Getting a gaming rig. Buy or Build?

[Squilliam]

Epoch said:

Squilliam said:

Remember the 1156 pin i7/i5 motherboard / cpus come with very few PCI-E lanes, not enough to do crossfire/sli and especially not if they use USB 3.0. You're better off with either an AM3 based AMD system or a 1366 pin i7 system if you want both crossfire and USB 3.0.

Thanks for the input, but I realized thats probably not gonna happen, as nice as it would be =(.  I don't think I'll be running anything that crazy in the near future that requires dual graphics cards, and I can't justify the cost, even to myself lol.  Is USB 3.0 worth getting? 

This is what I've got so far, Ive dropped from the i7 to the i5 quad simply because I don't think the extra $100 gets me that much more processing power, unless someone thinks its worth it?  If any of these are junk, incompatible, or I'm missing something, please let me know!  Thanks again for all the help.

 

Total so far: $1207    <--- not bad, thats about what I wanted to spend. Still need an OS, keyboard and mouse tho.

 

USB3.0 is good for high speed data transfer, but you can add it later if you want with a PCI-E card. I can't tell you whether or not you'll make use of it unfortunately.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817341017&cm_re=ocz_modxstream_pro-_-17-341-017-_-Product

Might be a good choice for a PSU. You can pick up a 600W modular for $65 after promo code - $25 mail in rebate.= $40

I suggest you look at how much memory you'll need for 3D modeling, you may find 4GB isn't enough. Thats about all I can really add at this point.