Fellow tech nerds unite!!! (pc building help)

[Joccaren]

Drop 4GB of RAM(if you need more, you need to stop installing toolbars), get an i5 instead of an i7 (you do not need the hyperthreading), and get an NVIDIA 560ti from EVGA with the reallocated funds. The 400s BURRRRRRRRRRRRRN.

Learn to build by watching youtube videos.

PROTIP: Do not place components on conductive material or a carpet like an idiot and don't grab components by the PCB like an asshole. Discharge yourself before touching components.

Uhh... Perhaps you didn't read this;

it's actually i just want the best possible rig, but i don't know how to pick up components that's the thing.

The rig you suggest... Even I have a better rig than that, and it struggles with Minecraft and Skyrim heavily modded, Sleeping Dogs and Witcher 2, Planetside 2 and more - though that's largely 'cause I play at 2560*1440.

Also... 4Gb RAM is not enough. By no stretch. Its not toolbars. I use no toolbars. None. I have the Chrome favourites bar on my Internet, and the normal taskbar, and that's it. I still use more than 8Gb of RAM at times 'cause I'm gaming, modding, browsing the internet, writing word documents, downloading and installing various programs and a variety of other tasks. Even when I'm not I'll generally have at least 1 chat program, 1 game and 3 Chrome tabs open at all times. You start to hit the 4Gb rather quickly when you actually use your PC, rather than just game on it.
You are right about being careful with your parts though. Personally I'd buy a static proof mat or W/E and assemble it on that; One side conducts fairly well and is placed face down on the ground, with a wire attached to your wrist, whilst the non-conductive side is where the PC sits. Thus you keep yourself constantly grounded, and your PC away from static. Always properly ground yourself to the case in addition to this though.
The rig you recommended... Its about a mid-low end rig at this point, good for a budget build, but if you're an enthusiast or want a good PC that'll max out the games coming out in the next few years, its not going to do.

Anyway, back OT:

it's actually i just want the best possible rig, but i don't know how to pick up components that's the thing.

First, we'll need a budget. The "Best Possible Rig" could cost you well over $10K, but "The best rig for under $'X'K in the US" allows you us to pick and choose parts for the best performance.
Additionally, I'd look at Aaron Sylvester's posts. His first sums things up pretty well, though I'd recommend the SteelSeries Sensei as a mouse, absolutely loving it ATM, and IMO worth the $100 investment.
His second post also hits the nail on the head - its not the best idea to ask on gaming sites for Rig building advice. You'll get some people that know what they're talking about, some who think they do, some that do but are very opinionated about things [I.E: You will only ever need 4Gb of RAM 'cause you won't EVER be doing ANYTHING but gaming at 1080p on your PC at one time, and you should always be buying a budget rig instead of a high-powered one that'll last for a few years Maxing out games], and those that will just come in and post their opinion though even they know they've got no clue what they're talking about. Places like Overclock.net are definitely better for that sort of thing.

IMO for the best gaming experience you'll want a 2560*1600 monitor, a large and fast SSD, a good gaming mouse [Not some WoW or CoD branded "Gaming Mouse" mouse, but a mouse that is actually designed to be good for gaming and not just rely on a brand name], a mechanical keyboard [Don't know what they are? Look them up], and a good sound system [IMO quality of sound comes above things like 5.1 and such; a great 2.1 Sound System is better than a poor quality 5.1 or 7.1], and maybe a second 720p/1080p monitor to use so you can see and use your desktop whilst gaming - I'm personally not a fan of multi-monitor gaming, the breaks for the edges of one monitor kinda kill it for me, though you could be different. That's just the peripherals. As said, look at Aaron Sylvester's first post - it gets the parts pretty much right, though I do have some different brands that I prefer to what he's suggested for some, but they're all good none the less.

 

[LT Cannibal 68]

Drop 4GB of RAM(if you need more, you need to stop installing toolbars), get an i5 instead of an i7 (you do not need the hyperthreading), and get an NVIDIA 560ti from EVGA with the reallocated funds. The 400s BURRRRRRRRRRRRRN.

Learn to build by watching youtube videos.

PROTIP: Do not place components on conductive material or a carpet like an idiot and don't grab components by the PCB like an asshole. Discharge yourself before touching components.

