So I'm building my first own PC...

[MrTub]

The standard cooling is fine unless you are planing to overclock your cpu.
And I would advice that you buy 8gb ram.

Why? 90% of the programs he's going to be running are still 32-bit, so it can't even use the larger amounts of ram even if it wanted to. The only reason to do more than 4GB is if you are using programs like Photoshop or some other video editing program. Now if he wants to use programs like that a lot, then sure, he definitely should go 8GB, but all I've heard from him is that he wants to make a gaming rig (or so I assume because of the selected parts). If that's the case, he should drop down to a AMD processor so that he can save money there too.

Perhaps he doesn't want to turn off all background programs while playing a game?

I often reach 6-7gb used ram when I play games, since I like to have a lot of tabs and backgrounds program running

And why would he change to an AMD?

It's inferior products and you really do not save enough money for it be worth it.

Because AMDs achieve the same performance in games as Intel processors at about half the cost. Personally, I'm an Intel fanboy, but I do a lot of heavy processing work. The kind of work that AMD falls flat on its face when it tries to compete with Intel. That doesn't mean AMD is a shit option for gamers.

And what the hell kind of programs are you running that you're using 6 gigs of ram? I have 6 gigs, and I've never broken using more than 4 (Ok, there was that one time in Paint.net where I used all 6, but that's because I was being stupid). Hell, I'm at 1.7 right now, and that's with Firefox taking 110MB alone.

Perhaps its true in your country that AMD cost around 50% less but in Sweden there isnt such a huge difference between AMD/Intel


Example:
http://www.inet.se/artikel/5308680/amd-phenom-ii-x4-980-3-7ghz-black-edition 1425 kr http://www.inet.se/artikel/5308653/amd-phenom-ii-x6-1090t-3-2ghz-black-edition 1514kr


And compared to Intel SB i5 2500k that will outperform both of them for games

http://www.inet.se/artikel/5309986/intel-core-i5-2500k-3-3ghz 1863kr.


So its around 300-450kr difference between those. So I would recommend intel i5 2500 since its currently the best budget cpu (at least what I've seen if you compare price and performance)

And nowhere did I say amd is shit. But atm they are only offering cpus that is one generation behind Intel (aka inferior) And bulldozer is often outperform by 1090t since no games is built for 8 cores.


As for ram I often have around 40-60 tabs, winamp, utorrent , skype, steam and lots of stuff in the background so with example bf3 I can reach 6-7gb quite easily.


A good thing if you choose socket 1155 is that you also be able to upgrade to ivy bridge later on without switching motherboard



The stock cooler will be more then enough unless you are doing overclocking.

 

[Slvrwolfen]

I only read part of what others posted so I could be repeating stuff... Assuming no budget limit.

CPU: Supposedly the 2600k would be a superior version with not that much price difference
GPU: Overkill, but if you can afford it, it'll last you around 5-7 years at least
HDD: Like some said, get a separate harddrive for the boot. Also, if affordable and full-speed desired, get either one of the 10k RPM drives for a game HDD or an SSD
RAM: I admit that I didn't do research into the motherboard you chose, but since it is DDR3 I assume it can run triple-channel in which case it'd be better to get a kit-of-3 if possible, or 3x 3 or 4 GB sticks on it to get that 1-5% more
Case: Again, didn't research, but as long as it has enough cooling to support that system, it'll do well

 

[Signa]

This is actually the first time i've heard people backing AMD in about a year or so and baffles me to be quite honest. He should definitely go with the 2500k as it's easily the best bang for buck CPU on the market right now.

Believe me, if it was my PC, I'd go for the i5 as well, but it's not my PC we are building here. It's very easy to get caught up in selecting the greatest parts, so I'm trying to be the voice of reason and point out there are other options that will get the job done for less money. However, the OP has already said that he's doing more than gaming, so the only thing I can suggest he tone down is the video card. The GTX580 costs twice of what he's probably going to need. Then again, I don't use Photoshop, so I don't know how much it takes advantage of your video card. If it's a work related part like he said this PC will get used for, then the GTX580 might still be a viable option.

 

[octafish]

This is pretty much correct, I like to run things in the background and I do work with Photoshop from time to time, maybe I should have mentioned that this is going to be my everything PC, both work and gaming.

For a cpu cooler, is the stock one really that, that very bad?

No, not bad at stock speeds. If you aren't buying a CPU cooler don't buy a i5 2500k, just get the i5 2500. You can then save more money by getting a H67 motherboard as well. The only reason for the k chips and P67 is to overclock, and you won't be able to over clock past 3.4Ghz with the stock cooler.

Really the P67 chipset is obsolete now, why aren't you looking at getting a z68 chipset motherboard? This is a must if you do any video work, because the Z68 uses the (otherwise unused) onchip GPU of Sandybridge to accelerate encoding.

