Help with PC gaming build

[ZenfoldorVGI]

veiam said:

I have been lurking a lot but I had to chirp in with my humble findings to try to help out.

First off, the case. That is one big case. I don't think you can quite grasp how big it is unless you have seen it before. I would suggest a roomier mid-tower if you will just have a run of the mill gaming pc.

Second, the HDD. Never buy Caviar Blues as your main HDD. They are far less reliable than Blacks, you are better off shelling out the $20-30 for  better HDD. Stay away from Greens, I don't know if it has been changed but they had a problem with the needles which caused extraoridnary failure rates.

Third, the mobo. Not to hate on Gigabyte but there is a reason why their mobos are so cheap. Often their expansion slots share badnwidth moreso than other mobos and some other random stuff like that (example: you couldint use USB3 and 2 GPUs without one of the slots goign into x8 mode, on one of their mobos, maybe i wasnt this exact combination of components bu it was something like that). Also they seem to have worse failure rates than others, and as a second-hand story-teller tht seems to be true.

CPU or GPU: These don't match. The 480 will absolutely eat away at your CPU and your CPU will basically bottleneck your games because it can't keep up, even when overclocked. I know the 965 is the most bang for your buck, but if you are going with a 480 get something that doesn't spit in its face. At the very least get a i7-930 and overclock that at the least. Or if you like the 965 so much get a gtx 460 instead of a 480.  I'd suggest at the least an i7-930 overclocked to wrangle the beast that is the 480. Of course then you should get some triple-channel RAM.

The PSU: Too much, unless you are going to SLI 480's don't bother with so much, even a 750-800 will leave you with plenty of power of a single 480, even when overclocked.

Lastly, more of an addition than a critique on what you have, get liquid cooling. If you stick with the 480 get it liquid cooled. That card wa meant to be cooled with some hardcore stuff. From what I have seen the biggest bottleneck for this beast is the temperature. The 480 scales like a monster when overclocked and it is just mindblowing the results you get when you liquid cool it. Also all the GTX 400's scale ridiculously well in SLI, somethign to think about down the road.

Too late, lol.

Anyway, thank you for the post, but I do want to justify my decisions a bit. I admit that when I made this thread, I kinda played dumb a little. I did so, because not forcing my opinions on people will cultivate better criticism from them.

First, on the case. Yes, the case is huge, and it is overkill. Like I've mentioned, the case is much bigger than I imagined. However, this is a case I will probably use for this and future builds until the day I die. It's futureproof, and I can park my Ford Explorer in it, so it's win/win.

Next, the Caviar blue is going to be my storage drive. I don't have a ton of money to spend on this all at once, and I've saved up for a while to buy this stuff. So, the Caviar is going to be my temporary drive for the next 30 days until I can pop in a couple of 64gb SSD's in Raid 0.

The ram is fine ram. No need to get anything faster. Particularly considering its price point. Remember this build is on a budget somewhat. It is also low profile so no need to worry about interferance with the heatsync/cpu fan. From what I've read there is no current significant benefit of dual channel ram vs triple channel, besides the obvious fact that Intel owns the high end cpu market and thus intel setups tend to be superior.

On this particular mobo, it actually a high end mobo from Gigabyte and it has quite a reputation. 4 PCIe slots, the first 2 running at true 16x. Having 2 PCIe slots at 16x was something I was particularly interested in. This one also has dual bios and I like the durable mechanics. I did a lot of research before picking this one out, and I think it is probably the most "high end" piece in the set(besides the video card). Brand be damned. 3 year warranty with an AM3 socket, and everything I need for future proofing. I actually stand behind the decision I made here, though I respect your superior brand knowledge. Check that board out, it's really good and well reviewed.

Speaking of that AM3 socket, this CPU might be a bottleneck for future games(not current games, with only 1 exception. However, since this is an AM3 socket, I can upgrade. AMD will eventually release new CPUs, and this mobo will run them for the forseeable future. This one is fine for current gaming in nearly every case, and in the future, I can upgrade, and it would still probably be cheaper than buying 1 OVERPRICED Intel chip for now. Intel, while superior, don't deserve my business, because they charge the same thing for their CPUs, simply because they know they can. I support AMD because I think they are a great company, and it is actually saving me money as well. I know I am getting something worth the money at least. Of course, this is a political and not a mechanical argument, but I am just trying to justify my decisions. Also, again, the budget.

As for the 480, of course you're right. That is just the first card I picked out. I will probably go alot cheaper on that card for now, but again, I might just throw caution to the wind and go with the 480. Why not? Spend money where it counts, right? I wouldn't need to replace that for years. As for liquid cooling, should be very easy. The case is setup for it. However, until I upgrade my cpu in a year or two, I won't need it. If I overclock to say, 3.7, I have the fan to keep that OC permanantly stable. With this case, none of these(besides the 480) are really "Hot" parts. This will be a very cool and sustainable build, not to mention powerful.

As for the PSU, in my previous post, I've mentioned that I love cooler master, and that PSU is plenty future proof and thank god modular. It also has a nice bronze efficiency rating so for that price, I don't really see a downside to go a bit bigger, for just 20 extra bucks. Buying a "just big enough" PSU seems like a nice way to short your builds upgradability. It'd be a hell of a single GPU that said PSU wouldn't laugh at.

That's just my opinion, and since it's my build, I'ma add my own little deductions, lol, but I DO appreciate the advice.

lol, don't forget to congratulate me, I'm pretty excited about this build!!! :D