Corsair/MSI build

[karmacopper]

Hello Canadia :D

As a long time watcher of Linus Tech Tips I figured coming here would be a good move to get advice/critique on a prospective build.

Be aware I'm in the UK and my budget is flexible. This rig is primarily for gaming on a single monitor at high FPS/prettiness.

Please appraise this prospective build, I'd appreciate any feedback.

As a fan of what Bitfenix are doing and already owning one of their cases I plan to use the newly released Ghost as the housing for this rig.

Mobo: MSI Z77A GD65
CPU: I5-3570K
CPU Cooling: Corsair H70 Core + 2 x Corsair SP120 push/pull (Rear mounted intaking)
PSU: Corsair 800GS
RAM: 2x 4gb Corsair Vengeance 1600Mhz DDR3
GPU: 2 x MSI 660ti Power Edition
Boot Drive: Corsair 240gb Force SSD
Soundcard: SB X-fi Xtreme
2 x Corsair AF140 in the roof
2 x Corsair AF120 in the front

Data is taken care of already, I have a NAS for streaming to a DLNA enabled BD-player. I'll be sticking with my G700 and Merc Stealth until they die too. :D

Any feedback will be greatly appreciated...

[Griezz]

Initially, I was going to ask why you went with lower card SLI, rather than a single card. However, I found a YouTube clip which confirms that a GTX 660 Ti in SLI really is faster than a single 680. Based on the games covered, the performance boost was around 20-35% over the single 680; however, the cost of getting the two 660 Ti you specify was only around 12% more expensive than the MSI GTX 680. Awesome!!! True, you are talking about a much higher piwer draw, but if your 800W p/s can handle it, you are sitting pretty.

With the SSD, which line did you mean, the Force GT or GS? Personally, I would suggest looking at IBM, the OCZ Vertex 4, the Crucial drives or the Samsung as the best SSD choices.

Last note: do you really need to spend extra on the sound card? I haven't seen much documentation on the cards being much better than the motherboard's onboard sound. But that is just my opinion...

[SugarJ]

Nice build. My only comment has to do with the previous poster's last note. If you are using cheap speakers, then no, the difference is not that noticeable (although I can tell the difference with my Logitech X-540's). If you are using good analog headphones, the difference from onboard can be amazing. If you are looking to save money on a build, I'll admit a sound card is the first place to cut back until you can afford it.

[karmacopper]

Gentlemen, thank you for your feedback. The SSD is Force Series 3

I've changed my mind on the PSU going for the TX 850 instead for that extra bit of headroom.

Yes the sound-card is an added bonus as I suppose with this much power the chance of on-board sound being any kind of issue is negligible.

[Dzzope]

On board should be no issue anyway unless you have a quite a good sound system / headset. In which case your only looking at audio quality rather than any other kind of issue.