First Gaming Desktop Build.

[Dzzope]

Originally Posted by Luay79

My preferred VGA cooler was the Asus DCUII, but recent reviews showed that the MSI Gaming series has better cooling and less noise and it matches your motherboard. Of course the deciding factor should be the after sales service so pick what's best for you. I know some in Canada will complain about MSI.

Now if you get 8GB RAM instead, a 500GB SSD wouldn't be that far off your budget.

Really? MSI GTX 780 Lightning Review
And the lightening is much better cooled than the gaming ed.. (Though obviously at higher clocks)

and 500gb SSD is still not worth it IMO. Getting close but it's still steep.

[Luay79]

Originally Posted by Dzzope

Really? MSI GTX 780 Lightning Review
And the lightening is much better cooled than the gaming ed.. (Though obviously at higher clocks)

and 500gb SSD is still not worth it IMO. Getting close but it's still steep.

That's an entirely different product optimized more for benching than quite gaming. Honestly since the GTX 780 and R9 290 came out, I couldn't care less for clocks when running on 1080P resolutions as the base performance of these cards will blow anything you run on them out of the water. The priority has now shifted to noise & cooling. If saving money was a priority then downgrading the card and overclocking it would be the right thing to do.

Based on my actual experiences I never had any issue with Asus, but the cards I bought were all triple slotters so I assumed shifting to dual slot will surely be a cause for compromise for Asus. I don't think Sky reviewed the MSI Gaming series, but another "Wiz" from another site has and that review confirmed my assumption.

As for the 500GB SSD, you're right that it isn't worth it. 1TB SSD still offers better bang for the buck

PS: You replied before I had to chance to edit!

[Dzzope]

Different product with a better cooler and the same core.

The big plus for me on the DCII is how cool everything else runs and that they don't seem to get the price hiked as much anymore.
Ohh and it's been a while since they shifted to the dual slot coolers and with the earlier ones I'd definitely agree, the TF from MSI kicked its butt, but it's much more even these days.

Either will be good but Asus seems to have taken their game up a notch with the latest iterations of the DCII (and I'm not just talking about the cooler but all the other components on the cards)

[Maphisto86]

Apologies for taking a while to reply to your helpful posts. One thing I have been wondering is whether it would be worth it to wait for the GTX 800 series to be released? Those cards are supposed to come out soon but so far I don't think there is a set release date.

[Dzzope]

I think it's q2 or q3...

[KeyboardSpartan]

In regards to cooling I've been with previous versions of Coolermaster, Bitfenix etc which aren't bad at all but Noctua are currently the air cooling masters in my opinion.

Take a look at the NH-D14, it's fairly expensive but in my opinion it's the best of the best and it will fit your case/motherboard socket.

Everything else looks good, just change your GPU to Radeon and your operating system to Windows 7