Uhh... Perhaps you didn't read this;

it's actually i just want the best possible rig, but i don't know how to pick up components that's the thing.

The rig you suggest... Even I have a better rig than that, and it struggles with Minecraft and Skyrim heavily modded, Sleeping Dogs and Witcher 2, Planetside 2 and more - though that's largely 'cause I play at 2560*1440.

Also... 4Gb RAM is not enough. By no stretch. Its not toolbars. I use no toolbars. None. I have the Chrome favourites bar on my Internet, and the normal taskbar, and that's it. I still use more than 8Gb of RAM at times 'cause I'm gaming, modding, browsing the internet, writing word documents, downloading and installing various programs and a variety of other tasks. Even when I'm not I'll generally have at least 1 chat program, 1 game and 3 Chrome tabs open at all times. You start to hit the 4Gb rather quickly when you actually use your PC, rather than just game on it.
You are right about being careful with your parts though. Personally I'd buy a static proof mat or W/E and assemble it on that; One side conducts fairly well and is placed face down on the ground, with a wire attached to your wrist, whilst the non-conductive side is where the PC sits. Thus you keep yourself constantly grounded, and your PC away from static. Always properly ground yourself to the case in addition to this though.
The rig you recommended... Its about a mid-low end rig at this point, good for a budget build, but if you're an enthusiast or want a good PC that'll max out the games coming out in the next few years, its not going to do.

Anyway, back OT:

it's actually i just want the best possible rig, but i don't know how to pick up components that's the thing.

First, we'll need a budget. The "Best Possible Rig" could cost you well over $10K, but "The best rig for under $'X'K in the US" allows you us to pick and choose parts for the best performance.
Additionally, I'd look at Aaron Sylvester's posts. His first sums things up pretty well, though I'd recommend the SteelSeries Sensei as a mouse, absolutely loving it ATM, and IMO worth the $100 investment.
His second post also hits the nail on the head - its not the best idea to ask on gaming sites for Rig building advice. You'll get some people that know what they're talking about, some who think they do, some that do but are very opinionated about things [I.E: You will only ever need 4Gb of RAM 'cause you won't EVER be doing ANYTHING but gaming at 1080p on your PC at one time, and you should always be buying a budget rig instead of a high-powered one that'll last for a few years Maxing out games], and those that will just come in and post their opinion though even they know they've got no clue what they're talking about. Places like Overclock.net are definitely better for that sort of thing.

IMO for the best gaming experience you'll want a 2560*1600 monitor, a large and fast SSD, a good gaming mouse [Not some WoW or CoD branded "Gaming Mouse" mouse, but a mouse that is actually designed to be good for gaming and not just rely on a brand name], a mechanical keyboard [Don't know what they are? Look them up], and a good sound system [IMO quality of sound comes above things like 5.1 and such; a great 2.1 Sound System is better than a poor quality 5.1 or 7.1], and maybe a second 720p/1080p monitor to use so you can see and use your desktop whilst gaming - I'm personally not a fan of multi-monitor gaming, the breaks for the edges of one monitor kinda kill it for me, though you could be different. That's just the peripherals. As said, look at Aaron Sylvester's first post - it gets the parts pretty much right, though I do have some different brands that I prefer to what he's suggested for some, but they're all good none the less.

ok well my budget for a pc would be $2,000 if i have to go up a little bit more than that then so be it, also i live in the united states so i suppose that's also a factor.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

ok well my budget for a pc would be $2,000 if i have to go up a little bit more than that then so be it, also i live in the united states so i suppose that's also a factor.

Yay, a budget! Could you please tell me whether that budget includes stuff mentioned in my "extras/peripherals" post further up (OS/keyboard/mouse/monitor/etc)? Do you need speakers/headset/headphones & how much do you value sound quality?

Basically just list out what you already have, and I can recommend what more you'll need and cram it within $2000. Shouldn't be hard, that's a VERY roomy budget lol.

EDIT: You snuck water cooling in there, I just noticed. Please, rationalize suggesting that to a person who has never put together a PC or thoroughly maintained one.

