Opinions On My First Budget Gaming Build
 

Just thought I'd get some opinions on what I'm looking at for my first DIY budget build.

Intel Core i5 2500k 3.3GHZ
Gigabyte Z68X-UD3H-B3 Motherboard
Corsair Enthusiast Series TX750M Modular Power Supply
CoolerMaster Hyper 212 EVO Heatsink Fan
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Hawk 1GB 950MHZ Video Card (Hope to SLI in future)
Mushkin Enhanced Blackline Frostbyte PC3-12800 2x4GB DDR3-1600 1.5V Memory
REVERTED: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM 64MB SATA 6Gbps 3.5IN Internal Hard Drive - OEM
CHANGED: Samsung SH-S243D/BEBE 24X Black DVD Writer SATA OEM
Zalman Z9 Plus ATX Mid-Tower Case

Total Price with Price Matching (no sale prices): CHANGED: $986.68 (down from $1127.10, range $1000-1200)

This build will primarily be used for gaming and multimedia. I also hope to do some research and try OC'ing this system.

I hope to add an SSD drive in the future, as well as SLI the 560 Ti Hawk. Maybe more fans for cooling later on, too.

I hope to use my Creative Soundblaster Fatality sound card in place of the onboard audio, and hoping to upgrade my monitor to a 24" from 19".

Any thoughts and opinions are most welcome and greatly appreciated! :thumb:

Looks good to me, I prefer the Z9 pus over the HAF 912 as well.

Edit: That HDD will be a little slow but I know they are expensive these days especially for 7200 rpm'ers

It looks good to me, although I'm not familiar with the case. As JJThomp pointed out though, that 5900RPM hard drive will feel REALLY slow if you have to load up Windows + the usual array of background stuff.

Yeah... I don't know what the deal is with that drive... maybe there's something going on other than the RPM which compensates for the low speed? I can't do a direct comparison, but I sure as hell know there was a huge difference when I initially moved from a 5400 RPM to a 7200 RPM drive.

Slightly smaller 1.5 TB, but how about a WD black instead??? (keeping in mind that Sata3 = 6Gb/s... I sure wish they'd stick to using the same description across the industry)

Western Digital WD1502FAEX Caviar Black 1.5TB SATA3 7200RPM 64MB Cache Internal Hard Drive OEM - Western Digital WD - WD1502FAEX

I should've figured the HDD wasn't very good. I saw 2TB for a cheap price and considered it.

How about the Seagate Barracuda 1TB 7200RPM 64MB Sata 6GBPS 3.5IN Internal Hard Drive?

$110 at directcanada.ca See here

That's not bad but Western Digitals are faster and more reliable however I think much more exensive right now.

Western Digital Caviar Black WD7502AAEX 750 GB Internal Hard Drive 7200 rpm - 64 MB Buffer - 3.5 [WD7502AAEX] - $110.99 : ComputerValley.ca a little bit smaller and more expensive but the performance, reliablility and customer service is better.

Thanks for the great input!

Looking into it, I think I'd spend the extra little bit and get a WD Caviar Black 1TB.

I found this one here.

why is europe so f***ing expansive :angry2::angry2::angry2: