 or something instead.

RAM: 16GB is more than you will need for gaming. 4GB is enough, 8GB is plenty. Don't bother chasing high frequencies, 1600MHz performs basically the same as 2400MHz.

GPU: Get a 670 or a 7970 instead of the 580. You can afford it if you go for a better value CPU cooler. My personal favourite is this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814161412. Over at Tom's Hardware, they got it running at 1200MHz, enough to blast past a 680 for less money.

Sound Card: I enjoy the extra options with a decent sound card, the Xonar cards are good.

Hard Drive and SSD: Both solid choices.

Optical Drive: Assuming you need a Blu-ray drive, no changes to suggest.

Case: 650D is a pretty cool case.

PSU: You could save some money and get a 500-650 W PSU, but it may be worhtwhile keeping that one if you ever plan to get another graphics card.

EDIT

Ignore all the overclocking suggestions. If you knew to do it properly, you woulnd't be asking any of us here.

I dislike that notion "if you have to ask then it isn't for you" and things like that. SB is dead easy to OC from what I have seen as you only change the multiplier and the Vcore and his motherboard even has an "auto-OC" function built in which should hit a decent overclock with no effort on his part.

SB is supposed to be pretty easy to overclock. You can get a significant increase in frequency without even increasing the Vcore.

OP, give this a read and see if you would be up for a bit of overclocking: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/265056-11-2600k-2500k-overclocking-guide

 

[MercurySteam]

A 650W PSU would suffice unless you want to go SLI later. If you are gonna get an SSD then I'd suggest the Vertex 3 over the Agility 3. Even better, a Crucial M4 or Intel 520 Series SSD. Otherwise, lookin' good.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

Make me one too, pretty please,

 

[Mr Pantomime]

For 1600$ (that's 1200? - I live in Germany and therefore it's easier to calculate in ?s for me) you get a high-end machine.

Quick question, how much would the setup you mention cost compared to the OP's setup? OP said $1600 for what he was buying, and you said $1600 too, for a cheaper alternative. Is the OP's estimation wrong?

Paying more is bullshit. Why? Because, you'll pay for hardware that is just for showing-off. The strongest i7 CPUs of the first generation were unbelievably expensive, just like some GPUs. If you buy them, you'll look stupid once people get the same performance for (roughly) half the price some months later. You paid much more money for a little performance gain. When somebody asks me about a configuration I don't think with my epenis, but my wallet and brain.

Very true, I have a group of friend who recently bought new desktops at about $2500, $3000 a pop. Shelling out and extra $1000 or more isn't really worth it, especially when noones in any great rush to make a new better CPUs.

 

[veloper]

Ignore all the overclocking suggestions. If you knew to do it properly, you woulnd't be asking any of us here.

I dislike that notion "if you have to ask then it isn't for you" and things like that. SB is dead easy to OC from what I have seen as you only change the multiplier and the Vcore and his motherboard even has an "auto-OC" function built in which should hit a decent overclock with no effort on his part.

Or he'll just fry some of fancy new hardware, because he has not the knowledge, but enough bravery to try anything that sounds technical.
And for what? His rig will be fast enough.

Atleast suggest instead he'd practise on old hardware first, maybe his current rig.

 

[w00tage]

This will be my first true gaming PC that I would have built and all around this build comes up to around $1600, any advice or changes I should make?


Motherboard: ASUS P8Z68-V/GEN3 Intel Z68 Motherboard

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K

CPU Cooler: Corsair Hydro H100 CPU Liquid Cooler

RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR3 1600MHz 16GB (4 x 4GB)

Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 580 SuperClocked (1536MB GDDR5)

Sound Card: Asus Xonar Essence STX PCIe Sound Card

Hard Drives: Seagate Barracuda 1TB (7200rpm, 64MB cache)and OCZ Agility 3 Series Solid State Drive 120GB

Optical Drive: Lite-On Internal Blu-Ray Burner

Case: Corsair Obsidian 650D

Power Supply: OCZ ZX Series Modular Power Supply 850W

Allow me to point out Crucial's M4 128gb drives are 125.00 or so on Newegg and have cranking reliability scores. I have bought 3 OCZs to date and just bought a Crucial M4 two days ago instead of another OCZ because the last one was dreck.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Ignore all the overclocking suggestions. If you knew to do it properly, you woulnd't be asking any of us here.

I dislike that notion "if you have to ask then it isn't for you" and things like that. SB is dead easy to OC from what I have seen as you only change the multiplier and the Vcore and his motherboard even has an "auto-OC" function built in which should hit a decent overclock with no effort on his part.

Or he'll just fry some of fancy new hardware, because he has not the knowledge, but enough bravery to try anything that sounds technical.
And for what? His rig will be fast enough.

Atleast suggest instead he'd practise on old hardware first, maybe his current rig.