It's not watercooling, it's CLC (closed loop cooling). There's quite a difference because CLC's need zero maintenance, chances to leak are next to none and they are very easy to install compared to most giant tower-based coolers. Not to mention they look approximately 10x better aesthetically. But fine, I'll give the OP some options on air coolers as well if you're going to be that annoying about it.
Not gonna respond to the rest of your post because...you have a lot to learn. That is all.

 

[LT Cannibal 68]

ok well my budget for a pc would be $2,000 if i have to go up a little bit more than that then so be it, also i live in the united states so i suppose that's also a factor.

Yay, a budget! Could you please tell me whether that budget includes stuff mentioned in my "extras/peripherals" post further up (OS/keyboard/mouse/monitor/etc)? Do you need speakers/headset/headphones & how much do you value sound quality?

Basically just list out what you already have, and I can recommend what more you'll need and cram it within $2000. Shouldn't be hard, that's a VERY roomy budget lol.

EDIT: You snuck water cooling in there, I just noticed. Please, rationalize suggesting that to a person who has never put together a PC or thoroughly maintained one.

It's not watercooling, it's CLC (closed loop cooling). There's quite a difference because CLC's need zero maintenance, chances to leak are next to none and they are very easy to install compared to most giant tower-based coolers. Not to mention they look approximately 10x better aesthetically. But fine, I'll give the OP some options on air coolers as well if you're going to be that annoying about it.
Not gonna respond to the rest of your post because...you have a lot to learn. That is all.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=35-181-015&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1#scrollFullInfo

Sure thing, brah.

I remember a quote on the tech forums a while ago that said of insufferable linux fanboys: "One who tries to accomplish something in the most complicated manner just to appear intelligent is the greatest idiot."

Taking this philosophy to heart, the stock fan on an i5 is simple and effective, and capable of handling sanctioned overclocking. OP isn't going to be doing this anyway, so there is no reason to discuss that, but I thought I would throw that one out. Paying 60-80usd for a cooling apparatus to replace something that is already sufficient is wasteful. Furthermore, it's easier to deal with a dead fan, since they have ZERO chance of leaking.

Also, I'm not sure how this:

Spoiler

looks so much worse than this:

Spoiler

I'm not really that annoyed by the fact that you are recommending it as much as I am perplexed as to why you feel the need to be so adamant about suggesting stuff that isn't really necessary and basically calling others retards when they don't agree with you.

You don't even defend your arguments. You are simply advocating higher-priced components that will provide marginal increases in performance.

ok well my budget for a pc would be $2,000 if i have to go up a little bit more than that then so be it, also i live in the united states so i suppose that's also a factor.

So are just looking for a tower (the actual "computer" part) or peripherals as well (monitors, speakers)? 2000$ is great but we need to narrow our parameters.

essentially just a tower i already have the keyboard and mouse and i hook up my laptop to the tv for gaming anyway so ill just keep doing that.

 

[Laughing Man]

I have a GTX 275 able to run Skyrim on full settings at ~45 fps. I know people with a 560Ti who can do ~60fps with Skyrim and EVERY SINGLE PC GAME OUT THERE.

You know what would be a real bollock twister right now, if someone who owned a 560Ti and upgraded to a 670GTX stepped in to this topic and cried bollocks...

oh that's me, bollocks. A 560GTX cannot max BF3 or Crysis 2 or 2K Skyrim or Modded Crysis or Shogun TW or Borderlands 2 or shall I go on?

What can I add.

Well

CPU: Go for an I5, to show you how good they are I am still rocking a first gen 750 oc'd under water to 4.6Ghz the chips are very good, a great balance between performance cost, oc ability and they will last.

GPU: 670GTX again sweep spot between power and performance, I have one of these running under water and it has maxed everything I've thrown at it at 1080p, so far no oc required. Keep an eye out though although the 670has it's own smaller board some of the more exotic models (the giagbyte windforce for example) use reference 680GTX boards with cut down memory.

Memory: Doesn't matter as long as it's DDR3, memory speeds timings are no longer such a big factor. Quantity is important. So far we have the 4gig crowd vs the 8gig crowd. 4gig will serve you without issue however 8gig brings the benefit of being able to safely turn off the Windows cache system. Since Windows uses this all the time even if you think you have enough memory it's something that will constantly be reading and writing to the HD in the background. Results tend to be less load on the HD and a more responsive system.