Drop down from a GTX 580 to a 570 but stick with ASUS as they have great overclocking software. You can overclock most GTX 570s to equal a stock GTX 580. If you are worried about the memory bandwidth, there are 2Gb 570s available on the market now.

That PSU won't stand up GTX 570s in SLI so don't plan on it in the future. You won't need more than a GTX 570 unless you have multiple monitors or are running a 120hz monitor, and even then it will only be beastly things like The Witcher 2, Metro 2033 and BF3 that will give you grief, and you can always bump down the sliders a bit.

If you can afford an SSD they are great for speeding up software. I basically have Windows 7, Firefox and Photoshop on my SSD and opening these programs is super fast when compared to my old WD Black drive.

I have that motherboard it is great but z68 would be better (and I have to underclock my RAM to 1333 for some reason even though it is listed in the compatability chart).
I have that CPU and I OC it to 4.4ghz with a 12cm Noctua cooler, it can go higher but Summer is coming and temps are rising.
I have that GPU (well an EVGA version) it is great but I wish I had bought a GTX 570 and saved some money.
I have that PSU, (well the AX modular version) you won't go wrong with Corsair PSUs.
I have 8Gb of Ram and don't go near to using it all except in Photoshop.
I even have one of those HDDs and it runs all my games just fine.

 

[kurupt87]

Just another vote for taking it easier on the GPU and putting that money into a small SSD. A small 60GB SSD will run your OS perfectly and fast, it's a noticeable improvement.

And yeah; the Caviar Black is what I use for my main drive so, that gets my pick.

As for advice on what GPU to get instead I'm out of date, sorry :/

But anyway, welcome to the Grand Halls of the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race.

Edit: Also, if you don't get a branded cooler then don't get the 2500k; if you're not going to overclock it then there's no point getting the k over the standard 2500. The intel cooler will be fine with an unmodified CPU.

It is simple to OC the k to low levels, it comes with its own management program to do it. I use [a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Arctic-Cooling-Freezer-Rev-2-Cooler/dp/B002G392ZI"]this cooler[/a] and it keeps my 2500k nice and frosty.

 

[Pro-paganda]

This is actually the first time i've heard people backing AMD in about a year or so and baffles me to be quite honest. He should definitely go with the 2500k as it's easily the best bang for buck CPU on the market right now.

Believe me, if it was my PC, I'd go for the i5 as well, but it's not my PC we are building here. It's very easy to get caught up in selecting the greatest parts, so I'm trying to be the voice of reason and point out there are other options that will get the job done for less money. However, the OP has already said that he's doing more than gaming, so the only thing I can suggest he tone down is the video card. The GTX580 costs twice of what he's probably going to need. Then again, I don't use Photoshop, so I don't know how much it takes advantage of your video card. If it's a work related part like he said this PC will get used for, then the GTX580 might still be a viable option.

I agree with you that the GTX580 is extreme overkill and as someone said before is unnecessary because console specs are what is holding PC gaming back right now. I used to use Photoshop CS2 a few years ago for graphic design (wallpapers etc on DeviantArt) and it had fairly low requirements. You only need a high end PC when dealing with 3D graphic design when you're playing around with multiple programs modelling multiple things at once which from what I gather the OP isn't interested in.

I really want OP to post his resolution though because for instance if he only has 1650x1050 then something like a HD5670 would be fine and only costs a sixth of the price! Even if he has 1920x1080 though something like a 6870 would do and again is only a third of the price.

I stand by the 2500k though!

 

[MrTub]

I only read part of what others posted so I could be repeating stuff... Assuming no budget limit.

CPU: Supposedly the 2600k would be a superior version with not that much price difference
GPU: Overkill, but if you can afford it, it'll last you around 5-7 years at least
HDD: Like some said, get a separate harddrive for the boot. Also, if affordable and full-speed desired, get either one of the 10k RPM drives for a game HDD or an SSD
RAM: I admit that I didn't do research into the motherboard you chose, but since it is DDR3 I assume it can run triple-channel in which case it'd be better to get a kit-of-3 if possible, or 3x 3 or 4 GB sticks on it to get that 1-5% more
Case: Again, didn't research, but as long as it has enough cooling to support that system, it'll do well

Socket 1155 does not use triple channel so 3 sticks of ram is pretty bad. DDR3 does not stand for triple channel.

 

[Slvrwolfen]

Socket 1155 does not use triple channel so 3 sticks of ram is pretty bad. DDR3 does not stand for triple channel.

Like I did write, I did not research into the motherboard so I was running blind and making a potential assumption. DDR3 is capable of double- and triple-channel in compatible motherboards though, so in defence I wasn't wholly wrong in general.

 

[MrTub]

Socket 1155 does not use triple channel so 3 sticks of ram is pretty bad. DDR3 does not stand for triple channel.

Like I did write, I did not research into the motherboard so I was running blind and making a potential assumption. DDR3 is capable of double- and triple-channel in compatible motherboards though, so in defence I wasn't wholly wrong in general.

