Building My First High End PC

[Mondrayish]

Hi all,

Just wanted to say hi to all the ROG members here as I'm new here.

The first time I assembled a PC on my own was back in the Pentium 3 days. Ever since then, I just bought pre-assembled PCs from NCIX and whatnot.

Now that I work, I can afford some of the higher quality stuff in the market and decided to take up the costly hobby of DIY PCs. So I did some reading these past couple of weeks to catch up with today's technology. And these are the parts I decided to aim for.

Motherboard: Rampage IV Extreme
Chipset: 3930K
GPU: ROG Matrix II GTX580 (plan to get a 2nd one to SLI in the future if performance start declining on new games)
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws Z 2133 MHz DDR3 CL9 16GB kit
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100
PSU: CoolerMaster Silent Pro Gold 1200W
SSD: OCZ 240GB Agility 3 SSD SATA III
HDD:
Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion
Chassis: Cosmos II / HAF-X RC-942 / NZXT Switch 810 / Thermaltake lvl10GT / Corsair Obsidian 800D (All the forums and reviews say they are all good with regards to air flow and space management, can't decide)

The goals for this rig are as follows (in order of importance):
1. Gaming Performance: 80 - 90 FPS on Crysis 2 @ Extreme/Ultra setting (w/o overclocking)
2. Aesthetics (Internal/External): Aesthetics is pretty important to me but not the deal breaker
3. Practicality vs. Price: Looking for a balance between price and practicality. (Preferably below US$2,800 just to prove to a friend that the Razer Blade is a waste of money)
4. Overclocking: Because I'm still noob at this, overclocking is quite low on my list... for now... But I chose to go with ROG components as they seem pretty overclocking friendly for the new overclocker.

Just wanted to hear your critique/advice/tips/suggestions on what works, what wouldn't work and what I can do and what I shouldn't do, what's effective and what's not and how to get the most out of the hardware and software. Basically I just want to learn whatever I can from the rest of you more experienced ROG folks.

Without the chassis and HDD right now, pricing is slightly under US$2,800. Since it's a purely gaming machine, I decided an SSSD alone would be enough. I'm willing to go over if the performance justifies the cost.

Your thoughts? All feedback is appreciated

Mondrayish

[Mondrayish]

Actually, no I haven't. I tried radeon ATI once long long ago when it was still ATI, didn't like it and I can't remember why. Been an nVidia guy ever since. nVidia always struck me as "for gamers" and radeons for more multimedia graphics oriented people.

I have heard about the Radeon 7970 outperforming the 580GTX. But to what extent, I wouldn't know. I haven't stuck my nose into 7970s long enough to make a sound judgement.

Since it's been so long, it'll probably be quite easy to sway me lol. Maybe you can point me in the right direction or show me where to start? What 7970 card would you recommend? Why AMD instead of nVidia.

[UltraNEO_]

I think besides the brands, the hardware in general are pretty much the same with a few exceptions... Some manufacturers choose to 'tweak' their cards for over-clocking performance, over-volting etc. Like yourself, I too prefer nVidia but only because their drivers are more stable... However, hardware wise, it's pretty difficult to ignore what AMD are doing. Anyway, here's a lengthy card review if you're curious.

[Mondrayish]

Ah yes.. Now I remember. I was upset with ATI cause of its driver support, stability and compatibility. Though that probably isn't the case with ATI anymore.

Okay, so I know what my choices are with graphics cards. Thanks everyone for helping me understand the video card market a little better.

Now that's out of the way, let's talk hard disks and chassis. Came across quite a few articles on these two subject with varying opinions.

SSD
1. Too expensive right now, better off getting 7200 rpm HD or 10800 rpm HD
2. Get a 60GB SSD to boot Windows 7
3. Get 240GB SSD for all your games, HDD for all your other miscellaneous stuff
4. Performance difference between a Kingston 60GB SSDNow and Samsung 830 256MB is marginal

For purely gaming, just having 1 SSD is okay, right? Pros and cons for this?

