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[CCsaint10]

Hey guys,

  I would like some advice since I haven't exactly been keeping up with the most recent hardware and do not know what is the best "bang for the buck". Essentially, if I had to grade a computer I am looking for, I would say I want parts that are in the 80-85 percentile of awesomeness. So that, in my own mind, means parts that are almost top of the line but are not over excessive to the point where I am paying an arm and a leg for little things that don't matter as much.

Currently, this is what I have put together for parts. I am going with Intel because I got a screaming deal from a friend that makes all these parts I am listing much cheaper than they show up on newegg.

Power Supply: SeaSonic X750 Gold 750W ATX12V V2.3/EPS 12V V2.91 SLI Ready 80 PLUS GOLD Certified Full Modular Active PFC Power Supply
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151087&nm_mc=EMC-EXPRESS082512&cm_mmc=EMC-EXPRESS082512-_-EMC-082512-Index-_-PowerSupplies-_-17151087-L08C

Processor: Intel Core i7-3930K Sandy Bridge-E 3.2GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 2011 130W Six-Core Desktop Processor
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116492

Processor Cooling: Antec KUHLER H2O 920 Liquid Cooling System
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835209054

Motherboard: ASUS Sabertooth X79 LGA 2011 Intel X79 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131801

Ram: G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (4 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9Q-16GBXL. 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231456

Video Card: GIGABYTE GV-R795WF3-3GD Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814125414

SSD: Intel 520 Series Cherryville SSDSC2CW240A3K5 2.5" 240GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820167086

Hard Drive: Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

Case: Fractal Design Arc Midi Black High Performance PC Computer Case w/ USB 3.0 and 3 x Fractal High Performance 140mm fans
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352007

[Kratos]

Processor- Looks pretty damn good. I was looking at toms-hardware charts and they had only 2010 cpus that were bench marked bummer.

CPU Heatsink- You could get this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065   Its a motherfucking beast. Keeps my cpu cool as ice in summer. Make sure you put some Arctic Silver 5 paste. I never worked with liquid cooling, but if that's your plan, awesome.

SSD- HOLYY SHITTT thats a big ass size. The price is outrageous. I am waiting till they go down. What you can do is, get a SSD and install Windows on it. Then install applications and games on the traditional drive. Some games that take a while to load, can go on the SSD. That way your not wearing out the drive too much. Sure there is wear leveling and tech has got better, but SSD's use flash memory and who knows they could wear out quicker.

Case-http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021    That is the Antec 900 black Steel case. Features usb 3.0

Also http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147107  this has a top loading HDD Dock. So instead of buying a external sata case, just insert the bare drive ontop of the case and bam your done. Good for format, data backups etc.


Power Supplies- The most efficient and durable power supplies are from Seasonic. What is your price range for the power supply?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Manufactory=1697&N=50001697&IsNodeId=1&SpeTabStoreType=0

1050Watts would be plenty for your entire build and you could add more stuff and you should still have enough wattage left over.

Video Card- Check here for benchmarks http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/01-3DMark11-C-Extreme,2933.html

I heard good things about the Geforce 660TI, but the 7970 eats the latest geforce card.

Motherboard/Ram - I would also like input which one is the best to get.
 

[CCsaint10]

Processor- Looks pretty damn good. I was looking at toms-hardware charts and they had only 2010 cpus that were bench marked bummer.

CPU Heatsink- You could get this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103065   Its a motherfucking beast. Keeps my cpu cool as ice in summer. Make sure you put some Arctic Silver 5 paste. I never worked with liquid cooling, but if that's your plan, awesome.

SSD- HOLYY SHITTT thats a big ass size. The price is outrageous. I am waiting till they go down. What you can do is, get a SSD and install Windows on it. Then install applications and games on the traditional drive. Some games that take a while to load, can go on the SSD. That way your not wearing out the drive too much. Sure there is wear leveling and tech has got better, but SSD's use flash memory and who knows they could wear out quicker.

Case-http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129021    That is the Antec 900 black Steel case. Features usb 3.0

Also http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811147107  this has a top loading HDD Dock. So instead of buying a external sata case, just insert the bare drive ontop of the case and bam your done. Good for format, data backups etc.


Power Supplies- The most efficient and durable power supplies are from Seasonic. What is your price range for the power supply?
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&Manufactory=1697&N=50001697&IsNodeId=1&SpeTabStoreType=0

1050Watts would be plenty for your entire build and you could add more stuff and you should still have enough wattage left over.

