Advice on new gaming build for a friend

[Visorboy]

okay, after reading more into everyone's input, I'm holding off until Friday to order. And I reaaly appreciate everyone's input on this.

I've also convinced my friend on a i5-760 and 1156 platform. That way the dual channel ram can be reused in a 1155 platform when the pricing becomes reasonable in a year or 2.
Now, I have to find out when infonec will carry the gtx570's or their lack of.

I've opted for the HAF X case so that there will be plenty of room if my friend wants to get dual gpu's, and same goes for the selection on the ps.
I just hope the 750w ps will be enough to power dual gpus down the road...

thanks again to everyone.
VB

[draemn]

The two suggested games (WoW and SC 2) aren't really that GPU crazy, although SC 2 really enjoys a strong CPU. If you can still get a i7-750 you can shave a few bucks off as you don't plan to o/c and that's what the 760 is meant for. 750w is tons for dual GPU without an o/c. You could get away with 600w if you are sticking with mid-range cards for the future upgrade, but no o/c head-room for CPU or GPUs at that power level.

Anyone know if the sandy bridge is expected to compete at the 450 GS level of GPUs or if it will perform any better at graphics? I'm a little confused (other than future proofing) why the specs are so good when WoW and SC 2 can be played with enjoyable graphics on a $140 GPU. CPU and Vertex 2 are awesome choices and the WD caviar black is a nice performance HDD, but with the large capacity SSD, I'd save some money and get a WD caviar green which are the cheapest. I'm very happy with my 500GB caviar green as a 2ndary drive. Also, spend the $20 for an optical drive and check if he wants wifi installed. for 'neatness,' I like the internal USB wifi cards and you'll barely notice the performance difference.

Pro tip: when you install windows 7, right after you install the mobo drivers and vga divers (first things to do), run the Windows Experience Index for the 'score' of your computer. This will let windows know you have a SSD and tweak the OS for the most important SSD settings. If you run this later in time, it won't shut off the things like disk defrag, etc. I'm not 100% sure, but I think you can run this with your HDD installed and it will work... if your HDD score is below 7.2, then it messed up as my Agility 2 gets like 7.6?

[Visorboy]

Thanks to everyone for the advice and suggestions, I finally put the order in for my friend yesterday at NCIX.
We waited for the Sandy Bridge and the following are the components I ordered to be build by the vendor. I would've ordered DDR3-1600 ram, but it was too hard to pass on 8gb for $50 for 1333's.
I hope this system will give my bud a good 5 years and plenty of room for upgrades like crossfire and more drives.

ASUS P8P67 PRO ATX P67 3PCI-E16 Motherboard + Intel Core i5 2500K Sandy Bridge CPU $379.99
Corsair Cooling Hydro Series H70 High Performance CPU Cooler System LGA775 1366 1156 AM2 AM3 $74.99 after MIR
Mushkin Enhanced Silverline Stiletto 8GB 2X4GB PC3-10666 DDR3-1333 9-9-9-24 Dual Channel Memory Kit $50 after MIR
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA3 6GB/S 7200RPM 64MB Cache 3.5IN Dual Proc Hard Drive OEM $79.99
OCZ Vertex 2 Extended Sandforce 120GB 2.5IN SATA2 Solid State Disk Flash Drive SSD $169.99 after MIR
Sapphire Radeon HD 6970 BFBC2 Vietnam 2GB GDDR5 PCI-E 2XDVI HDMI 2x Mini DisplayPort Video Card $379.99
Coolermaster Haf X EATX Tower Case Black 6X5.25 5X3.5INT No PS Front USB3.0 $159.99 after PM
Seasonic M12D 850W EPS12V 20/24PIN ATX Modular Power Supply Active PFC 80PLUS 8PIN PCI-E 120MM Fan $149.99
Samsung SH-S223C 22X DVD Writer SATA Black OEM $18.99
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64BIT DVD OEM $99.99
PC Assembly and Testing With 1 Year Limited NCIX System Warranty $41.09
Civilization 5 Full Game Electronic Digital Download Coupon $0

Total at 63.99 over the budget...oops

VB

[Luay79]

These are awsome prices for the HAFX and WD 1TB Black! If you can change, get more expensive RAM such as G.Skills F3 or the better Corsair Vengeance. On Sandy Bridge 1600 performs better than 1333. I read a review somewhere but can't remember where!

A newer Seasonic X Series 850 just came out. Don't wanna miss that!

Silverstone RV02-E is an update of last year's case with newer fans. A bit more expensive but too good to miss. Much better than the HAFX in one particular thing, hanging 69xx CF from top to bottom means equal heating compared to typical top & bottom assembly which heats up the top card almost entirely. That is if you want CF and by the looks of the Motherboard and PSU, you are definitely thinking of it.

Check with NCIX if the cooler and RAM will fit together! SB don't need that much cooling but if you want the best, go for Noctua NHC14

One last thing and it's up to you, 6970 for a single 1080 monitor might be a little bit over the top. save some and get a 6950. Just plain better value.

Good luck and sorry if it's too late for any updates. Things have changed a bit since we last thought of suitable parts.

[frontier204]

Originally Posted by Luay79

On Sandy Bridge 1600 performs better than 1333. I read a review somewhere but can't remember where!

Here's one place that does so: The Best Memory for Sandy Bridge | bit-tech.net
I suspect their "multitasking" test is a little unfair because a big part of that test is file compression, which gets the biggest boost from RAM speed out of anything I've seen. (source, for the previous Intel platform: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...56,2482-6.html)

Anyway don't listen to me that much because I just bought DDR3-1333 CL9 that can't overclock for my Sandy Bridge build