I'm thinking to drop down to OCZ Agility 3 120GB or OCZ Vertex 3 120GB. Anyone can explain to me in layman terms what the difference between the Agility and the Vertex series are? It's like a difference of $20. Why?

Chassis
1. Lian LiPC-P80NB Black Aluminum ATX Full Tower
2. CM HAF-X RC-942
3. CM Storm Trooper
4. CM Cosmos II
5. Thermaltake lvl10 GT
6. Nzxt Switch 810
7. Corsair 800D

I was originally just going to go with the CM HAF-X RC-942. Then all these people starting telling me this and that, so I checked out reviews for each of them. Then I just got lost. Seems like every review article gives a thumbs up for all these cases. :confused:

[Area_66]

Mondrayish wrote:
I'm thinking to drop down to OCZ Agility 3 120GB or OCZ Vertex 3 120GB. Anyone can explain to me in layman terms what the difference between the Agility and the Vertex series are? It's like a difference of $20. Why?

You better stay away from OCZ.... get an Intel 520 instead, at least you have a 5 years warantty and you sure the company will still in business in 5 years.

[UltraNEO_]

Mondrayish wrote:
SSD
1. Too expensive right now, better off getting 7200 rpm HD or 10800 rpm HD
2. Get a 60GB SSD to boot Windows 7
3. Get 240GB SSD for all your games, HDD for all your other miscellaneous stuff
4. Performance difference between a Kingston 60GB SSDNow and Samsung 830 256MB is marginal

I would honestly recommend you buy a 120Gb SSD for Windows purely because once you start updating, patching the OS, you'll need space for it's temp files; don't forget your anti-malware, anti-virus and the optional security also lives on the boot drive.

Mondrayish wrote:
I'm thinking to drop down to OCZ Agility 3 120GB or OCZ Vertex 3 120GB. Anyone can explain to me in layman terms what the difference between the Agility and the Vertex series are? It's like a difference of $20. Why? :confused:

OK.. Basically the Vertex series is meant to be their high-performance, all singing and all dancing drives; it's the one with all the latest technologies OCZ has to offfer... While their Agility series is the cut-price version with fewer bells and whists - it's controller chip is ever so slightly slower.

[ugapug]

I went with a Corsair Force GT 120gb for the OS - Windows 7 really gets starved with a 60gb over time. The Crucial M4 is really nice, as is the latest Intel 520 series, but they're more expensive. Apparently the Intel SSDs have a lot more write cycle durability than other brands, so that may be of interest to you.

[Chris_Manico]

I was going to go with the Matrix, but when It came time to order Newegg was out of stock, then considered the EVga Classified Ultra, but with Keplar in the near future i decided to save a bit ( 100 bucks) and just get the vanilla Evga GTX 580, the Step UP program EVGA has lets you trade in your video card + the price difference if a newer more powerful card comes out within 90 days of Purchase, but only the vanilla cards are qualified, no SC SSC FTW Classy Ultra etc. And as much as I've loved Asus products, the Evga lifetime warrenty can't be beat( limited lifetime = 10 years, If they don't have your card they upgrade you to a card of equal performance, lol had i not sold my gtx 285 I considered OCing it to death )

[Chris_Manico]

I was seeing that in some benches the 7970 was only beating the 580 by like 10-15 % not saying much for a new line of cards... Haven't seen alot on Keplar yet, but nvidia hasnt let me down yet.

[UltraNEO_]

I think you might find most reviews will give thumbs up for just about everything... provided someone's making money, that is 😉

Whichever case you end up going with, don't forget to make sure the airflow of your GPU's are compatible. You don't want your GPU exhausting hot air outta both ends and your case blowing cool air against it, it'll make the GPU's cooling less effective.

[Area_66]

Crutial are very popular, we usually ear Crutial and Intel as recommendations