Building my first gaming Rig.

I've decided that it's high time that I upgrade my pathetic-excuse for an EZ-Bake oven into something that's a lot better.

However, my computer building experience is questionable (to say the least) and although I will have a person who is able to build the PC for me, I'm not exactly keen as to what parts go with what.

However, after reading an article I sort-of got an idea of what I had to get. However, being that i've never built one. There's a very high probability that i'll be grabbing a part thats not compatable with another part; and that is what I am trying to prevent by coming here.

Article Here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/the-geek-blog/building-a-new-computer-part-1-choosing-hardware/

For future reference, my budget for this project is around $1,700

Anyways, these are the parts i've selected:

• (CASE): COOLER MASTER Storm Sniper SGC-6000-KXN1-GP Black Steel, ABS Plastic, Mesh bezel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case: $160

• (PROCESSOR): Intel Core LGA 115577ww Quad-Core: $220

• (MOTHERBOARD): ASUS P8Z77-V LK LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS: $130

• (MEMORY): CORSAIR Vengeance 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800) Desktop Memory Model CMZ8GX3M1A1600C10B: $60

• (SSD): AMSUNG 840 Pro Series MZ-7PD128BW 2.5" 128GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive: $150

• (HARD DRIVE): Seagate Barracuda STBD2000101 2TB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Retail kit: $105

• (VIDEO CARD): EVGA 02G-P4-3658-KR GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST SuperClocked 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 SLI Support Video Card: $180

• (ETC): Creative Fatal1ty Gaming Headset: $50

• (POWER SUPPLY): Rosewill CAPSTONE Series CAPSTONE-750 750W Continuous @ 50°C, 80 PLUS GOLD Certified, Single +12V Rail, ATX12V v2.31 / EPS12V v2.92, SLI Ready, CrossFire Ready, Active - PFC Power Supply: $ 100

The Links for the parts are as follows:

Case: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811119194

Processor: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819116504

Motherboard: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131837

Memory: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820233383

SSD: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147192

Hard Drive: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822148910#scrollReviews

Video Card: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130910

Power Supply: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182073


Like I said, if anything stands out as being absolutely incorrect, i'd love for people to point it out. Like I said, this is my first attempt, and I'm trying to learn to the lingo as I go along.

Thanks ahead of time for taking the time to review the pieces and see if anything is incorrect or terrible.

Change to this.

Video CardMSI N660 TF 2GD5/OC GeForce GTX 660 2GB 192-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card $199.99

Product Home Page

Never buy EVGA stuff unless you want your card to burn out. They look cool, but they have cooling issues and if the case isnt ventilated properly, you can smell burning card later date.

Here: GTX 660: MSI or EVGA?

Takes to Toms Hardware.

Also, you can drop SSD and use the SSD money for better graphics card

I would.

Alright. I'll take your suggestion and replace it with the part you suggested. Is everything else alright?

Nope.

IF its only for gaming needs, CPU is quite good. I have it and you can nicely overclock it.

It's entirely for gaming purposes only. About the only-other thing I plan to do with it is maybe watch anime. But I have a laptop for that, and I can always do desk work elsewhere. o 3o

I just want something that can run stuff like Tera, and maybe even a good PC-Game or two of this next year at high quality and not suffer from terribad graphics or just lag in general.

I didn't want to go with Alienware, as i've heard some pretty terrible things about them that I'd rather stray from. Moreover, building one's own PC is sort of fun; as you made it yourself. The problem is that novices like me have to ask more experienced people in order to verify everythings correct.

Even more than everything else though, it's invaluable experience for my upcoming computer engineering class. Pretty much every kid in there has probably built a PC, and i'd like to not get left out of the crowd. x3

If you throw in an extra 50 dollars you could get a 7870 radeon HD card or add another 100 dollars for a 7950 radeon HD card.

You will be suprised how the actual answer is negative

On the alienware? Or the people who have actually built a PC?

Either way; It's a project i'd love to undertake. Besides, there's nothing like showing off your rig to your roommate who's still working with an EZ Bake oven from the year 2006. :P

If you really want a SSD I'd go for this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820147189 it's a samsung 840 (just like the one you have listed) but it's 250gb and is $180.

If this is going to be a gaming pc I would recommend the best gpu you can afford within reason.

Actual People who built a PC.

There is another IT teaching group and they had no idea what parts make the PC.

Alright. I've added your recommended part to the list.