All ram supports all sorts of channels since its the motherboard that decides which amount of channels its running.

But yeah you can use ddr3 with single,double,triple,quad? channel

 

[Slvrwolfen]

Socket 1155 does not use triple channel so 3 sticks of ram is pretty bad. DDR3 does not stand for triple channel.

Like I did write, I did not research into the motherboard so I was running blind and making a potential assumption. DDR3 is capable of double- and triple-channel in compatible motherboards though, so in defence I wasn't wholly wrong in general.

All ram supports all sorts of channels since its the motherboard that decides which amount of channels its running.

But yeah you can use ddr3 with single,double,triple,quad? channel

So my lack of research bites me back. Oh well. I *did* dig up a mentioned claim by Intel that using DDR3 in triple-channel interleaved "leads to faster system performance as well as higher performance per watt."

And really, if it's supported by a system, why not use it?

 

[nikomas1]

Alright, my monitor as it stands is a 1650x1050, my main motivation behind the 580 was because I dont want to upgrade anytime in the near or ever slightly remote future. I do however take 3d design courses right now so if it helps there that would be great.

The motherboard choice is because my friend has one of those and its chosen on that it would be easier to work with, is the suggested 68 similar enough?

As for the small SSD boot drive, well, I think I'm avoiding it to avoid, well, complications... It is my first build after all.

And Join the glorious master race... Pfft, I've been here since 12, gloriously playing games at 15 frames per second (lol)

 

[Signa]

Alright, my monitor as it stands is a 1650x1050, my main motivation behind the 580 was because I dont want to upgrade anytime in the near or ever slightly remote future. I do however take 3d design courses right now so if it helps there that would be great.

The motherboard choice is because my friend has one of those and its chosen on that it would be easier to work with, is the suggested 68 similar enough?

As for the small SSD boot drive, well, I think I'm avoiding it to avoid, well, complications... It is my first build after all.

And Join the glorious master race... Pfft, I've been here since 12, gloriously playing games at 15 frames per second (lol)

Dude, bite the bullet and upgrade. The price you want to spend now on the 580 would probably be more than buying a 570 now, and then a 770 later (assuming the numbering system doesn't change for 2 generations). In all likelihood that 770 is going to be better than the 580, and if it isn't for some reason, it certainly will still be better in other aspects like shader models or higher directX version support.

EDIT: And having that as your max resolution, I'd heartily recommend a pathetic GTX460. Really, no need for the 580.

 

[nikomas1]

Alright, you have me there, final question then, with the freed up money, what SSD would you recommend? And might, say, issues the SSD might cause when installing everything for example?

After that, I think i I'm set.

 

[Signa]

Alright, you have me there, final question then, with the freed up money, what SSD would you recommend? And might, say, issues the SSD might cause when installing everything for example?

After that, I think i I'm set.

I have no recommendations on SSDs. For my needs, I need storage space far more than I need speed. I only reboot my PC once a week at most, so the WD 500GB I have as my main drive is more than enough to get me done. Sure, it does take about 2-3 minutes to boot, but I don't do it enough to bother me (Sleep mode FTW). Anything else that I've desired for speed I've put in a RAID. I actually set up a 6TB RAID5 a few months ago for a file storage. It's pretty damn awesome.

Check out that gigantic picture I put in the spoilers. I know it had some SSD recommendations in it.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Alright, my monitor as it stands is a 1650x1050, my main motivation behind the 580 was because I dont want to upgrade anytime in the near or ever slightly remote future. I do however take 3d design courses right now so if it helps there that would be great.

Except for realtime rendering, the GPU isn't anywhere near as important as loading your system with as much RAM and VRAM as you can manage.

If you're looking at doing a lot of prerendered animation (especially if there are a lot of physics calculations), get an i7 2600K and OC the tits off it oooorrrrr wait a month or two for the new high performance Socket LGA 2011 Intel CPUs... and fill the bastard with lots of RAM and get the lowest model GPU card you can get that still offers 2GB VRAM (I'd look at high end 400 series cards).

 

[MrTub]

Socket 1155 does not use triple channel so 3 sticks of ram is pretty bad. DDR3 does not stand for triple channel.

Like I did write, I did not research into the motherboard so I was running blind and making a potential assumption. DDR3 is capable of double- and triple-channel in compatible motherboards though, so in defence I wasn't wholly wrong in general.

All ram supports all sorts of channels since its the motherboard that decides which amount of channels its running.

But yeah you can use ddr3 with single,double,triple,quad? channel

So my lack of research bites me back. Oh well. I *did* dig up a mentioned claim by Intel that using DDR3 in triple-channel interleaved "leads to faster system performance as well as higher performance per watt."

And really, if it's supported by a system, why not use it?

Well Socket 1155 does not support triple channel(He will be using socket 1155) If he had used socket 1366 then yeah triple channel would be awesome since it's supported