Mobo: USB3, Sata 6gig clear and enough PCI-e slots for any expansion cards, they really are the only things worth any consideration. You can toss in native RAID support, UEFI support, chipset cooling and watercooling support and all the fancy extra stuff if you want but anything by Asus is generally a good bet. I am still rocking a Maximus 3 board that's 3 maybe 4 years old.

PSU: Brand name, 650W is sufficient for a single GPU setup, don't just look at pure wattage values also check the AMP output and the load performance. A crap PSU will deliver craper wattages and less stable amperage the hard you push the PSU. I recommend Corsair PSUs but their are many decent PSUs even at cheaper prices out there now.

HD: SSDs vs mechanical HDs. Well I use an SSD for my Windows boot and primary programs and a Raid pair of Samsung F3s for games and storage. It's a toss up really but mechanical drives are slower in general, slow enough that you would notice? Well if you've never used an SSD then nope, they do however have the advantage of offering a massive amount of storage space for a cheaper price. I would still list an SSD as a luxury addon, if you have everything you need in your computer and £200 extra quid then by all means get one but the size and cost of the drives means they are not quite an essential purchase yet. Besides you can Raid 0 two fast mechanical drives get a huge storage space and their speed is not far off the max that older Sata 3gig SSDs could match.

Cooling: I would never recommend a stock Intel CPU cooler the stock I5 cooler is more or less the same cooler they have been using for years and they are awful. The only good thing is that the I5 runs cool enough that it doesn't push the crappy stock cooler but stick a higher end i7 in there and you'll see just how crap the cooler is. You don't have to go water cooling or closed loop cooling you can pick up good, quiet effective air cool CPU coolers for £40. I stuck to Zalman until I took the leap in to full watercooling but generally the Artic Cooling CPU coolers are cheap and very effective. End of the day the cooler your CPU is running the less stress it is under and the longer it will last that's before you consider the other benefits such as turning the fan speed down to make the system quieter or the chance to OC the chip.

As for the desire to run Crysis 3, well there's folks over at forums that deal more specifically with PC hardware that believe Crysis 3 is going to have a few extras that are going to push even the highest end systems to their limits. Building a PC that will max Crysis 3 is impossible until we see what Cyrsis 3 is going to arrive with. I am confident that my system will max it but since the whole thing is water cooled I have miles of overclocking room on the off chance that it doesn't do the job at the speeds it's at now

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

essentially just a tower i already have the keyboard and mouse and i hook up my laptop to the tv for gaming anyway so ill just keep doing that.

Alrighty, here ye' go...

PCPartPicker part list [http://pcpartpicker.com/p/EepE] / Price breakdown by merchant [http://pcpartpicker.com/p/EepE/by_merchant/] / Benchmarks [http://pcpartpicker.com/p/EepE/benchmarks/]

CPU: Intel Core i5-3570K 3.4GHz Quad-Core Processor [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80637i53570k] ($189.99 @ Microcenter)
CPU Cooler: Xigmatek Dark Knight II SD1283 Night Hawk Edition 89.5 CFM CPU Cooler [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/xigmatek-cpu-cooler-darkknightiisd1283nighthawkedition] ($34.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: ASRock Z77 Extreme4 ATX LGA1155 Motherboard [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asrock-motherboard-z77extreme4] ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Mushkin Blackline 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/mushkin-memory-997069] ($102.99 @ Newegg)
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/western-digital-internal-hard-drive-wd1002faex] ($89.99 @ Microcenter)
Storage: Samsung 830 Series 256GB 2.5" Solid State Disk [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/samsung-internal-hard-drive-mz7pc256bww] ($204.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: Asus GeForce GTX 670 2GB Video Card [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/asus-video-card-gtx670dc22gd5] ($379.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Fractal Design Define R4 w/Window (Black Pearl) ATX Mid Tower Case [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/fractal-design-case-fdcadefr4blw] ($119.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional 750W 80 PLUS Silver Certified ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-power-supply-cmpsu750hx] ($139.99 @ Newegg)
Optical Drive: Lite-On iHAS124-04 DVD/CD Writer [http://pcpartpicker.com/part/lite-on-optical-drive-ihas124-04] ($17.99 @ Newegg)
Total: $1400.90
(Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available.)
(Generated by PCPartPicker 2013-02-17 23:08 EST-0500)