How is he meant to learn without asking questions? You aren't born with the knowledge to overclock.

And like I said, the built in software will do just fine at the very least.

agreed, as long as you are careful and ask questions/read up on it, it's very simple and the ON-board OC will take care of his needs.

as mentioned- "Everyone's gotta start somewhere"

OT: most people have covered all suggestions I would give you, especially on the CPU and Blu-Ray drive (the sound card unless you REALLY need a nice one) so feel free to rack my opinion up with those.

 

[Worgen]

I like the i7 chip, I have a 2700k and it screams, you can get an ivybridge for about the cost of my chip now, really I would suggest going with a better cpu since it is one of those things that is a pain to replace so I think its better to go with a bit of a higher end one, plus I think the ivy bridge series will be the last intel chip to use the 1155 socket type.

You don't need a sound card, pretty much every motherboard you can get nowadays has a decent on board one, although if you're doing audio editing then you might need one.

If you aren't totally comfortable doing it then I would recommend not doing liquid cooling, plus you only need it if your overclocking out the ass. If there are any leaks in the line then you could kill your comp.

I would swap the 5 series vid card with a 6 series, like one of the 670s or something.

 

[LordFish]

I just want to mention... I prefer AMD.

There, I've said it, don't want to discuss it with anyone, just think it needs to be out there.

 

[BENZOOKA]

There's one really bad tip thrown for a couple of times.

Do get a soundcard. Integrated ones have improved much, but if you listen to music and otherwise enjoy a proper sound quality. It's so common to stare at the "7.1" and "HD Audio" tags on the integrated ones, while the difference to proper peripheral ones can be quite massive. If you haven't got, nor ever tried a PC with a proper sound card and a pair of quality headphones, nor care about sound quality; don't throw bad advices on the subject.

I'm more on the side of Creative X-Fi, but what I've heard and read, ASUS Xonar is nearly or just as good.

Pay in mind though, that you'll need a quality pair of headphones/headset/earphones to get the value out of the sound card. That can run you about 100 ?, or more, or a bit less, depending on your tastes, ear size, whether you like closed/open and so on. It's a whole another subject though, because while price can be a good marker for quality (especially within the same manufacturer), it's not as black & white as that. And personal preferences play a big role.

 

[tacotrainwreck]

I think the power supply is a bit of overkill, unless you planned on running another video card in the future maybe?

Captcha: I'm sorry dave...
Huh. Maybe you should name it Hal?

 

[BENZOOKA]

PSU is overpowered. If you can find a 600W or something, that's cheaper, by all means, get that one.

Blu-ray drives are still expensive. Same goes for Blu-ray discs. A regular DVD-drive with more than enough burning properties should do the trick. And those cost about 20 ?, and have for quite a time.

I get the advertisement for i5, but it's really up to you. I'd go with an i7, but with that thought, I'd certainly get a motherboard with LGA1366-socket. And with that, I'd also change the RAM to Kingston HyperX T1.

I've always preferred GeForce, for every reason. But even from a more objective standpoint: Only get an AMD Radeon graphics card, if you're getting an AMD CPU. There's a certain relation to those two things for the most observant. I'd also ramp up to 6xx-series. While 580 would quite surely meet all your needs, it's still the weakest link on your rig as of now, and games nowadays take their toll on the GPU, instead of the CPU, as they did with DirectX 9 and earlier -games.

 

[LordFish]

There's one really bad tip thrown for a couple of times.

Do get a soundcard. Integrated ones have improved much, but if you listen to music and otherwise enjoy a proper sound quality. It's so common to stare at the "7.1" and "HD Audio" tags on the integrated ones, while the difference to proper peripheral ones can be quite massive. If you haven't got, nor ever tried a PC with a proper sound card and a pair of quality headphones, nor care about sound quality; don't throw bad advices on the subject.

I'm more on the side of Creative X-Fi, but what I've heard and read, ASUS Xonar is nearly or just as good.

Pay in mind though, that you'll need a quality pair of headphones/headset/earphones to get the value out of the sound card. That can run you about 100 ?, or more, or a bit less, depending on your tastes, ear size, whether you like closed/open and so on. It's a whole another subject though, because while price can be a good marker for quality (especially within the same manufacturer), it's not as black & white as that. And personal preferences play a big role.

Sorry, Just have to throw it out there that I completely disagree, I've used peripheral (external) sound cards at college and at The BBC studios, they have advantages, but only ones you'd be able to hear on a set of speakers costing more than his PC (In music production they're called monitors) and I think the BBC's ones cost around £10,000.

And all of this is a moot point if he uses the optical SPDIF out on the motherboard. Now I'm not saying that an internal sound card wont offer a noticeable difference on an expensive set of speakers, but peripheral is way over the top