Video Card- Check here for benchmarks http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/2012-vga-gpgpu/01-3DMark11-C-Extreme,2933.html

I heard good things about the Geforce 660TI, but the 7970 eats the latest geforce card.

Motherboard/Ram - I would also like input which one is the best to get.
 

Thanks for the recommendation on the CPU heatsink. I have heard good things about that coolermaster also. I might change over to air cooling as I am not really totally sold on the water cooling yet. Not sure if its REALLY necessary or if it has a higher amount of maintainace to it or not. Anyone have water cooling? Do you have to add more water to the reservoir or anything? If so, how often?

The only reason I am getting the SSD is the price you see is not the price i am buying it for. It comes out to be about $375 dollars which is still up there, but much better than 500. haha

Thank you for the recommendations on cases. I will look into it soon.

As for power supply, I don't really want to go insane with it but I also want a wattage and brand that is good enough to support my components such as my video card and what not. What psu would be good for some of the higher range video cards? Is there a certain wattage that if I go over I will be set? Thanks. I will report back when I have some more info on parts/my decisions.

Anyone else care to chime in and give your ideas? Thanks so far, this is great help Terrowrist

[killermonkey]

SSD is a waste (even at $375)... better off doing what Osaeed said, in fact that is exactly what I am doing this weekend!

I just bought this drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227706

Which has the best price per gigabyte and name brand of any SSD size/manufacturer

Couple that with a terabyte drive for storing your massive movie files, game libraries, and shit (porn): http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822136533

Now you only spent $190, doubled your storage space (and your lifespan), and you will not realize any performance drops. SSD's are really great at some things and REALLY BAD at a lot of others. Going pure SSD in a normal computing scenario will not yield greater performance (on average).

You can put the money you saved into a second video card to do SLI and 3D Vision, w00t

For video card I definitely recommend going mid-range (in the $170-$200 range) and doing SLI versus getting bleeding edge and only 1 card at $550+. You will realize greater performance in the long run.

[Proxie]

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119160

Heat sink: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835103089 (212+ is a great cheaper option)

RAM: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231314

PSU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817151088

SSD: See KM's post

HDD: See KM's post

GPU: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130785

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813157293

EDIT: That i7 is a waste unless you are doing crazy video editing and rendering, go with an i5 3570k for equal gaming preformance at 1/3rd the price.

[TriDefiance]

Lol, I might have to get an i7 for crazy video editing and rendering.

[Enzo.Matrix]

If you get the 212 cooler make sure to get the 212 Evo as it is designed for socket 2011.  Else just get the Intel standard.

You dont need a PSU bigger than 750W
Corsair has some very nice cases,  check the 400 or 500

Video, grab a 660 ti.  They are the best bang for the buck.  they beat out a GTX 580

Careful with some of the lower end X79 mobos.  Some do NOT have a USB 3 header.  I have a sabertooth.

Ram, anything 1600MHz, it is quad so go for 4x4GB,  its cheap and if you get a mobo with 8 you can still easily upgrade.


FYI..  this is my day job.

[markpeterjameslegg]

Holy crap CCsaint10, when I first started reading your post I thought, "Oh... He probably wants to build something similar to mine", that's a monster your planning on building there mate, fair play. Agree with KM on the SSD, done some reading up on this myself and it's too early days for this technology, better off sticking to SATA.

[Kratos]

Hey, i got this email from newegg and thought it would come in handy for ya.

http://promotions.newegg.com/NEemail/Aug-0-2012/Coupon23/index-landing.html?nm_mc=EMC-IGNEFL082312&cm_mmc=EMC-IGNEFL082312-_-EMC-082312-Index-_-EOC-_-Case#Case

[Kratos]

Oh yea, check this out too

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

anyone want to blow $2000 on a cpu?

[Proxie]

Oh yea, check this out too

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/high_end_cpus.html

anyone want to blow $2000 on a cpu?

No thank you, Phenom 955 OC'd to 4.0GHz cost $100.  Next CPU will be Intel since AMD fucked up with the APU Dildozer series.

[CCsaint10]

lol, my cpu is the 9th from the top. WINNING! Now to figure out what components to match it with, that will be the hard part.

@KM - can you give me an article or something that talks about what is bad about ssds? I have only heard/read everything about them being better than hard drives in every way. I would like to see some evidence from a credible source that supports what you are saying for my own learning purposes.

[Kratos]

dont listen to KM, just go to your nearest geeksquad and get input from them!   

[killermonkey]

This is what I read a while back. Extremely detailed, but you asked for it.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/06/inside-the-ssd-revolution-how-solid-state-disks-really-work/

[mbsurfer]

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811139014

Such a sexy case.