This thing will run cool, quiet and fast. The CPU cooler is scaled down to an air cooler, will still allow you to get a decent overclock if you plan to in the future (and trust me, you'll want to) on top of looking badass.
There is still lots of room in your budget as you can see. Things you can further upgrade are:
> Better graphics card. Say...GTX680 or HD7970 Ghz Edition. Both are faster than GTX670, but don't offer a particular good bang for the buck as you'll be looking at paying $450-470+.
> Motherboard. Say...Asus Sabertooth Z77. It is currently the best-rated board on Newegg, comes packed with features and is basically an overclocking monster. It also comes with arguably the best looks (black armor). The downside is price, it costs at least $100 more than the ASRock Extreme4 that I suggested above. Also the Sabertooth's arsenal of features may not particularly come in use for you, since you're a first-time builder and everything

Since you've got another $600 I really recommend looking into a monitor and a PC desk, along with some decent gaming peripherals (if yours aren't up to stratch)...a solid gaming mouse at least.
Last time I tried plugging my PC into the TV the massive input lag just turned me off and I went back to my monitor lol.

 

[Joccaren]

Uhh... Perhaps you didn't read this;

OP lives in US. There are plenty of retailers for this stuff.

I'm going to quote it again, 'cause you apparently haven't read it, as it comes up again later on in your post - I'll put in bold the important bit;

it's actually i just want the best possible rig, but i don't know how to pick up components that's the thing.

"Its actually that I want the best possible rig".
I'll bring this up later, so remember it.

Your internet what?

My internet browser/explorer/W.E you want to call it. Being pedantic in such matters serves no purpose, and it is understood what was meant.

At the same time? WHY? Are you writing half a line of code between loading screens? Why are you doing this? Just get a cheap laptop and torrent to that.

Generally I'm writing code for a mod, whilst researching on the Internet for the mod and what I'll be doing, a well as editing game assets in a world editor if the game comes with one, and testing the results in game. Additionally I'll also be swapping between work and gaming, dependent on which I feel like doing at a given time, and alt-tabbing takes 0.5 seconds whilst closing and starting up the programs takes closer to 30. Yeah, 30 seconds, first world problems and all that - I still like the added convenience though.
And I have a cheap laptop. I CBF copying across everything from my laptop to my PC every time I want to do things - that would just take hours of additional time as I not only have to download it buy copy it between computers before installing. When downloading large programs or files, like Texture Packs for Skyrim that add up to 9Gb or so, this takes a lot of time and is easier just done on the one PC.

I don't know if chrome has gotten really bad, but I've had multiple pdf documents open, multiple tabs in firefox(one with streaming), an AVGN
video playing, steam running along with one or two word documents while playing DoW2 and I barely got above 3. You might have some crap running in the background there.

EDIT: Just for funsies, I opened up 10 tabs in firefox, eclipse, thunderbird, steam and gimp 2. Nowhere near 3GB.
Does minecraft really require all this stuff for you?

Yes, the majority comes from gaming. Sadly Skyrim caps at 3-4Gb, but Minecraft when running with all my mods installed runs at about 6Gb. At least it used to, updates and patches have come that may have reduced that a bit, but I haven't checked.

It is pointless to "futureproof" a PC. You should buy what you need now, with some considerations to the near future (about a year).

It is SOMEWHAT pointless to futureproof a PC. You can still game on a Pentium IV if you want to - I was until 3 years ago. 3.4Ghz single core. Had no problems, though I was playing at 720p at that point in time. Buying a reasonably priced mid-range CPU, that is certainly far more than you NEED for gaming, is not a bad investment as I've already had my current CPU for 2 years, and I'll be keeping it for another 6-8 at least.
Hard Drives you can also future proof with. I'd consider it rare to use more than 1Tb of disk space, unless you download a lot of TV shows and movies or something, yet I still have 2Tb of space in my PC as it wasn't that expensive, and in the case I do come down to needing more space I'll be ready for it.
RAM, if you do it intelligently, is also something you can future proof to an alright extent with. Rather than getting 32Gb of 1333Mhz RAM though you should go for 16Gb of 2133Mhz RAM. The extra speed will do you more good than excessive capacity when future proofing, considering generally you won't use over 8Gb ATM.
Motherboards are also rather easy to future proof, unless you're trying to stay at the top of the line with all the extra functionality coming out for them. Most of the time you should only need a new motherboard if you're upgrading your CPU. There are a couple of exceptions, but I wouldn't think of them as being all that common.
Things that are useless to future-proof, or not cost effective, are your Graphics Cards. Graphics Cards because there are some Stress-test type games coming out in the next couple of years, and rather than greatly exceeding them greatly now, but falling behind in 2 years time when a game that is much more graphically demanding comes out, you should meet the requirements now, and exceed when there's going to be a 3-4 year gap between graphically intensive games - probably one or two years into the next console cycle.
Considerations to the near future of about a year away means you're likely to be upgrading every 1-2 years, and paying at least $250 each upgrade - probably more if you have to do a full rig overhaul 'cause you haven't future proofed anything. The way I do mine is so that I've already gone 2 years without upgrading, I'll go one more before getting a new graphics card - which will either be useable or future-proofed dependent on how the graphics trend seems to be going at that time - and I'm not touching my CPU or Motherboard for the next 6 years at least, with my RAM maybe receiving one extra $15 stick sometime if I feel up to it. The goal isn't to stay at the top of the range for years, its to hit the top of the range, then slowly fall back with time. ATM there's quick scaling back, but once the new console generation comes out and focus shifts back that way things'll slow down again.

OP never mentioned a resolution. OP also never mentioned that they want to do anything other than play guildwars.

Yes, OP never mentioned a resolution. I'd be hoping its 1080p considering most TVs, which don't provide the greatest image quality, can display 1080p ATM, and monitors go up to 1600p with higher resolutions coming out in future.
As for the "They never mentioned that they want to do anything other than play Guildwars", I'll direct you to what I told you to remember;
"Its actually that I want the best possible rig". Additionally you'll find that they mentioned making Crysis 3 their ***** too.
Regardless of whether you think they need the best possible rig or not, its what they want, and you suggesting a low-mid range as the best they can get isn't helping with that.

Why? Is a 500$ monitor standard now?

You'll note; "IMO for the best gaming experience"
I never said "For a passable gaming experience", I said "For the best gaming experience".
Additionally: "Its actually that I want the best possible rig"

Again, why? Why large? For storage? If we are talking about storage, then the entire performance argument is moot.

Again, see above.
And no, the performance argument does not become moot because of additional storage. Yes, additional things stored on an SSD slow it down overall - my PC takes 5 seconds to boot rather than the 0.5 it originally took - but that's still faster than the 30 seconds it took with my HDD, so both performance and storage space are provided.

Mechanical keyboards are not necessary. I have one. It feels really nice, but I suppose I could get along without one. If you have the money, why not?

Again, look up. "Best gaming Experience". "Best Possible Rig". I never said it was necessary to have one, its just there if you want the best.

I just noticed that the build has a liquid cooling system. I can't think of a possible reason apart from noise reduction, though your sound system should totally drown that out.

Unless you're not playing a game or music at that point in time, or have other people in the house who would be annoyed by your sound system, in which case it is really quite audible. Additionally, if OP plans on overclocking Liquid cooling is highly recommended. Granted it doesn't sound like Overclocking would be his sort of thing, but still.
And again, "Best gaming experience", "Best Possible Rig".

OP, you should do what you think sounds right. RAM is cheap, SSDs are getting cheaper and video cards are outclassed annually. Just keep that in mind.

This falls into a trap of forcing yourself to constantly have a mediocre experience in games, however, 'cause the future will always have something better and cheaper current gen items. You are stuck constantly behind, and never having a really great experience, though certainly a passable one, because "It'll be cheaper in the future", and when it is cheaper better things are out leaving you still far behind in getting a great experience. That might be enough for you. OP has requested "The best possible rig". Hence, that is what we are suggesting.

 

[Boris Goodenough]

4GB is nowhere near enough in this time and day, my current PC has 6GB (Triple-Channel) and the only reason I haven't upgraded to something like 16GB is because the new Motherboards have switched back to Dual-Channel. I quite often (happens every other week) run out of RAM and have to reboot.