You might want too add something like a mechanical keyboard. I personally recommend this one: razer mechanical keyboard 2013 it will be hard to go back to regular keyboard once you get a taste of mechanical. Plus if you're a late night gamer like me, being able to see the key really helpful.

If I were you, I also might also want to change the case to something like NZXT: switch, a cooler master: Storm Stryker or any full tower case. This will really come in handy when you want to upgrade something inside to something better.

The last thing I might add is a corsair H90 or H110 if you are going to OC your 3570k

I'm assuming you already have the monitor and mouse.

Edit: Here a link to a video of $1,500 build he give a lot of good information/tips for first time builder too.

Thank you very much! I appreciate this a lot.

mechanical keyboards are quite the investment for something that gives you a lot of options (not to mention razer has a pretty silly track record with quality these days).

If you don't have any buddies who can let you try out a mechanical keyboard at all then atleast read through this guide on various types of switches so you have an idea of what kind of mechanical keyboard will suit you the best.

Honestly though, if you don't think any of this silly stuff such as switches pertains to you, you're better off saving your money and spending it on $20-30 logitech keyboard.

Well I recommend that is mainly because for some reason the micro center i went to have a lot of their stuff display open for me to try... so i tried a lot of different type of mechanical and the one by razer especially black-widow suit me best.

good thing they got 30~90 days return policy depend on the item xD

edit: try to get cpu and mobo at micro center where they have a combo deal. Best and better price then anywhere i can find online.

Personal Recommendations

I only ever order through TigerDirect because I have a corporate account with them, you may be able to find the parts below cheaper on NewEgg.

ASUS P8Z77-V LX - $120

i5 3570K 3rd Gen (3.4 GHz) - $220

XFX Radeon HD 7870, 2GB GDDR5 - $220

16GB (2x8GB) Corsair Vengeance - $120

Kingston SH103S3/120G HyperX 120GB SSD - $130

2x 1TB Hitachi - 2.5", 7200 RPM - $160

Total: $970

The case is really just personal preference, but I highly recommend going with Antec's designs if you want the edge on cooling.

Go for a corsair power supply, Builder Series preferably, 500 Watts should do. Rose has a pretty bad reputation, just letting you know now.

Improvements:

Kingston is the best manafacturer of SSD drives out there, bar none. This is still pretty new technology, and SSD drives do fail, so go with the best. Same with XFX for video cards; the 7870 is far more bang for your buck compared to the 640, regardless of the manufacturer. The reason I chose Corsair RAM is because you get more for less versus Kingston, they also have a pretty good reputation for producing some quality desktop memory and I've never had a stick fail, though I have been shipped faulty sticks (it happens with every RAM manufacturer). You will likely use 8GB of RAM at some point or another within the next few years, but using 16GB is going to be pretty damn hard. Build for the future.

Hard-drives:

The reason I chose two identical 1TB Hitachi drives is

A.) Because Hitachi is the best HDD manufacturer in the industry, you won't find anything else in respectable high-end corporate set-ups, especially if they're SAS drives (15k+ RPM).

B.) Having two identical drives allows you to configure your HDDs into a RAID array, I would personally go for RAID 1, as any data is written at once to both drives, meaning if one or the other should ever fail, you can just remove one and you'll be good to go. Unfortunately you only get 1TB of storage space with this setup, but for me that's entirely worth having an identical backup of all of my data.

Your choice on the RAID array, but I would recommend only going with Hitachi.

Headsets

Creative and Razer headphones are over-priced brand-name bullshit, you're basically paying $35 for the brand name, $10 for the speakers and $5 for the mic with the fatality headset. Take it from someone who's been an audiophile most of his life and is a hobbyist sound engineer. The headsets below are the best bang for your buck, made by companies with legendary reputations in the sound engineering & music production industries. The Sennheiser U320 blows Razer's Tiamat out of the water and for a fraction of the cost, I've used and compared both, the 160 is par with the Tiamat for low frequencies but surpasses it in the higher frequencies (Ie. Easier to hear footsteps). Beyerdynamic's MMX2 is also an excellent choice, my friend owns a 320 and a pair of MMX2s, he says he can't tell the difference, but technical analysis shows the 320 as the better pair.

Sennheiser PC 160K Headset - $80

Sennheiser U320 Headset - $120

Beyerdynamic MMX2 - $105

Hope I'm not too late. If I may, please consider or at least check out Corsair Carbide series or Vengeance C70 for your casing. For your PSU, please consider using Seasonic M12II series or FSP Aurum series. They are better choice than Rosewill