Building a computer

[Verivus]

So any techie people here? I'm looking at building myself a desktop for gaming purposes. My laptop is too cruddy to play games on because my GPU sucks and I don't have a desktop atm. This is what I'm looking at after perusing newegg:

Corsair Obsidian Series 800D
Intel Core i5-3570K IB
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X
CORSAIR HX850 850W
GeForce GTX 680
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Crucial M4 128GB SATA III
CORSAIR Hydro Series H80

Subtotal: $1,678.92

Feel free to offer suggestions/changes. I'm looking at a budget of $2k, with some flexibility. I do plan on adding either another SSD or an HDD since I really only want to boot the OS from the 128 gb SSD. I won't have the money until December, but a month isn't that long to wait. Future-proofing is important to me!! The only thing I'm really hung up on is whether I should wait for Haswell to come out first...

[Verivus]

Changed some things...

Corsair Obsidian Series 800D
Intel Core i5-3570K IB
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X
CORSAIR HX850 850W
Sapphire Radeon HD7970
G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB)
Crucial M4 128GB SATA III
Seagate 1TB HDD
CORSAIR Hydro Series H80

Subtotal: $1,708.91

Plus my monitor which I'm hoping to snag during Black Friday... 27" widescreen LG for $200 from Best Buy. Bringing me up to $1908.91. Anything you'd change?

[Liesje]

If you're open to actually building the computer you can probably do it for much less than "building" it through a retail site or computer manufacturer. I know quite a bit about computers but nothing about gaming, that's my husband's thing, and he says usually how people build depends on Nvidia vs. ATI. I believe he prefers the ATI Radeon so his specs are optimized to play nice with his GPU.

[wildo]

128Gb is probably sufficient for an OS SSD, however- I think it's kind of pushing it in my opinion. I made the mistake of putting a 64Gb SSD in my machine as an OS drive for Win7. Within a couple months, I can no longer boot it because windoze updates have completely filled the drive. So like I say, 128Gb is probably sufficient, but if I were to do that again I'd be looking at AT LEAST a 256Gb SSD for OS purposes.

[qbchottu]

Originally Posted by Liesje

If you're open to actually building the computer you can probably do it for much less than "building" it through a retail site or computer manufacturer.

Very much agree. It's not too bad if you are patient and willing to follow instructions. You can find some good specs online and DIY guides that can help you. Will cut your costs considerably which you could then use on games and a fancy extras like speakers, monitor etc.

[Liesje]

Since I don't know much about the gaming, what I did was find one of my student workers that's better with gaming and desktop computers and have him spec out a new build or refurbishing our current one and then just pay him like $50 to put it together for me. Still way cheaper.

[Syaoransbear]

Since the OP is looking at newegg, I believe they are building the computer themselves since newegg just sends the parts.

Looks like top end equipment all around. If it was me I'd lose the liquid cooling, bump the power supply down to 600 watts which is more than enough, and downgrade my graphics card to a 7950 which would save about $300.

PC games are really behind the quality of hardware that is currently being produced. I haven't upgraded my computer in maybe 2 or 3 years but it can run all the new games on high settings. So you really can't go wrong with all of that stuff, but if you want to spend less you can definitely downgrade and you won't miss out on anything. Then when PC games start to catch up all that other stuff will be cheaper because it's older, but still more than enough power. Or you can go with what you have listed and not need to upgrade anything for several years.

I'd bump that HD up to at least 2TB though. I don't know, I just like having everything all in one HD instead of adding another HD so I'm not wondering where I've saved things. It gets kind of messy. If you use steam, it can really eat up your hd fast, unless you are the type that uninstalls things as you install other things. I like to keep everything installed because installing things can take forever, and if I want to play a game I want to play it NOW, not in 3 hours heh. I have a 2TB HD and I'm 170GB away from filling it up.

[jocoyn]

I wish I had that option. I just replaced my laptop with the first of two computers I have to buy -- I don't do gaming but mapping applications are pretty intense with 3D and animations.

#1 is in, just a basic home laptop for managing files - and office applications - it is win 8 and I will set it up this weekend and move over files.

#2 pending-need to make a selection-actually the specs on the old computer are not that much different than new only NOW the price of an equivalent new computer is higher than I paid three years ago.

Limping along with 3 year old Acer with dedicated NVIDIA graphics card for 3D mapping which uses a lot of resources. One thing I did not like about NVIDIA is I had to reinstall Java to get to the latest driver update. Bummer -- but I had to do it and now, even after uninstalling java my Kaspersky Virus checker is crashing, I can't use the computer online because I won't use it unprotected, and I am two days out with tech support there with no resolutions and have even transferred files figuring she may die on me. [though it was running very well until Kaspersky crashed -

I did not see OS mentioned but Win 8 is being almost given away and you pay a premium (it seems about $100 more) to get one with Win 7 --- it is a consideration for my mapping computer because I am not sure about compatibility of win 8 with the specialty SW and imagine that could play in with games as well.

[Verivus]

I am building my own. First timer, but it doesn't seem that complicated.
The 128gb SSD should be enough. Everyone I've asked said it would be. I'll have to check out the prices on the 256gb. For my OS, I'm debating on whether or not I want to go with Win8 or Win7... I don't want to jeopardize the compatibility of my games with Win8.

I will keep the 850w PSU just for future-proofing. I know I don't need that much power right now, but I'd like to change things down the road so I prefer to have it. I'm also still thinking over the Corsair H100; not sure if I want it or not. I know eventually I want to build my own WC setup, though that won't happen until probably next year. Maybe I'll just use fans until then. There are some cool builds out there that I like, especially the ones with metal pipes. I also really want to mod my case! Some really cool mods out there as well.

I've tinkered around some more with my components:

Corsair Obsidian Series 800D
Intel Core i5-3570K IB
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X
CORSAIR HX850 850W
Sapphire Radeon HD7970
Corsair Dominator Platinum 16 gb (2x8gb)
Crucial M4 128GB SATA III
WD CB 2TB HDD
CORSAIR Hydro Series H100
LG Blu-ray burner

Subtotal: $1,878.90

I figure I might as well build now and next year if Haswell is as good as people say I might upgrade towards the end of 2013. Or just upgrade to an i7 chip once the price drops after Haswell comes out.

[wolfstraum]

You can get an awesome ASUS gaming laptop for less than that

ASUS G55VW-DS71 15.6" Gaming Notebook PC - Black in PC Notebook Computers | JR.com

2 year warranty, and just add a big monitor, mouse and keyboard.....best of both worlds....

I got this one and it is really fast....heavy to sit in your lap - but wow....fast

Lee