I bought 16 GB and installed them (Mobo with the X58 chipset) and made all 4 modules work just as well as triple-channel (it actually says it's triple-channel still).

 

[Joccaren]

durr

Which is why they said the best possible, and then gave a budget.
And once again, the "You don't need to" is an opinion of yours that is contrary to what the OP has asked for. You're welcome to try and convince him to take a passable experience over a great one, but don't tell everyone else in the thread that they're wrong for actually listening to what the OP has asked for.
Additionally, yes, prices will drop. Prices will always drop. You're not going to get anywhere if you keep saying "But it'll drop in another 6 months", and waiting for that price drop before buying, before realising that, once again, it'll drop price in another 6 months or so and you don't NEED it now, you could be chugging out a 30FPS playable frame rate most of the time so you really could do without it, yet you still end up stuck behind rather than moving forward. You have to decide whether you want a passable experience, or a great experience, and ATM the OP has asked for the latter. Again you're welcome to try and convince him otherwise - personally I'd put more into getting good peripherals than a kick-ass rig ATM, and get the kick-ass rig once things slow down with the next console gen - but its not uncommon for someone to actually want a powerful rig, whether then "Need" it or not.
Waste of money? Maybe. That really depends on what a person wants out of their rig, and that's for the OP to decide - not you.

 

[Aaron Sylvester]

I find it hilarious that you didn't suggest the 400GB SSD and instead are trying to convince him to get 16GB RAM.

Tell me, what does he need that for?

RAM is cheap, he's got money to spend, he won't have to worry about RAM for the remainder of that PC's life. Also there's no such thing as a consumer-grade 400GB SSD, and 512GB SSD's cost $380+. Don't give me that rubbish -_-

You didn't even look at the feedback. The newegg sorting algorithms suck.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=13-131-821&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=2&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Keywords=%28keywords%29&Page=1#scrollFullInfo

Sabertooth boards are problematic. Sometimes they don't let the computer go to sleep, sometimes they don't let the computer start. Sometimes they are just dead. You were right The first time. The asrock is better.

Christ man, at least learn to read the feedback on both boards yourself before you start trying to tell me how to do my job (and really, it's my JOB). Newegg/Tigerdirect/Amazon/etc are practically my backyard, I spend so much time looking for good deals and good products because they are constantly changing.
Sabertooth - 4-5 star feedback = 79%
Sabertooth - 1 star feedback = 11%
Sabertooth Warranty - 5 years
Extreme4 - 4-5 star feedback = 72%
Extreme4 - 1 star feedback = 17%
Extreme4 Warranty - 3 years

ASRock have made an amazing product, which is why I recommended it initially. Sabertooth Z77 is an upgrade because it is simply better in every single way, ASRock has had to cut corners to get such a richly-featured board at that price and some of those corners involved the quality of caps/mosfets. Also where did you pull the "Sabertooth boards are problematic" rubbish from? They are the most robustly-built board lineup seen by the market since the Sabertooth 55i and 990FX. The X58 version took a bit of a dive but faith was once again restored with P67 and Z77 revisions. Overall I would still consider it the most reliable board lineup in the market, and that is saying a lot considering that motherboards are the most failure-prone component in PC's.
Asus don't slap a 5 year warranty on Sabertooth boards for goddamn giggles, they mean it.

I'm only responding to OP from now on, enough baby-sitting people through basics. I've got a whole bunch of others to help in my preferred forums. Good day.

 

[Laughing Man]

Are you using a triple monitor setup?

You want me to stream proof of what I said? I'll do it if when have time.

No it's not even worth the debate I've owned a 560ti I know fine well it can't do 60FPS settings maxed at 1080p in a whole host of games and it certainly won't do it in 2K Skyrim because it physically doesn't have enough on board RAM to do the job.

It also won't play BF3 in stock set up either (at least the OC'd ones won't. So you're also recommending a card that the user will have to do voltage tweaks on to get BF3 to run stable

You then also have the fact that you can get the newer, more powerful, less power hungry, quieter, smaller and cooler 660 for a fraction more. So why would anyone recommend a 560ti when the 660 is better at a fraction more?